Research and Stories
This is a place where I can share some of my research pertaining to early settlement and family histories intertwined with the story of Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. I’ve been researching and writing for many years and want to make some of my work more widely available.
This blog was originally designed to share my artwork and creative activities during the years when I was exhibiting widely. My art has now taken second place to refining and publishing some of my research, but I have left the art posts available for perusal.
Whatever your interest might be, enjoy, and provide feedback if you can.
Diane
Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on August 24, 2010 in Featured Flag, Fibre Art & Quilts | 2 comments
Over the weekend I continued to work on samples until I ran out of suitable fabric – plain enough for the stitching to show but not totally plain. My machine was cantankerous, making new noises and not making perfect stitches so I was glad that I had booked a visit to the service man Gil at Rumpled Quilt Skins in Okotoks. Not next door but this store comes highly recommended by a friend back in Ottawa. What a banquet of quilts to view and fabric, books and tools to explore! They really had some pieces that got me anxious to get my...
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Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on August 21, 2010 in Featured Flag, Fibre Art & Quilts | 2 comments
I’m finally back at my sewing machine. Thanks to surgery and physiotherapy, the wrist is working fairly well, although my coordination is not what I’d like it to be. So I designed my own therapy to work on that! I started about a month ago when I tackled a task I had talked about for two years – documenting the built-in embroidery stitches on my sewing machine. Somehow the computer images just don’t tell the whole story. Forty two six-inch squares later I have a reference file of the actual size and scale of each...
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Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on July 27, 2010 in Featured Flag, Mixed Media | 2 comments
I didn’t get back to the project until late in the day yesterday as an invite to lunch could not be turned down! The next step was to added the surface design. I considered using white glue and decided it would take too long to dry. I considered getting ‘stringing compound’ and decided it would be too expensive. So in the end I chose to use my old standby, quick drying and paintable, DAP. I had part of a tube on hand so did a sample and although I would have preferred a finer line, decided it would work and made a trip...
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Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on July 25, 2010 in Featured Flag, Mixed Media | 0 comments
I’ve been told that the in-thing is to do a casting of the ‘baby bump’ and to decorate it as a piece of art. My young’uns decided that the kit was too expensive so after a discussion with me they purchased the plaster embedded tape at the local ‘M’ store and got out the jar of Vaseline and went to work. Then they announced that it was over to me to decorate! I spent all day yesterday shaping the edge with a Dremel and adding tape to build up and strengthen the edges so that it...
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Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on July 24, 2010 in Featured Flag, Fibre Art & Quilts | 0 comments
Back in the winter I undertook to make a couple of crib quilts – one for a niece’s baby and one for a new grandchild expected in July. The baby quilts were finished earlier in the spring and one delivered in March when we were back in Ontario. I was using a pattern ‘Twisted Triangles’ that I found on allpeoplequilt.com. I just checked and I can’t find the instructions but the link shows the original pattern which has more emphasis on the ‘twisted triangles’. I chose to emphasis the lights and...
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Posted by Diane Miller Duncan on July 6, 2010 in Featured Flag, This And that! | 0 comments
I’ve been gradually getting back to doing some of my ‘ art shoulds’ that have accumulated during my wrist healing experience and one of the items on my list is blogging here more often. I’ve been able to get back to some of my quilting projects (more on this to come shortly) and have started to plan my re-entry into my ‘art’ work so hope to have lots to share in the next few entries. Today I want to share my response to the question “What do you do to get yourself out of a creative slump or...
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