a lovely cloudy day

I can't believe I am saying this. We FINALLY got some rain today. It is Spring in Memphis. Rain is a given, Beale Street Music Festival ALWAYS gets rained out. Why the change? What's up with the bluff city? Time and time again we watch the radar maps showing us storms travelling across the nation. They aim for memphis, they center around memphis and then they avoid memphis.

This little section on the spiral quilt is inspired by those clouds that pass in the day. I might add some lassos to tie them down. They are perfect for those little billowy areas created by the bias grain of this linen.

Paula Kovarik, 2012, clouds

lazygirl tool

So I needed to be able to draw a spiral on a big round tablecloth to begin the piece I am working on. Being quite lazy and unwilling to get out my geometry book I chose the easy way out. I tied a piece of cord around my spray starch can, attached that cord to a chalk marker and spiralled away. I experimented a little before I chose the starch can, tried a pencil (spiral too tight), a dye pot (spiral too loose) and ended up with the spray starch can (spiral just right). I taped the can to the middle of my piece, started the chalk marker cord stretched tight at the edge of the tablecloth and then just walked around the circle as the cord wound around the can. Voila! a Spiral!

Whew! That was a potential close encounter with my geometry book.

catalysts

My friend Jeanne Simpson has proposed a challenge for 2012. The idea is to create a piece that is 20" x 12" each week for a year. Each week has a theme. This week her theme is fractals which reminded me of an idea I had for this wonderful piece of fabric that Pat Pauly gave me a while back. This beautiful dyed piece looks like a series of moons each with a cloudy smearing that appeals to my imperfections. Phases of the moon can have such power (witness ocean waves), especially the full moon. So I look at it as a catalyst for ideas. Here, then, is Catalysts, a fractally motivated composition.

Catalysts, ©2012, Paula Kovarik

mending kit

The outside/inside the box exhibit, part of Fiber Philadelphia in March, gave away mending kits at the door. It seemed an interesting metaphor for all the pieces that had to do with human tragedy. So I took one home with me and used the thread and pieces within to create this linen napkin study. Its a gathering of thoughts, or a swirling of ideas. Just how I felt while visiting the galleries there.

©2012, Paula Kovarik. Mending kit.

heart centered

finally started the piece that has been pestering me in my head for a number of months. It will be a challenge because I am working on a 5 foot linen table cloth that bows and bends with the wind. May need extra tethers to tame it. And in my haste I started it without my trusty bamboo iron on batting so the billows are billowy. More hand basting necessary. But I'm not too worried, the hand basting may stay in because of the concept.

Stay tuned.

©2012, Paula Kovarik