Setting up the studio cutting table

Kim L. on the quiltart list asked for suggestions/recommendations for a cutting table. For quilters, this is a big deal. We need a space to cut the fabric into little pieces, and then a space to sew all the little pieces together again in a different way. Also a space to iron the resulting fabric. And of course, a place to store the fabric that we're going to cut up someday. I'm a fan of Alton Brown (on the foodnetwork, if you're not familiar with him) so I thought I'd share a picture of my new multitasking solution for these things.


I have 3 wire basket holders (17" wide, 22" deep and 7 runners high which is about 30", I think). This makes a nice size desk surface on which I've put The Big Board ironing board. It's meant to be put on a regular ironing board but I found that a tad unstable and awkward for my left handedness. Not to mention I had to have a separate bit of floor space for it. I had a flash of brilliance and realized it fit perfectly on top of the wire basket ensemble so I moved it there. Then I noticed that my big cutting board could go on top of the wire baskets too, if I didn't mind a bit of overhang at the back. Since I rarely cut the full width of fabric, I generally don't need the full cutting surface so that worked too. So my cutting board can slide under the Big Board and I pull it out when it's needed. Then I realized I was just one step away from having a giant flippable board with a cutting surface on one side, and an ironing surface on the other. I've always liked the smaller version of that and used it when taking classes so I've asked my son James to cut some plywood for me and we'll be fixing that up after we finish our sailing class this next week. I have this setup at right angles to my sewing table so I just pivot and depending on what I'm doing I can iron, cut, fuse or try various layouts, all on the same work surface. So far, it's also had the excellent side benefit of forcing me to keep the surface cleared off so I can get other work done. Since I have a problem with not putting things away when I'm in a creative flow, this has been a benefit.

Solar power & relocalizing

I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a week of sailing, so I wanted to leave you all with a nice meaty link about solar power. I had left the newsletter from relocalize.net in my mailbox the last week of June, intending to blog about it then but of course, I forgot. READ IT HERE

Relocalize.net is working to be a central info and networking center for people working to build sustainability in their communities. This newsletter focuses on solar power, where we are with it, what needs to happen to make it grow, and there's even a link to a solar oven. I personally think we need to switch to decentralized solar, wind or wave power as those are completely renewable resources and decentralizing means we don't have companies like Enron deciding to manipulate prices by squeezing the production of energy. But that would be my hippy roots showing again...

Have a great week. I know I plan to!

More about alternative energy & Germany

I've spent a lot of time sailing the last week, so I have a new appreciation of wind power. It was a nice coincidence to go to worldchanging.com and find THIS ARTICLE reporting on a Wind Power Conference that just happened in Ontario. I found this paragraph in the article particularly encouraging:

Germany shattered the theory that renewable energy is a niche player by achieving a 14% share of renewables in its electricity market in 2007. Germany’s vision for renewable energy reinvigorated rural communities throughout the country through the creation of 249,000 jobs and generated $38.8 billion USD in associated economic activity in 2007 alone. After achieving its target 12.5% renewable share of total electricity three years early, the country revised its future targets to 27% renewables by 2020 and 45% renewables by 2030, according to its Federal Ministry for the Environment.

To read the article, go to this webpage.

I hope you're having some summer fun too...

Germany drops oil use 18% in 10 years

While resting my knee from the mild overuse I got sailing yesterday, I've been catching up on some online reading. A pointer to an article about Germany switching to sustainable energy sources caught my eye. They've been doing a concerted push from both private and government areas to convert to renewable energy and improve fuel efficiency. I found THIS ARTICLE heartening for several reasons. First, they've made significant strides in 10 years without going on a crash program. Second, Germany gets about as much sunlight as we do here in Seattle. Yes, I know, we have those grey clouds but we still get sun through them. So, it's a good comparison for my geographic area, at least when it comes to solar power.

I'll list here the part of the article giving the sustainable factors the author thinks are important. If they can do it, so can we, so this might be a good list to work from for those interested in doing so. I'll only point out that several of these require government action.

Sustainable Factors (some more sustainable than others)
- People using mass transit and high speed rail
- People buying more fuel-efficient cars and driving slower on the Autobahn
- Government incentives for using renewables, insulating homes, subsidies for commuting reduced, road pricing for trucks introduced.
- High take rate up for wind and solar due to feed in tariffs
- Heating fuel switching to solar & wood/pellets
- Heating technology switching to CHP (Combined Heat & Power or cogeneration) and heat pumps
- Stable and aging population, less consumption growth and less growth in commuting
- Mindset to save costs, people heating and lighting their homes less and desire to help environment
- Sadly, warmer than average winters due to global warming
- Expertise in producing energy efficient technologies and bringing them available to market

And yes, the sailing was wonderful. We're finally into summer weather here in the Pacific NorthWest and being out on the water, with sun and warmth was fabulous.

Electric Vehicles display at Seattle car show

We're getting our house ready to sell so I've been busy decluttering, painting and giving away stuff on freecycle. I've not kept up with the blogs I normally read so I didn't see this article in the Electric Vehicle blog I follow until last night. The car show in Seattle today will have a special display of all kinds of currently available Electric Vehicles both commercial and personally done conversions and creations. Including scooters. If you're going to be in Seattle, and you're interested in transportation that's not gasoline powered, this would be something to check out.

Unfortunately for my interest in these things, I already have plans to go sailing. *smile*

Three graduations this last week... busy, busy, busy

Last weekend was graduation weekend for all our kids: my son James in high school, my daughter Allie's second university degree, and our "adopted" son aspen's long-time coming university degree. In addition to driving to Bellingham for the university graduation ceremony, we had relatives in town for the high school graduation. So, there was time spent cleaning up before and after the relatives arrived and left. I did get some work done. I did the piece below for aspen's graduation. (And yes, aspen has shown up before as he's the owner of the three wheeler that I've posted about.)



He's been getting his degree while working full-time so this is a long awaited achievement and I wanted to celebrate it with him. The trees on the sides are aspens, as are the golden leaves. He wrote the words printed in the middle so this is a very personal piece of art. I hand dyed the fabric the words are printed on as well as the green and yellow that I used for the leaves above and below it. I'm pleased with how well those fabrics coordinated with the aspen pictures I got from wikipedia.

In addition to all the running around to get everyone ready for graduation, and get the house ready, James and I went into Seattle and bought his graduation present, an electric bicycle. We got him a folding bike version which has much smaller wheels than a regular bike. And it's lower powered than the other electric bikes available from the dealer. The advantage is that he can fold it up and take it on a bus with him. (We overheard talk about the bike racks filling up on the buses in Seattle. ) He's enjoying riding it around, and having his own wheels rather than having to negotiate with us for the use of the car. Not to mention no money spent for gas. :-) Here's a picture of James with his new bike.



We bought it at Electric Bikes NW. They also do a whole selection of folding bikes in addition to the electric bikes. Part of why we got the folding one is that it's the only one they had in stock. Everything else is on order, and there are waiting lists for the bikes they've ordered. So, if you're thinking about doing this, I'd do it soon if I were you...

Quantum Lake: newest completed fiber art

Having mentioned this piece, Quantum Lake, in another post, I now feel obligated to post about it. Even though I'm not thrilled with the photo I've got, I'm posting it because I've been busy with other stuff for the last month and haven't gotten to taking a new one. I took the photos I used in this piece and pushed some artistic limits for myself in improvisational cutting when it came time to put the pieces together. It's a new direction for me and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.



Part of the motivation for posting this piece is that I wanted to talk about another personal victory that I experienced on Saturday. During my morning walk at the greenbelt referred to by Quantum Lake, I met a nature photographer who does mostly birds. In order to continue in the new direction, I need more detailed shots of birds to use. So, I got my nerve up and asked him if he was interested in collaborating. I gave him my webpage address and went home to await his response. Not only did he agree to let me use his photos, but he was very complimentary about my work.

Practice piece for FM quilting

I have a couple of pieces in the works, one of which has already been accepted into a show and I'll post about that later. I'm still working on my larger piece, finishing the quilting with hopes of submitting it to Houston later this week. Last night, I did some practice stitching using spirals and 2 different types of thread. I wanted to use 3 different threads, but the Signature polyester, size 30, kept breaking even with the size 100 needle. The picture below shows the different background fabrics with the sulky variegated rayon on the left, and the Signature variegated cotton on the right. (The smaller spirals on the turquoise fabric on the top are different Signature cotton that I decided not to use because it was too red.)



I'll have to work on getting the spirals smaller which is not surprising. Due to my medical issues, I haven't done serious FM quilting in several years so there's lots of rust on these skills. But another couple of practice runs, and I'll be ready to step up the real piece. I'm still trying to decide which thread to go with when I start the quilting on the piece today. The rayon is prettier, but I don't want the background quilting to pop out too much as there's already some quilting elements on the quilt. And those elements are done using rayon so there's one part that says match the thread and the other side that says, use the less obtrusive thread to highlight the other figures. Decisions, decisions...

Beads! I learned to make glass beads!

It's been a month since I took the weekend course in making glass beads. I had another course the next weekend, so I brought home my beads, put them in a container and stuck them in a drawer. And of course, I couldn't blog about the beadmaking without a picture of the beads, so, they stayed stuck in the drawer until I got my camera out this weekend to take some pictures of things to sell on craigslist. While I was shooting, I realized I could just do a quick shot of the beads and finally talk about the course.




The 2 beads in the foreground were made by the instructor as demos during the class. My earliest beads are the little misshapen blue ones at the top with the rest mostly in order by when I made them in the class. As you can see, my bead making progressed quite quickly. I was applying the principal that we learn by doing so I made as many beads as possible. And by the end of the class, I was balancing and shaping the bead without having to think about it. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to afford to buy the bigger torch setup like the teacher had us working on... She had us working on a 2 tank setup which burns much hotter than my little one tanker at home. And of course, it uses a different torch head. The total cost for the new tanks and torch would be about $500.

My motivation for taking the course was to duplicate some earrings I bought at a craft fair in the early 80's and have been unable to find anything like since. These earring have a large flat disk on them so I was wanting to make the disks from glass and do some interesting things with frit or stringers to give the disks some surface design. Unfortunately, what I learned is that the disks I want are too thin to do in glass. So, now I'm left with the desire to do even bigger things in glass. Either as sculpture, or as a major design element in one of my fiber art pieces. Only time will tell what happens... One of the other members of the quiltart list recommended taking a beginner class in a different medium to spark creativity. I have to second the suggestion. I got a lot out of the class besides learning to make beads. Talking to the instructor about design, marketing and the local craft markets were among the highlights.

Car free? Or Car-lite? How to choose...

As part of my family’s ongoing effort to reduce our carbon footprint, I’ve been investigating alternatives to having a second car. It has always seemed silly to me to pay for a car for my husband to drive to work where it sits all day in the garage on campus and then drive home where the car sits in the driveway. A whole 4 miles each way. But there isn’t convenient bus service where we live. (Perhaps someone at the Metro Bus management can explain to me the point of doing park & ride bus terminals without feeder routes that basically require you to have a car so you can get to the bus… But I digress.) So, we’ve had 2 cars that between them go 13000 miles a year.

A friend building his own 3wheeled motorcycle started me thinking about alternatives. And a search through the library yielded a very useful and interesting book: How to Live Well Without Owning a Car by Chris Balish. While giving good reasons to not own a car (from finances to health to environmental), mostly this book covers how to make the mental transitions necessary to not need a car. Or at least to not need a second car. If you’ve ever felt trapped by your car, or hated spending the $8000 a year that the AAA says is the average, well, you will find this book full of solutions. With real-life examples on almost every page, Chris gives tips for every aspect of life and how to do it car free. But this isn't a one size fits all book. The author gives a good way to evaluate the true cost of owning a car, along with a way to go car-lite, using only as much car as you really need. This is probably the route we'll be going, at least as long as we live over a mile (up and down some very steep hills) from the nearest bus stop for a bus going the way we need to go. This weekend, we'll be taking a second look at some alternatives to the second car, and possibly making a decision on which way to go. I'll keep you posted on what we decide.

Volunteering and new links to interesting organizations

I'm doing some volunteer work for sustainablecascadia.org as part of my being involved and working with what skills I have. I used to be a computer programmer, and I've done all kinds of volunteer stuff from being Troop Cookie Mom to being an Executive Director of a non-profit, so this was an easy way to begin finding local groups and maximizing the effect of my efforts. I spent this morning adding links to the page you can see here.

There are some national organizations that looked really interesting: www.1sky.org for one. They're focused on getting national legislation moving by 2010 with the intent of fighting climate change, and improving our energy independence. And I was very heartened to see what great strides local groups in the Bellingham area are making. www.sconnect.org was the most notable of these.

I've organized the links into several categories which seemed like a good way to split things up to me. If you like going through lists of links, give this one a look and I'd appreciate feedback. Or some suggestions too. We do have a regional focus, but particularly noteworthy national or international links would be welcome too. And if your organization wants to link to us, feel free. The more the merrier...

Grist.org ten tips for individual action on going green

I'm feeling pretty bad today so I'll have to wait on my post about going car free or car lite. Instead, I'll point you all at a quick and easy read from grist. org, http://www.grist.org/feature/2008/05/16/tips/?source=daily
on what individuals can do right now to help move their cities into a more sustainable and climate friendly zone. Two of the ten quotes say to use your car less, or not at all so I guess that post is a good idea.

Other ideas basically boil down to get informed and get involved. I'm working on helping others with the first one (hey, I got a haircut this week and even my hairdresser was asking what she could do) and doing the second. This is definitely something where we all need to work together.

Alternative Transportation, or yet another way to go green

I went down to the Columbia River this last weekend, to help a friend re-assemble his custom 3-wheel motorcycle. I guess it’s officially a motorcycle, even though it’s made using a diesel engine from a Mercedes car. We had a lot of fun bolting all the pieces together, and when it’s finally finished, he’ll have an efficient, fun vehicle that gets 75+ miles to the gallon and can run on biofuel.

This is a picture of the work in progress. There are still some pieces that need painting and then should be added on to what’s here. Aspen, the friend in question, is planning on using this as his primary form of transportation. The back platform is 9 square feet and will haul a substantial amount of stuff. He’s also put a trailer hitch on the back so he can pull even more. And with the MB220D engine, he’s got the power to do it, too.

His father, John Price, built the first one pictured above. I got a ride on his and it was as much fun as a motorcycle without being nearly as scary in the turns. He's got close to 10,000 miles on it so he considers the design well proven. If you’re interested in learning more, check out John’s webpage, http://www.warhorsetractorco.com/.

To add the obligatory art interest to this post, I'll just mention that I made 2 patches for them featuring the art John has used on his webpage. This was an interesting challenge, using heavier materials than I usually work with (canvas rather than quilting cotton, or silks) and I learned some things about stitching on leather. My brain is now scheming for ways to use the rest of the leather needles I bought...

Here's the patch on the back of aspen's vest. It's 9 inches square, roughly. Canvas fused to canvas, edge stitched with polyester thread in a satin stitch, and then fused to the leather with heavy duty wonder under and then stitched down around the edges with polyester top stitching thread using the leather needles with my big Bernina. The only trouble spot was the seam in the leather vest down the middle behind the patch which caused my machine to hesitate on a couple of stitches. Otherwise, it was a fun and fairly quick project.

National Geographic Greendex: what's your score?

Grist.org had a story about the National Geographic Greendex in yesterday's email letter so I went and checked it out. Solid information is always good to have, and being now 2 months along in the going green process, I was curious how we'd do comparatively. I used the calculator they provide and got a score of 68. This beats out all the countries they ranked so that makes me feel good in a way. In another way, knowing that we're only doing the easy, frugal things right now, it's a bit depressing to think that, on average, everybody else is doing less. On the third hand, the more room there is for improvement, the easier it is to make a significant change. So, what's your score?

http://event.nationalgeographic.com/greendex/

The Gospel of Consumption (Orion magazine)

I've been doing a lot of research lately on going green, and still am to a certain extent. Besides Yes! magazine which I've reviewed earlier, I'm reading Orion magazine. (www.orionmagazine.org) I like the way their articles cover various perspectives on Nature, Culture and where we belong in both.

This article covers the history of the deliberate creation of the Consumer Culture which is, in my absolutely not at all humble opinion, destroying us here in the States. I particularly like that the author gives the example of the Kellogg company which gave employees a shorter workweek in the 30s mostly in response to the Depression. It didn't last company wide after WWII and the great push to turn us all into busy little consumers, but it did persist in some departments at Kellogg until the mid 80's. My own experience (30 years worth) as an employee is that 30 hours a week is a very livable pace leaving room for connecting with family and friends, pursuing other interests and having a full and better quality of life.

While I look to Yes! for things that people are doing and ways to create the changes I'd like to see, Orion gives me the broader perspective which helps with seeing how all the pieces fit. Check it out, see if it would be helpful for you. They have back issues and some of the current issue online so it's easy to do.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/

Yes! magazine and optimism

Sometimes the news is depressing. So I'm glad I've discovered Yes! magazine, which focuses on what solutions are working in different areas of life. (Their phrase on the cover is "Building a Just and Sustainable World". Yes, my hippie roots are showing.) The lastest issue, #45, is focused on Climate Solutions and I am really happy to see an article aimed at the mainstream family and how to completely reduce reliance on fossil fuels in 10 years. Baby steps, that I can do. There's also an article by Pete Seeger, and another about plug-in cars. This is the 3rd issue I've read and I finally subscribed. Normally, I don't subscribe to magazines as they're usually just a vehicle for lots of ads for stuff we don't really need. (See, hippie roots... ) This one is aimed at building community, solving problems and spreading the word. That kind of optimism and can-do attitude is exactly what I needed right now.

Check them out at www.YesMagazine.org.

Life runs over me...

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. I took a glass bead making class last weekend and spent 2 days creating over 20 beads. the first few were pathetic, and the last few were pretty darn nice. But more about that later...

The last week has been spent taking care of our cat Cloudy (unofficially called FluffyButt). She had what appeared to be yet another bladder infection so off to the vet we went. Yes, there was an infection but there were also lots and lots and lots of teeny tiny stones in her bladder. Which required surgery. She came home today and will be on special food from now on so we don't do this again. The picture above is of the stones which are about the size of large grains of sand. Well, okay, a couple of grains of sand clumped together. She has my sympathies for the pain she must have had.

Permaculture analysis applied to social network

I finished a piece for submitting to a show this weekend, and I've been catching up on chores and reading. Since it's spring here in the PNW, I've been doing some gardening and thinking about what I want to do differently. This led me to permacultureactivist.net where I found the article I've put a link for at the end. It's about using the permaculture concepts of areas and zones to analyze your urban (or in my case suburban) environment with an eye to understanding energy use and interactions with other social entities. There are great sketches and a nice example from the author with links to things that he found helpful in changing his life to consume less energy and be more locally oriented without feeling deprived.

One of the things I'm looking for is what others have already figured out about how to cut fossil fuel dependency and to relocalize without moving to a farm and homesteading. (Not that I would mind that, but my technology oriented husband might have a few objections.) This looks like a good tool for figuring out what needs to be changed. If you know of others, please post a comment and tell me about them.

Check out http://www.permacultureactivist.net/articles/urbnzonsectr.htm

Inkjet printing on fabric - stabilizing options

I've been working with printing pictures on fabric as part of my new direction for my art. One of the issues in doing this is stabilizing the fabric so it will feed smoothly through the printer. I've traditionally used freezer paper, ironed to the back of the fabric, but this has always had a certain failure rate due to lack of adhesion of the fabric, the printer head ruffling the edges of the fabric, and just a tendency to slipping. Now that I'm doing photos rather than just some clip art, and I'm using the photo setting on my printer, these tendencies to problems have gotten worse. Someone on the inkjet transfer yahoo group suggested full size labels instead. So, I tried them out. They certainly feed better, but there's a tendency to distort the fabric when the label is peeled off. I also found a noticeable adhesive residue on the silk that was printed with the full size label.

Below are 2 images of pieces done each way. The top fabric in each picture was ironed to freezer paper. The bottom fabric was printed using the full size label.

This is the fabric straight out of the printer with the stabilizers still attached. Notice the darker edges on the freezer paper one which is where the fabric crumbled somewhat.




This second shot is after removing the stabilizers. Notice the curling on the one done with the full size label. I fixed this problem somewhat with some ironing but you should keep in mind that ironing too soon after printing can degrade the image.


Next time, I'll be trying printing on fabric with wonder-under as a stabilizer as I usually fuse it anyway...

Organic honey, or what about free-range bees?

Have I mentioned grist.org lately? I get an environmental news email from them regularly and I love them. They’re amusing, informative and local to Seattle. So, the last week of February, when I was getting ready to do some baking, and wanted to use honey instead of sugar, I ended up writing a letter to their advice columnist. It got published the next week, so I share the link with you.

http://grist.org/advice/ask/2008/03/05/?source=daily