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Tulips and a Turtle for the January Cure

Tulips with a Stratozpheric Turtle
Tulips with a Stratozpheric Turtle Suncatcher, $75.

The January Cure has come around again, and Stratoz and I are giving our house some attention.  Besides cleaning tasks, there is the task of buying flowers weekly, and the color is a lift in the winter.  Another task is to sit in a place you don’t usually sit, and observe the new view for 10 minutes.  Taking this photo I noticed that the turtle is swimming in blue water.  How did I not notice that before? How much of our homes do we actually see?  How much of our lives?

 

 

Choosing Your Word for 2016

Words of Inspiration by Nutmeg Designs
Words of Inspiration by Nutmeg Designs

 

What is your word for 2016? Nutmeg Designs has words. If your word is not there, just order the one with the same number of letters.  Leave us a note in the comments field of your order.  And if you want Times New Roman font like the ones above, let us know that too.  We always check in about colors and details before we begin.  In 6-8 weeks, we will send you a word to resonate for the rest of the year.

After creating a Create for a client the first week of the year, I chose Create as my word for 2016.  A reminder to go into the studio for rejuvenation.

Gifting the Gifter

Asymmetric Log Cabin Trivet in Moss, Coral and Sand by Margaret Almon. Glass on wood, 8 inches.
Asymmetric Log Cabin Trivet in Moss, Coral and Sand by Margaret Almon. Glass on wood, 8 inches, $76. SOLD.

 

One of the most rewarding aspects of creating art is having it become part of a family’s traditions.  In November, Nutmeg Designs received a message requesting a thoughtful commission.

. . .I am writing to you because the gifting of your beautiful your Mosaic Trivets have become a sweet and meaningful tradition in our family! My sister Lauren found your site, and commissioned a Log Cabin Mosaic Trivet for my wedding in our wedding colors, and just a few months ago did the same for my brother when he got married! So now she and her husband are the only ones without a trivet of their own, and I would love to gift them with one of your trivets for Christmas if that is possible. . .
A very grateful recipient of a Nutmeg gift

The brother requested his sister’s wedding colors and sent photos of the shades of moss green, coral orange and sand.  It was a delight to bring it full circle to Lauren, who ordered the first two trivets.  The first is below, in oranges and reds.

Asymmetric Log Cabin Trivet in Orange and Red by Margaret Almon. Glass on wood, 8 inches.
Asymmetric Log Cabin Trivet in Orange and Red by Margaret Almon. Glass on wood, 8 inches, $76. SOLD.

The second was in deep lovely blues and eggplant purple. 

 

You can commission your special gift here.

21 Days of Christmas: 21 Gifts

Log Cabin Quilt Trivet in Coral and Cream by Margaret Almon.
Log Cabin Quilt Trivet in Coral and Cream by Margaret Almon, glass on wood, 6×6 inches, $57. SOLD.

Stratoz created a festive 21 Days of Free Shipping on 21 of our creations.  Fortunately, some of them are orange, including one of my quilt inspired trivets, a jazz inspired suncatcher and a blue spiral through the orange desert in mandala form.  Click on any of these photos to go to the listing and order.  December 15th is the last day to participate in the free shipping.

Jazz Doodle by Wayne Stratz
Jazz Doodle Inspired by Marian McPartland, by Wayne Stratz, SOLD.

 

Blue Path Spiral by Margaret Almon
Blue Path Spiral by Margaret Almon. Glass on slate, 9 inches, $162 SOLD.

Creating an Oasis of Light and Color in the Winter: Wall of Lights

Wall of Lights 2015. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
Wall of Lights 2015. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

 

My Partner-in-Craft is taking good care of me as the days get shorter.  He set up the Wall of Lights, after much untangling.  The tradition started a few years back when we were too exhausted from doing craft shows every weekend to set up a Christmas tree, and instead Stratoz hung all the lights in between the living and dining room.  It was an infusion of color and light in the darkness and we leave it up until March.

 

Color and Quilts at the Michener with Kaffe Fassett Blanket Statements

Autumn Crosses by Kaffe Fassett
Autumn Crosses by Kaffe Fassett, constructed and quilted by Pauline Smith. James Michener Art Museum. Photo by Margaret Almon.

 

I went on an excursion in the rain to the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown to hear a talk by Kaffe Fassett about color.  The first book I owned about mosaic was by Kaffe Fassett, and I was drawn to his use of color.  Fassett has created art in many mediums from knitting, fabric design, quilting and mosaic.  Someone in the audience asked him if he had a favorite medium, and he said no, that it was all a vehicle for playing with color, that he calls his studio a color laboratory.  He sees color choices as an intuitive process, trying out different combinations of fabric on flannel “audition” boards until the colors vibrate or click.  Fasset’s first medium was painting and painted only in shades of white!  Another audience member asked if this was his preparation for moving to color, and he said yes, it was a kind of palate cleanser.

My first medium was collage, and color was my love.  A friend asked if I had thought of being a painter because of my use of color, and it hadn’t occurred to me.  I just wanted all the color.  Looking at my photo from my previous blog post, Verve Patchwork in Orange, I recognize both a kinship with quilts and with collage, particularly the wood collage from another exhibit at the Michener, Pattern Pieces.

Barn Raze by Laura Petrovich-Cheney
Barn Raze by Laura Petrovich-Cheney, salvaged barn wood, 30×30 inches(2012). James Michener Museum of Art. Photo by Margaret Almon.

 

Look at this quilt-like patchwork of  orange by New Jersey artist Laura Petrovich-Chaney.  She created a series of sculptures using wood salvaged from homes after Superstorm Sandy.  Watch this moving interview with Petrovich-Chaney on the Weather Channel about her project.

 

Verve Pendant in Orange and Coral by Margaret Almon
Verve Pendant in Orange and Coral by Margaret Almon, glass on copper 1.5 inches, SOLD.

For a winter infusion of color and joy, be sure to get to these exhibits.  The Fassett quilts are inspired by historical quilts and are laid side by side to see the new interpretation of amazing quilts from the past.  I had to detour myself around the gift shop, since there were many tempting books by Fassett as well as ribbon from collection with Brandon Mably and Kaffe Fassett Studio.  I was knitting while waiting for the lecture to start and the woman next to me said she wished they were selling yarn as well.  I would’ve bought yarn.

Brandon Mably introduced Kaffe at the beginning of the lecture and told us how he helped yarn store owners learn to pronounce his name, “You have a safe assett with Kaffe Fassett.”

November 14, 2015-February 21, 2016. Blanket Statements: New Quilts by Kaffe Fassett and Historical Quilts from the Collection of the Quilt Museum and Gallery, York, UK, James Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA.

October 30, 2015-January 31, 2016.  Pattern Pieces: Can You Make a Quilt Out of Wood?, James Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA.

The Impulse to Make Something Beautiful

Broken Dishes Quilt Block Trivet by Margaret Almon
Broken Dishes Quilt Block Trivet by Margaret Almon, glass on wood, 6×6 inches, $57.

No dishes were harmed in the making of this quilt block trivet.  Broken Dishes is one of my favorite quilt patterns, and I enjoy the fact that I use only glass tile in creating the design in mosaic.  There is a form of mosaic, Pique Assiette, that is made entirely from broken dishes.  Glass is my love.  The creative spirit incarnates in many different forms and mediums, and for a long time I thought I loved sewing, when in fact what I loved was fabric and pattern.

Adele Swensen Award for Excellence in Home Economics, 1982.
Adele Swensen Award for Excellence in Home Economics, 1982.

I keep this award for junior high Home Economics in my studio as a reminder of two things: 1)Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it and 2)Creative energies get shepherded into available enclosures. For awhile, somewhere between grade 8 and grade 9, I thought I wanted to be a Home Ec teacher. I’ve wondered who Adele Swensen was.  When I looked her up a blog post I’d written in 2007, on a long-forgotten blog, appeared.  I thought I would share some of it here:

I was the girl who had a talent for reading pattern instructions. I would read anything. Reading was my drug for the pain of junior high, and this compulsion came in handy in Home Ec. Most of the other girls didn’t read the instruction sheet, or didn’t understand it, and would ask the teacher what to do next. This puzzled me; asking a question was not something I ever considered. This is the irony that I became a Reference Librarian, without ever having asked a Librarian a question. I expected myself to know before knowing, to know everything in advance.

In Home Ec, the feeling of power that came from comprehending the instructions and answering other girls’ questions inspired me to tell my parents I wanted to become a Home Economics teacher. This was definitely “not to my potential.” Yes, one could major in Home Ec at the University, but there was an unspoken belief that cooking and sewing were not truly academic subjects, but women’s work.

The confounding factor was that sewing made me cry. All manner of emotional pain could not bring the tears, but a crooked seam, or a ratty looking bobbin thread could bring me to sobs. I loved the big pattern books on the tilted tables. I loved fabric, the texture and colors. I loved that weaves had names like herringbone, and that they were identifiable. I loved notions like zippers and buttons and thread. I loved the smell of sewing machine oil and the line drawings on newsprint illustrating each step of construction. But actual sewing tested my limits: I wanted it exactly right. I saw flaws that no one else did, which made me well acquainted with my seam ripper(which in spite of its association with imperfection, was still a lovely notion).

I felt I should want to to sew, that the Adele Swensen award meant something about my destiny. As an adult, I went through a time of wanting to make quilts, circling back to the sewing machine that tormented me. I finally had the revelation that I did not like sewing. I loved quilts, but to actually make one, no. Instead my husband decided he wanted to continue his grandmother’s legacy and learn to quilt and I gave him my sewing machine. His keen spatial abilities allowed him to align seams with precision.

That year I made Christmas cards in a log cabin quilt design with magazine papers in red and green, and it was a delight. And then when I started making mosaics, I made quilt designs in glass, and this was even more delightful!  This is what happens when you discover your medium. Not that I don’t ever get frustrated, but the joy outweighs it. The impulse to make something beautiful can be incarnated in many forms. *Women’s work* has  what beauty has arisen from it, needlework, sewing, quilting. A quilt is often the only legacy from women in our family histories,their biography in cloth, and I hope to write mine in glass.