Quilty Pleasures-Sewing Room Blues

The sun is thinking of peeking over the rimrock in the next half hour or so. In the distant mountains it's already there, and I'm drinking coffee in the sewing room, looking at a stack of miscellaneous fabric on the cutting table.

I should write a song called the Sewing Room Blues, about the mess, about all the fabric and so little time, about the many works in progress, the cat hair on the ironing board, the stacks of books on the floor and the dust bunnies scampering about underfoot.

I really need to deal with this. Yeah.

The fabric is stuff I pulled from the closet upstairs where I keep my stash along with some new purchases for projects that are just kind of dancing around at the periphery of my creative cortex. Is there a creative cortex? Hello, is it working?

The time spent in here lately has been used to finish the Los Muertos quilt which is now quilted. It needs a binding, so I must go "shopping" in the upstairs closet. The storekeeper should do a better job arranging her fabric, though. It's hard to find stuff!

I've also been spending time in here watching telly on the computer. I like Hulu's British comedy Rev. Usually British telly shows have their vicars working in bucolic country villages, but this one is set in the gritty inner city. So I get to see another side of England. Plus, it's funny and a bit raunchy, too.


Below is the fabric from the bottom of the stack, called Mod Garden by Michael Miller. I just had to have this because it would make an excellent focus fabric for something clean and modern.

So here's my question, folks: What should I make? Do you have any ideas? What fabrics to use with it? Any links to some cool photos? I think I need to abandon some works in progress to make a quilt with this fabric. I think it will help me get rid of the Quilting Blues!

Wish me luck tomorrow. I am going to be judging the quilts at a local county fair. It should be inspiring and motivating to be surrounded by a zillion quilts!

Santa Fe, NM, Spanish Market: Folk Artist Peter Ortega

Last weekend in Santa Fe was Spanish Market, a community and international event featuring Spanish Colonial Artforms: arts and crafts done in traditional style with painstaking detail. Actually, there are two Spanish Markets, the traditional one and its contemporary counterpart. Both are mind boggling, with over 350 artists along with music, food, dancing and hordes of local and international visitors.


One artist whose work blew me away was folk artist Peter Ortega who carves angels and saints, both large and small, out of wood.

Pete can make an Angel Gabriel from a dead tree branch.

I think this fisherman angel is San Pasqual, patron saint of cooks. 
(Edited 8/2 evening) Pete says this is Archangel Rafael, the healer. He adds, "San Pasqual also has fish but with bread and wine (for the cook):))"

 

I liked the little birds on this tree.

But my favorite was a St. Francis carving as tall as I. 

 

If our house were bigger, I'd buy St. Francis, for sure.

Looking at the ginormous volume of art at Spanish Market was like trying to drink from a fire hose. I couldn't take it all in properly, so you can bet I will be there next year.