Happy New Year!!

Wonderful LULU

Do you know what LULU is?

I just bought this wonderful book:

Beeton's Book of Needlework with over 400 pages and all possible techniques -antique but actually new!- and it was a book download for only 1,79$!

I discovered LULU and it's amazing possibilities! I have this explanation about it from an article mentioned in Mary Bogdans site:


Lulu puts on a Canadian face

by JACK KAPICA www.TheGlobeandMail.com

Globe and Mail Update


Just as he helped revolutionize the high-tech world, Bob Young is doing the same for book publishing. And now he's putting a Canadian face on it.

Young, who helped tilt the computer world toward the Linux operating system when he founded Red Hat Linux, is expanding Lulu.com, the "hassle-free" publishing venture he set up a couple of years ago. The venture has been so successful in the United States and elsewhere that he ha decided to start tailoring its image to individual countries.

And he has no idea how it to do it either. "No one knows," he told Globetechnology.com Friday, "but we'll find out."

Lulu turns the traditional notion of publishing on its ear. Unlike commercial publishers, Lulu does not invest a cent in an author; it just rakes in 20 per cent of the sale of any copy it sells. Writing the book, editing it, designing it and creating a cover are all left to the author, as is setting the price. And so is the marketing.
Print Edition - Section Front

Section A Front Enlarge Image
The Globe and Mail

Moreover, the author retains all copyright over the work.

And he's doing this not only with books, but also video, periodicals, multimedia, photo books, customized calendars and other projects.

The magic sauce in this idea, at least for the printed-word part of the business, comes from a technology that allows a single book to be printed and bound by a single expensive machine. Young has a contract with Xerox, which makes giant printers that can do all this in a "no-touch" process, in plants all around the world, and print individual or batch copies on demand. And the printer doesn't start to operate until a buyer's credit card has been approved for the sale.

"It's all done by software," he says.

The economics of print-on-demand make this a profitable concept; because no book is printed until it is sold, no books end up unsold and turned back into paper pulp, as unsold books often are.

"We're very environmentally friendly," he says.

And, he's quick to add, it's not at all like vanity publishing, which makes its profit by charging the author a price for a minimum number of copies. The vanity publisher then delivers the lot to the author's home, leaving the author to warehouse, sell and ship the books.

Young worked out the formula while marketing his latest acquisition, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. A native of Hamilton, Ont., and now living in Raleigh, N.C., Young realized that if you see both as content producers, football and book publishing are not so different. The company he created to market football, MRX, is now spending more time with Lulu.

"MRX," he says, "is now a marketing plan for digital content."

It was through that marketing that Young discovered there were different "patterns" to the kinds of books sold in different countries. France, for instance, has a high number of fashion books, while evangelical Christians dominate Lulu's business in the United States.

Localizing Lulu for Canada is basically taking the sting out seeing a line of books clearly intended for another audience. In the United States, for example, conservative Christians, with about 33 per cent of the population, form a far greater market for evangelical books than conservative Christians in Canada, who number between 3 and 7 per cent.

Young has no idea what will happen in Canada. "Well, I imagine we'll have more hockey books than the Americans," he says.

Then he ruminates about a book being published by a Swedish writer on Lulu, about how to cook a reindeer: "Perhaps that will be popular here too."

The reason for optimism is the way Lulu has racked up the numbers. In the two years since he created it, 100,000 writers have created 120,000 titles on Lulu, he says. In the past two hears, he's racked up $16-million (U.S.) in sales; each week, he says, 2,500 new titles are added from writers in 61 countries.

He is also propelled by another set of numbers he came up with. He says that the number of readers around the world is increasing at a rate of 4 per cent a year, while the number of authors is increasing at 10 per cent per year.

He calls it "authorgeddon," the publishing version of Armageddon. But it also means that there is a tremendous demand for a service such as Lulu.

When considering the prospects for writers using Lulu, it helps if one forgets fiction and poetry, which require specialized marketing. Think instead of something like software manuals, or books whose content must be updated regularly.

Rather than pulping thousands of software manuals, Lulu's print-on-demand concept allows buyers to download the latest version, which could have been updated to cover the latest features as recently as yesterday. The kind of changes required in the sciences are so rapid these days that they have far outstripped traditional publishing's ability to keep up with them without losing incredible amounts of money.

Now, Young says, it's all in the hands of the writer.

"We just provide the marketplace."

One new UFO hit the road!

I'm really happy I finished this piece. I like it now. Sometimes you have to sleep enough over a piece till you have a good idea of how to continue the work... I slept 4 years on it! :-)

More Photos with details of the work in Flickr

My first non-traditional piece!

This was my first non-traditional piece.

I took a class with Erica Carter at Irsee (Germany) I think it was 1997...

She teached us how to use our imagination to create, using music, doing doodles, etc.

At the end i had this piece almost finished to take home with. I worked till late at night to finish it... I was so happy of finding all these small figures who never left me since.

The fabric were from Heide Stoll Weber because I din't have a clue about dyeing at that time!

After this workshop I travelled to the States and took classes at the QSDS, at Arrowmont, at Susan Shie and James Acord's Turtle Camp, at Haystack, I began twice a City and Guilds embroidery class
which i never finished because i was already teaching on my own... (i was always sorry about not finishing them!!!)

Now i told you some details about my development in textile art. I also had an art instruction before marrying but not in textiles. This developed after my children grew up!...

If you want to see more details of this quilt, please look into my flickr site!

Working with paper...

I found this piece, as i told before, in my UFOs stash. i want to finish all of them now before i begin with new pieces. this trains me after so many months of work on the studio... and it gives me the possibility of using new materials.

i wanted to add contrast between the figures and the background. paper was the final choice. i was working with paper in my collabs so that i used some on thie piece too.
i was happy with the result. i sewed some tulle over the paper to keep it in place and used this to protect my weaved embroidery too.

Former pieces uploaded

As everybody slept today morning i took photos and uploaded them. these are former works i found as i ordered the studio (i had to finish "ge to know me") and some other pieces i hadn't taken photos of. i want to document my work in my flickr album and i must take more pictures in the future...

Please look at all new photos in my flickr album (about 35!)

Second pillow finished

I finished the second pillow today. The little people are taking care of a part of my collection of vintage buttons. They look like snow flakes, perhaps because we are having the most hot fall in history and everybody wants to have some snow... for the holidays at least. no white christmas this year, i'm afraid!

A dark piece of past...

I found this piece made some years ago doing order in my studio. I always thought it was too dark and hadn't find a place for her to live... Now I like it very much, even if it has almost no contrasts. We change our taste along the years. This doesn't make the piece better -I should have used more contrast- but I accept the fact and like it in spite of this...
I did much handstitching on it accentuating some parts.

Style confusion or To Be or Not To Be

Perhaps I should explain that I made all these pillows for classes I gave. Because of that they are made in so many different styles, as my whole textile work is as a matter of fact.

I'm always asked to give workshops for different kinds of public (here in Austria they are particularly traditional)and I must sew different kinds of projects. As I do this for a living I cannot always choose what I really want to do (this would put most workshop participants to rout!! LOL)

Sometimes I think it's deffinitely me when there are fewer colors and some funny figures... I can get real authenticity crisis sometimes....

The pillows in my living room

Today I was working on a new -old- pillow I found as I ordered my studio (you cannot imagine how many pieces I "found", most UFOs, I could spend a year finishing all them!). As I was stitching I thought I could take some pictures of all my pillows because I never had yet...

The pillow on the picture is the second one in a series of these little men, I finished it yesterday (and began it 9 years ago...). As soon as I finish the one I'm stitching I'll upload it too.

If you want to take a look at all the pillows please go to my flickr album.

1" art swap

Hi all,


I want to invite you to a new swap I organize. We already have 3 participants and need 4 more.

It is a 1” x 1” (2,5cm x 2,5cm) collage art swap. The idea came from

Createarian in Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/createarian/

she already organized such a swap, you can see the picture above with the mounted squares.

you will find more at her Flickr site.

The deadline ist Mid-February 2007.

If you are interested in doing this swap, please email me at

saralechner@gmx.at

We don’t want to stress ourselves doing this, it ought to be just fun! But I would be very happy if you participate.

If you’d like to participate I’ll send you the detailed instructions (or I can send them too, if you want to see them before you decide!)

Please keep in mind that the first 4 participants who answer to this mail are going to be taken!

Sara

Studio ready!!

After 3 years of hard work we finished the studio/café/shop/exhibition room/storage straw bale project!!

You can imagine how happy I am! I am sorting all material now (this is a hard job too!) so that everything has a place and I can find it!!! After living 20 years in a 3 storey building and having the material scattered all over the place I'm in heaven now!!

If you want to see all 58 pictures you can go here

Now everybody is invited to use this studio. I'm offering classes in summer 2007 and I have also the possibility to offer a place for an artist in residence. You can also come for a week or two, alone or with friends (I have 2 double rooms), and work on your projects (with or without supervision) and enjoy the wonderful landscape of the "Mostviertel".

Even if it doesn't look like it, I want to keep it simple and don't have too much of a show here... It must be a place to work, rest, get inspired and enjoy... I want to have the possibility to work more than giving one class after the other, but I enjoy having fellow artists around me doing their thing. I find having contact with other artists is good for winning new perspectives.

Feel free to ask!...

Christmas nears ...

As Christmas nears I feel like sewing something for the tree... I want to make my own decoration. I already have some other pieces from the last years. I will take pictures of them when my studio is ready (yes, I know, this is already a kind of litany of me but now it's really happening, I think I can move in by the end of this week.... gosh! am I happy!!!)

This star is stitched on linen with a Colback/Sizoflor wreath around the angel's face -in gold and silver-
I stitched some knots with gold thread and made a second wreath of pearls around the piece. I'm doing 8 of them to hang on the tree. They are about 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" (13x13cm)

Third collab for The Library

This is my third collab for The Library.

I'm sending it to Jade Pegler in Australia.

The book is "Love Poor People's Bread" and I used some Photoshop to illustrate the theme.

Another collab

This is the second collaboration for The Library I'm doing. I'm sending it to Cecilia Levy in Sweden.

I did a second book of this series from "The Lady and ...", I had the same book twice and I thought it would be nice to make a second try of the possibilities.

The stories I write in the books are a reflection of my psyche. The world that inhabites me (i also inhabite the world but this is something else...) is made of pictures without much relation in between. In the night -between dreams- I see pictures evolving. these pictures never tell their story or they have an incomplete story. they're just pictures that come and go. they told me not to ask for a complex story, they are more like life, everything happens and nobody has a clue why...

The Library

I'm doing some collaborations in The Library in Flickr. It is a very interesting idea of Alex Itin in IT IN
I'm afraid I changed somehow the rules... You are supposed to get rid of all the pages and only paint the 2 inner covers... I always get involved in a 3D thing though...

My Etsy Shop

I want to tell you that I opened my Etsy Shop with the name "SIBARITA"
if you want to take a look.
I am going to put items to sell regularly...as soon as I have finished my studio.

Ireland

I had to take care of 3 of my grandchildren in July because my daughter travelled to Ireland with her husband as a gift for her 30st birthday.
I had nothing to work with at her place, only a sewing machine, so I did this piece thinking of Ireland with the bits and pieces I found...

Little surprises

Jade made a comment about the legs of these little dolls, so I showed her what they have under the skirts. It's gender specific...only if you think it's gender specific.

Textile Tuesday

This is the piece I did for this week's Textile Tuesday. The theme was "Black" (Schwarz). It's about 8"x12" (20x30cm)

Some more 2

These are the last ones.
If you want to see the photos in a better resolution, please open my Flickr album!
The idea of the whole thing was to use my seld dyed fabric and my "faces" in a country way. It wasn't very easy to figure that at the beginning but then I tought that adding some linen fabrics and letting all be kind of primitive naive would do. I was really happy with the result because my country friends liked it and were somehow reconciliated with my style (they don't like my modern pieces, here in the Austrian Alps they're kind of weird -I mean my pieces, not the people! :-)- or perhaps both??? :-))

Some more

SOLD

Country upload!

Because I found the former picture in the web today I thought I could as good upload the whole series!
I began this series with the idea of writing a book with the intructions in how to do these quilts but I never had time to do that!

Fiesta in the garden

Today I found this picture of one of my country quilts in the Web! This is one of a series of quilts I did two years ago. I was in a country mood...

View

Somebody asked me to show the view out of the windows of the studio. These are some photographs from the west and north view (from the main windows)