More Prizes

This is a tool that will allow you to transfer any image to almost any project.  These are iron on sheets.  I can take a family picture or any picture I can print from the net and place it in any project.  I’ve read about this and seen great examples, but I’ve never tried it.  I think Lesley’s gift may open up a whole new world of stuff for me.

Click on the picture and read what she says and look at the gorgeous work just on the package. Yes, I should have taken the stuff out of the plastic envelop.  Sometimes we have to learn by screwing up.  Check out her website.

This is a fabric postcard by Kristen  LaFlamme.  It is exquisite.  Such a small piece of art using so many different fabrics, balanced perfectly.  The handwork is so simple and yet so effective. I am constantly overworking or over-embellishing.  I can learn a lot from looking at Kristen’s work.  This will be framed for the den where it will receive great honor.

Since this qualifies as Mail Art, the reverse side is appropriately designed and signed.  This piece has a very thin, flat batting which makes it interesting to touch.  The satin stitch edge is so well done.  I have messed up many of them so am grateful to see what can be done.

As usual, even the package was a treat.  She mailed it in a very strong, but clear, envelop; the label was decorated and address in a beautiful handscript; even the stamp was beautiful and matched the art piece.  Saving it all for who knows what.

These are quilting patterns from Desiree Habicht.  (Yeah, the plastic issue in photographs rears its head again.)  The one on the left is a very cleverly designed bag that will be quite useful for a person who has as many projects as I do.  I really love that jack o’lantern.

She also sent some of her own fabrics.  This western motif panel would make a great children’s quilt.  And since I am still quite a child, and I wore a Dale Evans’ cowgirl outfit at age 6, I think this is for me.  If you enlarge this photo, you will see a cowgirl in purple (my color!) riding with the guys.

These are the coordinating patterns she included.  There is another good look at that cowgirl.  They are so wonderful to feel, such soft colors and soft cotton.  But, as I am learning, just sending the prize is not enough for these artists.

Check out how she packaged this.  It is just a sturdy, ordinary plastic bag but it keeps everything together and clean.  Then she punched a hole in the bag above the Zip closure and tied a bow in it.  How clever and how easy. Tied up with the bow is her business card which on the back . . .

is an ATC (Artist Trading Card) like piece.  Sorry about the blur.  Mediocre photographer.

Best of all for me was this card.  This is a 5X7 ish card which is handpainted in watercolor with some ink.  This is what I aspire to.  I see several lessons for me in this and this will also hang in the den.  I love this card.  And ever since it arrived, I have seen all the pumpkins, gourds, winter squash just jumping out at me from the decorative displays.  I almost stole one from the hotel this weekend.  Saner heads prevailed.  I will definitely be following Desiree’s work.

This is a picture of the little extras from some of the earlier prizes.  The pen is there to cover the discount code on my 25% off slip.  I didn’t think Kari wanted that on the web.  She is the one who addressed the envelop.  Want to make someone feel really special.  Decorate the mail you send them.  Here lettering is awesome.  I hope she teaches a class online.

This is the ephemera from Laura Cater-Woods.  Bits and pieces.  I love bits and pieces.  I knew the yarns, but the two fabrics are different for me.  The back of metallic bits plus all the threads will be great for spinning art yarn as well as embroidery and maybe even just sticking it on an art journal page. The leaf is lovely.  I love leaves and will applique this somewhere special.  This makes me want to make cuffs again.  Well, why not?

Laura’s ephemera came with a beautiful notecard featuring one of her fiber works.  Do check her site and see her work.  It is so good.

This piece came from Terry Grant.  Again the wonder of how powerful a small work can be.  This one is about 5×5″.  Steve had a fit over this one.  He loves modern, minimalist things.  The machine quilting is deceptively hard to do, but she makes it look easy.  The flow of it really controls how you look at the work.

Terry, too, enclosed a handmade card.  On it she apologized that this was not the glass coaster which she had promised.  HA!  As if I would ever let someone sit a glass on even a glass enclosed piece of her work.  The orange tones will work so well in the den.  I may have to charge an entrance fee to the den because these wonderful artists are creating a gallery in my home.  Terry also has a drawing blog here.

Since all of these prizes come from The Sketchbook Challenge group on flickr, I thought I would add in my own little bit that goes up next.

Imaginary animals a la Carla Sonheim.

So much fun. You make blogs on your paper, and then you find the animal hiding in the blog. I am slopping paint in every sketchbook. Try it. Check out her book on drawing imaginary animals.

More later–

Fusing some petals

Sitting at the mall waiting on Janie, who is always late, and I am always early, so I bring plenty of toys to play with. I ran into Sandy from Charlotte Yarn and emailed her a link to Franklin Habit’s article in the newTwist Collective, ” Ten Knitters You Meet in Hell.” If you haven’t read it, click here. Then saw Chris and her husband. Didn’t know the Starbucks at Cotswold was such a happening place.

I’m excited. I finished my iPad purse this morning. Designed it “seat of the pants” as usual, so it has a few forced places, but that is just me.

I added some flower petals to create a flower to cover the one little place on the flap that I didn’t like. I just fused some pieces of batik together and drew the petal kind of freehand with the machine. I even used some Zentangle patterns for the vein areas. I did this with black thread and blind dumb luck led me to pairing some dark with lights. These are reversible so I can have some options in placing them now and in the future. The leaves were done a while ago when I first received Alissa Burke’s book/CD Sew Wild. She is the source for this technique and for the courage to try it. Messy is okay!

Found the button in my deep stash. Remember what I always say in class: if you don’t like it, sew a button over it!

The pocket in the flap doesn’t work at all. I may try to handsew a zipper in it. Maybe.

About the rayon Habu yarn I plan to use for Olgajazzy’s Infinite Loop. I knit a swatch, soaked it for more than two hours as recommended (out shopping) and I love the feel of the yarn. It has body but is soft. Still it is a bit of a challenge to knit. Worth it.

More later–

Have You Seen My Mojo?

My knitting mojo, I mean.  Haven’t gone this long without knitting since 1993.  Sometimes I go three days.  I think about knitting.  Does that count?

I’m stuck in the long design process that I have with the cabin quilt and Wine Stains.  Here’s that progress:

What’s different?  I have machine quilted the background.

Machine quilting

This is my first venture into machine quilting.  I did practice some, but was unwilling to practice enough to be good ( think a year) and I want this finished and hung.  It isn’t horrible unless you are a machine quilter.  It was fun–stressful, but fun and I learned a lot.  If you want to see great machine quilting, go to The Free Motion Quilting Project.  This blog is by a young woman in Shelby, NC, who is not only talented, but generous.  The designs are gorgeous.

I am embroidering the six Wine Stain blocks.and appliqueing on some scrumbles.  This, too, is learn as you go.  The stitches are not precise, some would call them primitive in places, but I have excuses.  Working on knit fabric in this large a format isn’t easy.  I have backed the squares with a medium interfacing from the stash and will cut away the excess before backing it.  Second excuse, I’m learning new stitches.  Third, I’m getting bored.  But I still love it.  The imprecise stitching fits the piece–it’s a crazy afghan after all.

Just so I remember how to knit, I am starting a felted basket.  This is the pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting.  I already have three of these and use them constantly.  Sometimes they hold a small project, other times they hold pencils and markers.  They are strong, weigh nothing, and when you drop them, they don’t break.  I found this Kureyon in the stash and am holding the two skeins doubled.  Garter stitch is so good to your brain.

I’m caught up on my blog reading.  Amazing how unsubscribing can help with that.  Discovered two new blogs on Ravelry today that are interesting.  Naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com is by a young South African woman who is homeschooling her kids.  She has some cute patterns to give away and some fun with kids tutorials.  I want to make Steve a bat mobile for Halloween.

The other is by Lorraine Hearn.  I’m linking you to a ravelry page of a really wild boot she designed.  I can’t seem to get back to her blog to give you that URL.  Anyway, if you have seen the scarves made out of lace edging yarn like Universal’s Rozetti Marina that are everywhere, you will enjoy looking at what she has done with that yarn.  It’s very sculptural.

What else have I been doing instead of knitting or crocheting?  Well, we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary Saturday.

We are so artsy.  I love the books
Steve gave me.  I am interpreting them as his approval to pursue another hobby.  (No, I don’t really need his approval.  The man buys bicycles by the train load.)  The sculpture is my gift to him and it is clearly the second best gift I ever gave him.  He carried it around all day and talked about the metals and the methods.  Besides just loving how it looks, I love that it is local and I discovered it in a boutique on Lake Norman.  It had a scarf hanging on it.

The sculptor is named Wilson and he works for a Nascar team.  This is serious Nascar country here.  He takes discarded parts and creates sculpture with them.  Steve says the circles are brass syncronizing gears from a transmission.  I like the idea of syncronicity in this gift.

I, too, are working with gears.  I’m altering photos to create patterns that I might quilt.  I’m getting to know Photoshop better and enjoying myself.  This is a picture from a used bike store in Australia.  I cropped this from a picture of junked bikes and so far this is the design.No reason to let a lack of drawing  hamper your creativity.  Technology is so good to us.

The garden grows which is amazing–no green thumbs here.

 

And I am still working on preventing my wonderful fountain from rusting. 

Hundreds of coats of naval jelly and Rust-oleum Rust Reformer later, the base is black and may be coated enough that the water won’t turn orange.  Kate gave us this unique fountain and I just love it.  More car parts.

Oh, did I mention we are remodeling our kitchen?  For that I have Designer Sue who is wonderful.  All I have to do is make decisions.  I hate decisions.  They are so permanent.

It looks like a lot of stuff here, but it seems like lots of hours are missing.  I think I actually need to FINISH something and then I will feel better.

More later–