I Like #239

 Welcome to another week of things to like! I missed last week- I was with family in New Mexico, but I'm back now and trying to have a reframed view for 2022.

Since I was with my family, the last couple weeks were filled with things to like, so this is an easy post to write.

Someone stuck a gift tag on Blue on Christmas morning and he wore it around for quite a while!

It was very very windy most of the time we were there, but we did get to hike one clear day.

We had eight dogs at my mom's and one the one day we got to hike I was able to get all seven on the walk (Bentley can't really go anymore) in one picture!

Spooky mostly spent his time curled up in my dad's lap (he's recovering from knee surgery) but everyone also cycled through all the other sofas and dog beds.

We played tons of fun games over the break with everyone.  This game is called Outrage: Steal the Crown Jewels, which is fun, but the biggest hit game of the break was called Seven Wonders.  Really fun, lots of strategy, not too long, and easy enough that the kids could play too.

When I got home I assembled this super fun lego Hufflepuff book that opens up into a Hogwarts greenhouse.  My friend Kristin gave it to me for Christmas.  I love legos but never buy them so I was very excited to put it together..

My big Christmas cactus blooms in November and is done, but my other two started blooming in mid-December and are still going strong.  Interestingly, they both have both red and pink flowers on the same plant!

Finally, I also blogged about my last quilt of 2021 this week.  Click over here to read more!

Happy New Year to everyone, and click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

Glycocalyx Finished!

Earlier this week I talked about the construction of my most recent (yet still not very recent) large art quilt, and today I'm back to share the final pictures.

The piece is called Glycocalyx by which it is very loosely inspired. The glycocalyx is a protective layer of long carbohydrates/proteoglycans that lines the inside of blood vessels and other anatomical structures in the body.   It helps in cell-cell adhesion and recognition (for example for immune cells), as well as providing a reservoir for important extracellular enzymes and a physical barrier to help protect endothelial cells from direct exposure to shear stresses associated with blood flow.  All in all, it's a very helpful structure!

Of course, in my pieces the spiky furry layer is protruding outwards (rather than inwards), but I still think of it as a protective layer.  From a purely physical standpoint, the spiky layer is a barrier- every time I moved it or tried to hang it up, it poked me!  But it's also a metaphorical barrier- a reminder that having boundaries is important for our well-being.  While making it though, I also thought a lot about the value of community, and how too many barriers can impair that.  For me at least, I need a good balance of being alone and being with others or else I start to feel out of whack.

Glycocalyx, c. 2021 Shannon Conley, 48" x 48" x 20"

Anyway- I'm very happy with how this came out.  I love the half-tube shape that enables the spikes to radiate out in a partial circle.  I love the added texture that comes from the roving-wrapped wire, and I love the pinky-purpley colors.

The only things I don't love are practical.  It's four feet by four feet by about 20 inches, so it's very hard to move around, hard to transport, and is too big to ship.  Sadly that means it won't likely get to go to very many places in-person, but for now I get to enjoy it hanging on the wall in my bedroom.

 

New Quilt: Glycocalyx

Well, I'm shamefully behind on blogging again.  This was my last quilt for 2021 (it was a bad year for me quilting wise, but that's a story for another day), and I finished it several months ago, but am just now getting around to blogging about it.

We moved labs early in 2021, and in the process I found three boxes of 1ml serological pipettes that everyone hated, so I took them home determined to use them for something.  Each one is about 11 inches long and a rigid tubular shape.  With only the vaguest idea of a plan, I started covering them with some fabric I'd painted.  I had a total of 300, and after covering about half of them, I realized I needed to branch out color-wise (all the original fabric was the pinky-orange you see in the second picture, so I added the turquoise and a few purple and fuchsia ones.

After covering them, I took the remaining hand-painted fabric and attached it (front and back) to a big piece of peltex interfacing.  I wanted something with a little more stiffness than batting in the middle layer of the quilt.

The next step was sewing in the spikes; I sewed them to the background one row at a time, and while the peltex quilts and sews well, it is stiff and hard to maneuver, especially once you start sewing down hundreds of fabric covered rigid plastic tubes!

After getting all the spikes sewn in, I quilted the background.  It was tough to free-motion quilt something so stiff but I got through it!  

After quilting, I loved the dimension of the spikes but the background felt very plain and bland.  It lacked vibrancy and contrast- too much peachy pink.  So I painted the bottom darker and more purple, and added lots more color to the top including intense pinks and yellows.

I really wanted it to feel like the spikes were protruding in all directions, so I stitched the whole quilt to a half-circle sized piece of sonotube.  It's what they use to hold concrete when pouring concrete footers.  They're made out of very sturdy cardboard, so it felt like a great thing to use as an armature.

After mounting to the cardboard, the next step was to stitch the spikes into their spikey positions.  In order to get them to stand out properly, they're hand stitched to each other.  The last construction step was to add some roving wrapped wire snaking along both the top and the bottom.  I love the extra texture that added.   You can see it pinned in place in the picture below,

 

This was a fun quilt to work on; come back on Wednesday to see pictures of the finished piece.

I Like #238

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  There were some good things for me this week as I continued through a fairly chaotic period.  

My sister came up last Friday and helped me put all my furniture back and re-organize the house after they finished the tile.  It all looks so much nicer and less chaotic now.  It was such a blessing to have her help.

I have a nice office space now since Becky helped me bring in my Grandpa's old oak desk.  It used to be in the studio, but we re-arranged out there to have space for my new sewing machine, so it was great to make a place for it inside. 

These last few days I've been staying with Becky which has meant lots of fun time with her whole family, including the guinea pigs and her dogs.  

I loved this picture of her dog Auto.  He's such a snuggler.

I loved these cookies Becky and the kids decorated-  they're nutter butter snowmen!  Cookies dipped in white chocolate and decorated with Reese's cups and other candies.  Very delicious and very rich; one is plenty!

Becky also made homemade gingerbread and served it with her homemade pumpkin ice cream.  Delicious!

Bentley is doing well, lots of napping on sofas and dog poufs.

And, a family full of negative COVID tests right before we head to see some additional family!

I hope everyone is having a good week!  Click over to Lee Anna's for more things to like!

I like #237

 This was a hard week.  The tiling was ongoing which made home chaotic, and the graduate education challenges continued at work making work chaotic, and then to top it all off I got in a car accident over the weekend and my car will be out of commission for a couple months at least.  Luckily no one was injured, my wonderful mom is going to lend me a car, my wonderful sister is going to let me ride with her to my mom's and they finished the tile.  So bright spots abounded amid the chaos.

The tile is finished!  I think it's great.  We still have to seal the grout, but my sister and I will do that this weekend.

I made this dancing mu ornament for my friend Brett- he's a structural geologist and apparently mu is his variable of choice (for friction).

Our department hosted a holiday lunch at the restaurant Vast.  I'd never been there before, it's on the 49th floor of the biggest building in our downtown, so it was fun to go there.  We had a nice private room for our luncheon.

I fell in love with these dinosaur Christmas inflatables.  Inflatables aren't usually my favorite decorations, but I loved these.

Lots of love for Bentley this week.  He's been wandering around lost a lot, and I think he's lonely, but he's getting around pretty well and enjoying snuggles with me.

I hope you are having some good things in your lives in this run up to the end of the year!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more goodness!

I Like #236

 Things are in complete chaos here- they started the tiling project in my house this week, and so far it's going well but very very slowly.  Bentley is a little confused, we are without a kitchen (though hopefully that will be back by tomorrow), and mostly living out of the studio which is so crammed with things from the house that you can't really work out there.  But progress is ongoing, and it's a blessing that Spooky and Blue are at my mom's.  

Here is Spooky and Blue and Swatch napping with my dad.  The might not have needed a nap except that apparently Spooky and Blue have been getting my mom and dad up at 4AM.  Not good.

I loved the wrapped lights on this great tree!  Such a fun color combo!

We put up our Holiday decorations at work, this is just one, but it's such a fun tradition to every year get out the pretend hearth.  Everyone who works in the area has a stocking with their name.

My friend and I went to hear the Messiah this weekend and it was just glorious.  Really a wonderful outing, and we were on an aisle at the front row of the top balcony so we didn't feel too crammed in with people.

Bentley wanted some of my dinner.

Tiling in progress!

I love seeing him curled up on the poof.  He's been so confused by all this, but hanging in there just fine!!

I hope you're having some good things in your life (Bentley is always a good thing in mine), and to hear about more things to like, click over to LeeAnna's.

I Like #235

 It's been a really chaotic couple of weeks, but amid the work stress I fit in a quick trip to my family in New Mexico which was really wonderful and refreshing.  My parents are kindly keeping Spooky and Blue since my house will be re-tiled next week.  I miss them very much, the house is so calm with just Bentley, but I think he likes the peace.

As usual, we did lots of walking/hiking while I was there.  The dogs love it.

In Lincoln National Forest

Higher up in the mountains in the National Forest we went and hunted Christmas trees with my parents and cousins.  I didn't bring one back this year, but we got one for my parents and uncle.

The view from the Christmas tree hunting area.

My dad split wood and I helped haul it.  Hopefully they'll have enough for the winter, it's been so warm lately I think they will

Driving down into the surrounding desert to see my Grandma and more dog walking!

Mom and I made some cute baskets out of the wonderful artist postcards we collect.

I helped mom get her Christmas lights up (Dad hates that task)

And I got the lights up at my house.  I love the festive glow.

We had a hard freeze in OK over Thanksgiving (of course all this week it's been horribly warm, today is going to be 78!!).  The freeze killed everything except my beloved petunias.  So glad they were hearty enough to live through! I have some white ones that are still going too!

I'm not having an indoor tree this year because of the tiling project, but I set up this small tree that belonged to my grandmother on my back porch.  It provides some lovely sparkle on my porch.  I might move it inside after the tiling is done.  Makes me happy to see it, and think of my grandma!

Bentley is getting extra snuggles, he's really been struggling to get around lately.

Beautiful trees on the walk into work

It's such a blessing to have my family to support me while I struggle with things at work.  I'm so grateful for them.  For more things to like click over to LeeAnna's!