This Week at Sedbi Design Studio: Joy's Soul

Joy's Soul throw pillow (close-up)
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.

--Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene 2

As part of my reorganization process, I've been thinking about all the things I do that bring my soul joy. I even created a little photo album to post on Facebook called Things I Love to Do. See my daughter smile, listen to my husband play guitar, go to the beach at South Padre Island, drive my car--these are things I love doing. I love to take close-up photos of flowers...here's a picture I took at the edge of a tour-bus parking lot in Scotland:

flower at edge of tour bus parking lot in Scotland
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Sometimes I take close-up photos of flowers with other stuff in the background. The picture below was taken near Loch Lomond. 

close-up of flowers near Loch Lomond
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Unfortunately, my held-together-by-a-rubber-band camera finally gave up the ghost while I was in Scotland  in July, so I wasn't able to take very many more photos while I was there. But I brought home a treasure trove of mental images, some of which I'm certain will find their way into future sewing projects.


Other activities that made my list of Things I Love to Do are: setting the table when friends are coming over for dinner, trying new recipes (paella! fig tart!), and making the same thing I've made a zillion times before simply because it's so gosh-darn good (flourless chocolate cake!). If this isn't the best time for you to be thinking about dessert you may want to close your eyes and scroll right past the photo, below.

flourless chocolate cake
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Believe it or not, reorganizing things even made my list! I'm funny that way...


I don't know if I've mentioned it in these blog pages, but a few months ago I suddenly started writing songs and dreaming up melodies for them. Both of which are things I'd never done before in my life. In my head, I hear very specific arrangements for the music but--because I basically have no idea what I'm doing!--I have a hard time communicating the intricacies of these to my resident studio musician (read: husband). So in June I took up the guitar.


Literally.


I picked up a guitar and asked my husband to show me how to play whatever chords it sounded to him like I was singing and I took it from there. Next thing you know, instead of coming up with music to go with lyrics, I'm stitching together the few chords I know how to play and then figuring out words to put with the music. It's a rather messy, unpredictable process--which, come to think of it, pretty much describes how I sew. And that, dear readers, is why you don't find sewing tutorials on this blog. But that's another topic for another time...


Since playing guitar is now something I love to do,  I needed a photo of that to include in my Facebook album. I tried to capture a still from one of the practice-session videos I sometimes make, but the image quality wasn't very good. Which led to experimenting with the various adjustments that it's possible to do in iPhoto. Now, I've used iPhoto for years but it was only recently that  I fooled with with these settings for the first time--when a picture I took of the dog didn't turn out the way I meant for it to. The result of doctoring the photo of myself holding a guitar, below, looks to me more like a painting than a photo, which is pretty cool.  I gave it the highly original title Woman Holding Guitar.

Woman Holding Guitar
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

And then I thought, Hm, I wonder how that would look as a fabric transfer?


So I started tinkering with the palette, adjusting the settings to give the photo now a greenish hue, now an overexposed yellow and red edge, now a sepia filter. I printed each experiment onto some 4 x 6 fabric transfer paper. Next thing I know, I'm creating a multi-image, multi-fabric wall hanging--still, as of this writing, very much a work in progress.


I guess what I'm saying is that although I write a blog about sewing, it also ends up being about cooking and songwriting and photography and learning to play guitar and myriad other things I love to do, all of which mysteriously become interwoven in the creative process.


This week at Sedbi Design Studio I made three throw pillows, two as birthday gifts for my husband (to take to his office), one that I may have to keep  for myself. It features a fabric transfer of yet another thing I love to do, which is to write word mandalas. In case you can't read my handwriting in the photos below, the phrase for the mandala is Joy's soul lies in the doing.


It all comes full circle...

Joy's Soul throw pillow (front)
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Joy's Soul throw pillow (back)
photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Whatever it is that you love to do, here's wishing your soul joy.