In this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast, Tim and Jamie talk about Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Leicester at the King Power. Tim and Jamie discuss a rotated starting line-up, how much the packed early season schedule contributed to a leggy performance, whether the game can be taken in isolation or whether concerns about the attack in particular persist and the performances of Daphne van Domselaar, Alessia Russo, the midfield partnership of Lia Walti and Kyra Cooney-Cross, defensive injuries and a lack of creativity without Mariona and Kafaji starting the game.

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In this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast Tim and Jamie pore over the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday and try to dissect how to separate this result and performance from the wider funk that Arsenal seem to be in. Did Arsenal just 'get varianced'? And is it possible to separate that from the wider malaise? Tim and Jamie talk about the defending on the goals conceded and whether a lack of confidence in attack had an impact on the result with more than one proven player low on confidence. In the second half, Tim and Jamie deal with listener questions on Rosa Kafaji and the lack of integration for young players, on Clare Wheatley's role and whether more communication from 'upstairs' is needed at the club and on the delicate balance between rotation and trying and failing to find partnerships that work.

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In this emergency episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast, Tim and Jamie run the rule over the resignation of Jonas Eidevall as the Head Coach of Arsenal Women. Tim talks a little bit about how Arseblog News became aware of and were able to (just about) break the story on Tuesday morning. Then Tim and Jamie analyse where things went wrong, how the situation took a serious turn in the last week, why it didn't quite click the way the club and Jonas wanted it to and looked ahead to how Arsenal might succession plan for his departure. Tim and Jamie then each share one high point from Eidevall's reign.

 

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In this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast, Tim and Jamie comb through the 2-0 victory at West Ham. Tim and Jamie look at Arsenal's tactical approach and selection and some of the issues with chance creation rearing their head again, question how much has changed and how much change we could expect from Renee Slegers' interim charge and look at the impact of the quadruple substitution early in the second half. In the second half, Tim and Jamie take your questions on the midfield, whether Kafaji should have an increased role now, Steph Catley at centre-back, the goalkeeper situation, whether Arsenal need a 'clean break' with a new manager ASAP and then Tim and Jamie consider Manu Zinsberger's recent LinkedIn post and consider the lines between criticism and abuse.

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In this episode we look back at Sunday's 2-2 draw against Liverpool. We chat about the impact on Bukayo Saka on his return to the team, with an outstanding goal, and Arsenal's response to the Liverpool equaliser. Mikel Merino gave us a deserved lead at the break, but in the second half the performance levels dropped a bit so we analyse the reasons for that, key of which was the loss of Gabriel, as well as finishing the game with a very makeshift back-four. We also discuss the second Liverpool goal, some of the officiating decisions, and how to view the result in the context of the season so far. Then there are questions about what kind of team to pick for the Carabao Cup, media narratives, the framing of Mikel Arteta's style as a manager, and lots more.

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On this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast, Tim and Jamie discuss the frustrating 1-1 draw with Manchester United. Tim and Jamie comb over the performance, the encouraging display of Alessia Russo but the irritation at again seeing Arsenal struggle to convert dominance into goals and ask whether there are any green shoots here. They also discuss Arsenal's lack of aerial prowess in defence and whether it can be fixed by any other means than the transfer market. As ever, in part 2 Tim and Jamie take listener questions on the attacking issues, whether the Russo / Stina split works, the relationship between the attackers, the lack of goal celebrations and the new manager search.

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In this episode of the Arsenal Women Arsecast, Tim and Jamie dissect the 5-0 win over Brighton at Emirates Stadium on Friday evening. Tim and Jamie consider how far this was a vintage Arsenal performance and a bad Brighton one, whether trademark goals from Mead, Foord, Maanum and Hurtig suggest that Arsenal are back in the swing of things attacking wise and they consider Renee Slegers' willingness to make early substitutions. In the second half, they take listener questions on the new manager search, the decision to switch the Bayern Munich UWCL game away from the Emirates, the future of the midfield and a team featuring players who were largely signed several years ago.

 

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The discovery of an impeccably preserved Celtic burial chamber in southern Germany is a "stroke of luck for archaeology," scientists say.

The clonal quaking aspen known as Pando is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old.

The Leonid meteor shower peaks in North America overnight from Nov. 17 to 18, with fast-moving fireballs possible in US skies.

An artist's rendering of a black hole

Google has warned that a security flaw impacting its Android operating system has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-43093, has been described as a privilege escalation flaw in the Android Framework component that could result in unauthorized access to "Android/data," "Android/obb," and "Android/sandbox" directories, and their respective

Over 1,500 Android devices have been infected by a new strain of Android banking malware called ToxicPanda that allows threat actors to conduct fraudulent banking transactions. "ToxicPanda's main goal is to initiate money transfers from compromised devices via account takeover (ATO) using a well-known technique called on-device fraud (ODF)," Cleafy researchers Michele Roviello, Alessandro Strino

Budget season is upon us, and everyone in your organization is vying for their slice of the pie. Every year, every department has a pet project that they present as absolutely essential to profitability, business continuity, and quite possibly the future of humanity itself. And no doubt that some of these actually may be mission critical. But as cybersecurity professionals, we understand that

Defending your organization’s security is like fortifying a castle—you need to understand where attackers will strike and how they’ll try to breach your walls. And hackers are always searching for weaknesses, whether it’s a lax password policy or a forgotten backdoor. To build a stronger defense, you must think like a hacker and anticipate their moves. Read on to learn more about hackers'

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that two security flaws impacting Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) and Task Scheduler have come under active exploitation in the wild. The security vulnerabilities are among the 90 security bugs the tech giant addressed as part of its Patch Tuesday update for November 2024. Of the 90 flaws, four are rated Critical, 85 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in

TJ Klune's Somewhere Beyond the Sea is down four positions, ending the week at number 5. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Abigail Owen's The Games Gods Play is down one spot, finishing the week at number 6. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Rebecca Yarros' Iron Flame is down one position, ending the week at number 9. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing is down four positions, ending the week at number 15. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

In paperback:

Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing debuts at number 1. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses is up one position, ending the week at number 3. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Mist and Fury is up five positions, ending the week at number 7. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Stephen King's Holly is down four spots, finishing the week at number 15. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Rebecca Yarros' Iron Flame is up three positions, ending the week at number 6. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

TJ Klune's Somewhere Beyond the Sea is down three positions, ending the week at number 8. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Abigail Owen's The Games Gods Play is down five spots, finishing the week at number 11. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

In paperback:

Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing mtaintains its position at number 1. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses maintains its position at number 3. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Mist and Fury is down four positions, ending the week at number 11. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Raven Kennedy's Goldfinch debuts at number 14. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Stephen King's Holly maintains its position at number 15. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

The post Russian Penitentiary System of the 90s: Two Photo Projects From Foreign Authors appeared first on English Russia.

The post 1980-1990s in Uzbekistan appeared first on English Russia.

The post Beauties of the 1950s – 1970s appeared first on English Russia.

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November's nycdevops meetup speaker is John Allspaw, who will give a talk titled "Findings From the Field: 2 Years of Learning From Incidents".

The talk starts at 5pm sharp! (NY is in US/Eastern)

Please RSVP! See you there!

https://www.meetup.com/nycdevops/events/273826675/

(This is a virtual meetup. Everyone in the world is invited!)

Don't forget!

November's nycdevops meetup speaker is John Allspaw, who will give a talk titled "Findings From the Field: 2 Years of Learning From Incidents".

The talk starts at 5pm sharp! (NY is in US/Eastern)

Please RSVP! See you there!

https://www.meetup.com/nycdevops/events/273826675/

(This is a virtual meetup. Everyone in the world is invited!)

The Usenix LISA conference is no more. After 35 years, I have a lot of good (and some not good) memories of the conference. It was a big part of my career and I'm sad to see it go. However I'm proud of what LISA accomplished.

I wrote my personal reflections on the conference in a new article published on the Usenix website. Warning: this article includes some over-sharing.

Read it here: LISA made LISA obsolete (That's a compliment!)

B3ta newsletter 929, out now "ONCE AGAIN THE HAM MARKETING BOARD REJECT OUR SLOGAN: SNORTY BUT SLICED" This Week: * LOST CONSONANTS - legendary B3ta challenge back * PRIME NUMBER PROJECT - can you count? Then count * OFFICIAL AMSTRAD NOSTALGIA SITE - thanks Alan

Amichai Feit had known Seema Jayachandran as a Twitter-famous development economist.  She became Feit’s senior thesis advisor for a policy-analysis project that included economic field research in India.

Princeton's 'extremely supportive' environment for new ideas laid the foundation for an aha moment about a toggle switch in the fruit fly brain. Do humans have one, too? 

Professor Wendy Laura Belcher and a primarily Ethiopian team of researchers and translators have brought new insight and access to Marian miracle stories — all now available on a website.

Events this fall include a sold-out conversation with Icelandic-Chinese recording artist Laufey.

Physical chemist Giacinto Scoles, Princeton’s Donner Professor of Science, Emeritus, died in Sassenheim, the Netherlands, on Sept. 25 with his wife of nearly 60 years at his side. He was 89.

Voting registration rates among Princeton undergraduate and graduate students have more than doubled largely thanks to the program.

I. AO3 TERMS OF SERVICE UPDATE

Policy & Abuse, Legal, and Accessibility, Design & Technology have been hard at work regarding an update to the AO3 Terms of Service. Among other things, this update involves clarifying wording in both the Content Policy and the "Underage" Archive Warning. This update will not affect what fanworks are allowed or not on AO3, nor will it affect how this Archive Warning is enforced.

In conjunction with Communications, a public call for feedback was posted and comments will be accepted until November 18. Please refer to the news post and Policy & Abuse's proposed changes for more detail.

II. OCTOBER MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

Development & Membership worked with Communications to announce the October membership drive! With the help of Translation, the news posts were translated into 28 languages. Finance also posted the 2024 Budget Update in anticipation of the membership drive.

The October membership drive raised almost $215,000 USD from 6,995 donors, 6,020 of whom chose to be members! Development & Membership is now verifying addresses, packaging premiums, and heading to local post offices with the help of their new regional shipping specialists.

III. ELSEWHERE AT THE AO3

In September, Support and Systems were handling issues related to downtime and site slowness. Systems has posted a post-mortem of events and analysis on their official AO3 account, which details the causes and effects of some of the issues.

Due to downtime and other factors, Support received 4,151 tickets in September, around double their usual monthly count. They ask for your patience as they work through the high volume of tickets.

Policy & Abuse received 2,264 tickets in September. They also have an incoming class of new volunteers and look forward to training them.

Also in September, Tag Wrangling volunteers wrangled over 430,000 tags, which amounts to over 1,000 tags per tag wrangler. They also finished their last recruitment round of the year and began inducting their latest batch of volunteers.

Open Doors announced the import of older works from due South Seekrit Santa, an exchange devoted to the Canadian television series due South. They also finished the last details from the West of the Moon archive import, an archive for hobbit-centric gen fanworks. They continue to work on other import projects and documentation for the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project.

IV. VARIOUS OTW ACTIVITY

Communications is happy to see their email delivery service has been steadily gaining followers since its launch. The service recently passed 1,000 subscribers and now has about 1,100 subscribers!

Fanlore ran a Video Game-themed month in October! You can check out featured articles on their Tumblr.

Development & Membership's convention outreach division organized a table for Confabulation Fan Convention at Chicago, USA. OTW volunteers had a blast talking about their experience volunteering, fan vidding, and exploring world landmarks!

Legal has responded to a number of user queries this month, including queries about YouTube counter-notices, shadowcasting, UK legislation, and academic research on fandom. They also dealt with some apps that are confusing users into believing they’re associated with the AO3.

TWC has been preparing two special issues: Centering Blackness in Fan Studies and Sports Fandoms to be released in the coming months.

V. GOVERNANCE

Board and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organized Board's fourth quarter public meeting on September 29. They had 55 attendees and answered 9 questions. The official minutes for this meeting were voted on and published on the OTW website.

Official Board turnover happened on October 1, and incoming Board members are getting settled in.

Board and BAT have been participating in several projects and policies related to the OTW Organizational Culture Roadmap. BAT has also been working on procurement documentation, OTW website updates, and various cross-committee tasks. They’ve been assisting the Board on several ongoing projects, including Whistleblower Policy FAQ documentation and responding to external questions directed at the Board.

Strategic Planning is working on compiling internal sustainability plans from all committees as part of the plan’s internal sustainability goal. They're also reaching out to the committees responsible for the Paid Staff goal as those implementation goal dates approach.

VI. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEEPS

Volunteers & Recruiting has been hard at work training their new recruits and getting them settled in, saying farewell to one of their chairs, Cyn, and welcoming Eevee as the new co-chair. They also conducted recruitment for 3 committees in October: AO3 Documentation, Elections, and Fanlore.

From September 22 to October 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 149 new requests and completed 135, leaving them with 62 open requests. As of October 22, 2024, the OTW has 924 volunteers. o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.

New Committee Chairs: Eevee (Volunteers & Recruiting)
New Communications Volunteers: 1 TikTok Team Lead
New Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Shipping Specialist
New Fanlore Volunteers: 3 Discord Moderators
New Open Doors Volunteers: Brianna Dardin (Senior Technical Volunteer) and 1 Administrative Support Volunteer
New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: Emka, iwasnttrainedforthis, megidola, Trinity, and 3 other Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: AnneHelena, Aquiles T. M., hans, Helpi K, Jaya, Luki, tritongue, and 2 other Translators
New Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Alisande and 1 other Volunteer

Departing Directors: Kari Dayton and Michelle Schroeder
Departing Committee Chairs: Cyn (Volunteers & Recruiting)
Departing Board Assistant Team Volunteers: 1 Volunteer
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer and 1 Graphics Designer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: SonoSvegliato (Import Assistant), Brianna Dardin and 2 other Technical Volunteers; 1 Administrative Volunteer
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: Arly Guevara
Departing Tag Wrangler Volunteers: Eevee (Supervisor role only), Lysippe, and 7 other Tag Wranglers
Departing Translation Volunteers: Elintiriel (Volunteer Manager role only) and 1 other Volunteer Manager; Nachali, Parul Hunnargikar, Summerfanreader, and 4 other Translators

For more information about the purview of our committees, please access the committee listing on our website.

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The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

As followers may recall, I started hand stitching hexies for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt in March, 2012... three years ago. Watching my friend, Christy, basting sweet, reproduction fabrics around paper forms, making little stacks of 3/4-inch hexagons, I just couldn't resist! These Beadlust posts show the various steps to making the quilt top and the start of  hand-quilting in more detail than this post.

Although I'm still hand-quilting, the end is in sight now. I'm hoping to finish in time for our County Fair in August.

In this post, I thought it might interest you to look at how much time it takes to complete each of the steps in hand piecing and quilting a 3/4" hexie quilt, and the total number of hours involved. I'm basing time estimates for all of the repetitive steps on how long it takes me to do a large number in one sitting, after having practiced... in other words, at my best speed.

Step 1 - Planning the Quilt and Getting Fabrics - time: 20 hours

I decided to make a version of the traditional 1930's Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that is less common than the one with a path or ring around each of the flowers. I chose this design. Note the green hexie leaves, which form a vertical-horizontal grid.


The final size is 72 x 92 inches, a comfortable size for a twin bed, a total of 4,694 hexies. I wanted to use as many different fabrics in this quilt as possible.

• flowers = 280 different print fabrics with any background color except green or white.
• leaves = 150 different print fabrics in green
• flower centers (repeats OK) = 25 different solids
• double border = 1 print + 1 solid

Although I had collected 30's reproduction fabrics for a few years, I certainly needed more. From a selection of fabrics given to me, fabrics purchased in an eBay auction, and my stash, I found enough to make each of the flowers unique. Although there were not enough greens to make the leaves unique, I had about 60 different green prints, such that each is not repeated more than 3 times in the quilt. So, in the end the quilt includes more than 360 unique fabrics!

Step 2 - Wash and Iron all of the Fabrics - time: 15 hours

Yikes! A few of the fabrics I wanted to use were already washed; most were not. Knowing it should be consistent, and worrying that the reds might bleed, I decided to pre-wash and iron all of the fabrics. Doing this step in stages, as I acquired fabrics, I'm not really sure how long it took, perhaps quite a bit more than the above estimate.

Step 3 - Cutting and Trimming all of the Hexies - time: 28 hours

For each of the  4,694 hexies, I cut a 2" square of fabric, and trimmed off the four corners. Of course, I cut and trimmed in multiples, except for a few that I fussy cut individually. Again, since I did this step in stages, the above time estimate is a bit rough.

Step 4 - Basting the Fabric to the Paper Hexie Forms - time: 235 hours

Once I learned that using YLI quilting thread for basting makes it go much faster than using regular sewing thread, I was able to baste 20 hexies per hour.

Step 5 - Stitching Hexies Together to Make Flowers - time: 105 hours

Averaging 2.5 complete flowers per hour, it took me about two and a half 40-hour-work-weeks to whip-stitch all 238 full and 42 partial flowers. There are 14-17 whip-stitches per 3/4 inch seam.

Step 6 - Stitching a White Hexie Ring Around 130 of the Flowers - time: 130 hours

On average, it takes me 1 hour to whip-stitch 12 white hexies around each flower.

Step 7 - Layout Flowers for Quilt Top; Note Position on Each - time: 4 hours

I didn't fuss too much about the layout, spreading out the flowers randomly, making sure the red ones were evenly spaced, and that no areas were overly dominated by one color. Assigning each row a letter and each position within the row a number, I marked each flower on the back (writing on the center paper piece).

Step 7a - Half Flowers and Double Border All Around - time 90 hours

This is an update, added Feb. 2018. (I can't believe I forgot this important step when writing the original time line.) To make 42 partial flowers to fill in the gaps around the edges of the top, I cut fabrics, basted hexies, joined petals, and then stitched the partials into the gaps. To make the outer border, I made 522 individual hexies, stitched them into rows, and then stitched the rows onto the top.

Step 8 - Sew Flowers into Small Groups - time: 90 hours

To assemble the quilt top, I grouped 8-12 flowers, and whip-stitched them into a solid piece. There were 30 pieces, which took about 3 hours each to complete.

Step 9 - Sew Small Groups Together to Complete Quilt Top - time: 123 hours

I first sewed the small groups into rows, then stitched the rows together. As the sections got larger, the stitching took longer, making it difficult to estimate the time with total accuracy. I did a couple of time tests at different stages of the process in order to figure the above total. I completed this step on March 1st, 2013, one year after basting the first hexie.

Step 10 - Iron/Starch Top, Remove Papers and Basting Stitches - time: 33 hours

Removing all the basting stitches and papers took a lot longer than I would have guessed. But when I look at the pile of basting threads, it begins to make sense.

Step 11 - Assemble Quilt Layers, and Baste - time: 12 hours

Christy and Lunnette helped me layout the back, batting, and top on the floor; then baste in a 4 inch grid. I think we pinned it first, then basted, then removed the pins. On our knees for most of the time, it sure was wonderful to have their help!

Step 10 - Quilt and Embroider the Flower Centers - time: 70 hours

Choosing a floss in a similar color to each flower center, I embroidered a flower. Intentionally, some of the stitches act as quilting stitches, while others slip between the layers and don't show on the back. Around the edges of the quilt, it took about 15 minutes per flower center. Toward the middle of the quilt, it took about 20 minutes per flower center.

Step 11 - Quilt Flower Petals - time: 106 hours

Quilting around the petals of each flower requires turning the quilt 270 degrees for each petal, which is why it takes at least 20 minutes per flower, longer toward the middle of the quilt when the whole weight of the quilt must be constantly shifted. There are 238 whole and 42 partial flowers. I'm figuring an average of 25 minutes per whole and 10 minutes per partial flower.

Step 12 - Quilt Around White Rings - time: 65 hours

Like quilting the flower petals, quilting around the outside edge of each of the 130 white rings requires turning the whole quilt as I work, which adds a lot to the time it takes. I believe quilting the entire top in a diagonal grid of straight lines would take about half the time it takes to follow the curved, zig-zagging path of the hexie flowers, leaves, and rings.

Step 13 - Quilt Around Each of the Leaves - time: 79 hours

Not only does this step require turning the quilt as I stitch 360 degrees around each leaf, it also requires knotting and burying the tail at the start and finish of each leaf. Also I'm changing color of thread to more or less match the fabric color for each set of 4 leaves. Around the edge, it takes about 9 minutes per leaf; toward the center 11 minutes per leaf. There are 474 leaves total, at an average of 10 minutes/leaf.

Step 14 - Assemble Hexies for the Border Facing - time: 37 hours

To face the double (print + blue) border on the back of the quilt requires 522 hexies. To sew them together, forming the border strips, takes about 1 hour per 14 hexies.

Step 15 - Trim Backing and Batting; Blind-stitch Facing to Border - time: 13 hours

There are 264 hexies around the outside edge of the quilt top. Since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate (blind-stitching 20 hexies together per hour) is somewhat rough.

Step 16 - Remove Paper Pieces and Basting from Border and Facing - time: 10 hours

Again, since I have not done this step yet, the time estimate is based on the time it took to remove paper pieces and basting threads from the quilt top.

Step 17 - Blind-stitch Facing to Quilt Back - time: 13 hours

Step 18 - Quilt Around Print Fabric Border - time: 13 hours

Step 19 - Blanket Stitch Around Outside Edge of Quilt - time: 10 hours

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Total Time to Complete Hand-Piecing the Quilt Top: 873 hours

This is equivalent to nearly 20 weeks or 5 months on a 40 hours/week job. It took me a year. Mostly the time flew by as I basted and hand-stitched the little hexies together. Always there was a new print to enjoy, a new stack mounting in size to admire, a growing quilt top to thrill me.

Total Time to Complete Hand-Quilting: 428 hours

Since this job isn't completed yet, the time is only a rough estimate, based on the times it took to do some of the already completed steps. In all, hand quilting will take the equivalent to 10 or 11 weeks of full-time work. I find the quilting rather very boring. After taking a break for more than a year, I started working on it again and hope to be finished by August this year. Audio books are the answer to the tedium for me.

Total Time, Start to Finish: 1,301 hours

With Steps15-19 still to complete, the total is a rough estimate. Still, it is obvious that making a quilt like this, start to finish, requires more than 1,300 hours or the equivalent of over 8 months of full time work. If I were to be paid only minimum wages (2015, Seattle, WA - $11/hr.), the cost of the quilt would be $14,311 + about $500 in materials, or a total of $14,800.  Good thing I intend to keep and use it myself!

UPDATE, July 4, 2016

By June, 2015, I completely finished one corner, an area big enough to photograph so I could submit an entry form to the 2015 La Conner Quilt Festival, sponsored by the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. On August 7th, 2015, I received notice that it was juried into the show. Wow! That sent me into high gear for sure. After working non-stop, 7 days a week, and an average of 10 hours per day, I inserted my needle into that quilt for the last/final time on Aug. 24th, 2015, just days before delivering it to the museum. It took me 3 years and 3 months, start to finish!


I was surprised, honored, and incredibly pleased to find out it won the Curator's Award of Excellence, one of the top awards, which then qualified it to be shown at the museum for the month following the Festival. Note, the finished size is 71 x 93 inches, and there are 4,700 individual hexagons in it.


Big work for both hands, but sooooo satisfying!


In fact it was so satisfying that I've started another hexie quilt... Can you believe it? So far, I've made 733 hexie flowers for it! Although they are the same size hexies, there are no reproduction fabrics and the arrangement will be anything but traditional. Don't know why I love the hexagon shape so much... but it's certain that I do.

The quilting community is awesomely generous!!!  Thanks to all who have sent me scraps for making hexie flowers:


I really understand and appreciate that it takes time to sort through your scraps, selecting some that you feel might work for me, packing them to send, getting them to the post office. In some cases, you even took time to cut them into 2" squares for me... WOW! Bless your hearts!

The most interesting thing is that all the fabrics I've received so far are ones I might have picked myself, yet so far there are no duplicates. As of Oct. 19th, I have cut petal sets for about 650 flowers (from my own scraps and fat quarter stash, as well as scraps I've received from other quilters), all of them unique! That's about 90% of what I need to make the quilt, and certainly enough to keep me busy for a looooooong time. It will probably take me a year or so to baste and stitch all of the flowers, although I admit to going at it with a lot of gusto.

I learned to create decorative painted papers from Paulus Berensohn, Albie Smith, Lynne Perrella, Anne Bagby, and others by taking wonderful workshops from them in the 1990s, and soon adapted their techniques to making books with beadwork inserted into the covers, like the one below. I use my painted papers on the book covers and for signature covers, which look great with this type of binding.

But after moving to the island where I've lived for 20 years now, I gradually got into quilting and textile arts, kept the beadwork going, and cut way back on painting. Until now!

Inspired, cajoled, and arm-twisted by one of the Textile Guild members, who wants to learn how to paint papers and make books like mine, I agreed to teach a workshop (2 days of painting and 2 days of bookmaking) for the guild members. Of course, since I hadn't painted for many years, I first had to get back into practice. Yay! What fun I've been having, painting in my shed (thankfully heated). The paper below is my favorite of about 20 painted in the last two weeks. The size is 18 x 24 inches. (Please click to see the details!)

And below are two more to go with it.  The paper above will be used for a book cover, even though it will be hard for me to cut it up. The two papers below will be cut (horizontally) into thirds, and used as signature covers. For those unfamiliar with bookmaking, a signature is a section of papers within a book. Each of the six signatures in my book will be covered with this decorative paper.


It's a fun, playful, and experimental process to paint like this, easier for me than it would be to paint figuratively (landscape, still life, or people). With this type of painting, I just mix matte medium with a color or two of acrylic paint, and apply it by rolling, stamping, stenciling in layers. I keep adding layers until I like it, at which point it's a finished paper. There is always at least part of each paper that pleases me enough to use it for bookmaking and paper arts.

These are the basic supplies and tools I use to paint the papers:

1.) Although acrylic paints and this method can be used to paint on almost any surface or paper, I usually paint on 80-90# drawing paper to make decorative papers.

2.) I prefer using a roller to apply background colors or glazes, rather than a brush. My favorite, purchased online from Dick Blick Art Supplies, is a 2.2"  dense foam roller.

3.) Assorted stamps and stencils. I carve a lot of my own stamps, as you will see below, but sometimes also use commercial stamps. Note that commercial rubber stamps with fine detail for stamping with inks do not work well with acrylics, as the paint clogs the fine lines, ruining the stamp.

4.) Assorted materials, such as a notched adhesive-spreader, coarse sea-sponge, webbed food packaging materials, and bubble wrap are useful to print, texture, and stencil.

5.) Acrylic paints. I use heavy-body paint (rather than fluid acrylics) of student-grade or better quality.

6.) Matte medium and glazing medium (slow drying) are added to extend the paint.

I know, maybe you're thinking I should do a video tutorial. OK. You set it up, and I'll do it. In the meantime, I'd rather be painting...  Here are three more recently painted papers for your viewing pleasure (I hope).



The one directly above is my attempt to emulate batik fabric from India. I had a bedspread back in the hippy 60s with a burgundy design on a mustard yellow background, the memory of which was the inspiration for this paper. I carved all of the stamps used to make it.

I love to carve my own stamps, and sometimes cut my own stencils as well. Let's take a look at that process. It's quite easy really, requiring only a block of Speedy-Carve (or other high-density rubber carving block), and a Speed-Ball Carving tool. Designs can be free cut, drawn right on the carving block, or transferred from a tracing. Here's a fairly decent tutorial on the stamp carving process.

Designs? Well, everywhere I look I see possibilities for carving more stamps! Recently, visiting a fabric store with my quilting buddies, I spied a fat quarter of batik fabric with a luscious design. Here is the fabric:

And here is the stamp I carved from a tracing I made of the central flower. The stamp is the same size as on the fabric, about 3" in diameter.

I also cut a stencil, which you can see below. A friend had a commercial stencil of these three leaves, which I really liked. After borrowing her stencil to use on one of my papers, I traced the painted image, and cut out my own stencil. The tool in this image is a Speed-Ball cutter, which I use to carve the rubber to make stamps.

You've already seen (way above) the whole sheet of paper I painted using just this stamp and stencil, but here's a detail. If you click to enlarge, you can see more about how I paint in layers, first the background colors, next the leaves, then a different color over-stencil on the leaves, and last the flowers.

If you like to play with paint, you might want to give it a try! Here are just a few more of my recently painted papers to tempt you...





I'll be teaching a 2-day bookmaking workshop in mid-May using papers like these to create three different books. There may still be a spot or two available in the class. If you are interested, you can contact me for more information.

You may want to visit my website to see more about my handmade books and painted papers. And there are several earlier posts here on Beadlust with pictures of books made with painted decorative papers and beading by my students, as well as other related topics. Here are a few of them:

1. Wedding book
2. Lisa's book (from a workshop I taught in Wisconsin); her fabulous website is here.
3. Susan's book (from a workshop I taught in Wisconsin)
4. painting papers for making Christmas cards
5. Using symbols in our art and symbols in acrylic painting  
6. Using these techniques to paint with dyes on fabric and more fabric paint/dye examples

Susan Anderson took my bookmaking/painting/beading workshop twice at the Coupeville Art Center. These are the papers for her first book, and if you click to enlarge, you can also see her finished book.

And, to close this post, here is a photo of some of the handmade books I've created over the years... most of them utilize decorative painted papers and bead embroidery.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this long post :)!

 

It All Started with Hexie-lust!

Getting Hooked on Crochet

Original Crochet-Along, Frida's Flowers

Bored with making 6 identical flowers - Colors calling us!

Designing Our Afghans

Entering at the San Juan County Fair

The new producing artistic director of the theater and music theater season at the arts center sat for an interview for our ‘What I think’ series.