Shopping For Fabric

As the shopping season is upon us, I find myself in the middle of getting a couple of projects completed for early exhibits in 2009. Hard to believe we are soooo close to the start of new year. On Wed. I found myself in need of some 'color'. Colors in order to make my projects work, so I called a friend and made a plan to do a fast run up to the fabric district in Downtown LA.

For a number of years I have shared my shopping haunts in this area of Los Angeles through a map on my website, http://www.rosehughes.com/ ; but, this time I thought it would be fun to take some photos. The first photo is of the street signs on the corner of Maple & 9th, for most of my favorite stores are there between 8th & 9th.

It's a wonderful, wild street filled with lots and lots of stores full of fabric, so you can spend a lot of time wandering. As the picture shows your centrally located to several markets as well. I thought it fun that I capture the walk & green light. A good indicator. GO, GO, GO.

LA seems to have put in a new parking system. Most of the meters that let you come in for a quick hour rather inexpensively have been changed to a pay system that now costs $3 per hour. (guess they have to get their money somehow). There's plenty of lot choices as well, but if you are planning to go to Michael Levines they validate for an hour with a $20 purchase. They are also right there in the are of Maple & 9th.

My mission was several colors of dupioni silks and for that I headed straight for Fabrics & Fabrics at 403 E. 9th Street.

Even though the whole week had been wet and cold, the sun came out on this morning and everything was bright and fairly warm. A perfect day for wandering about. The guys at Fabrics & Fabrics are all very nice and are there to help you pull out all the rolls of color from the huge collections on the wall. They were even nice enough to let me take a couple of photos inside.

Hope you all get a chance to check it out sometime! ~Rose

More Open Studio Fun

My open studio this year was great fun, and many of the quilt artists with quilts in my recently published book showed up on Saturday for a fun afternoon with lots of signature swapping. The champagne flowed and conversation turned to the swapping of techniques recently tried out (afterall most of us are quilters), and tales of exhibition trials & tribulations. I wouldn't say we figured out anything of great significance but we had a nice time chatting about it all.

All the while I shared my new work and new series of patterns for everyone, and books and pens were passed around as people introduced themselves as Trish, page...., or Betsy, page.....

Trish & David delighted us all with the new pieces they were turning in for the upcoming travelling exhibit Seasons: Spring. Others shared and swapped a few shopping favorites that included http://www.beadwrangler.com/ that was touted to be THE place to buy jean thread, beads or 16wt pearl cotton.

Later in the day we snapped a couple of shots of the 'folks' in the book and others while they were cutting and pasting and having fun creating their own bookmarks at the worktable.

When everyone left the brownies were all gone but there was a drop of champagne left to help me get through the clean-up...

All in all a day filled with friends, fun and lots of sharing.
Happy Holidays to you all! ~Rose

Open Studio Fun

It was really great to visit the Joanell Connolly's studio last weekend. There was a number of fun people there to chat with, great art to see and purchase, and even a wonderful poetry reading by Gabrielle.

As Gabrielle read several of her poems I felt like was transported to wonderous places. She also had books of her poetry there and I fell for a poem called
Then There is Red.
At one point in my quilt artmaking career I purposely sought out using red. It had never been a favorite and I felt challenged to move outside my comfort colors. Some of the results of that experimenting (way back in 1997) was the piece.
Don't Think Yourself in a Jail.
The red challenge was just the beginning of my continuing study of color.

Gabrielle's poem says:

Red is everything
you ever wanted it to be.

Sure, its got
a bad rap:
red with embarrassment
or sunburn
and once
politically.

But I'll take red
any day--never
a stop for me
but full on go.

It's an enthusiastic color,
not at all shy.
Bulls love it and
they can't be wrong.

Where would Minnie
be without her
red and white
polka dots
or the day without
a red letter?

Foget about Hester.
I mean, at least she got to wear red.
After all,
it could have been
puce.

I loved the poem. It was perfect.

If you want to begin your own study of color you can download free color lessons from my website: www.rosehughes.com

But, if you want to see where red, purple, yellow, blue.............. are taking me now you can always check out my work at my open studio. This coming Fri-Sun. December 12-14.

I wish you all a 'red' letter day! ~Rose

December Fun!

December is certainly upon us and with it lots of holiday invitations and 'open studios'. I love to go check out other artists studios to see how they work, and chat about what they are doing. It's also fun to find wonderful little treasures that I can give for holiday presents. This weekend I'm heading off to the studio of Joanell Connolly. Her studio will be open on Sat & Sun and you can check out her work at http://www.joanell.com/ .

December has started off to be pretty exciting so far, for last night I had a wonderful time being interviewed by Kim Wulfert on http://www.womenonquilts.blogspot.com/ .

We had a great time conversing on my own art work and my journey so far. Kim did a great job of asking really interesting questions about my art, and the business of my art, and the interview will be available to hear or download from her blog very soon.

My recent trip to Olvera Street provided me with some little embellishments and some fun ideas on how to use them are whirling around in head.

Bells, calla lillies and other fun little trinkets....

Happy creating! ~Rose