Judy – Page 20 – Dear Liza

Kestrel’s Art

Dear Liza,

You know that your cousin Kestrel has always been interested in arts and crafts.

Since she was young, she has been designing costumes and clothes for dolls (and herself).

She’s always had a creative bent and a fine eye for drawing. And since she enrolled in da Vinci Arts Middle School, her talents have grown! This year, she made her jellyfish hat for SOAK.

She has had a table at Auntie Katie’s Books with Pictures ComicCon, where she gave people temporary tattoos.

And to share her love of arts and crafts, she had a booth at this years’ SOAK festival called Craft Soup, where she dished out all sorts of crafty supplies and helped people be creative!

This year she had been learning ceramics and yesterday, at her 13th birthday party, she gave ME her latest ceramic creation. It is a dish with a map of my favorite place in Portland, Laurelhurst Park!! It even has a duck swimming in Firwood Lake.

Can you believe it? It’s about 9 inches wide and 5 inches high, and will easily hold cookies, grapes, and other yummy things. It also looks good just sitting on the table.
I am astonished at her skill and humbled by her generosity.

As I tell you all the time, I am one lucky Grandma.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Sticking the Cities on the French Map

Dear Liza,

To put the cities in my French map quilt, I used the same Heat N’Bond fusible interface that I had used to attach the Massif Central and the shorelines.

I traced three different sized circles to show different sized cities. The cap of a vitamin bottle made Paris, a wine cork made the medium sized cities like Nantes, and the cap of a chapstick tube made smaller towns, like Angouleme.

I cut all the circles out during the Olympic beach volleyball matches, which made it much less monotonous. Each one was peeled, then placed and pressed into place.

I realized, once they were all down, that Paris was a bit too far east and north. For a few days, I tried to convince myself that it was fine, and I was going to leave it where it was.

But every time I looked at it, the error bugged me. So I decided to move Paris… which meant I had to move the Seine, the Loire, and all the cities along both rivers.

There were bad words. I’m still in the process of removing and replacing the dots, and you can see where some of the adhesive is still there.

I managed to get “Paris”properly named, so at least I have a point of reference going forward.

I am embroidering each name in a cursive script, much like my own handwriting.

That’s going to take some time, too, but I am happy I corrected the error while it was still possible.

Again, I beg your patience.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Sticking the Land(ing)

Dear Liza,

Once I had the geography for my French map quilt designed and cut, it was time to stick it all down. I watched several YouTube videos to learn about my options, then I took the bus down to Joann Fabrics in Happy Valley (yes, there is a town called Happy Valley!)

I chose Heat n’ Bond lite sewable fabric adhesive and it worked very well so far. I will know more when I start the embroidery and see how easy it is to sew through.

Following the very basic instructions, I ironed, trimmed, peeled, and ironed again.

You need to make sure your iron is hot enough, (or it won’t stick), and avoid ironing the glue-y bits, (or it stinks and gums up your iron), but other than that, it’s easy!

I was slowed down temporarily because I failed to buy enough of the fusible interfacing, and needed to make an extra trip to Joann.

But once that was done and the Massif Central was fused down, all my geology was set!

Next: Sketching the rivers.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Rivers and Cities

Dear Liza,

I was feeling pretty good about the shape of my highlands, mountains and shorelines on my French map quilt. Auntie Bridgett admired the lay out, then asked, “Are you going to put anything else on it? Like cities?”

Oh. Yeah. Knowing that most cities in Europe are on rivers, I decided to put in the rivers first.

So, using Googlemaps and blue yarn, I began to lay out my rivers. I’m only putting in the main rivers for now, so you can see (from upper right, going clockwise) the Meuse, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Garonne, the Dordogne, the Charante, the Loire, and the Seine.

Once the rivers were laid down, I felt more confident about the placement of the cities. Paris, Vernon, Rouen and Honfleur along the Seine,

Orléans, Tours, Angers and Nantes along the Loire,

and Lyon, Avignon, Aix and Marseilles along the Rhône.

So now, everything is laid down. But NOTHING is attached yet. If I lift the green hexagon, it all falls off. That’s the next step, and it may take a few days. Be patient with me.

Love,

Grandma Judy

L’Escargot

Dear Liza,

Yes, I have made progress! Once I got the shorelines figured out, everything starting making sense.

I kept looking at my patterns for the Grand Massif, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and they were just …. Clunky. They made the whole eastern side of the country look like a mountain range, which just isn’t the case.

As you can see….

So I pulled up different topographical maps of France to see how I might make them better. Certainly more accurate, and maybe just a little prettier.

My process isn’t artistic, or even scientific. I glue sheets of scrap paper together and start cutting, staring and trimming until I get a shape I like.

This took a good part of the morning, because there is a lot of cutting, placing, staring, and walking away for a while. During the walking away parts I vacuumed, went shopping, and watched the Olympic Triathlon on YouTube.

And when I got a pattern that was closer to the shape of the Massif, I laughed out loud. Un Escargot!!! That is, a snail.

I like that a lot. Escargot are one of the classic French dishes. Snails are also raised all over France for it, and it is one of Auntie Bridgett’s indulgences when we visit there.

So I chuckled and pinned the patterns down, carefully trimming the lumpy shapes out of the purple fabric. The highest peaks of the Pyrenees and the Alps will be shown in red.

Et voilà! The big shapes are taken care of.

But there is one more detail hanging over my head.

I have this half yard of black fabric that I haven’t used yet.
It is part of the color palette, and I think it will give the map some depth and drama. I intended it to be mountains, but it looked like a big black hole. I think it would be better as a detail, a curve or a line rather than a blob.

So now I get to stare at this for a while, and figure out what comes next.

Ain’t art fun?

Love,

Grandma Judy

Thinking it Over… and Over…

Dear Liza,

As you can tell, I’ve become a little obsessed with this French map quilt.

I’ve never made anything like it, and the examples I’ve found on the internet aren’t anything like I’m trying for, so I am in untested waters.

Quite literally, because it is the shorelines that are giving me the heeby-jeebies. I am trimming, staring, and questioning myself at every step.

After Auntie Bridgett pointed out that for the shoreline to look right it would need water, I headed down to Joann fabric to fetch some blue. And she was right (as she so often is). The shorelines of France curve in, so they fit well inside my hexagonal outline. But what shape should the waves be? Classic pointy? Or smoothly waving?

Since this is an interpretation of a map, we are imagining it from above, and the pointy wave shape is what we see from alongside the waves.

So I am going to go with the smoothly waving style, and will add some embroidered lines of white and blue to show the texture and movement of the waves hitting the shore.

So, after more than a week of “The Artistic Process”, I have three of my six edges (those with shorelines) figured out. Next, I’ll wrestle with mountains.

Wish me luck!

Love,

Grandma Judy

The Films of Tomorrow

Dear Liza,

This past Sunday, I took a break from wrestling with the French map quilt to go to the movies with Grandpa Nelson and Auntie Bridgett. We walked a mile down to the Tomorrow Theater on Division Street.

The Tomorrow is an old movie theater that has been resurrected by PAM, our Portland Art Museum, as a community place to show movies and feature local artists, attracting families and artists to enjoy all sorts of art together.

To make sure everyone had fun, our old friend Selfie Bot was there, drawing pictures of folks and making everyone smile.

On the “previews” screen, we saw that our friend Jack Kent had been here just days before, drawing Sketchy sketches during the showing of “Wayne’s World”. Clearly, this is a place we need to get to more often.

We got popcorn and sodas, and “The Iron Giant” began. Grandpa and I had seen it years ago, but it was new to Auntie Bridgett. We all enjoyed it very much, and I realized at the closing credits that it was an early creation of Brad Bird, who later created “The Incredibles” and a dozen other wonderful animated films since then.

We were still talking about the movie as we walked home, and we passed this poster for a completely different event. Funny how some images just get into the cultural mind and stay there….

Love,

Grandma Judy

Progress on the Map of France

Dear Liza,

In search of fabric for my France map quilt, I took the # 75 bus to the #72 to Bolt Fabric the other day. It’s a quick trip, and nice to see new neighborhoods.

Bolt didn’t disappoint! I found the palette I had chosen in solid cottons, which will be good for appliqué-ing and embroidering as the project moves along. I got the fabric home and washed it.

And now I need to decide on the style of the map. The main body will be green, the lower mountains purple, and the peaks of the Alps and Pyrenees will be red. Coastlines will be a soft peach. Am I sure? Maybe.

With my five colors, it will not be a ‘realistic’ map. It will be modern, abstract, more …. stylized. But what style?

I’m wrestling with that, in one of my favorite stages of creation, the “creative problem”.

My goal at this point is to let each stage sit long enough, and look at it often enough, so I don’t get ahead of myself.

So far the only cutting I’ve done is to make the basic green hexagon shape. The rest will come, I’m sure.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Another Map Quilt?

Dear Liza,

You know I love maps, and I love quilts. So, over the years, I’ve made a few quilted maps. When you were little, I made this map of our old neighborhood in Salinas. There are a lot of people and places I love on that map!

And now, being slightly obsessed with France, I am planning a hexagonal shaped quilt. It’s an interesting idea, since the shape of that country is sort of hexagonal, and even is nicknamed “L’Hexagone” because of its six-sided outline.

A few years back I made a folding paper map of France, and it was hexagonal. I really liked it, but didn’t know what to do next. Now I’ve figured it out.

But first, I had to make a good sized hexagonal pattern from newspaper. I don’t want this quilt to be bed sized, but maybe lap-sized. It’s mostly an art project.

I got the length ratios from your Daddy David and the proper angles from Auntie Bridgett, and cut my newspaper pattern 92 cm across, about three feet.

I have chosen my color palette from a website called color palettes.net. This photograph was taken by Svitlana. They aren’t typical map colors, and I like that. Now I need to hunt for these colors in suitable fabrics so I can get started.

I will keep you posted as I go along.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Garden Update July 2024

Dear Liza,

My veggie garden grew like crazy while we were visiting you! Auntie Bridgett kept it watered and weeded and Mother Nature did the rest.

Laverne and Shirley, our dahlias, are as tall as I am and have a couple dozen blooms. The bright yellow blossoms are fat and ruffled and almost as big as our dinner plates. I cut some to decorate our table and left some others for the bees.

And speaking of bees, they have been busy pollinating my zucchinis! We picked one, cooked and ate it before I remembered to take a picture of it. But I did paint a picture of the dinner for my garden journal! The corn on the cob was from the Hollywood farmer’s market and the chicken meatballs were from Trader Joe’s.
Yummy!

And last but not least, my tomatoes are beginning to think about, maybe, someday, getting ripe soon. The Chocolate Cherry tomato plant is slowly getting red!

And that’s all the news from my plot at the Blair Community Gardrn.

Love,

Grandma Judy