I get my embroidery skills from my Mom.
A portrait of the artist as a crayon-wielding toddler. (That refridgerator was so boring before I came along . . .)
Now THAT'S a good-lookin' fridge!
Shibori Samples (Resist dye)
Another Shibori Sample
I made this quilt freshman year for Visual Language. When I made it I had no idea I'd end up embroidering and quilting again at MassArt. I thought I was going to be a fashion major. The blocks are old wives' tales, and the top says "Always Listen to Your Mother". The quilt is crib-sized. Infant bedding needs more sarcasm, don't you think?
Close-up of one of the Old Wive's Tales.
Arashi Shibori patchwork pillowcase. Hand-dyed silk broadcloth.
I made this bench for Woodshop. The design came to me while I was taking a bubble bath. You can't tell from the picture how big it is, but it's 2' high and 3' wide, and can support two adults.
side view of the bench.
I made a 'curtain' out of soda can tabs and paper clips, and hung it in the doorway to my kitchen. (this is a view from my kitchen looking into my living room.) It looked pretty cool, but it had a tendency to get caught on my clothes and hair and get tangled with itself. So it didn't last very long, but at least I have pictures. At some point I'll find a better way to string the poptabs together. It's on my list of things to do.
How I hung the "curtain", and possibly why I didn't get my entire deposit back from my landord.
Silk-screened canvas laundry bag
Screen-printed full-size futon cover. There were six different screens, two each for light green, darker green and pink. I worked on it for something like 24 hours straight. Both sides were screened. It was HUGE. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I was still proud that I'd done it and couldn't wait to put it in my apartment. After taking this picture I put it in the washer like we were required to . . . you can see where this is going. . .
My studio at MassArt. It ceased to be this organized about five minutes after I took this picture with my cellphone.
I made this for Intro to Fibers. The text is a story I wrote when I was seven, before the teacher made me change the ending. Her ending had the lion and lamb going to Hawaii for their honeymoon and living happily ever after or something. Shortly after the school year ended, that teacher got married and went on a Hawaiian honeymoon. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Plush cube with embroidery on each side, depicting the stages of the life of a star . . . or something. Clearly I learned a lot from my Astronomy class.
squish!
Have you ever been in the middle of making something and said "why the heck am I making another [insert item here]?" Well, that's what happened here. I was circular-knitting a pillow when I realized I have enough pillows already, thanks. Hey, maybe it could be a tube top! And it was so.
I took these motifs from an antique sampler. Each crown represents a different title, like King, Queen, Marquis etc.
Weaving with resist-dyed yarn
Working on terror alert piece at my parents' house, and clearly the life of the party, as usual. A little before this was taken I was talking to my grandparents about the piece, and the Bush Administration, and I overheard my little brother's girlfriend ask him "what's up with your sister?" To which he replied "She's a liberal." The really funny thing is that in my family, my brother is basically the only one who ISN'T 'a liberal'.
Homeland Decor: Terror Alert Homeland Security's Color-coded Terror Alert chart, converted to cross-stitch.
Close-up of Terror Alert piece.
RIP - One stitched grave for every US Soldier who died in Iraq. Each sheet of fabric has 500 graves, except the last one, which was updated every few days during the show.
Close-up of graves.
Updating RIP during the Fibers show.
Homeland Decor: Easy as ABC Formerly in the Fuller Craft Museum, now in a private collection.
Close-up of ABC.
Homeland Decor: Homeland Security Blanket Quilt with images from the government's Homeland Security website, Ready.gov visit their website if you want to see the images in their original context. http://www.ready.gov/america/beinformed/index.html the images are in the pdfs for nuclear, radiation, biological and chemical threats.
Practicing hand-quilting on my favorite image from ready.gov, printed on cotton fabric with an inkjet printer.
Practicing hand-quilting a ready.gov image. Before I started printing the images out, I tried tracing them on the fabric with a light box and a fabric marker. I like the results here, but I like the print-outs of the images in color better.
From the teacher's manual for the same Sex Ed program. This is one of their explanations for why they don't provide any information on birth control (other than that condoms don't really work and the pill will make you gain weight and destroy your insides).
The flowers are based on a birth control compact. There are 21 dark lines and 7 lighter lines, like a 28 day pill pack. My teachers wanted more layers of meaning.
quote from Phyllis Schlafly "Women have babies and men provide the support. If you don't like the way we're made, take it up with God."
Okay, so maybe I pick on Phyllis Schlafly a lot, but with quotes like this one, how can I not?
Quote from a Sex Ed book that's being used in public schools across the country. The curriculum has some 'interesting' ideas about gender, social class and various other things. The program is Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage. Since Bush took office these types of programs have received massive increases in gov't funding despite evidence that they don't work better or as well as comprehensive sex ed.
This guy is a senator AND a doctor. And yet he still came up with this gem.
Blackwork pattern of pomegranates, in color. At some point I should try to take a better picture of this . . .
My latest piece, all quotes are from the student's workbook of the Sex Respect Abstinence-Only Curriculum. (For more info, visit sexrespect.com or SIECUS's review of the program at http://www.communityactionkit.org/reviews/SexRespect.html)
Eggs in a nest, from Birds and Bees.
Bee motif.
Bird in a cage. I used a split-stitch for the bars so they stand out a bit in front of the bird. I designed the cage myself based on one I saw in an antique sampler.
Close-up from Birds and Bees About the title: I looked up the origins of the phrase, and here's the best explanation I found: Birds, like women, have eggs. Bees, like men, sting. No, just kidding, they pollinate, which I guess might be kind of similar to the male role in human reproduction. By talking about bird eggs and bee pollination, people could explain the way babies are made without actually saying how babies are made. "What a day, eh, Milhouse? The sun is out, birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them -- as is my understanding ..." -Bart Simpson
4 am in the studio, showing off my innovative thimble. It's basically layers of a cushy bandage tape. (NexCare's Absolutely Waterproof Tape. It's a godsend.)
This chart is from the Sex Respect Student Workbook, 2001. Unfortuanately the actual chart was really hard to read because I scanned it from the teacher's manual, which has all the pages from the workbook at 1/4 size. So I went over it in Photoshop, but I didn't change anything. Really, why would I? It's hilarious just the way it is.
A comic from the Sex Respect Student Workbook, depicting an 'aggressive female'. At the end, the guy suggests that they 'go into the village for a pineapple float to cool off.' This is from the 2001 edition. I think it looks like she's laughing at him in the last panel. I know I would be.
Various graphics from the Sex Respect Student Workbook, 2001 edition.
From the Sex Respect Student Workbook, 2001 edition. The Top 25 ways to say No to sex. Including "I'd rather break up than break out with herpes"(#11), and my personal favorite "That's the same line people have been using throughout history. It's not going to work on this modern, progressive person!"(#19) (Because that's what this program is all about - being modern and progressive!) Also "I look much better with my clothes on" (#22) - who would say that? And someone PLEASE explain the logic of #21: "Sex is not a game. I might lose."
Terror Alert Pillow. Cross-stitched words on Afghan Crocheted pillow.
I made this tank top during my week of Summer of Love concerts, Summer 2007. It was great to work on while I was on the multiple greyhound buses, waiting in the audience of the Today Show, in the car, and sitting in the sun at the First Aid Concert. It looks knit, but it's actually a technique called Tunisian Crochet. Unfortunately it doesn't fit the way it's supposed to, probably because of my gauge, although I did check that prior to starting. (I had way too much extra yarn left over, even though I definitely did the right number of rows.) Still, it was a great project, and I would actually consider making another one, probably a size or two up, and with the next size up hook.
A detail of my Summer of Love tank top. One of the reasons I'd consider making another is that the details and construction are great, and the pattern is excellently written - I highly recommend them, with the caveat to keep checking your gauge!
Another nice thing about the pattern was that it was easy to make slight changes based on what I wanted. Here I did the pattern that is supposed to be eyelets as a different stitch, although I ultimately decided that I wanted to keep the front plain. The pattern is from www.crochetkim.com
It's a scarf. I knit it. It's really not very exciting.
My Stephen Colbert Pumpkin - Halloween 2007
Jester Unitards (A Dancer's Christmas 2007)
Jester hood . . .
Monk hood . .
Bishop Hood!
The Doll Dress, or leotard and overskirt, as the case may be (A Dancer's Christmas 2007)
The 45-Minute Tutu Overskirt (A Dancer's Christmas 2007)
Monk and Bishop hoods (and tabards, too) - still photos don't really do the ears justice, you have to see them in action. (A Dancer's Christmas 2007)
An Afghan I crocheted to send as a donation to Walter Reed Medical Center. And now that I have photographed it, I am going to send it in. Very soon. Really. (I keep forgetting.)
Afghan close-up, showing the "camo" pattern and the wavy edge.
From a pattern I found somewhere online, although I can't remember where anymore.
This is basically my own design although the elements that make up the frame are from a sampler in a book. This is a gift for a friend, who needs to learn to say this more often before she goes insane.
In the frame, which is actually gold, although you can't tell in this picture. The wall isn't pretty because I took down a picture in the dining room to use the hook, and the wall had markings on it. Oh well.
In the box before I mailed it. In the interest of not getting fired, I think my best friend keeps it like this, in the box, and looks at it at work as needed.
BlackworkObama pattern - Don't ask me to explain, I wanted practice making patterns like this (using blackwork fill stitches), and I wanted to do something that wasn't negative. I was kind of thinking about those portraits of JFK that are so common in the Boston homes of people my grandparents' age. (Those are not stitched.) We'll see how it looks when it's stitched - or if I lose patience with it.
And here it is, stitched! Yay for not loosing my patience.
A close-up of the stitch pattern.
Obama Auction Piece (scan)
Obama Auction piece, framed
