Take Care of Yourself

Recently I learned something about my health and my art.  I had been feeling very tired lately, had a lot of muscle and joint pain, was depressed and had trouble concentrating. The worst part was I had no interest or desire about doing any needlework.

Then I had a doctor’s appointment just for a regular check up.  I decided to tell her about what I had been experiencing.  And she suggested that I had some blood work done which showed that I had hypothyroidism.  All that I had been experiencing are symptoms of hypothyroidism and even more that I hadn’t mentioned here or with my doctor like sensitivity to cold and weight gain. 

Now this condition is pretty common and once I started taking the medicine I began to feel better.  But the thing that surprised me the most was that my desire to do my needlework returned.  I learned that if you aren’t feeling good physically or emotionally, then the things you enjoy doing are difficult.  So you need to take care of yourself, your health. to take care of your art or your passion.  This was an important lesson for me.  I have to take care of myself to be able to do the things I enjoy.  And it was so important to me, I wanted to share it with all of you.

I understand when you have a cold or the flu or something that keeps you in bed, how you just don’t feel up to creating everything.  But chronic conditions that come upon you little by little have the same effect in the long run. So it is important to pay attention to how you are feeling and take care of yourself every day.

I know you have heard this before but eat right, get enough exercise and also get enough sleep.  If you take care of yourself, you are then able to take care of your art.  And also make sure to tell your doctor everything you are feeling or experiencing even if you think it is unrelated (I never put my sensitivity to cold with feeling tired or gaining weight but they were all related).  It will help them determine what is going on with you and what treatment to prescribe.

So for you to take care of your art, remember to take care of you. 

©2019 – Cheryl Fillion

Fabric Covered Notebook

Recently I have started covering little notebooks with fabric.  They make great personalized gifts and are really easy to make.  Our Fiber Artist group spent a meeting time doing some and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

You just need a piece of colored fabric for the outside, muslin or a coordinating fabric for the lining (it can be but doesn’t have to be a print fabric), some batting (although this can be optional) and, of course, a notebook (I got these at a local dollar store).

Mini notebook

I used mini bound notebooks for the group meeting because they were easier to sew in our meeting time but any size would do.   The mini notebooks measure 3 ½” wide and 4 ½” long.  When the book is opened up,  it measures 4 ½” long and about 6 ½” wide. 

measurement of book open flat

To cut the fabric and batting to fit the book, I added 1” to the length.  This gives me 1/4” seam allowance on the top and bottom and a little to extend beyond the book when I make the flap.  You will want to turn the edges of the cover over to the inside of the notebook so the cover of the notebook can slip in it and be held by the cover.  I added 1 ½” to each side. plus  ½” for seam allowances.  So I cut the fabric and batting for these notebooks to 5 ½” by 10”.  You might want to add a little to the length to make bigger flaps.  You will lose some of that 10” in length when you wrap the flap around the edge of the notebook cover. 

fabric and batting layered

This is a project that you can sew by machine or hand depending on the size of the notebook and your hand sewing or machine sewing abilities.  You want to lay the batting down first, then the outside fabric facing up, and then the muslin or lining fabric next (If you are using a printed fabric for the lining you want to have the wrong side of the fabric facing up.).  Think of how you would place the fabric to sew a pillow.  You want the good side of the fabric facing inside and when you finish sewing it, you will turn it right side out. The picture just gives you an idea of how to lay the fabric out as described above, when you go to sew it you want all of the edges lined up (as shown below). And since I wanted to sew this by hand, I marked the ¼” seam allowance on the muslin.

cover ready to sew

Now you can start sewing.  Leave an opening on one end so you can turn the whole cover right side out.  I try to do it at what will be the bottom of the cover so if your stitching isn’t the greatest when you sew the opening closed, it doesn’t show as much.

cover sewn

closeup of opening to turn

Once you have sewing everything, turn the cover right side out and sew the opening closed.  You might need to poke the corners out a bit to get them the lay flat (and using an iron to press the cover flat wouldn’t hurt.) Just make sure whatever you use to poke the corners out, doesn’t go right through your stitching (if that happens just turn it wrong side out again and stitch that opening closed again.).

What I do here is fold the cover in half and put a pin here to mark the center.  Then I place the book binding where that pin is and wrap the cover around to the inside of the book itself.  I mark that with a pin as well.  This is the size of your fabric cover flaps.

Flaps pinned in place

Keep those pins in place and stitch along the edge, top and bottom of the book cover.  Do both sides.  Once your cover is done, you can place the bound book in the cover and you are finished.  Make sure the stitching you did along the flaps holds..  You might have to re-stitch to make it more secure.

If you want you can sew or glue some embellishment on the front of the cover (Just be careful not to stitch through the flap or you might stitch those shut.)   

Finished Notebook



©2019 Cheryl Fillion



Art or Craft

I recently entered a juried art exhibit.  The rules of the exhibit encouraged fiber art and in fact last year my quilted wall hanging was accepted.  But this year it wasn’t.  Now that is OK, sometime artists are at the whim of the jurors.  Whatever the juror interprets as acceptable is what goes in.

I learned after the show that the jurors (it was a committee) in this case was not following the theme of the art exhibit but more if the piece was ‘real art’.  So many times anything made with fiber (other than paper) is not considered art but craft.

So that got me thinking (again) what is the difference between art and craft?   I looked up a number of different dictionaries.  Some definitions had the same elements for both.  Both included creativity or imagination.  Both included some skill involved like painting, weaving, sculpting.  But the big difference seems to be the use of the finished product.

A craft item while it could be beautiful to look at also had a function.  A piece of pottery could be used to serve food or drink.  A quilt is meant to cover a bed.  A piece of embroidery could be part of a napkin or towel. A knitted shawl is meant to keep someone warm.

A piece of art is meant only as a decoration, to be on display.  It has no other function than for aesthetic purposes.  And some definitions added that it was art if on display in a gallery.

Now this is a dilemma many fiber artists face.  The techniques we use whether it is quilting, knitting, weaving, felting are typically used to create things people use in their every day life but those same techniques and sometimes even the finished ‘functional’ product can be aesthetically beautiful, as much as a painting.

Quilting now has a category called “Art Quilts”.  These are often wall hangings that can be as beautiful as a painted canvas (and sometimes the wall hangings are painted).  But because they are made of techniques that if used on a bigger scale can cover a bed, does that make them less artistic?  I don’t think so. 

So how do we change the perception of what Fiber Art is – not just a functional item but a piece of aesthetic art?  That is the question I have been asking myself.  I don’t know if I have the answer but here are some of the ideas I have come up with.

We need to change our idea of ourselves.  It is OK to say “I am a quilter” or weaver or knitter or whatever.  But what if we said “I am a Fiber Artist”?  That is what got me into the Fiber Artists group here in my city.  A Quilt guild member came up to me and told me about the  fiber artist group and added at the end, “And what you do is art”.  Well, OK, sign me up.  No one had ever called what I do – in this particular case with punchneedle embroidery – as art.  Since then I have described myself as a fiber artist.

What if we displayed more of our work on the walls of our homes?  You have woven or knitted a shawl to wear.  Great!  But how would it look if instead of hanging it in a closet when you are not wearing it, you displayed it on your living wall? 

Not only display what you do as art in your home but talk about your needlework as art.  Describe it to others as art.  And don’t let anyone tell you “Oh you just knit” or “That is just a quilt”.  No tell them that is Fiber Art. 

If you have a chance to enter a show or exhibit that accepts Fiber Art, do so.  Even if your piece isn’t accepted in the case of the juried show, you are entering your work as art.   And even if the jurors don’t see it as art such as the jurors supposedly did in the recent show I entered, somewhere down the line, what I enter or what you might enter may change someone’s mind about what art is.

What you do is art whether it is displayed on a wall in a gallery or on the shoulders of your back.  Functional or not, it is beautiful and it is art.

©2019   Cheryl Fillion

 

The Law of Attraction

Have you ever had a time when suddenly everything you read or heard was about a particular idea?  I am not talking about when you become interested in a subject and seek out information about it.  I mean those times when you pick up a book or turn on the television and there is that particular idea.  Psychologist Carl Jung called this synchronicity.

The idea that has appeared before me in one way or another in the last couple of weeks is what is known as the Law of Attraction.  This is the idea that what you think, feel or create brings to you more of what you think, feel, or create. If you think about flowers, more flowers will appear in your life.  If you think about kindness, more kindness will appear.  It also works with negative ideas but we don’t want to think negative right now.

With that in mind, I find myself wanting to create beautiful quilts and dolls and poetry.  The energy of those beautiful things will then go out into the world and hopefully come back to me. But in the process it will touch others who will then themselves create beautiful things. 

Right now when what you see and hear on television or in the newspaper is about war and crime and hate, take on the Law of Attraction and think, feel, or create those things you love.  The energy of  things you love will go out into the world in many ways and will then prompt others to create things they love and that energy will circle back to you.

© 2019 – Cheryl Fillion