Grandma Vivian

I have been out of my mind busy last two or so weeks--more then normal. Totally behind on all things, but thankful work is sweeping in + the cool days here are telling me that Fall has arrived.


I love to just hunker down and create during the Winter months (let's face it, this girl loves to work on design anything:)---so many cool projects..two new shapes for bags, round pillows that I am seriously in love with and more prints then I could ever print in 10 years. What to do with them all? I wish I had more time to just burn new screens daily so I can just see them instantly on fabric, wood, paper--what ever. Never enough time but so so thankful.


I have been missing my grandmother who moved to Arizona from here in Maine a lot lately and been finding myself sending her flowers randomly when ever I miss her more then I can bare. Her name is Vivian. I don't even know how long she has been gone. I think I blocked it out--I think it is 2 years now. Some how her voice smiling on the other end of the telephone as she tells me all about each individual flower, petal by petal, every delicious detail and color makes me a little less sad. 


From the time I was a little girl she has been a beacon of light for me. Strong, nurturing and has these sweet gray blue eyes that melt your heart no matter what the circumstances. She just has this way about her that makes me smile, just miss that.  

 Because I knew somehow that it would be a long time before I saw her again, I talked her into doing a photoshoot with me and Cliff Kucine. (A dear dear friend who captures people amazingly)...I wanted a few shots of us just being together--no kids, no husbands or any other family member. Selfishly I wanted her all to myself...and I wanted to remember that moment. It was funny, as soon as I heard she was moving, I missed her...I was not ready for her to move, or move on or go anywhere for that matter. She moved here to Maine and was here 5 or so years and I loved it. I would visit often and she and I would sit and drink ice tea on her porch. As time went on I did not visit as often being so busy as we all get, but our time spent together was not wasted. We would chat it up for hours...


As a 30 something woman, I really didn't feel any different holding her hand from the many days as a little girl looking up into her eyes and laughing. You establish a bond between a grandparent..it changes you, fullfills you and makes you whole. Our walks talking would guide me, nurture me, mold me. God how I miss her. I haven't looked at these pics since she left and finally pulled out this glorious CD of images. I made her a book a few holidays back of all the great shots--but not until now have I really looked at them, or studied them, needing to see her eyes, the wrinkles, her soul. I just wanted or needed to look at them. 


Pulling them out made me smile, laugh, remember, cry...but they have been good to see. Thank you so much Cliff for taking the time to capture these moments that I so needed to remember today. 


I don't feel sad often, I rarely get unhappy...but missing someone is like a windy day where you can't seem to take a breath...where the constant pushing and pulling comes in waves then lingers... soon I will just get on a plane--solo if I have to (total wimp about traveling alone) just be close to her for a weekend to reconnect. Thank God for phones, but I miss her sweet smell of perfume and her laughing eyes by my side. Soon..soon we will drink tea and I will be mesmerized by her strength and beauty, and not while holding a piece of plastic, but holding her hand.


e 

Aryana is turning 4!

Ary Is turning 4. I know. Crazy. So cliche but seriously it has gone so fast--where does the time go? 


Her little vision to me is dress up + tea. (her latest obsession is mint tea in the morning?) So her little request for a tea party party made perfect sense to me.


I just finished this little invite for her and hopefully will screen print some little t-shirts for her friends the day of the party. It is always a highlight for the kids to see us mix ink and print. So so fun. 


Looking forward to all the new work I am doing right now and seriously obsessing about what to print and on what.  A lot of  things in the works as far as new licensing opportunities but none are confirms or a done deal at the moment. Seems like they come in waves...and so thankful people are asking for custom designs and graphic design work...keep it coming! These girls need to go to college ! :)


Happy Weekend everyone...
Best, e

Picnic 2011

 Photo By kai paine http://www.yandp.tv/

Left to Right// Olan Boardman from Ktaadn, Eliza Jane Curtis, Jennifer Judd-Mcgee +
myself, Erin Flett + little Breshia out front. 

PICNIC – music + arts festival was a great success with over 100 vendors nestled in Lincoln Park down town Portland, Maine. It is always my favorite show due to the amazing variety of cool vintage venders as well as friends old and new that are in this unique world of selling their passion--what ever that may be. 

Maslen and I hung our newest creation of curtain panels done up in the STACKED DECO repeat pattern as well as brought VERA our vintage dress form that displayed my new hand screened bark cloth bags---

Breshia + Ary (my sweet girls sitting in the photo above) came by courtesy of Mimi (Maslen's Mum) and stayed for a while and visited our neighbor every other second (Aimsel, dear friend that creates amazing paper journal books that are recycled record albums). It turned out to be a beautiful perfect day before IRENE came through...we all were in homemade denial bliss... 

A call out to some amazing designers that I was among...Eliza Jane Curtis, Olan Boardman from Ktaadn, and lovely Jennifer judd-mcgee.

I took all but the amazing collage that was taken from  kai paine lovely blog: YOUNG & PRETTY. Enjoy. e

MUSHROOMS (Images from our woods in back of our home)

 

Just a few of the million images I have taken out on our many walks in the woods lately. I have had ample time with little Ary since B is back in school. Our ritual is to go on our "mommie day" walks and find cool anythings that we find around our home. We have 4 acres of woods behind our home that we explore, walk around and of course, lately climb in since Ary and B both have discovered climbing trees...which is a thrilling and often for me terrifying event. I love seeing them in the trees but, yes..afraid that they will fall and break something. But with both of them, I am finding that they do fall...but bounce up and do it all over again. No broken bones to date. (A great metaphor for life for me really).


But on our most recent walks I have discovered the mushroom. I am so overwhelmed by the simple beauty of these little specs of color in the mist of all the dead leaves and twigs. The ground floor of the woods are deep with many many layers of leaves and branches and due to the large amounts of rain recently..these little gems are popping up everywhere. They force themselves up from the sea of layers...which always inspires me due to all the textures, color and sometimes lack of color. The ridges and detail of every facet of these mushrooms are amazing. My family and Mas (husband) and most likely my kids at this point are over them, or over me obsessing over them...but I find them to be a amazing piece of soft sculpture in this very rough and most of the time hard and rough elements here in our Maine forest. I don't always share photos of my finds around here but I could not resist sharing these little magic moments.


The prints that I am inspired to create from these images are twig like, sprigs, and round mounds of color and shapes. Doesn't the yellow just make you happy? In all the mist of browns, and greens...the yellow is a welcome hello to me. They scream...come on in and take a look around. And that is what we did--Ary + me. xo e

MORE YARDAGE // Bedroom Wall Prints (My Peonies)

The latest on the yardage. Well, after a few runs to LOWES and a pick up on some more muslin...as well as burning a completely new screen...(we all decided to not invert this pattern and run with it in a traditional "brick" repeat)...and I am so thrilled to report that I did not suck and I was able to seamlessly do the "handoff" and we kicked some serious butt and did 12+ yards in no time at all--with 12 or so more to go I am so excited and seriously thinking after all the prep, the actual printing is a breeze. (serious prep work..serious I say....) But Maslen being the math guru...I let him figure out all that stuff and I focused on the new prints I am putting up in our bedroom. They turned out awesome....


But I have to say what has made things easier--minus a screen that actually repeated easily (ha ha) Maslen made us a bunch of dowel rods that are strategically placed so we can hoist up the fabric once completed so we can do multiple rounds of printing and not having any down drying time in the second pass...so that has saved us a ton of time and made things a lot more seamless.


We are still in the mist of the last 6-12 yards but I thought I would post since I had some great new shots of the pattern inverted and the the way the fabric hangs while drying. 


The prints I have been dreaming up has been a fun process. I took a ton of pics from my garden of all my Peonies. I am so in love with these flowers and managed to grow mine to new heights this Summer and the blooms were fantastic. I shot a ton of them, and have created some repeats patterns as well as these one ups of some of the elements I loved. I wanted some simple yellow prints in my bedroom. I am starting to love yellow and orange together--go figure--(two bright cheery colors) off set by some white and gray---I found some super old frames at goodwill that I have had stashed for ever and I know I should of just left them, but I have so much las vegas gold stuff I wanted the prints to go over my bed and not have more gold..so I spray painted them with a super glossy finish in a yellow---too insane, so repainted them in a natural off white to blend with my vintage french provincial set. The only thing I left was a sweet little gold metallic lip around the inside. I felt that might be just a hair of something to not look too manufactured. (if you check out some pics way back on here I have some shots of my bedroom). 


So that is it so far..stitchers on call right now do turn the yardage into sheer curtains on Monday and ready to put up by Wednesday or Thursday. I should have a few final round pillows made up as well that I am seriously so in love with--(finally getting to the point where I love the construction). Thanks Molly!


More drama yet to unfold I am sure..but other then cleaning my house like usual and digging through my studio and making sure it is not too insane to shoot, I am ready for Country Living and Olga Naiman the amazing stylist and Tara Donne the insanely amazing photographer to come through and do it up---what is nice is that I can step back and watch two amazing designers do their thing...looking forward. 


PS. Stay tooned for new much need and anticipated hand tags that we will screen on muslin or bark cloth...and of course PICNIC PORTLAND is coming up--so I hope to a lot of you stop by and say hello! xo e

YARDAGE

Okay this is the deal. Country Living is coming in a few weeks and they asked if I would hand screen some custom curtains to soften my windows in my living room. Mas and I already purchased our large screen and it was here--burned and ready to go. We just had been looking at it. Truthfully we were a little intimidated going from 1/3 the size screen for pillows to this monster screen...


So yesterday we printed for the first time our large screen---roughly 55" x 30". We should of waited until the kiddos were MIA but we had them sit and watch---and asked them not to ask or want anything for a few moments while we work it out---ha ha. That worked for a while but Ary wanted to hold the hamster and B wanted ice cream mid pull of the last few rounds...but..all I have to say about this experience is that it just reinforces my love of silk screening and my obsession for doing this-


Okay so the repeat was not perfect. After we did our first 6 yards we did not love the way it was lining up. But what we discovered is that our screens and table worked great. We printed on muslin, (super cheap and lovely). My tags are printed on this super soft fabric and to just soften a room I thought this natural cloth would be nice? My normal self wanted to print in yellow or orange but wanting to work on producing a natural linen type color I opted to mix up a ton of this natural brown/gray color.


First pull for me was a disaster...(maslen was pretty perfect like usual)...second, third, forth--OKAY by the forth pull I had it down. Because of the size of the table Mas hands off the squeegee to me and I take it the rest of the table width. It's fun, stressful and addictive. (the upper body strength I need is just one of the few new reasons I am going back to the gym!) 


After 6 yards which took us no time at all (minus some drying time inbetween) it was pretty painless...with all the measuring from Mas on where to lay the screen down each time...but we discovered the burned screen was off a tad and the print did not line up the way it did on my computer..(sigh). So this time Mas sat in front of my computer with me for a few hours trying to figure out a better repeat that is more of a drop repeat--and also thinking the solid background with this DECO print dropping to the ground is really not going to work with this design. So we are working that out still. Going to reburn this week. Have to have the curtains up and done in less then two weeks so we better get moving!

But because I can't imagine tossing this fabric--I am going to wash it and make some scarves or something? I washed and dried it and it is so so beautiful and because it is chopped you don't notice the fact that the pattern is not perfectly lined up. But honestly I have to laugh because nothing I do is perfect. So why should my yardage? Mas is a math guy..things line up in his world, things are in order. Okay so this is not the perfect combo in some marriages but in ours--it works. He balances my randomness. I have to say that I did get all emotional after we were done. I looked up at him and said, "this is it mas, this is it, this is our future--" In all honesty I felt a surge of this most amazing happiness--I have never wanted anything more. This need to create is just getting bigger--something that has taken my hand and creating work for me. It is coming from somewhere I can't describe and I am so so in love with it. Mas just smiled and looked over the table and smiled. (man of few words). But his eyes lit up and I knew...this just the start of something freaking amazing. And so happy I get to share with this man. xo e