Fabric Collage Art

 

“Kaleidoscopic Fish of Colors”

I know I started this blog as a knitting blog but somehow in the 15 years it’s evolved. There has been long periods of time that I did not post but I have forgotten how much fun it is to keep a blog. As this pandemic has taken over our lives, somehow I have not had the patience to knit. I’m not sure why, but such as it is. Then I started sewing because at the very beginning of all this masks were hard to come by. 

Now that we are into this mess for over 10 months and the mask market is plentiful, but I love the colors and the fabrics my masks are made from. The custom fit is better than any commercial mask out there. It’s not an N95 but it’s serving it’s purpose.

Now I have a ton of little bits of material. Left overs from cutting out the masks. I’ve had lots of time to watch YouTube  videos of how others handle these scraps. Most quilters know of this and there are hundreds of suggestions of how to utilize all the scraps. One of them was Quilted collages, some I saw were absolutely amazing. Way over my capabilities, quilting is very involved and most of the quilts are very large. More than I could handle but I am interested, if I had the space and time I would like to do that. 

For example Susan Carlson made a life size alligator. 

I think it said that this was 20 foot. I wish I had a studio where I could make a 20 foot anything. My tiny “Kaleidoscopic Fish of Colors” is a mere 12”x12” as they say you have to crawl before you can run marathons. For now I’m making tiny fabric collages. 

No sewing jut like a jigsaw puzzle then it gets framed hung on the wall and each time I look at it I smile. It makes me happy to see all the colors and to remind me of the beautiful fabrics from my scrap collection.

Corona Mask Makings

 

Unfortunately the world is turned upside down for us. This Covid-19  virus is the most frightening enemy I've ever lived through. It's a war but you can't see it and you can't hide from it, all we can do is to take as much precautions as we can. To protect ourself from passing this virus from one another we need to wear masks. I'm thinking this may be a way of life for the rest of my life. Granted I'm old so I'm more vulnerable than young people with good immune systems, so I have to be extra careful. 

On a personal note, I've already had the virus. Early at the end of February I took a flight from Los Angeles to San Jose, California. The airplane was full and I did notice there were a couple of people wearing masks, I wondered if I should pull out my mask and put it on. You see I've had a mask for years that I would pack with me when I traveled especially if I sat next to somebody coughing and sneezing. I already knew that being crammed into an airplane like sardines for hours was somehow fraught with problems. The desire to travel somehow overrode the fear of catching something. 

 I was headed for a Fiber Convention in Santa Clara, California. Convention center full of fiber crazed people. Lots of old friends that I have not seen for a long time, lots of hugs and kisses. I had a wonderful time. I heard that more than 11,000 people attended this event. It's called Stitches West and it's one of my favorite events. I have attended many times and each time my memory holds a huge smile of enjoyment. Months later I come to find out the the first outbreak of the Corona virus was very close by traced back to a nail salon. I already heard grumblings about a virus but just like everybody else thought it was just a bad kind of flu. I had no idea what I was in for. A couple of days after I got back home I was at the Emergency room sick. Fever, breathing problem, exhausted ........ well now we know all the symptoms... 3 weeks I was quarantined trying to stay away from my family. Luckily nobody else got sick in the household. The lingering labored breathing and being out of breath easily lasted for a couple of months. The good part was that I had developed antibodies. So from here on in I started wearing masks.

I've made several different mask styles but this current one seems to be the easiest to make and the most comfortable to wear. Not so long ago, although time is so warped these days, during the first shut down the first mask I made took me 3 days. I know it sounds ridiculous but getting aquatinted to "sewing" and how to operate my machine, thread the machine, break the needle, find a new needle, figure out how to change the needle. Watch some YouTube videos, dig out my material stash, wire? and etc. 

Mask Tutorial

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