Saturday, July 31, 2021
Musings: Art Outside the Box: Laughter for Drama Queens
11:14 PM | 
Posted by
Ellen Anne Eddy |
Now Margaret Eddy was the queen of all stories. And a serious fan of silly. She told amazing whoppers, one-liners, true tales spun into gold from straw, hopeless lies and astonishing steaming piles. She loved her drama. She had a somewhat loose relationship to truth. She was a devastating school teacher, because much of that could indeed come out in a teacher conference meeting or a family reunion. But she had a special gift for looking within and without. First she's build you a verbal image of herself as she felt about the story. But then she'd draw you into an outer view, where you could see her spinning in what she knew was a silly situation, build for howling laughter.
It happens to me in my quilts. I'm quilting along and I realize that this silly thing I've drafted is someone I know. Or worse, me. There with all my rather small fears and desires. I'm not overly deep. I'm just noisy. At that point, it seems just to the point to let it be silly. I am. It is. And the world is better for it.
This quilt, The Orchid Olympics, wasn't meant to be funny. It just happened. I'd found a great picture of a frog in an odd pose and worked with it. One afternoon in a class demo, I was placing it into the piece and trying to put a sun over his head. It wouldn't go. It just wouldn't go. Not over. Not to the side.
I looked again at the frog and thought, "If you get into that pose, it has to be for something like the Olympics. No one would willingly bend like that otherwise." The sun fell into her hand like an award and there we were.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all. But I try never to tell a story on myself until I've found the funny part. Perhaps it helps to be short, round and have a pug nose. My gray hair also makes any silliness forgivable.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Moving Day
No one ever believes
I'm organized.
That may because I'm
not.
I live simply in howling
chaos.
I also know where
mostly everything is.
Unless it's my camera, my scissors,
my glasses, or perhaps my wallet.
Perhaps you can see the hole in that
theory. I'm trying to be organized and
that may well be the best we can do.
With that in mind, I'm moving my blog
over to my web
page at www.ellenanneeddy.com. It's
easier for you to find and easier for me
to share with you.
Look for all my past blog posts, on the new site at www.ellenanneeddy.com
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Practical Thread Magic: Building Beautiful Color
Working with thread is so different. The machine work lays one line of thread next to each other. Our eyes mix the colors together, but they stay separate, clean, clear and beautiful.
Why so many? Because real tulips have multiple streaks of red, orange and yellow. That large range of colors lets me shade from side to side, giving my flower real depth and detail.
Here are some of the process shots.
One layer of zigzag stitching after another builds us to a flower with dimension and full color range.
Want learn more about building flower colors in thread?
Thread Magic Garden has a whole chapter on color theory for flowers. Why?
Flowers ARE color. It's what it's all about.
Thread Magic Garden is available for sale now on Ellen's web page at www.ellenanneeddy.com
Friday, January 6, 2012
Bad Raps, and Bad Wraps
I grew up reading the Jungle Books by Kipling, so I've always loved wolves. The wolves take this baby in and raise him as one of their cubs. Like most adoptive processes, there's a bit of cognitive dissonance about the whole thing. He doesn't fit in well.
So this video touched me. It's about perception and reality. For all of her obvious concern when she sees the wolves, they scatter when she says "Git!" The wolves are not evil. They're just wolves.
This last year I've been working on the issue of bullies. I really don't want to go to my grave grieving over things that happened when I was seven. And like all really good emotional issues, the opportunities come back again and again until I can find better solutions. There's two schools of though on this. "Oh no! Not another learning experience!" And, "There you are again!"Bullies function on a wolf perception.Someone has to be perceived either as a wolf to be driven away or a wolf who will probably eat you. Like most binary systems, it has some serious limits.
It occurs to me that two things have to happen to create a wolf perception. We have to give someone a bad rap. We give ourselves reasons why they've done what they've done. Maybe it's true. Often enough, that's a fantasy too. We just convince ourselves of their bad action and intent.
And then we dress them as villains. Give them a bad wrap to wear: a black hat, a swirling evil cloak, an evil glint to their eye.
I've had it happen to me as well. I've had people hand me my black cloak and hat and tell me why I'm a danger.
It's not that I believe there is no evil in the world. It's there. Nor do I believe it my job to change people's choices. I wouldn't take someone's path away from them like that. If we don't walk our path as best we can, we won't learn from it.
But after years of dressing people in bad wraps and giving them bad raps and being dressed in the same, it occurs to me that they might just scatter if I said, "Git!" My perception is power I give or take, all by myself.
You'll find the Jungle Book at Amazon.com. Skip the Disney copies. They're cute but a completely different story.
You'll find people who want to dress up in funny black cloaks and be icky and people who want to dress you too in all kinds of odd places. I hope you can say "Git!" to them too.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Find the Flakes
I just posted up my three winter ones. We're calling it the Snow Flake price because I really flaked out on it.
Here's a secret: They're all in the new Thread Magic Garden Book.
See if you can find them! They're at
www.ellenanneeddy.com
Thread Magic Studio Gallery
Monday, January 2, 2012
Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Theater
I was wandering around on the web today and found this great segment that AQS taped for me at the Des Moines Show this Fall.
This is a very nice tutorial for making flowers out of simple shapes. They taped this the last day of the show. I ran in and babbled like a brook.
But I found it and listened to it today. I didn't ummm. And it felt as good to listen to it as to do it.
Build some cool flowers. For heaven's sake leave the patterns out. Build something wild, while you're under the gun. It is, after all, time honored.
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embroidery,
fiber art,
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Thread Magic Garden Is Ready for Pre-order!
Thread Magic Garden will be arriving for shipment around January 20th. You can pre-order your copy today!
You never really know what a project will take until you see it done. Perhaps that's good. A good dream well done should take your whole heart's effort and give you your heart back in return.
When I started this book, I had no idea it would take 2 years to finish. Part of that is that I had to learn so much to do this book. Part of that is the meticulous process C&T puts into every book. I got my premier copy a week ago.I'm still scraping myself off the ceiling. It's past my expectations. I'm hoping you'll feel that way too.
When I started this book, I wanted to continue what I'd accomplished with Thread Magic. I wanted to show folk ways of adding wild free motion to quilts that set things hearts and imaginations on fire. I wanted to set up instructions that would take you through your own process with this. You'll have to let me know how I've done when you read the book.
But for those of you who've known me in class or in print, you know I don't give recipes for cakes that don't rise. I tell you everything I know. I also don't do anything really hard. I just do things that are time consuming and compulsive.
So here is what we have.
- Fifty eye popping new quilts in the gallery
- A patternless approach to design
- Intuitive applique that makes creating flowers easy and fun
- Color theory for flowers
- Corded buttonhole binding
- Angelina Fiber
- 6 Free motion zigzag stitches
- Machine Beading
- Globbing
- Sandwich stabilizing
You can pre-order your copy of Thread Magic Garden at
www.ellenanneeddy.com
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Quiltposium, Fall2011
Ellen's New Article, Dance of Design
Essential Embroidery Stitches: Free Hand and Machine Embroidery Designs and Techniques.
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The Butterfly Effect
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