My favorite thread storage solution

       

My thread storage cases, which I have implemented thanks to the brilliant example of my friend and fellow Off the Wall guild member, Shirley.  She brought hers to a meeting to show us, and I fell in love instantly. 

These boxes are perfect for me.  I love them.  They make it easy to store, organize, find, carry and select threads for a project.  They are so compact; I have hundreds of spools yet they take up very little space!  The very best thing about these is that you can see so many spools at once.  As you can see, I organize my threads by color, with a  separate box for the multicolored threads I so love.  Because my spools are organized this way, the storage boxes have become a design tool, too.  The portability is a blessing too.  I had to look pretty hard to find them, but now they are sold by Superior Threads (thank you, Bob!)  http://www.superiorthreads.com/shop/product/48-slot/.  I tend to use lots of different threads in each quilt, so I plan to buy another case soon to corral and organize the threads for a project in process. This is especially helpful with a kitten in the house!

Occasionally there is a spool that doesn't fit, but that is not a problem.  I can either trim off the large flange at the base of the spool or rewind some or all of the thread onto a spare spool or bobbin.  For example, I once got a great deal on a huge cone of beautiful copper metallic thread.  I'm sure it is a lifetime supply!  So I store the big cone elsewhere in deep storage, and keep a couple of bobbins in my thread case.  If I have more like this, I think I'll put notes in the thread case compartments to remind me that there is backup.  One more little tip I just love.  I purchased some thin clear vinyl by the yard (1/4th is plenty and less than $1) and cut into strips to wrap around unruly spools, delicate threads, or those without a slot or groove for the thread end.  This keeps things much neater and avoids wasted thread and time from tangles.

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My Doodle A Day Diet!

I just added a photo album called "Doodle a Day Diet" to share my progress on my daily doodling exercise.  Click this link or you can find it on the sidebar on the right under Photos.  It is amazing to me that as you add definition - with depth, outlines, fill, embellisments, color - even a poorly drawn shape or a weak composion will morph into something pretty darned good!  I am quickly finding that the more I do, the more satisfying the results.  I guess this is another variation on the old musician's joke:

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?      Practice, practice, practice!

I challenge everyone who reads this to try my "Doodle a Day Diet" for yourself for two weeks. It's simple - no grocery shopping or cooking, just a writing implement and paper.  You don't have to buy a snazzy new sketch book unless you really, really want to.  You can even make it a "green project" by recycling the envelopes from your bills or your junk mail.  I encourage you to try a nice black pen with a fairly bold line.  I'm using a medium point PITT Artist Pen - india ink, which permanent so it doesn't bleed when you add color and doesn't soak through the page.  Second choice would be something like a fine Sharpie, although they do soak through the page.  Forget about pencil - commit to ink!  It's just doodling.  If you don't like it after you've done all you can with it, move on to the next page.

Please let me know how the "Doodle a Day Diet" is working for you by posting your comments here.  If you blog or flicker, etc., please let us know where we can see your doodling photos.   I'm betting you find it a joyful adventure, too!

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DOODLING EVERY DAY!

I was at Michaels yesterday and found this little book - “The Doodle Formula: A Step-by-step Guide to Creating the Perfect Doodle” by Adrienne Looman.  You might want to take a look at the author's blog, too.

At first glance I scoffed – who needs instruction or even a formula for doodling?  Since I had a few minutes to kill, I decided to look inside anyway.  What a delightful surprise.  The book is brilliantly simple, and quite engaging, although very slim.  It is a jumping off point rather than a complete course.  The author presents a very simple formula for developing your doodling skills, which I believe are innate.  Everyone can do this. 

 

This book is really a clever, sneaky ploy to teach, encourage, and build confidence in the dreaded drawing and sketching.  You cannot look at this book and use the worn out excuses, “but I can’t draw” or "I'm no good at drawing", as you might with some formal tome or drawing class.  I came home and tried her formula.  She’s quite right – it’s easy, it’s addictive, and it’s fun!  I highly recommend this book.  I feel rather silly being so excited about this book, but there is something about doodling that generates great enthusiasm.  You really can’t help smiling when you do it. 

When looking for book reviews on the Internet, I found several other books on doodling (who knew?) including one that offered a free lesson from the book.  “Doodling for Papercrafters” by Maelynn Cheung, the lesson is http://www.leisurearts.com/downloadfiles/9_07_basicswirls.pdf .  Try it.  I think you’ll like it.

Because this is so much fun, and good for me in lots of ways, I have resolved to doodle every day!  It's sort of a doodle a day diet.  I even started a new small sketchbook just for doodling.  I beleive this exercise will really change my artwork in wonderful ways.  For example, already in just the four pages I did above, I see patterns that will enhance my free motion quilting greatly.

 

And now, back to my sketchbook, or should I call it my doodle book?

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More Cool Tools - Color Scheme Generators

My favorite color scheme generator is Color Schemer (sample above)  http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html.  This has been around for some time, the color schemes are beautiful, vibrant and truly inspiring.  Color Schemer has a blog too.  Their Color Schemer Studio application (~$50) has lots of cool features.  You can see a quick demo at http://www.colorschemer.com/overview_viewlet_swf.html.

Here's another fun tool to play with - Color Hunter http://www.colorhunter.com/.  This website derives a color scheme from any photo.  You can used theirs, upload your own, or enter the URL of a photo on a website.  If you are uploading an image, make sure to resize it first.  Large files just don't work.  I resized to 600 pixels wide and it worked just fine.  You can toggle between vibrant and dull versions of the same palette.  I uploaded photos of recent projects and our new kitten Matilda.  Check out the "related tags" section towards the bottom of the page for more interesting color palettes.  Buddhist and Piano yielded interesting results.   The results from this tool are not the very best available, but it is interesting and useful nonetheless.  I think this could be very helpful in working through a creative block.   

Also at wellstyled.com.  http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html This color scheme generator lets you play with color theory more.  There are options for monochromatic, complimentary  (they call it contrast), triad, tetrad, and analogous color schemes.  There are some interesting options for adjusting for various degrees and types of colorblindness.

Color toy 2.0 http://www.defencemechanism.com/color/ is also quite interesting.  Playing with numbers in your work?  Try dropping some of those numbers into this tool and see what happens.  Enter your birth date, anniversary, or other significant date in the hex field, or break the date up randomly into the RBG fields.  I tried my birthday this way R=120 G=81 B=957.  9995 also gave me a beautiful color scheme.

And one last one - Color Wizard http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp.  I love the randomizer.  All the buttons are fun to play with.  I tried my model year - 1957 with the split  complimentary option for fun results.  Randomizing from there was even better!

Have fun!  Make something beautiful today!

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Do you wordle?

I love words. I always have.  And now, thanks to Jackie's Stitchworks blog http://stitchworks-jackie.blogspot.com, I have a great new way to enjoy them.  It's called wordle http://wordle.net/.  You type or copy text into a box on the website, click go, and their brilliant Java Applet creates a graphic design using your words.  There are lots of configuration options to choose, or you can keep clicking randomize until you get an image you love.  Here, for example, are two versions using the first stanza from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven:

You can print these directly from their applicataion, or as I do, print them to a file on my computer using a virtual printer that converts the document to PDF (we use Primo PDF - it's free, easy to download and use.)  I can then play with the image further in Photoshop Elements -resizing, applying filters, changing colors.  I would love to create screens from these - thermo fax might be a good option for this.  Please comment if you have any other suggestions.

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