Month: May 2020

Posted in Fiber, Quilts

In a Bind

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m stuck trying to figure out how to quilt a suicide quilt. I don’t feel like making garments. Or jewelry. Or much of anything else. I need more quilt binding and I hate buying what I can make. I cut strips of fabric 1 ¾” wide to make ½” binding. The strips are cut edge to edge rather than on a bias. This binding works for quilts, but not for garments. Binding for garments, because of the need to fit binding around neck openings and sleeve openings must be cut on the bias. 

Once I got strips cut from one fabric, I used a metal binder clip to hold the strips. 

I cut the ends on a 45-degree angle so I would have an angled seam rather than a seam straight across. A straight across seam makes for a bump in the binding. I made markings on ends of a couple strips of fabric so I could make sure the strips would fit together. Turns out, the ends have to be cut in a specific direction in order to match the ends. This isn’t critical for batiks and solids because there’s no right or wrong side. It is critical for prints. Rather than mark every strip or use a quilter’s ruler and rotary cutter, I folded the end over to form a 45-degree angle and I cut along the fold.

The seams are a bit tricky to sew. If you match the seams without any overlap, the result will be an off set strip of fabric and it will be difficult to fold the binding. You have to leave about a ¼” overlap in order for the edges of the strips to match up. 

Next, and I haven’t gotten to this point yet, sew all the seams. Then, either use a binding tool https://smile.amazon.com/BIGTEDDY-Fabric-Sewing-Quilting-Binding/dp/B079PP3HB4/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=binding+tool&qid=1590783976&sr=8-6 or fold the fabric in half and press. Then open the fabric strip and fold each side in towards the middle and press. 

After you get the binding sewn and folded, make lots of quilts to use up the binding. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My store, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Posted in Fiber, Photography

Macro, Yucca, and Thread

Posted on by debthumanblog

I need fancy threads and I need fancy stitches. I use most of the 300 different stitches my sewing machine will make. My thread collection has at least 200 different threads. Variegated. Single color. Shiny. Matte. Metallic. Thick. Thin. Silk. Cotton. Polyester. Skinny spools. Fat spools. Small cones. Large cones. Really, really, really large cones. Very old thread wound onto wood spools. 

I had a coupon for 25% off from Superior Threads. Superior makes King Tut threads, and those are my favorite. Today, my thread arrived in my post office box. 

I’ve been battling chronic insomnia, and read that going out into the sunshine in the morning can help reset my circadian rhythms. If I’m going to go outside, I might as well be doing something so I take my camera with me. Yesterday, I worked on macro photography. I am getting better with this lens. It’s a prime lens and the last “prime lens” I had was a Kodak Instamatic when I was in high school. All my other lenses are zoom telephoto lenses. With a prime lens, I can’t adjust the lens to accommodate the subject. I have to move the camera farther from the subject. 

My first macro lens was attached to a Minolta SLR which I bought used. I got a decent SLR and the lens I wanted for less than the cost of a new macro lens. I used that lens to photograph antiques when I wrote for Antique Week 25 years ago. I learned to use my lens by photographing marks on the back of china pieces. The mark gives both the manufacturer and the approximate age of the piece of china. I was happily photographing a flat mark on a flat piece of china. That didn’t require a whole lot of thought. 

Now, I’m using my macro lens to photograph flowers and that requires a whole lot of thought. I’m photographing round objects, and a macro lens has a shallow depth of field. Even at f/14 I can’t get the entire flower in sharp focus. It was suggested I use focus stacking to solve that problem. Focus stacking requires a tripod and involves taking several shots of a subject and focusing on a slightly different part of the subject with each shot. My editing program then blends the shots into one sharp photo. I’m not about to take the tripod into the yard, find a relatively cactus free space, and fight with adjacent bushes for space to put the tripod legs while being careful not to step on a rattlesnake and hoping the wind wouldn’t move the subject flower around. 

Instead, I set up the tripod on the patio, put up a neutral background on the table, set out the spools of thread, and started shooting. Because these were just practice shots, I didn’t bother to remove the labels on the spools. When I was editing the photos, I started playing around with the photos. Swirls. Kaleidoscopes. Waves.

I liked what happened. I can’t sell fabric designs if I’ve got a label showing unless I have permission from the thread manufacturer. Tomorrow, I’ll work on focus stacking thread shots after I removed the labels from the spools. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Posted in Cognitive problems, Depression, Emotions, Psych meds

Worry about everything……

Posted on by debthumanblog

I grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, NY. For 22 years, I lived in Lockport, a city on the Erie Barge Canal located about 30 miles east of Niagara Falls. From mid-November until Lake Erie freezes, the sky is dull gray. I wouldn’t see the sun for weeks at a time. In mid-January, there would be sunshine, but the high temperature was 10 degrees for days on end. I never had SAD. I never had cabin fever. Cold and gray were a part of life. Driving anywhere required extra time to shovel the driveway, chip the ice off the car, and navigating unplowed roads because nothing closed down. We went to work or to school no matter what the weather. Unless at least a foot of snow fell overnight, schools and places of employment stayed open. 

I moved to New Mexico, and my gloomy weather skills disappeared. If we have three cloudy days in a row – something that rarely happens in southern New Mexico – I get depressed and anxious. I haven’t been able to resuscitate gloomy weather skills, and I’m being held captive by a virus. New Mexico has been shut down since mid-March. My last day at school was March 13. A week later, the governor shut down the state. Gas is cheap, but there’s nowhere to go. Hotels are empty. Restaurants are empty. Some of the hiking trails on BLM lands are open, but the restrooms are locked. We have to wear masks when in public. I made masks with elastic to go around my ears. The mask was okay, but the elastic didn’t play nice with my hearing aids. The elastic kept flipping my over-the-ear hearing aids off my ears. I made hearing aid friendly masks with ties. I started wearing masks long before the governor ordered masks to be worn in public. My mask is hot, makes it harder to breathe, and my glasses get fogged up. I wear my mask anyway. 

I have severe depression, chronic insomnia, elevated anxiety, can’t concentrate, can’t think like I used to, and I’m overeating. I’m an artist. I should be making art. Instead, I’m making bias binding, reversible masks with ties, and playing computer solitaire.  I should do a deep clean in the sewing room. I did clean the bathroom last week, but I had to force myself to do so. I should work on the novel, but I don’t feel like it. I never had this problem when I lived in Lockport even when the high temperature was 10 degrees and we had a 50 mile an hour wind blowing in from over a frozen lake. 

I know Jim and I are significantly more fortunate than many others. We’ve had no loss of income, the bills are paid on time, and we have plenty of food, tissues and toilet paper.

I still have severe depression. Severe enough that I had to increase the dosage for my antidepressant. Yes, my doctor is aware of what I’m doing. I munch on a piece of medical marijuana infused white chocolate bar in an effort to relieve the anxiety and worry about becoming addicted to marijuana. My antianxiety med doesn’t work well enough to block the anxiety I feel and I worry about becoming addicted to my antianxiety med. 

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear Warren Zevon singing Worrier King. 

Posted in Fiber, Pain, Peripheral neuropathy, Photography

Masks, Quilts, & Photos

Posted on by debthumanblog

I am having a neuropathy flare up. Bleah. The pain goes away when I make art. The pain comes back as soon as I stop making art. 

I’ve been making face masks using up leftover fabric. I make many yards of binding at a time. Each mask takes two ties 34” long. Making binding isn’t my most favorite thing to do, so making miles of binding at one time means I only have to burn my fingers once every couple days. 

These are in my store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I’ve been designing fabric which can’t be sold in my Spoonflower shop, https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman  until I have proofs of the designs. What to do with 90 proofs? Make reversible face masks. One down and 14 more to go. As I finish them and photograph them, I’ll be putting them in my store, Deb Thuman Art. This one is in my store now.

Reversible Face Mask

I’m still photographing spring in the desert. 

Yucca
Seed Pods.
Prickly Pear

I’ve been working on the suicide quilt. I’ve gotten the appliqués sewn on. Now, I have to figure out how I want to quilt it. This piece is larger than my usual quilts. Most of the time, I am making art quilts the size of a fat quarter.

I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Posted in Fiber, Photography, Quilts

Quilts, Flowers & Choices

Posted on by debthumanblog

I started working on the suicide quilt. Art is a way for me to get the feelings I don’t understand out from inside me. Sometimes, the feelings start to make sense while I’m working on the piece. It has been more than a year since someone I knew committed suicide; I still haven’t worked through all the feelings. 

I inadvertently hung this upside down so I flipped the photo.
My hand reaching for answers.
The hand I can never grasp.

I’ve been documenting spring in the desert as it appears in my yard. Cheap gas, and no place to go. 

Cholla. The spines are vicious. Using pliers is the only way to remove a thorn if you get one stuck in you.
This is a strange prickly pear. The flowers are peach in the morning and evening, and yellow during the rest of the day.
A normal, full-time yellow prickly pear.

Now for a few words about a day I dread each year. I detest mother’s day. I grew up in a house run by a pair of violent drunks who thought they were adults. The most appropriate gift I gave my mother was a Venus flytrap. The most appropriate gift I gave myself was to eliminate that woman from my life. I refuse to lie to myself and celebrate having her for a mother. 

I chose not to have children and I’ve never regretted that choice. It’s not easy to swim upstream. I spent 20 years listening to people demand I have children. I could never bring myself to tell these people something pithy like: I can’t have children. If I did, ignorant people like you wouldn’t be able to make disgusting comments like the one you just made. I did tell one ignorant person that there’s more to life than changing diapers and wiping snotty noses. I did finally tell someone that I have worth and value but I could win the Pulitzer Prize and she still wouldn’t think I was successful merely because I didn’t produce a child. Turning 40 was wonderful because they finally shut up. Mother’s Day accompanied by flowers and syrupy poetry is horrible if you don’t have children whether it is by choice or by uncooperative biology. It’s even worse if you had a horrible mother. Combine the two, and the day is nearly unbearable.

What to do to survive Mother’s Day? I can celebrate having the courage to make an unpopular choice. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower store is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman