The Season Of Excess Expectation

I'm not talking about kids and toys or teens and electronics. I'm talking about how much I think I can get done in the time available. Specifically, how fast I think I can work to get the last gift finished and in the mail before Christmas. You probably have your own version of this holiday classic.

For the record, I love making gifts. But yes, I suffer from Excess Expectation. My expectations didn't seem so excessive when I made the plan. After all, Bill and I sort of takes turns on making the majority of our holiday gifts, and this year is his year. I did help him cut copper pipe one day while he assembled and soldered.

He also made gifts for all the young fishermen, and I just made little bags from recycled T-shirts to hold them. Easy peasy -- something I could do while watching a movie.

For my mom, I made a bag of stationery from fabric scraps in my Black Hole.

They're still on dial-up, so no worries about letting the cat out of the bag. The bag for the stationery I made with fabric I designed and had printed on Spoonflower from a photo I took of my mom's old Singer sewing machine. That's the machine I started sewing on. One of the first things she had me do, lo these many years ago, was stitch on heavy paper. I had major flashbacks while stitching 24 pieces of stationery.

Dad is also getting a gift made with Spoonflower fabric. This one is made from a photo I took of a wooden serving tray he made years ago (there's a photo of the tray at the link). I made a drawstring dresser caddy that folds flat when not in use.

There were a few more small gifts on my to-do list that I can't show just yet. The chances of those beloved young people reading my blog are slim, but it is possible.

And really, with Bill doing so many of our gifts, I figured there would be plenty of time for me to make this gift for his sister (who does read this blog, but also knows what the gift is because we talked about it and she gave me the measurements).

When it's done, this gift will measure 8 feet by 12 feet. It's a piece of netting to spread over their koi pond to keep the neighborhood heron from eating the fish.

When it's done, it will have taken less time than knitting a sweater or crocheting an afghan. But it's taking longer than I estimated, mainly because of the materials I'm using. I usually net with linen or hemp and for this project I'm using bonded nylon. If When I'm not careful, the knots slip.

This net won't be perfect, but it will do the job. It's designed to do it unobtrusively so as not to distract from the flower garden around the pond.

With a bit of luck, it will be in the mail in time to arrive Christmas Eve. But before it goes, we're getting a picture of it spread out. Will probably have to do that outside.

Good luck with your own holiday preparations!

Spoonflower Fat Quarter Sale Announced

I'm all packed up for my last teaching travel date for 2012. My studio is clean, swept, and the sewing table is cleared off. When I get home, I have two baby gifts to make and I want to plan my holiday sewing before (drum roll) the Spoonflower fat quarter sale starts next week. They just announced it: The annual two-for-one fat quarter sale starts Thursday, October 25th, 2013 (8am EST) and ends Wednesday, October 31st (10pm EST).

Donna Kallner's Bananafana fabric collection on Spoonflower

The Bananafana collection above is one I designed this summer for a baby gift (fingers crossed that bun stays in the oven a few more weeks). Having no idea what colors or designs to use, I went to my niece-in-law's Pinterest boards and found yellow and gray. Gotta love Pinterest for that. Before holiday making starts, I'd sure like to know if there's a Pinterest equivalent for teenage boys.

Donna Kallner & Mary Sue Fenner

Back to Spoonflower. Mary Sue Fenner and I both taught for the Michigan League of Handweavers in August. I sold a bunch of my Spoonflower proofing swatches from the old color profile while I was there. Then in September at the Sievers Gathering, Mary Sue hands me a bag with this awesome collage vest made from my Spoonflower fabric!

Vest pattern is Vogue 8777

Mary Sue made the vest from t-shirt fabric with the cotton fabrics collaged on as raw edge applique. It's very comfy and the shaping in the back was really flattering on everyone who tried it on. And it's totally my style! I ordered the pattern as soon as I got home from Sievers.

But that will have to wait. Baby gifts first!

Tray Chic Digital Fabric

One of my favorite things to do is to transform family memories into fabric designs. The August 28 deadline for Spoonflower's Zig-zag Cheater Quilt contest was the incentive I needed to turn one of my dad's woodworking projects into fabric I'll use in his Christmas gift.

My fabric design "I Could Have Danced All Night Chevron Cheater Quilt" -- vote in this week's Spoonflower fabric design contest here

The idea came as I was doing the kind of cleaning I do only when my mother is going to visit. Instead of washing windows, though, I had just enough time to get from the idea stage to a completed fabric design before my folks arrived for a summer visit.

The tray Dad made

I took a photo of the tray Dad made for Mom years ago. It came to live in my house when they downsized to a smaller place in Florida. Dad loves to do this kind of woodworking -- what he calls "patterns that look complicated but are really simple."

The printed fabric -- http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1380286

Using Gimp, I turned the photo into a design sized to fit on one yard of Kona cotton. The contest rules stipulate that the piece should be printed to look like patchwork or applique so you can skip the piecework and just quilt and bind the fabric to make a finished quilt. I may add piping on the edge (that's the dark brown line at the top of the photo). The finished size should be just about right for taking to outdoor concerts and to the beach.

And yes, that's the actual, printed fabric on my design wall. I finished the design and got the fabric ordered at 1:26 am on the day my parents arrived for their visit. Spoonflower had it printed and shipped it 2-1/2 days later. It arrived in Tuesday's mail so I could show it to my folks before they left. Thank you, Spoonflower!

When It's Not A Race

Over the weekend, I found myself this close to the finish line on a big task. Then my bobbin thread ran out. After a moment of frustration, I thought how silly that was compared to the Olympic triathletes who had to change bicycle tires during their race. I love the Olympics. Puts things in perspective.

I've been sewing the proofing swatches of my Spoonflower fabric designs into sample collections, both for my own reference and to make it easier to illustrate concepts in my Digital Fabric workshops. I teach that again this week for Michigan League of Handweavers. And I have plenty of samples. So I didn't refill the bobbin and kick for the finish line. Instead, I got wash off the clothesline, went for a walk with Bill and Scout, and watched the Olympics again.

Sometimes it feels like the clock is always ticking and the to-do list never gets shorter. It's August and unpulled weeds have set seeds. I haven't started the deck project. And my ambitious summer dyeing plans? Those withered on the vine.

But I did get a staghorn sumac dyebath brewed from Bill's leftovers. We gathered last week for a batch of wine. Bill scraped the fuzzy berries for wine, and I got the staghorn stalks and leaves for dyeing. After a couple days of soaking in Mom's aluminum jelly kettle, I put the kettle on the stove to barely simmer for an hour or so. Yesterday I strained the liquid, but I haven't dyed with it yet. It looked like there's color left, so I put the solids into bags in the freezer to deal with later. Maybe when I'm back from Michigan.

Probably not. I need to do the things its been too hot and busy to do before it gets too cold.

In the meantime, I'll be watching the Olympics and celebrating the achievements of all the athletes who made it there, whether they get to stand on a podium or not. 

Color Scheming

Change is a good thing. If only we could convince it to arrive on a more convenient schedule.

Spoonflower, the digital textile printer I use, announced this spring that they were changing their color profile. They gave designers special pricing and a reasonable window of opportunity to "swatch" fabrics, so we could see how the colors of our designs would print after the change. Unfortunately, that window was open while I was preparing for and teaching out-of-town workshops.

I managed to proof most of my fabrics once at the special price, and did some color palette tests. Across the color spectrum, I had significant shifts in the way fabrics print now compared to before. Reds, for example, shifted dramatically. Blah.

So most of my fabrics have been swatched again (not at the special price) to make sure my corrections were, well, correct. As usual, I've learned a lot from this.

First, no amount of calibration seems to get my monitor to display the way some colors now print. What looks blue on my screen can print purple. That's why we print proofs on fabric swatches instead of relying on the monitor alone.

Second, the angle of my monitor makes a huge difference. This thread on the Spoonflower Flickr discussion board introduced me to that notion, as well as to Colorzilla.com. I'm always grateful to the generous designers who share their knowledge on the boards.

Finally, I've learned it's OK to not weed anything. Not. One. Thing. No weeding whatsoever. And the world did not stop rotating on its axis.

Who knew!?

Man, Machine And Mending

Spoonflower's fabric design contest theme this week is "Sewing Celebration," so I pulled my mom's old Singer out from storage to take some pictures for an idea I had in mind.

This is the machine I learned to sew with. It was not love at first sight. Callow youth. Nevertheless, I grew to love it, and it's been showing me a good time for lo these many years. If I had more room, it would be set up all the time just to make quick work of fixing the back pockets on Bill's jeans.

Bill is a relief driver on a rural mail route, which means he sits in the passenger seat and drives with his left hand stretched to the steering wheel and his left foot on the pedals while he delivers to boxes on this right. The seat belt thing is always catching his pockets while he's twisted.

It's not difficult mending if I get to it before there's an actual hole. He's getting better at giving me a heads up before it gets to that point.

This kind of mending is not my finest work. But he's not picky.

Come to think of it, many of the qualities I love in that old Singer describe my husband, as well: Strong. Durable. Dependable. Many amazing hidden features.

And he's still showing me a good time after lo these many years.

Shifting Gears With Creativity Warm-Ups

Sometimes, shifting gears in the studio goes smoothly and you purr along from one thing to the next. Other times, it feels like going from a 1-speed bike with coaster brakes to an 10-speed, and shifting too tentatively on a steep incline. I had to get off and push for a while last week. More about that in a moment.

Chain Reaction fabric design by Donna Kallner on Spoonflower

But first, another bike moment: For the current Spoonflower bicycle fabric challenge, I "built" a Rube Goldberg style machine that uses a tandem bicycle in a steampunk "alternative power generation" device for an imaginary "reanimation experiment." You can't see it from this swatch, but click the image and change the view to 1 yard to see how the repeat forms a chain design. Voting for bicycle fabrics is open through Tuesday. It's always fun to see how so many different ways designers approach a theme, and I love the limited palette challenges (this one is three colors).

Back to that hill, and shifting gears. Every time I think it would be nice to coast for a while, I make some hairbrained decision that leads me to a torturous uphill climb followed by a terrifying downhill race to the finish. And I love it! But as any real cyclist would say, it all works best when you're warmed up and have your head in the game. To do that in the studio, I get serious about my creativity warm-ups.

Donna Kallner creativity exercise -- double doodle with watercolor crayons and water fingerpainting

Most of my warm-ups don't take long. In about 5 minutes, I can do a double doodle (a Sharpie in each hand), add color with watercolor crayons, then fingerpaint with water. It doesn't need to "be" anything -- it's just a readiness ritual that gets me feeling creative and productive.

Donna Kallner creativity exercise -- fabric collage from the Black Hole

But sometimes, I need a bigger boost. That's when I reach for my Black Hole, the small bin of fabric scraps I keep for quick creativity exercises. In this case, "quick" means an hour or two, tops.

Last week when I got stalled on that hill, I did what I normally do: I struggled and wasted a lot of energy. Once that was out of the way, I gave myself permission to rethink the route. After about 90 minutes of free-motion doodling on scraps of fabric, I rethought where I wanted to go with my project and started over. It wasn't all coasting from there.
Usually there are still big hills to tackle on the alternate route, but I enjoy those as long as I've got a little momentum.

What do you do to gain some momentum? And what do you do with stuff like this fabric doodle, after it's served its main purpose?

Silly String Doodles And Digital Fabric Design

Are you feeling the need to shake things up a little at this point in the winter? I had one of those tired-of-gray days earlier this week, so I treated myself to a can of party string. It's less than the cost of a coffee shop beverage, has no calories, makes me smile, and was the source for this new fabric design.

Silly Billy Goats Gruff fabric by Donna Kallner on Spoonflower

Here's how I made it.

First, I shot the string on the snow out behind Bill's shop. Then I shot the string doodles with my digital camera set on its highest resolution. Later, when I opened this image in Gimp, what jumped out at me was the goat in the center. Excuse this small inside joke for the students from my 2011 Digital Fabric class at Sievers. Quoi avec Donna et les chèvres? D'abord la chèvre est dans le jardin, maintenant, elle les voit dans la chaîne de Silly. Temps pour le chocolat!

The goat was more clear after I desaturated the image and adjusted the brightness and contrast.

I cropped the goat element from the larger image...

... cleaned up the distracting bits...

... drew in some horns, a bell and some snacky flowers...

...and set up a seamless repeat pattern. I added a couple more elements to finish it off:

These clumps of grass, drawn with the wacom tablet, are from the doodle exercises I posted daily on my Facebook page during the month of December.

The color blocks were filled from a palette I made using the Copaso color tool on colourlovers.com, where I'm donnastitches. 

In the screen capture above, on the left is a photo I took of some hand-painted fabric in my studio. To make a digital palette from a photo, I upload it to Copaso and click on different parts of the image. On the right, notice the text values under the color chooser sliders? Those are color codes. I copy the HEX or RGB values into a New Palette in Gimp. Palettes are very useful when building digital fabric collections. My goal is to build about 30 limited-color palettes over the next month or so. I'm posting some of the palettes on my Facebook page, some are just going into Gimp. Wilbur, the Gimp mascot, is happy.

If you're looking for another way to use Silly String for a winter creativity boost, here's a post I wrote a couple of years ago.

So what do you do when you need to shake things up a little? I hope you'll share in the comments section below or on Facebook!

Long Live Picnik

Word has been spreading that Google is killing Picnik, the popular web-based image editor it acquired not that long ago. Rats, I thought, taking this personally. I don't really use Picnik all that often because it doesn't support layers (like Gimp). But Spoonflower has a convenient interface with Picnik. Has had, since we were still on dial-up. Picnik is super easy to use, and super easy to demonstrate. It's a gateway drug to Gimp and more serious Digital Fabric for some of my students. It's beloved by my Local Color classes.

So today I looked into the matter and found some of the Picnik features are being integrated into the "Creative Kit" on Google+. I've been dragging my heels on Google+, even though I use Blogger, Google Docs, and I don't know how many other Googlified thingies. But I did finally set up a Google+ profile the other day, so this morning I did a quick test.

The second image in this post is the original photo I used. The first image is what I did in Google+ with the selection of Picnik tools integrated into Creative Kit. Not everything made the move, but it's still pretty darn good.

I found an awesome mini-tutorial by Brenda Anderson for first-time Creativity Kit users. If like me, you're new to Google+, it's well worth your time.

As for Spoonflower, last I checked they hadn't decided what they're going to do for an interface. I'm sure they'll come up with something wonderful. But I bet it takes a whole lot of work, expense and stress on their part to "fix" something that was working so well.

Near Perfect Conditions

Lighting for videos and studio photography is a constant struggle for me. But this weekend we got lucky and had near-perfect conditions for photographing outside on Friday for a studio workshop. The day was cold, but the light was ideal. The rock-in-snow image above found its way into a painting demo.

Lynn  used fabric paint, markers and thread to transform an image she shot and printed in black-and-white.

We kept tabs on progress in Bill's rustic furniture shop through the weekend, and found this extension-cord doodle in the sawdust on the floor.

That image worked well for a demonstration of the Picnik/Spoonflower interface. I did a little extra work in Gimp and got this fabric design.

Click the link to see what it looks like as a repeating pattern. This design isn't for sale yet, but my Persimmon Pudding fabric is.

There are other things at the top of my to-do list today, so finishing the rock heart piece will have to wait. I might even get a picture then.

I hope you have near perfect conditions for whatever is on your to-do list this week!

Ornamental

Lately, my focus has been on preparations for holiday sales locally and in my Etsy shop. I still have a few more things to upload, but I took a little break to make some ornaments. The ornaments are a variation on the ones showed in this tutorial. I adapted an idea that came from this creativity warm-up (which resulted in this Spoonflower fabric).

Instead of old family photos or digital pics from my hoard of ornaments, I pulled out the play clay. I'm thinking this might be a fun project the kids could take part in.

It's really simple: You just roll the clay into ropes, and arrange the ropes into holiday shapes. I shaped my clay ropes on baking parchment paper, then took them outside and slid them off onto the fresh snow to photograph them with my digital camera.

I photographed several designs together, leaving a bit of space around each element. My equipment (which is nothing fancy), lets me remove the media card from my digital camera, plug it directly into my inkjet printer, select a photograph, and print it directly to inkjet fabric. Couldn't be simpler.

I brushed on a bit of fabric paint (see the tutorial) while the fabric was still stabilized by the carrier sheet. When the paint was dry, I peeled off the paper and layered the printed fabric with some craft felt I bought at a garage sale.

This one, sized to hold a gift card, is stitched together with two buttons and a jingle bell.

This one will be beaded all the way around, but it could also hold a gift card or small gift if you left it open at the top.

Part of my family's holiday tradition is getting a $5 permit from the National Forest Service and going out to cut a small Christmas tree. Our Charlie Brown release-cutting program opens up space for adjacent trees to grow stronger. The trees we get aren't sheared, groomed, perfect specimens. They won't support heavy ornaments, but these fabric ornaments work just fine. Or they will, in a couple of weeks. In our small living room, about 10 days with the tree up is plenty for us.

What do you think: Is this project something parents or grandparents would enjoy doing with kids?

Window Shopping

One of my favorite things to do when we visit friends in southern Iowa is to drive past an old garage in their small town (smaller even than our small town) and peek in the windows.

If you were to peek inside my windows right now, what you would see is a mess. In the push to finish products for holiday sales, well, you know what happens to horizontal surfaces.


Yesterday I pushed back the piles up by the window where I take photos. I needed shots of proofing swatches to post with the new designs for sale in my Spoonflower shop. If you click News in the left panel on Spoonflower now, you'll see the designer's fabric photos and pictures of products made from their fabrics.

 

Here's the fabric from the design I made with repperpatterns.com and talked about in this post.

Before the wave of debris rolled back into that area, I got some shots of willow-dyed scarves for my Etsy shop. I have the first few items posted now, and will be adding more as I get them photographed. It's gray and gloomy today with snow in the forecast. Snow cover actually makes it easier for me to photograph, so I'm all for it (with apologies to those out east who could have done without snow so early).

Our recent warm weather made holiday stuff that appeared in stores before Halloween, for Pete's sake, seem just wrong. But now, it feels like time for a little window shopping, some in town, some online.

But before I can wrap gifts, I'll have to move a pile of books off the table downstairs. That's a window I really don't want anyone to peek into.