Sik Scarf "Upcycling" project continued...

Remember these..?
Late last summer I took this pic of a collection of silk scarves that had sustained dye-transfer damage due to a water leak.I had been comissioned to create a new textile piece from these scarves.
Not having much experience working with silk, I soon discovered it was like working with ( for a lack of a better term) "fluttery butter".
This has been a slow on-going project due to many different factors, time and motivational challenges. ( wake me up when it's Spring...)
This time I actually took the advice of my mother (hi Mom!) and used a light fusible interfacing to stabilize them and so far so good.( it took a long while to fuse them and some scarves only partially, I wanted to get some of each fused so I could start visualizing and playing with color placement)...
so... I guess you could call this step 3 ( step 2 :Fusing just wasn't photo worthy..)
Next is step 4 color placement and construction
They are now cut into strips 9 and 4.5 inches ( of varying lengths). I will post pics of the next step as it is completed .....
Stay tuned for the ongoing drama of silk scarves upcycling project of 08/09.....

tRoll Road Blues .....Goodbye Kitty

Unfortunately, I have a sad story to tell today. If you are a road worn commuter ...stick around for the first part at least......
If you are an animal lover or just extra sensitive to the plight of the helpless.. you may want to opt out of this one.
Also I get off on a few tangents...whatever .... I'm having a beer.
(I'm just sayin....)can't say I didn't warn you

Today was like any other day.. I took the "Indiana" tRoll road to work .I drive to my day job (one exit to the next exit) and live so close to it that I can hear it most of the time. In fact if my road would keep going it would t-bone smack into it. My towns exit is so close that It should me MY EXIT.
Hell it would even be a good job. No one is usually attending the booth itself, instead inside the buiding doing god knows what ( I would be hand sewing certainly) at 530 in the am.
Or... answereing the many many calls of the distressed commuters who CAN NOT GET THE SELF SERVICE MACHINE TO TAKE THEIR FREAKIN CARD
OR just deciding not to show up at all ( or having their hours cut) and let the distressed motorist make the call on whether to keep trying to pay or do the drive and dash.
I do need to mention that the "Indiana" tRoll road was indeed SOLD by our gov. Mitch Daniels to an AUSTRALIAN / SPANISH conglomerate. Now since it's practically in my yard I took offense to this and wander why they can't hire someone( Spanish? or just could be Hispanic? or have at least SEEN the movie "Australia" )to at least be there to help with the stupid machine..I mean we have some JOBLESS HERE IN indiana
But wait a minute....MAYBE this is a conspiracy to get EVERYONE TO SIGN UP FOR I-ZOOM..... you know I thought about that... but thay had a 40$ minimum..... which is how many bags of dog or catfood ?( actually only one of the good stuff).
Lets see.......I work 4 days a week 50 cents per trip....
OK here comes the math part... 7 - 4 + 3 = 530 am divided by 1994 piece O shit truck that was totaled by a willow tree in my driveway @70 mphMPH ummmmmmmmm .....yup 4 $ a week!!!!!
Well.... I cant afford $36 to be sitting idle in some Spanish/ Australian conglomerate
slush fund when cats and dogs are hungry around here.........besides I wasn't going to commit to having another electronic online account that had automatic withdrawal from my checking account THAT I HAVE TO BABYSIT to make sure the Australians and Spanish arent buying Vegimite and Bullfighting pants willy-nilly.
AND MY LUCK would be just as soon as I got the damn thing set up and activated I would lose my job...( no need for the tRoll road now...AND Damn I sure could use that $36 right now for gas $ to drive to the unemployment office and the liquor store!!!)
Today I had less than the dollar needed to get me the round trip ride and I didn't think twice about it until I GOT TO THE TOOL BOOTH this am( it's @ 5:50 mind you) and both lanes were SELF SERVE /I-ZOOM... odd...... ??
OK .....so I pick the outside one that has enough room to go around the gate ( backup plan cause 85% of the time the machine DOES NOT WORK PEOPLE)
but.......I have noticed sometimes there is no gate ( probably SMASHED by an irate driver??) or they ( Spanish /Australian Toll Road Gang) have in fact acknowledged yet another operational failure and have surrendered the white flag.
OF COURSE the damn machine will not take my ticket ( I should be used to this and I have verbally tutored many a motorist ahead of me) so I give it the 2 trys my policy allows and proceed to push the call button which USUALLY contacts the person in the office hand sewing or whatever and they manually allow the machine to function properly so it can indeed take my 50 cents and I'm (finally ) on my way to be yet again delayed by the electronic security reader that wont let me into the door,BUT I've got that TIMECLOCK mastered....I don't even bother to swipe...I punch in my employee # no messin around...
ANYWAY this morning as luck would have it after pushing the call button my card was finally accepted (17 tries), I pay my toll, the phone was still ringing and as I drive away I see there WAS NO ONE AT ALL ANYWHERE.. the office building was completely dark.
I think that was when it hit me and I had made up my mind that I had had enough of this so called convenience at this bargain price and I was going to take the long and winding roads to and from work ( well OK unless the snow was really bad) besides I din't have the 50 cents required for the trip home.
Now I could have borrowed the QUARTER needed, but this was a matter of principle. Today I was going to have to try and blaze my trail home on the country roads from this day forward.
For I was a woman of principle , who had reached the end of her tolerance for the abuse handed down by Spanish/ Australian conglomerate via the "Indiana" toll road.
My day was my typical 10 hour day on my feet ( with the exception of 2 fifteen minute breaks and half an hour lunch) .
I'm trying my best to ignore the co-worker who has a constant live feed from her brain cell to her mouth and thankfully the estrogen circus was at a steady but manageable flow.
Generally everyone was leaving me alone to do my job and I wasnt too concerned about trying to remember the alternate path home. I had driven different versions of it several times earlier this fall and have a pretty good sense of direction in general anyway.
Blame it on the frozen landscape or the icy roads or my energy level finally hitting the wall, but I must have missed a turn and ended up taking the longer way home ( more than 2 times longer). I must say at this point that there is no direct or quick way using the back roads option.
So you can see why I have enjoyed the toll roads very direct path at 530 am in the dark just barely awake semi-auto pilot option.
But tonight it was just starting to get dark after 430 and I was FINALLY turning on my road @ after 530 ( the OPPOSITE end OF MY ROAD however) and I see what appears to be a dark kitten crouched down on the light pavement near the side of the road which is bordered by 2 foot of snow.
Naturally I am concerned and immediately decide to turn around wondering why it isn't running istead of sitting like its hunched on a chair. I must have thought that it wasn't a Feral cat or that something was wrong with it( lost and confused but used to vehicles??) because it was sitting still. I check my rearview and see a vehicle coming a ways behind me after I drive into the otherlane avoiding the still crouched cat .I then do a 3 point turn in the middle of my road and as I'm turning around to change direction TO COME BACK TO THE CAT I signal to the vehicle that is now coming upon the kitten with my headlights
OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON SUPID ASS SLOW DOWN FOR CRIPE SAKE OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON
OH MY GOD HE DIDN'T EVEN SLOW DOWN and I held my breath and prayed that the kitten passed under the truck between the space avoiding the tires....I felt my breath and heart stop .... but it was too late.
The kitten died instantly and was thrown intact on the snow beside the road.
Maybe I was in shock or more likely wanting to prevent the inevitable road pizza I have witnessed too numerable times to count;I got out of my truck and picked the kitten up and put her in the back of my truck. As I proceeded to drive towards my
house , the truck who hit the cat slowed down as did I, and asked what was wrong?
I said " you ran over the Kitty" and he replied without concern "but I swerved" and I can't remember what I mumbled as I drove off thinking I had kept my self control pretty well and hadn't my cell phone gone off??( doug wondering where I was) at some point and now it was a blur as I was almost home.
I was upset and confused and decided to go back and check the closest neighbors to see if the cat belonged to one of them. I talked to one but it wasn't theirs and they suggested it may belong to the well kept farm that sat way back from the road. I drove up the long driveway and thought I saw cat tracks in the snow, but couldn't get an answer at the door. I drove back to the road and placed the cat by the road and near their mailbox so someone could see it from the road driving by , in case it didn't belong to the farm.
I came back home and sat here convincing and tormenting myself that I had been there for a reason( considering my untypical route home) and tormented myself with other options i could have taken to prevent this (or future) tragic occurance but decided any other possibility would have been dangerous or even illegal. (Small lost kitten plus farmgirl VS speeding man in truck) Not good.
I took a long hot shower and had my last beer and damn good cry and came up with the only thing that I could put together that made sense.
I guess I was there to remove the cat's body out of traffics way and to hopefully help the owners find it and just maybe if you choose to believe in such things....
........ there is one more kitten in heaven for the children to play with.

I'm at home today in my Studio. Doing the typical day-off dance in my pajamas; quilt a little, surf a lot and REPEAT..
Todays news about a Wal-Mart employee being trampled to death by shoppers after crashing down the doors really disgusted me.Firstly, I have been a Wal-Mart employee more than once in previous lives. I currently have a love-hate relationship with the retailer,which I admit I'm not exactly proud of. I have been employed in more retail postions throughout my adult life than I care to admit.For this reason I refuse to participate in the Black Friday
consumer freak show and the yearly Holiday consumerism.To this day I personally avoid Holiday decorating and music.
Last season I worked at a Gap Outlet in a popular local outlet mall that lures people from many different countries. Everyone was scheduled to work a shift on the DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING STARTING AT 12 MIDNIGHT. My schedule started at@ 4-6 am ( I can't remember specifics due to my preferred coping method of blocking out unpleasant memories). All empoyees were encouraged to sign up a friend as a "work buddy" and that person would be entitled to the employee discount for a limited amount of time. My sister, a devout consumer, was up to the task(not surprisingly.)
The Mall management had asked employees to park a couple miles away from the mall so shoppers could have access to all of the parking. They would be shuttle bus-ing us to the mall.
I didn't feel this was a safe option due to the surrounding neighborhoods and found a spot in a nearby county office lot.
I had never participated in a super early Black Friday as a consumer, but had of course worked on that day in a typical time frame.When we arrived in the VERY EARLY AM at the mall I was blown away at the amount of people EVERYWHERE, not to mention the crowds in the store.
It looked like a bomb had gone off inside the store! There was literally merchandise strewn allover the floor and hanging off fixtures and in haphazard heaps on tables.
Again the anger and disgust of the situation came over me like so many other times when I had to force myself to walk into the store of my employment, fighting the sick feeling in my stomach after merely pulling into the parking lot.
What I'm trying to get at is this:
I'm shocked, saddened and disgusted by this event. How could anyTHING on sale be of such importance that it could cause a person to participate in a MOB MENTALITY??

Ladies...GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!!!!!!

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET..... IF .... WE EVER KNEW......
.
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago....


Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.


The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote


(Lucy Burns)

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.


When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have car pool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history , social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco and Bingo night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.



Wilson was a Democrat



Read more:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/tactics.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/brftime3.html





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First Snow ~ Baad Foto

Sorry no pics of frozen precipitation but believe me when I tell you my front yard is the premier magnet for snow in NW Indiana. I had to bust out the snow boots to get to my truck to find the snow brush so I could clean off my car. Heavy wet stuff and it aint even Halloween yet.
I suffered a bit of ridicule at work because apparantly I came in looking like Nanook Of the North. No snow on the way to work or anywhere near the building.?!
I will be prepared though...last winter the old truck blew a tire at 04;30 am and I had to walk back home on the coldest day we had yet.
so don't even start with me.
We had an ISO compliance meeting today. Nothing exciting but since I was shipped off to a different department today , I went to it before the rest of my usual coworkers.
You would have thought I had come back from some secret SPY mission...some people need to get a life.
Speaking of just that... highlight of my day? : homemade pizza at lunch and ice cream!
Lowpoint? Tack welding brackets for braces for 9 hours.C-O-M-A !
Several weeks ago the entire workplace had their pics taken for new ID badges and security system. There was an expensive looking camera on a tripod and a backdrop and everything. It looked like a real photo shoot. Today we get our new badges which look like they were printed on a home printer set to the rough draft setting. My head looks like a pumpkin. A better shot could have been made by my freakin cell phone.
Speaking of Halloween........
So.Very. Bad. Everybody was complaining about it and tomorrow should be very entertaining checking out the casualties.
I threatened to paste a pic of one of my chickens over my head shot.
(Scroll up and down quickly. See! We all look a LOT alike!)

Seriously! Who could tell the difference ??I'm so sure.
We're all a lovely golden orangey ...

Silk Scarves Commission

Earlier this summer I was approached by my Aunt who asked if I would be interested in creating a piece for her.
She had been wearing and collecting silk scarves for most of her professional life, purchasing from artists and when she had an important event or occasion to commemorate.
Unfortunately her home sustained a water leak into the basket which contained almost every single scarf she had amassed. The scarves were ruined by the dyes rubbing off on one another ,but were saved in hopes of salvaging to another purpose.
As a quilter I am, of course, familiar with this concept of converging disparate parts of textiles into a newly useable form.
This will be the first time I have constructed a piece from mostly silk and also the first time I blog about the project process from start to finish.
I have a simple design idea to start out with, but am open to the prospect of the inevitable evolution of the finished product.

Laura Armeta Barnes 1923-2008

Christmas 1964 and 2006
Last Wenesday evening my Grandma passed away. She had been in the Alzheimer's unit at a local nursing home for the past 16 months.Our family had hoped and prayed for a peaceful passing ; she had diminished to a confused whisper of herself both mentally and physically. My Mom ,myself and Grampa were there when she left. She was probably waiting for all family members to come say goodbye, somehow. I couldn't visit on a regular basis, fearful that this newer memory of her would be unbearable and somehow override all the fond childhood memories. I was the first Grandchild ,born on their 22nd wedding anniversary.
after the initial shock of seing her so close to the end of her life,I felt a stange sense of calmness and accepting. Appropriately enough, my Mom and I were with her at the end ,pulling threads through on a quilt that needed to be done by that Friday for our Quilt Guild show that weekend.I don't think she would have thought it was a pretty quilt, but she would have been helping us finish it just the same.
My Grandma was the pure definition of the word. My Mom's Mother, full of kindness,generosity,grace and warmth.She was an accomplished seamstress, tailoring and sewing countless garments for her children and grandchildren. Always there to hem or alter a garment when we were growing up. Her love of "material" was passed on though my mom and myself. I have many fond memories of going to the fabric store with her and spending time in her sewing room which smelled like emeraude perfume and spray sizing.My sister and I laughed at our too long dress pants for the funeral. She was trying to hem hers, I gave up and had brought the painters tape.Our Grandma had spoiled us with her willingness to sew for us.
The funeral service infortunately , in my eyes, was an unfortunate dis-service. I had not been to many funerals but I thought the whole idea was to give a happy snapshot of that person's life. The pastor told stories that were for sure out of context for they were given to him by family members. Somehow they were reduced to the dogmatic delarations of the consequences of Sin ....etc....blah blah.
I was so very offended by this man's proclamations that had I known , I would have gotten up and (as my Aunt Kathy so perfectly stated "Sit down buddy, I'm telling the stories,I'll let you know when I'm done!") given a more accurate portrayal of the love ,kindness and grace that was my Grandma.
My Grandma was 40 years old when I was born on their wedding anniversary.She would have been 85 this December 11,2008.
Myself at 44, I hope to continue to remember how my Grandma lived her life, and to hopefully somehow follow her example.If I live to be the same age I have 40 years more to strive to live my life to the fullest .
As she would say "I'd better get busy!