Things are getting more and more eccentric at Casa de la Swain. Changing styles in my textile work, falling in love again with painting and photography...and then there is the ever illusive quest for continuing creativity through working with Eric Maisel. Still on the road teaching, posting now at the Ragged Cloth Cafe and taking the pledge to keep handmaiden up to date.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

GRR....picasa and handquilting

Okay so Stella, the new laptop, and I are getting along really well. Down loaded Mozilla Thunderbird for my email.....you gotta try this if you haven't used it....very cool. Downloaded Mozilla Firefox as my browser...absolutely love it....filters out all spam so secure it won't download plugins without your approval. Actually, loved both of the programs so much that I installed them on my desk top. Everything is working great......until I download Hello and Picasa so I can send pictures from Asilomar....and everything fell apart. Picasa works great except Hello is not co-operating. It won't let me sign in even though I am sitting here connected to my cable modem it is telling me that I need to check my connection because the network is unreachable. Will now we know that cannot be because all my emails are coming through...I am talking to you...and I downloaded the software from my browser. Any suggestions?
My consternation is hightened since I had pictures of my hand quilting to send you. Not like it is great shakes but was wanting sympathy for all the hours I have devoted and how little I have gotten down.....sigh. Now I don't want any comments about how fast this would be to machine quilt.....which I agree to...but you just gotta understand that a. I don't machine quilt well and b. I am still in love with hand quilting.
This is hard for an art quilter to explain since a lot of what we do is about production. But for me it is a dharma thing. I feel a real connection to the work when it is in my hands that I don't feel at the machine. You gotta understand a machine has an accelarator which means driving fast...like in my car. Zoom...zoom..plus I have a standard five speed which is even more zoom. My daughter in law says you don't so much follow mom in a car as much as you chase her.
Back to the point, I have spent probably 20 hours hand quilting between shipping DVD's, printing class materials and general family stuff......and I am way behind..yikes!
I know there is no answer for this since I love the way I work and as far as art quilters go, we, the hand quilters are in the miniority...so someone has to carry the torch. We cannot lose the art form or we will all be the lesser for it.....no man is an island, etc.
Enough bitchin', by the time I have posted this, I could have been quilting.....sheesh is there no end to my avoidance. This is the end I am off the quilt...well, maybe, Ronnie just walked in so I guess that means he wants to have some "quality" time. Here is my theory...we communicate far too much...it is my going on the road that keeps us interested in each other because we don't have face the what to say dilemna each day. Now I am seriously finished bitchin'.

1 comment:

Elle said...

I hand quilt too and I love it. I've started trying to machine quilt because I like some of the effects, but I really do prefer doing it by hand. I wonder if many of the machine techniques can be "translated" for hand work. Hmmm...

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