Why did I think hand quilting this would be a great idea?
It’s taking forever and I’m not having fun doing the hand quilting. I’m at the point where I need to get this finished before I can’t stand to look at it anymore.
I use my photography to design fabric.
No idea how this will turn out, but I think it’s an image that will yield great fabric designs.
I accidentally moved the camera and got a blurry image. Great! I can play with this and make a fabric design.
Maybe. I’m not sure the photo is broken up enough for a good design.
This could become a quilted panel.
We’ve had rain and the desert sage bushes have been triggered to bloom. The blooms only last a couple days. Then, all the flowers wither and fall off.
I played with this in editing. Note the areas of green cheese. I’m taking an astronomy class and I doubt any of the other students ever heard of the moon being made of green cheese. The composition of the moon was learned long before the other students were born. It’s a pity. They missed out on a time when there was magic in the night sky.
I am working my way back to healthy by going to the gym and working out, doing exercises at home, and riding a bike. I am prone to vertigo so a two-wheel bike is a horrible option. So I got a tricycle. An electric tricycle with pedal assist. I got an expensive helmet and flashing lights so people would see me when I’m riding my tricycle. I took my trike for a ride. Everything was going great until a telephone pole jumped out in front of me. When I hit the pole, I rammed the handlebars into my abdomen and slammed my tailbone against the seat. I put a serious scrap on my shin. Although I was bleeding, my sock never ripped. This getting in shape business is tough work. The shin is healing, the bruises are starting to disappear, and my tailbone hurts. Fortunately, my helmet had a great warranty. Because I fell, I got a new helmet for free.
I got the little person sewn down. I was doing hand quilting along the bars, but if it hurts to sit, I’m not going to get much done. I do want to translate this into a painting.
I’ve added some jewelry to my online store, Deb Thuman Art. I’ve got a pile of jewelry that I made and I need to get it all in my store. If I put three items into my store each day, in about a month, I’ll be up to date. Maybe. Provided I don’t make anything new.
These are all in my store here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com. There’s a necklace to match the blue/green earrings.
The photos are a tad odd because I had to crop them like crazy to use them in my store. Now when I put them in a blog post, the background gets a little weird. It’s always something.
We lost power for a couple hours because we had a rollicking thunderstorm with pouring rain. This made for some rain photos.
I’ve got the strips of fabric sewn together. Using a one-way fabric was interesting. I had to make sure all the eyes were going in the same direction.
I’ve drafted the little person. Now to figure out where the little person should be.
Next, I’m auditioning thread.
I think this one is going to be both hand and machine quilted. I’m thinking about how I can quilt barbed wire between the bars. I’ll outline the little person and the bars by hand.
I hit a sale at Superior Threads and my latest batch of thread arrived in the mail today.
Some of the thread is designed for hand quilting. Some will be for the embroidery machine. Some will be for the sewing room.
I’m having a peripheral neuropathy flareup. One of the sure antidotes to the pain is to make art. I had a major depressive episode Monday, and saw the beginnings of a quilt in my head. Or maybe it’s the beginnings of a painting. I’m not entirely sure. I thought about how bipolar disorder, or any DSM-V label, separates the person with the illness from the rest of the world. Like the time I listened to a woman clearly old enough to know better talk trash about someone who had bipolar disorder. When I told her I have bipolar disorder, she literally backed away from me. Gotta watch out for those mental illness cooties.
I dug out my box of fabric and started auditioning fabric for this quilt.
This usually takes a long time. Today was not usually. Today, the fabrics jumped out of the box and insisted on being put together. I was careful about values. How many times have quilters gotten out fabrics and then realized every fabric was a medium value. The red is medium bordering on dark, but I didn’t find a fabric I liked better.
Start here:
End here.
I”ve been playing around with moon shots lately. We’ve had partially cloudy skies and I wanted to get some of the cloud feeling into the shot. The shot, without any editing, is the top photo. I shoot in RAW rather than JPEG. Current thinking is that because modern sensors are so much more sensitive, there’s no need for RAW. RAW files are huge and take up a whole lot of room on the hard drive or the external storage. I don’t use the cloud. I don’t trust the security and someone dumping child pornography into your cloud account can net you many years in a federal prison. Worse, because cloud users don’t own the cloud, the feds don’t need users’ permission to run barefoot through all the person has stored. Because the user doesn’t own the cloud, the user’s standing to contest the warrant or warrentless search is likely nil. Translation: if the feds find child pornography in your area of the cloud, you’re screwed.
The RAW advantage is the sensor records far more detail than JPEG. That advantage is critical when doing nature photography and you have only what nature has given you to work with. When I adjusted the exposure, the background was revealed. The photo is a whole lot more intriguing than the sky was when I took the original shot.
I’ve been playing around with photos in editing with the intention of using the final photo to design fabric. Lately, my Spoonflower shop has gotten a lot of traffic and I’ve had some sales. You can find my designs here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
I’ve been designing fabric and putting new designs in my Spoonflower shop. To design fabric, I take photos – usually nature photography. Then, I use an editing program to play around.
These are the photos for the designs I created this morning.
Some of these designs look a little different after I finished the designing and proofing process in Spoonflower.
When is a quilt not my work? When does a tool transform into someone else’s design?
I bought an embroidery machine. I knew I’d like it, I never knew I’d love it and want to use it so much. It has replaced my need to use fancy threads on all sewing projects. Now, all projects have to have embroidery. That’s not a bad thing. Even though I bought the machine, a Babylock Meridian 2, on sale and got a great deal, it wasn’t cheap. If I’m going to have an expensive tool, I want to use it a whole lot.
I found a fantastic sale on trapunto designs – 25 designs regularly $50 marked down to $10. I bought the designs. I started playing around with them wondering what I was going to use them for. Then, I realized, I could use them to make a quilt. Except is that my quilt? Or is it the work of the embroidery designer?
I used some scrap fabric and some thread that I’m not in love with to see how big the designs are and how they look when made.
These were all stitched on a quilt sandwich.
Next, I decided to see what size block the design would fit in. I marked out 12″ 10″ and 9″ squares and experimented. I used leftover muslin from a muslin I made for a dress pattern. Good thing I made the muslin because the size I thought would fit was waaaaaaay too big. Not wanting to waste fabric, I’ve used hunks of that muslin for all sorts of experiments.
The 9″ blocks won.
Then I started playing around.
I decided I dislike the font I used in the top design.
Better font and interesting design but I’ve no idea where I’d use it. Still, fun to play around.
I hand dyed fabric to make a blouse. I decided this would be a nice design to embroider on the blouse. I doubt I’ll use these colors, but I did get an idea of what I wanted.
Or maybe not. I’d have to change the orientation of this one, but I think it would be pretty on a blouse.
What about these? A different orientation could be quite pretty on a garment.
But what if I used more subtle colors of thread?
But back to the quilt question. If I use the designs for quilt blocks, is it still my quilt? Is it my work?
When I was in college majoring in journalism, -30- meant the end of the article, story, commercial. That’s not exactly what the 30 at the top of this post means. February 14, 1994, I was admitted to practice law in New York State. I had graduated from law school in May 1993, took the bar exam July 1993, got the results the day before Thanksgiving, and finally got admitted to practice more than two months later.
What has happened in the last 30 years? I ran my own law practice and practiced law not knowing what I was doing. I did it anyway. I got admitted to practice in Federal District Court in 1996. In 1997, I appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States and was admitted to practice. I figured if any of my cases went up to the Supreme Court, I wanted to go with them. Later that year, I did my first felony trial and won. It was one of the cases that came out of The Trooper and Indian War where the governor declared a tax war on the Native American tribes. I moved 2000 miles across the country in 1999 to work for the New Mexico Public Defender Department and retired 16 years later. During the last 30 years, I’ve done more than 120 trials, handled at least a dozen appeals. Argued before the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division twice. Argued before the New Mexico Supreme Court three times. I’ve represented kids and adults; misdemeanors and felonies; custody and visitation. Twice, I had cases that had the potential to be death penalty cases. On February 14, 2024, I surprised myself when I said I had been a pretty good criminal defense attorney. Past tense. Except I’m not ready to quit.
I have a Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman and I’ve got collections for Judiac, Irish Chain variations, Log Cabin variations, Panels and Whole Cloth. The panels and whole cloth are single yards of fabric with the design in the middle of the piece of fabric. Great for when you want something quilted but don’t want to make a pieced quilt. There’s also designs for yardage. Spoonflower will make linens and pillows using my designs.
Those are some of the panels/whole cloth designs. I used Text Mask along with a manipulated photo – these were done using a winter scene – and chose dingbats rather than a traditional font. Some of those dingbats are fascinating.
Every time I think I’m over reacting, I realize what happened is worse than I thought. First, I thought the person’s reaction was odd. Then, I realized it was anti-semitism. Then, I discovered the person slandered me. Then I discovered the university views slander as protected speech. It’s not; but I know the attorney who made that decision and I’m not surprised by such a glaring misstatement of law.
22K+ students at NMSU, and I’m the lone Jew. Hillel has no presence on campus. Chabad has no presence on campus. In 44 semesters of continuing education, only twice was there another Jew in my class.
I’m alone.
I’m armed at all times when I’m on campus. I carry pepper gel and a stun gun. I have a safety plan in place. I have the campus police telephone number programmed into my phone.
According to the president of the university, if I’m upset by what’s happening in Israel, I should go to counseling. According to the Office of Institutional Equity, if I’m upset by the hate crime hurled at me, I should go to counseling.
This past Tuesday, I went to the campus police to report that what I thought was odd, rose to the level of a hate crime pursuant to New Mexico law. Knowing I couldn’t manage without Brady, my service dog in training, I took her with me. I had to hug her twice just to get through the day.
After taking to the police, I was so upset about being on the receiving end of a hate crime, I couldn’t eat and could not enjoy the drink I ordered at Starbucks. Brady and I explored the library. Here she is looking at books and searching for the book with the recipes for dog treats.
I had arranged to meet with my painting teacher outside of the painting studio. It was a good plan. Except I had to go into the painting studio to fetch my paintings and the hate criminal was in the painting studio.
The next morning, I woke up and decided the hate criminal had taken all she was going to take away from me and I was taking back my life. The hate criminal isn’t done with me yet. Apparently, she has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old and is doing petty, childish things just to piss me off. I’m doing my best to ignore her. She’s not going away, but neither am I.
My art has changed.
It’s not finished and the painting is on an easel so there’s only so much I can do to eliminate the background.
Also not finished and also still on the easel. Suddenly, I’m painting about being alone, I’m facing evil, and no one is going to help me. I’m trying not to hate Muslims. I’m trying to remember that Muslims are not terrorists and terrorists are not Muslims. Terrorists worship hatred and murder. News organizations have gotten recordings of terrorists’ cell phone calls bragging about murdering Jews on October 7, 2023.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, “Since the October 7th terrorist massacre by Hamas in Israel, we’ve seen a nearly 400 percent increase in antisemitic incidents across the United States.”
The fact that the crap that has happened to me is happening to Jewish students on college campuses across the country doesn’t make me feel better. There’s a new rallying cry at Columbia law school: Fuck Jews.
I’m alone.
I’m scared.
I have only myself to rely on to protect me.
The last time I had this much anxiety, I was studying for the NY bar exam.
I’ve been working on fabric designs. An app on my iPad allows me to sort of draw. I’ve made some designs based on traditional quilt blocks.
That one was where I learned to remove the lines that guide where I put the colors.
This one I did without the annoying lines.
Other designs can best be described as finger painting.
Some of the paint options I’ve got are metallic. I’ve no idea how those colors will work on cloth; I have to get a number of designs together so I can have them proofed. After that, they will go into my Spoonflower shop.
I tried to make something that looks like the abstract painting I’ve been doing. So far, I haven’t gotten an abstract painting design that I like. One of the best things about these designs is they upload to Spoonflower a whole lot faster than my photographs.
I’m learning things in my painting class although none of what I’m learning is on the syllabus. I’m learning to see color better. I have to hold a piece of fabric up to the thread display to find thread that matches the fabric. I’ve marveled at those who can match thread and fabric from across the room. I can’t do that yet, but I am seeing subtle differences in colors. Or rather differences that are subtle to my eye.
I’m learning who I am. For those who think finding oneself is done sometime between age 30 and age 40, it’s not. Finding oneself is a life-long journey. If it weren’t, I’d have found myself 40 years ago.
The current assignment is four self-portraits done in four different forms – realistic, impasto, optical illusion, and abstract. The realistic painting isn’t realistic, but I kind of like it so I’m going to leave it as it is. The impasto painting was fun. Wild brush strokes. Lots of paint. Lots of fun. The optical illusion one I detest. I’m not having fun. Even if I stood a half mile away, it would still look like a collection of lines with no focus. The abstract one is a revelation. The idea was to show how bipolar disorder feels. The unexpected side effect is a revelation.
I’m discovering I’m an abstract artist. I never thought of myself that way. I thought I couldn’t draw accurately so I’m a crappy artist. Nope. I’m an abstract artist. Looking back at my work completed during the last five years, I’ve discovered every piece is abstract. The pieces are about feelings rather than about depictions. My quilt about sexual assault is about rage. I started with a 3-D, life size, more or less anatomically correct portion of the female anatomy, and the emotion came roaring out of my hands. My quilts about suicide are about grief, the long process of healing that grief, and trying to accept there is no answer to the critical question of why. My pandemic quilts are about depression and isolation. My biology quilts are about how I saw what I learned in my biology classes. The biology quilts are also about how I felt when I made them. My quilt about mass murder is a depiction of the will to live. There’s no way to depict any of that except as abstract art.
I haven’t quilted Burying The Ghosts yet. It took so long to audition fabric, accept that what I had in mind wasn’t going to work, and redesign the piece. The entire concept is abstract. Or is it abstract realism? The emotion is real. The concept is abstract. Or maybe it’s life that is abstract.
Each year, NMSU has a juried student art show. I’ve submitted work in the past without acceptance. Quilting isn’t taught at NMSU; therefore, quilting isn’t an art. I wonder what the jurors would say about Faith Ringgold’s art. My painting teacher has made it a class assignment to enter up to three pieces of art to the juried show. He has encouraged me to enter my quilts. I chose one quilt: Depression. It’s a depiction of how I felt in February 2021.
The other two entries are photographs I took when it snowed a couple weeks ago.
Because there’s a cash prize for best in show, entrants must register for Scholar Dollars. I answered questions about did I grow up in a single-parent home. Yes, for four years before my mother married The Drunk. Do I have a disability? Yes. Bipolar disorder doesn’t feel like a disability but I’ve no idea what normal feels like. Any veterans in the family? My father, The Drunk and Jim are veterans. Overcome educational barriers? Yes. My mother and The Drunk were convinced college made a person stupid and I wasn’t allowed to apply to colleges. I started college shortly after my 25th birthday and earned two degrees: journalism and biology – although I was not allowed to take math or science classes in high school.
I’m not sure when the decision will be made and I doubt my work will be accepted. I don’t make normal art. Neither does Faith Ringgold.
I need to come up with 10 additional photos for a sense of place for my photography class by Sunday. I’ve decided most of the shots I want although I’ve my doubts about how some of the shots will be received. Here’s what I’ve shot so far.
I’m taking a photography class at the local university. The class is being taught by a grad student. I’m the only one in the class who has worked with film. My first single lens reflex camera was a Valentine’s Day present in 1980. Canon – AT1, the last fully manual camera Canon made. I loved that camera, I still have it, and it’s older than everyone in my class. My current camera, a DSLR Canon 90D, was a Valentine’s Day gift in 2020.
We’re assigned to take a series of photos showing a sense of place, but not the usual chamber of commerce type shots.
These are studies for two photos.
Shabbat Shalom
Shabbat shalom means sabbath peace. I made the quilt after a terrorist armed with an assault rifle walked into the Tree of Life synagog in Pittsburgh and killed 11 people. When congregants were allowed back into the sanctuary, they saw blood spatter and brain matter on the walls. The blue in the middle is Chai, the Hebrew word meaning Life. On shabbat, two candles are lit to celebrate the beginning of shabbat. The candleholders – which can be elaborate or simple – are a ceramic pair I made specifically for shabbat candles. The final shot will be taken after dark and with the candles lit. I wanted to get as much of the shot as possible set up in advance.
Yahrzeit
Three years ago, someone I knew killed himself. Tonight begins his yahrzeit – the anniversary of his death. The quilt is one I made in an attempt to make sense of his suicide. I’ll be taking the formal shot after sundown and lighting the yahrzeit candle.
It’s time to deep clean the sewing room. I thought I would be able to donate a fair amount of leftover memories, but the donation box is nearly empty. Some memories I am not ready to part with.
As I went through boxes, I found things I don’t remember buying – or maybe these things came from my grandmother’s house. She had a massive stroke, and we had to clean out the house before it could be sold. I took all the sewing things.
I found a small cutting mat that was hidden away. I bought the mat to take with me to a seminar. I could cut leftover fabric for a quilt in my hotel room while waiting to become tired enough to sleep.
I found fabric from more than 40 years ago. Plaid from a skirt I made when I was in college. I bought a lot of polyester back then, including the plaid from the skirt. I’ve no idea if I still have the skirt. If I do, it won’t fit. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with the leftover plaid.
Yards and yards and yards of white with sprigs of pink flowers from an attempt to make drapes for a sliding glass door. I’m sure I can make something from this fabric, but I can’t imagine what. Maybe boxers for Jim.
Fabric from one of the shirts I made for Jim from nearly 20 years ago. I can do something with these scraps. Eventually.
I found brushed rayon that is left over from a pants suit. Yellow linen look fabric from a dress I made 33 years ago. I’m pretty sure the fabric is polyester, but it’s pretty so I’m keeping it. A bit of raw silk that will make nice lingerie. I want to make bras for myself, so all those little scraps I couldn’t toss out will become bras. Maybe.
Wooden spools with thread which came from my grandmother’s house. When I was little, my grandfather would put four nails into the top of the spool and I’d make long ropes out of yarn. No idea what, if anything, I ever did with the ropes. But I’ll keep the wood spools. The thread, likely more than 50 years old, isn’t useful anymore. Thread has a shelf life. I’ll do something with the spools. Assuming I can find a use for the miles of rope I’ll make.
Buttons and buttons and buttons. I took my grandmother’s button box when we cleaned out her house. A good friend sent me at least 10 pounds of buttons. He said the buttons will give me closure. It’s been years since I bought buttons.
There’s some heavy canvas that would be good for making a purse. Except it’s ecru and boring. Maybe I could add some of the scraps from ancient projects to jazz up the unimaginative fabric.
There’s some metallic copper stretch fabric that is good for….I’ve no idea. The metallic washes off leaving a dull sort of copper in place of the metallic copper. Originally, I made a sports bra and exercise short from the fabric. I used a some of the left over fabric to make my uterus quilt. Doesn’t everyone have a metallic copper uterus and fallopian tubes?
I opened a closet that hasn’t been opened for more than 15 years. I found interesting upholstery fabric that will make a nice purse. Or something. I’ll think of a use for it.
I’ve been collecting vintage knitting and crocheting books for more than 40 years. Now, the pattern books I bought that were cutting edge fashion in 1970 are now vintage. I’ll keep those.
Wheat colored crochet thread thin enough to make nice doilies. Not that I use doilies. Or I could use it for tatting thread. Assuming I can find the tatting shuttle.
I found books from a women’s literature class I took in college 44 years ago. I can’t part with those books even though I ran out of bookcase room years ago. Now, I fill up my iPad with e-books. Space saving, but not something I could read from wile soaking in the tub.
Now that I’ve unpacked the memories, I need to find some sort of plastic tote in which to put them. Then I need to find a place to put the plastic totes. I thought I could put boxes of memories in the closet in my sewing room. But the closet has a weird wall that makes an odd angle on one end of the closet. Not a good place to store boxes of memories.
Eventually, the memories will go into boxes or storage containers. Then I will forget about them until the next time I need to deep clean my sewing room.
I’ve been making progress on the spirit dancing quilt. I gave up on using iridescent fabrics because they just didn’t work against a dark background. Instead, I’ve re-designed the quilt and now it’s about dancing in the place where I buried the ghosts. This is one of the trails at Rushford Lake. We had a cottage there. I used to walk these trails every weekend because I needed to get away from my toxic family. One summer, my mother decided to take my siblings out to the lake for the week and left me home to babysit the drunk. I’d spend the day going through cookbooks to find something interesting to make for dinner. Eventually, the drunk would stagger in and announce he had already eaten dinner. I asked my mother if I could go out to the lake with her and my siblings. No. That’s how much she hated me. Later, I discovered that although my siblings and spouses could go to the lake and stay at the cottage, I couldn’t. In 2018, we traveled to Rushford Lake and I buried the ghosts that had haunted me for 50 years.
I’m not sure if I like what I’ve done so I’m letting the quilt sit for a few days. Frequently, something I thought looked terrible, looked much better the next day.
Brady looks so innocent when she’s asleep. Usually, I don’t like a photo to be this grainy, but I like how this shot came out. I used my cell phone for this shot.
That sound you hear is me banging my head on the table. There’s a quilt I’ve been wanting to make for the last 14 years. I had a vision where I saw my spirit dancing in a forest. My spirit was a magnificent, shimmering being. Finally, I got the right background – one of my photographs of the woods where I buried the ghosts. I had gotten a sheer fabric that I thought would work – but I bought the fabric before I had the background worked out. Naturally, the fabric I bought looks awful with the background. Now, I get to audition fabric. My stash is huge. You’d think the perfect fabric would jump out of the storage bin, but that’s not happening. So far, I’ve found at least a half dozen fabrics that absolutely will not work. I’ve picked out one that has possibilities, but I need to let it sit on top of the background for a day or so in order to know if it works or not. I do have a batik – white with pale blue design. It looked wrong. If I use what I’m auditioning, I’ll need to add beads so it looks more or less shimmery.
Meanwhile, I went to print out a pattern for a dress (already designed and bought the fabric). #$%$%*(!!! printer is out of ink. I went to the Canon website (after checking and seeing amazon and Best Buy had the same price) and ordered ink. What a PITA! I had to keep going back because the form said I did something wrong. Eventually I managed to order the ink. Which won’t arrive for about 3 days.
So here I am. The wrong fabric. The printer out of ink. And all I got done is to draw out the template for the dancer to be appliqued onto the quilt.
I can only manage to make three snowflakes per day. More than that and my head explodes. These are all in my store, Deb Thuman Art here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
Deb's Art 