A good day

I am almost done with the Colors of Emotion swap pieces now, this is the front of them, and all I have to do is the back, signature and whatever, and get them mailed off. Whew! I enjoy doing these swaps, but the ideas percolate for a while and then the actual creation is a whirl of getting it all down on paper... or fabric, as the case may be. In this case I chose to use the color blue to evoke a feeling of exhilaration, and certainly horses, butterflies, flowers and the skies all make my spirit soar!

The other pic is the best of my day thrifting, though I haven't shown all my goodies. The larger tumbled stones are hematite, one of my favs. The others are gold beads with what looks like garnet and maybe lapis. I still need to do a few small samples for my next class but by next week, I should be able to take need weekend off! Eehah! On to spinning, and embroidery! I don't teach again until the 11th, and then again the 17th and 18th, and then it is Pennsic! Wahoo! Thats even better than Eehah!

Color, color and more color

Well, I haven't blogged much lately, but I have been doing things down in the studio. The blue sashiko quilted purse lies on top of a fulled wool sashiko quilted sample that I think will become a clutch type purse too. You can hardly see the stitching both in the pic and in person, unless you are right up close. It is a subtle varigated silk thread in shades of gold... quite a departure from the traditional blue and white, while still stitched traditionally. I have been working up samples for a painted cloth class I will be teaching in July, and the book uses some of the cloth. It is a work in progress, but it showcases Lutradur as the pages; they have been colored with acrylic paints and the cover has been stamped with JonesTones glue and foiled. The fabric started out in a mottled purple and I added stamps and sponged color to it. I really like it. I will be teaching this weekend, so won't get much time to play with paints. Love teaching though. I gave a talk today to the local EGA chapter, and it went really well. I was asked to do a workshop on the techniques I showed! I am happy!

Too long

Too long since my last post. I have been busy though, with good things. I will photograph more work tomorrow evening, and hopefully post too. The knitting is a wide scarf or narrow shawl for a friend of mine who is incredibly generous, cooking for all and sundry and she is always giving me lovely things. This is a small gift back. I can't buy lots, but I can make her lovely things. It is an easy lace pattern, Old Shale, and the yarn is Domy Heather in a plum shade. Soft and pretty! I am working on samples for classes I teach at work, and this is for a painted fabric class aimed at quilters, primarily. I used Setacolor paints thinned with water and then scrunched and salted. The salt is giving me a tough time coming out though. I am working on a series of landscape pieces, and printing too. I am off to bed after sleeping hardly any last night... the aftermath of a migraine. More tomorrow...

A Little fun

The big news for this weekend is that I got a new printer... an Epson Artison 800. Zowie, it is fabulous! I printed a test photo, it was like looking at HDTV!
I also did some spinning, a little natural brown cotton from Sally Fox. I am going to use it in a top, along with some classic denim cotton I am spinning too. I am spinning it a little thicker than I usually like to spin, it is good to get outside my comfort zone. I am still trying to figure out whether I want to ply the 2 colours together in a marl yarn, or ply back onto themselves and use them separately in a colour pattern. In fact I am not sure whether I want to weave or knit. I think I want to weave it, so I would maybe use a nice 8/2 or 10/2 cotton in the warp. I have alot of yarn to use up!
The kitties are pins I made from some Laurel Burch fabric and wool felt. I am making several more, to go with lots of outfits! Several ladies where I work want one too... I do think they are cute. The funny little jagged things are bits of zippers... I love to use them as frames and other lines on mixed media as well as my sewing garments... they look great outlining a collar or pocket!

Suddenly, more samples needed

I love to teach, really I do. So even when the notice is short, I am up for it! So when my General Manager asked me last week to do Fashion Sewing Club on Saturday, I said sure... what is it to be about? Oh, my favorite! Embellishment! But I thought I could use a couple new samples for my trunk show, so I did a little machine applique on a silk shirt I found at a local thrift shop, and a little hand applique on a linen shirt. Truthfully, I am still stitching on the linen shirt, and have a little more to do on the silk as well, just tidying up a bit. What a great excuse to spend a day in my studio! So the roses are on the silk, and the bunnies and cat on the linen. Well, my cat is on the silk, looking cute, always looking for a little attention, and a scritch.

Then I spent this afternoon outside mainly, putting in tomatoes, peppers, mints, and tasty herbs as well as a couple anti-moth herbs. A great day all around!

MD S&W

It is that time of year again... the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival...next to Pennsic, my favorite weekend! I can't resist the sheep critters, they are just too appealing. I would love to have a farm, but know it is pretty far out of the realm of the possible, both financially and physically. This way I can stay in the fantasy world of loving the idea and not having all the very earthy (no pun) parts. So here are the first batch of pics, I think the first one is cotswold, the second coopworth, the spotty lambs are jacobs, and I can't remember the last... maybe Corriedale?

The weather was pretty good Saturday, a little rainy at first, but it warmed right up and was cloudy and threatening in the afternoon, but stayed dry. Sunday was positively wet, rained most of the day, but with a wool shawl and wool socks, I stayed warm even though wet. I did most of my buying on Saturday, mostly wool, both roving and fleece. I bought another Icelandic fleece, this one a 5 1/4 lb oatmeal color from a ewe named Empress. She's from the same farm as the ewe's fleece I bought last December, Flossey. I found out poor Flossey got a cough and died this January, she wasn't yet 3 yrs old. I have washed her fleece and am in the process of carding it to spin... but I decided to let Frankenmuth Mills turn Empress' fleece into roving. I am currently spinning a lovely East Friesen's chocolate fleece in the grease... what a pleasure to spin. I am also spinning some khaki cotton (from Sally Fox) to ply with the denim blue cotton I spun last month. I am determined to spin a little everyday, or knit. I have spent too much time looking at other people's art and not enough time making my own. A little art everyday...a little fiber, a little life!

And so to bed, and so to bed...

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!

Ah it is a tiring life,

being the rodent and insect controller for a whole household! Though if a rat appeared, I am not sure what Trouble would do. When faced with a squirrel up close and personal, he looked... astonished!

The day began very foggy, and threatened rain all day but except for a little spattering on my drive home, never developed. Tonight though, it should rain good and hard. Since we need it, I can't complain, and since it is coming at night, even better. Spring is in sight, and there's warm days acoming. Too warm, before too long, I imagine.

I got lots of spinning done this weekend, though I won't say much for the quality. I wasn't necessarily trying for even thread, but I would like it to hold together. Some of the stretches are pretty thin, but most of that should be evened out by Navaho plying ...plying onto itself through a loop. This plying style yields a three ply yarn, a wonderful yarn for socks since the 3 plys make the yarn symetrically smoother than 2 plys. I am not too unhappy with it, since it has been years since I spun cotton, and I only ever spun cotton a tiny bit anyway. Can't get better without practice.

I have been reading my BIL's new novel, about paleogenetics, sort of. Well, it is an action story, with a little love story and some (easy to swallow) science, and a little mystery too. A rollicking good read!

I have also been sewing this weekend, and will post a pic when I am done. I have a couple of garments on line, and a stuffie too. I went thrifting, and got a wool blanket in a pretty shade of rose for $4! Nicely felted too! There just aren't enough hours in the day, or enough days in the weekend to do everything!