What I’ve Been Up To

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here. 

First, I saw Avatar and absolutely loved that movie.  I do not understand why some reviewers say it’s heavy handed about the environment and anti-American.  Most of us are trying to recycle, not waste energy and do as little damage as possible to our ecosystem.  Hurrah for the movie promoting that idea.

As for the enemy in this movie?  It is a nameless corporation who has invaded a new world and hired ex-military to forcibly move the indigenous society because they want the metal under their home.  Now come on.  Big business doesn’t give a rat’s *ss about anybody but their profits.  It was real easy to embrace disliking the invading force.

I was mesmorized by the sheer beauty of this film, and came away inspired by the colors, and the special effects.  The pleated spiral flowers that closed when touched reminded me so much of Fortuny pleats.  What can I say?  I relate everything I see to textiles.

And since I’ve been exercising regularly, when Neytiri jumped on her banshee and launched into the sky, I almost cried.  It was a breathtaking melding of her muscles and mind with the flying banshee.  What can I say?  I enter into movies heart and soul.  I give it 2 thumbs up and wish I had more thumbs to raise for this terrific movie.

At the same time, I’m busily working on completing 2 crib quilts with another on the drawing board. The first 2 quilts will be a gift to my physical therapist and his wife.  They recently had twins, and here is the first one:

The second one is similar with the name in a different rayon thread color and the roses a warmer palette.  Brooke is a blonde (cooler based colored quilt) and Angela is a brunette, so she’ll receive the warmer color palette quilt. 

Here’s a close-up of one of the roses:

If you click on the photo it will enlarge for you, and you might be able to see the cat in the middle of that rose. 

I did a lot of fancy quilting on this and it didn’t show at all, so out came my paints.  The leaves were quilted with variegated Sulky 12wt cotton thread.  I adore this thread.  It is a heavier thread and outlines a quilted design beautifully and stitches well on my sewing machine with a top stitch needle.  It’s also great for tatting.

But back to the paints.  The first layer was a mixture of 3 different Dyna-Flo paints and one Golden paint.  It dried and was a bit too light, so I mixed 2 other different colors and used a lot of extender to create a light color wash.  It came out exactly how I wanted.

Hugs…