Thursday, February 19, 2009
What I do at work all day
I realized I haven't really said anything about my new (now 6 month old) job on the blog. So here's a rundown: I'm the art director for Farm Journal Magazine. We have a circulation of around 450,000, which seems like a lot to me. This is my first job in magazine, though, so I don't really know the circ numbers for anything else.
I take the stories given to me by the managing editor, then I look for photos, or adjust the photos provided, layout the page, and send it back to Katie, the managing editor. We publish around 13 magazines a year, and I probably layout around 30 pages for each issue.
I LOVE layout design. I find logo design so very very hard, but I could sit an tinker with layout for days on end and be happy. So the job suits me pretty well. The long hours this winter almost killed me, but I've been told numerous times that the summer is much much more laid back. I think I'll believe that when I see it.
The scariest part of the job is that I'm the last one to see a story before it goes out the door, and I never feel like I'm enough of a perfectionist to be doing that. It's a real struggle to be that anal retentive for me. But I try!
This is something I'm particularly proud of--I actually drew and watercolored this illustration. We didn't have any visuals for the story about a researcher making a discovery in the sour milk from his fridge, so I drew it! And you know I'm not really a very good illustrator, but I just went for it, and I love the way it turned out.
You can even see my name on the credit! My married name. Still not used to it.
Friday, January 12, 2007
My favorite gift to give
Here is a present I made for my lovely friend Arianne. I took a photo of her and her brothers and printed it on some rayon, and made a small art quilt. I made 3 of these quilts for friends who were graduation from college. I somehow have lost track of my photos of the other 2, but I know that they love them.
When I'm at the end of my life (hopefully I'll expire before my boobs go below my waist, although, if you know me, I'm in grave danger.) I'm going to look back on my life and be most proud of the friends I've made. There's just nothing like finding a kindred spirit. Someone who gets you without trying, someone who has been there for all the laughs (Arianne), someone who understands when you start philosophizing and using 50ยข words about the drama of your lastest crush (Julia), someone who has more raw artistic talent than should be allowed in another human, but who really gets the thrill of making cool stuff (Carrie) Someone who leaves you the such hilarious voicemail messages that you start laughing when you even see that he called (Mark).
I think my boyfriend doesn't really get my need to have more friends than I can keep up with. He once asked me how many favorite people fall under the category of "one of my most favorite people" let me tell you, there are at least 12 in my list of most favorite people. He's a guy who needs 2 friends and a girlfriend. Period. What's up with that?
I know we're all busy, and heaven knows I could have used the time writing this blog to actually e-mail these friends, but honestly the most important thing is to know that those friends are out there, to know that within 5 minutes of seeing each other after a long absence, you'll be right back where you left off, that's so crucial. It's what makes me most happy.
Labels: who I am
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
It's that time of the Season
So, fall has come in a hot blustery rush. And now it's cool and all, well, autumnal and it makes me sad. Sad is perhaps the wrong word. More sentimental. So sentimental that it's a little too much for me to take. Today I worked 10 hours in a windowless office. I had no idea if it had been sunny or rainy until I walked out the door at 6pm. Turns out it was a glorious day. The kind that makes me wish I could walk home from school. But alas, I'm neither in school nor capable of walking home from work.
Maybe it's that this weather triggers all the wonderful memories I have of wonderful times at this time of day. First days of school, new beginnings, break-ups, new relationships. Major life changes. And also the smaller things: coming home from float trips with my favorite people in the world, driving to high school football games when I was still completely thrilled to be independent, cruising country roads just because, driving by myself to Nashville from Missouri for my first real-world-on-my-own-type-job.
I promise I'll try to soak up this season while it's here, not hide from it because I don't want to know what I'm missing while in my dark little office. Stay away, dreary winter! I'm not ready to abandon my flip-flops yet!
Here is the quilt I made while on Vacation. It's lap-quilt size, and quilted with only small frustrations on our new John Flynn Quilt Frame. I hope to make a few more style/designy quilts and sell them somewhere. Or maybe market them to a mass-market company. Who knows. Any ideas?
Love you guys. I know you're out there reading, and I'm eternally grateful. See? I told you I'm really sentimental right now. I even had to edit out a "freakin'" because I was trying to be faux-non-chalant.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Chihuly and Flowers
Here are some photos of the Chihuly exhibit at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. It was incredible!! I'm going to post more pics on my Flickr Slideshow, so please be patient.
I took lots of photos of flowers, too. It's always nice to have your own photos to source from instead of getting them online. Any of you who are taking my fabric collage class: send me an e-mail, and I'll send you a more specific list of items to bring. I know the aRThOUSE is sending out a supply list, but I probably need to clarify.
Back to regularly scheduled vacation time. I finished a lap quilt that I'm going to post next!
Labels: who I am
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
A week's Vacation!
I'm vacationing so luxuriously at my girlhood home in the middle of a soybean field, in the middle of Callaway County, in the middle of Missouri, in the middle of Middle America. It's lovely! We've been bike riding on the Katy Trail (farm scene) I spotted some fellow North Callaway R-1 High School Alumni, and I even went to an MU Football Game where I witnessed a dispute over a student "accidentally" stepping on a ketchup packet, which squirted "accidentally" all over this old guys "F&
*^$*#ing $50 shirt!" oops. Good to be home.
New quilt!! On my mom's HUGE design board. (That's here round robin quilt on the right side)
I'm trying to get quite a bit of sewing done. Mom and I bought this quilt frame a couple of weeks ago. We've been trying it out, and it's amazing! Now we have to find some extension rods so we can quilt this quilt top I finished on Monday. That's right, I actually one entire project done in one day. More interesting because I usually wear the lovin' off a project until I can't even bear the sight of it. Well, this quilt ain't quilted yet, so you never know. I may hate it in the end. I'm also dying some fabric. I have perma-prune fingers right now!
Anyway on tap for the rest of the week: Haircut, eating in the dorm cafeteria with my lil' sis, more sewing, more dying, and the St. Louis Botanical Gardens I'll try to post some other cool stuff.
Labels: who I am
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Glad tidings
Okay, soes if you didn't know, it was my birthday Saturday. Thank you, thank you, I did have a very happy birthday. A lot of mama's cooking and my boyfriend and sister making me laugh hysterically. Not too many family dinners are kicked off with a sisterly fight over an "inside" (less crust) roll which caused a youngest sister to clank the other sister's teeth with a steak knife in an fit-of-rage-attempt to gain back the disputed roll. Anyway, i digress. This here quilt was made over the weekend. It goes along with my Fabric Collage Class that I'm teaching next month at the the aRThOUSE.
It's about 18"x 14" I'm undecided about name for now. And i have another one almost done--more pics soon. Golly, i thought I wouldn't have anything to write, and now I just don't have enough time to write it. I guess I'll just have to clean house a little less....mmmm. yes. less cleaning.
Too. Tired. Must sleep.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
News! of the Exciting type!!
I had a meeting yesterday with the aRThOUSE Nashville, it's on 12th Avenue, and I'm going to be on the fall roster to teach some classes. I love to teach, and since I (not so) secretly am trying to recruit a quilting group for those under 80 years old, it's great news! I'll keep it posted on here the exact classes, etc. once they are officially on the aRThOUSE's website. I do know that I'm teaching 2 workshops--Fabric Collage and Fabric Printing--like what's in the pic above. And later in the fall, I'll be teaching a beginning quiltmaking class. Hooray! Keep checking up here, and on the aRThOUSE's website, for class info. They're super nice people there, and have a great gallery, as well.
Labels: handmade, sharing, try again, who I am
Monday, August 07, 2006
Mmmm...
So I'm going to go a little vintage. I mean the bridge-playing, doily using type, not the worn-edges pink and brown vintage.
Here is my favorite recipe for drinks. And it doesn't even involve liquor (although, a little old lady, er, birdie, told me it might be delicious with a tiny hint of Malibu. Just don't tell everyone down at Wednesday Night Supper Club at the 4th Baptist Church)
Pineapple Banana Slushie Punch
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups sugar (or Splenda)
1 12oz. frozen orange juice
1 large can Pineapple-grapefruit juice (good luck at finding this. I used Pineapple-Mango juice which was really tasty)
1 1/2 Quarts water
4 bananas
Directions: Mash bananas in blender. Blend in and mix all ingredients. Freeze for at least 8 hours. (although, you can cheat, because it's good not all the way frozen, too.) To serve, you can either freeze them in an aluminum cupcake cup with a maraschino cherry on top and eat them with forks, or my preferred method--Serve in a highball glass with a little lemon-lime soda poured on top. Or champagne...or malibu...or more pineapple juice, or sparkling grape juice....... This is my Mama Jane's recipe, and I've been enjoying it since I was little, or in my case, just smaller than my current 6' height!!
Enjoy!
Oh, yeah, and here's a teaser for my appliqued garden quilt. I finished quilting it this weekend on my machine. I'm pretty proud of my first large-scale machine quilting effort. I'll shoot more pics and talk about it more when it's bound and I have some better day-time pics of the whole quilt.
Thanks for stopping by!
Labels: a little something, who I am
Thursday, August 03, 2006
New Design Board!
My teeny little studio (at least I have a studio, I know, I know) was crying out for a design wall. Something that I could use to put up little parts of projects and step farther away than the length of my own two arms to get a grip on whatever tedious process it was desperately in need of. This process is how I got into making 18 more blocks...yes, that's DOUBLE the original number of blocks...for my RRound Robin quilt Thanks, Kim. Ugg. Oh well. She and Lauren helped me make a couple of more blocks as part of a labor trade.
So anyway, the design wall is cotton batting tacked to my wall. And on the other wall, I've used some big ole hooks bolted in the ceiling that are supposed to be used to hang a bike from your garage ceiling. I'm so clever! Unfortunately, it was actually my dad's idea. Unfortunate because he thinks he's sooooo smart. It would have been better if he had just done it for me. Anyway, so I took dowel rods and ran them into the sleeves of the quilts, leaving their original dowels in there also, and voile` I have a great way to hang my quilts out of the way, all organized and not bunched up in a closet. "Parade!" I mean "Hooray"! My sister babysat a little girl who had the two words mixed up. But they both sort of carry the same feeling, no? Anyway. I'm making myself late for work....ta-ta!
Labels: handmade, try again, who I am
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
I am certainly genious artist...
...in manner of Bridget Jones. Just kidding. For those of you Bridget lovers out there (Mary) I had most exciting Sat. evening. My trusty pal C.Cannon and I were enjoy a lovely party at v. swanky home of grammy-winning music producer when my cell phone rings and we are immediately dispatched to scene of mall shooting. To protect the innocent, we will henceforth call this mall "Ghetto Mills" Here is how I assisted in this dramatic news covering story.
1. I loaned him my cell phone so he could call work and tell them that he could be reached via my phone, because he forgot until 4 minutes before he got called that he was the on-call reporter for the weekend.
2. I told him that "yes, your new party shirt will look fine on air. Besides, you don't have time to go home and change." at least 4 times.
3. I drove his beloved sports car "betty" after he met up with the live truck.
4. I rounded up assorted rednecks to talk on camera about supposed "chaos' that ensued following a gang-related shooting near the food court.
5. I turned up a knob so he could hear the control room talking.
6. I convinced the gas station attendant to give me a rubber band by promising to show him my boobs. Just kidding. But I totally would have because it was 500 degrees, and I have more hair than a pony. (again, just for you, Mary)
Anyway. Here is the real reason I'm blogging. I decided to work on a painting tonight. I felt that maybe I shouldn't, because I probably need to focus on my quilting, seeing as I bought a fancy new sewing machine. But I've been working on a monster of a quilt that is really slow, I mean REALLY SLOW going. I just feel frustrated and kind of stuck, and I needed to get some creative energy out and tell myself that I could actually complete, or at least come near completing, a project. And I'm so happy with it. I can't wait to work on it more tomorrow night. I feel much better now. Except there is one tiny ant crawling on my laptop screen as I'm writing this from my bed. (Oh, why oh why must I stay up so late past my bedtime?) and now I'm feeling really itchy. Here's to being an ADD artist and painting something that really makes me happy. Ciao!
Labels: who I am
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Studio Pics!
Here are some pics of my super-clean (well for me, anyway) studio. My mom and sister helped me stay focused and dedicated. I think they're not sure where my sense of mess came from. Following the big show, it looked like the studio exploded, but I had a lovely reporter for Today's Homes magazine come and interview me and take photos, so I wanted it all to look neat and tidy and creative.
I'm feeling a little scattered as of late--trying to focus and get some kind of crafty work done as opposed to spinning around and shopping. That's a terrible habit I have. I sometimes think I'd rather buy fabric than actually make something. Really, it's just another way of stalling.
Today I'm going to do some sewing and finish some round robin blocks sorely owed to my Aunt. I'll take some pics of them when I'm done, and also of my blocks which are so beautiful! All my cousins (-in-law), mom, aunts, etc have done a lovely job making blocks. So that's your teaser....until next time. Oh! and I have some ceiling painting pics to put up. 
Labels: who I am