Amber Madonna

Well, it has taken a little longer than I thought, but I am pretty happy with the result. I think I am done, but will stare at it a bit longer to see if it needs anything else. I think I will mount it on a bit of velvet, perhaps a deep blue or gold, with some stitching or overlay. After a rough day, it was so nice to sit in front of the tv and stitch and bead. Something mindless!

I have been creative!

I

have been working slowly but I have been making samples for my Surface Design series of classes. I am doing textures next, and needed to update the samples. I got Lesley Riley's newest book, on using Lutradur. Since I pestered our stores buyer until she got us some, I better make sure people buy some! So I am expanding the Lutradur portion. In the past I would color it in the first class and burn and distress in the third class. So, using it in mixed media pieces requires techniques to tie it in. I also want to use it more to raise the surface of the embroidery substrate and add in that great pitted texture. I am not through yet, in fact in both pieces I have much hand embroidery yet to do, but since I haven't posted much lately, I thought I would post an early pic or two.

The first photo is of a small Indian blockprinting bit, one I used on the second photo's work. I sponged the block with expandoprint, heated it, and then rubbed gold and black paint over it. The corner bits are Crystalina and the Lutradur is in back of the photo transfer of an icon. I used acrylic paint to color it, and will use stitch to blend it all in. The third photo is a piece using a layer of cotton on top of a little cotton batting, with a layer of acrylic felt beneath that. Over the cotton (batik dyed) I stitched a layer of nylon/poly organza. This was heat distressed, and then machine stitched to blend the pieces together. I added lots of handwork too, and have more yet to go. I am working on two more pieces, and will post more on Saturday, I think. I feel good! Art does indeed wash away the dust of the world from my soul.

The Rain....

Two and a half days of rain. Yes, we always need the water, but it was so raw and cold, and I needed some sunshine. We did finally get some, but then I didn't have my camera. I had it in my car to take pictures of it for the construction company that managed to hit about 2/3s of my dark blue car with white overspray from painting the parking lot lines. It looks like the car has chickenpox. My car repair shop says it can be rubbed out and then repolished, but it will take most of the day. What a pain. It is bad enough having all the noise of the construction, all the dirt and inconvenience, when you add this, it is pretty irritating. Hopefully the company will pay without too much hassle.

Sigh...

Well, I hoped to have the files returned by now, but not so. I came home last Friday, and found my dh on the steps, looking despondent. Turns out our desktop was dead. Two hours on the phone to India was no help. Well, okay, a little help. They said it is a systems problem,and we needed to scrub the harddrive. Sigh. So we took it in to Geek Squad, and just got back the files and drive back. Tonight I will reload programs and files. Hopefully I will have photos tomorrow! In the meantime, we needed a computer, and so I bought... hold on now those of you who know me, I bought a LAPTOP! Okay, deep breath, thats better! Me, a laptop! So I am trying to learn how to load it up and use it. This one is so cool, I could learn to like this type, but mine will do just fine! It is a Dell Studio XPS13, very powerful, and just the right size. I love it!

I was hoping to get my fleeces washed today, but only got to do one of the three. I washed the icelandic hogget, a nice white (or really cream) fleece about 4-6" in length. It was really dirty, so took longer. No tags, just really dirty. I sure hope it doesn't felt, I tried to keep the water temp constant and just gently squeezed the water through it, but icelandics felt so easily. I am not satisfied that it is really clean, I will probably wash it after spinning too. That leaves the alpaca and east friesian yet to be washed. Tomorrow!