A Small Peek and a Title Search

 It started with a piece of felted and fulled white wool sweater as a blank canvas.  With the addition of some wool roving , some dyed cheese cloth, a few bits of knitted sweaters of various fibers, some more roving, an ocean-scape became apparent.( To enlarge photos, click on each shot.)

 Some hand stitches with various green threads, various shades of fine tulle netting,

 Some singeing of organza, some beach rocks stitched into vintage linen pockets

 More layers of tulle and strands of organza kelp, a few fish of various sizes

More hand dyed linens , stitching , beads and some shells, some sponges made from mesh vegetable bags lined with orange silk and the ocean-scape is taking on great depth and detail.

This  tapestry/textile Collage piece will hopefully be my big new piece  for May First Friday at the Artful Dimensions Gallery.  We all like to have new art to debut at our big monthly opening events.  You will all get the First Reveal as soon as I finish the piece.  Not sure what to call it. Any suggestions????????????????

Mono-Printing On Gelatin at Artistic Artifacts

I taught my first class in Mono Printing on Gelatin for Fabric and Paper Prints on March 31.  We had a  wonderful time playing with paint and brayers and fabric and paper!  I had 4 very inspired students who were anxious to play and experiment.  this is one of those techniques where once you get the hang of the masks and the color sequences and how to save certain areas that you like of previous prints, you simply CANNOT stop!!!

The class was held at Artistic Artifacts, of course!!!

Theresa was working with some gorgeous sheets of hand made papers in all sorts of luscious colors and she got some great prints!

We were working in the back area of the shop and we could not help but be inspired by all of the glorious Batik samples that surrounded us from Batik Timbal, Judy Gula's other business venture!

One of the gals even used some paper toweling fro several of her prints!! there is no end to where one can be taken by this fabulous technique!!

Look at this wonderful print created by Lesley .!!!!  She used trims and ric-rac as her masks to prevent the transfer of paint from the gelatin to the fabric.

This great panel was created by Barb Boatman , one of my art group gal pals.  She was having the best time squealing and laughing and dancing about with her wonderful prints!!  You did not realize that this could also be called an exercise class, now did you???

                                             Here are more  prints from  Barb's collection!

This fabulous print with the addition of the leaf wood block stamping was a big favorite as well.  Judy sells the most wonderful hand carved Wood Block Stamps from India.  You can see her full collection here- all available for order on-line.

After we cleaned up I managed to get everyone to gather for a group[ picture of our favorite prints!! I plan to be offering more sessions of this fast and furious class in the very near future !!   If you are interested and able to take a class during a weekday, I have a class scheduled for May 24th.  There are only 5 slots in each class so if you are interested hop on over to the Artistic Artifacts Web site and sign up!!!

Embellisher Felting Workshop with Her Majesty Margo!!!

I have been gone for so long!! I have neglected you all and my poor blog!! I have been busy, busy, busy and I hope that the next several posts will help to explain what I have been up to!!


One of the major highlights of the past several weeks was a Class with this wonderful and talented lady, Her Majesty Margo, Ms. Margo Duke!!

(above photo taken by Susan Elliott)

Here she is as she appeared in class with her adorably stylish felted Fascinator chapeau and her gorgeous wool and silk shrug that she calls her Butterfly Wrap!
I was quadrupley excited to take this class as I found out that my dear blogging friend, the  amazing thread and bead artist , the delightful Susan Elliott would be traveling down to meet Margo and take the class as well!!   Oh my! almost more than I could stand!!!
 We had lots to cover in our Gown Fragments class and Margo got right to it demonstrating how to achieve some of her beautiful looks with our embellishing machines.

Margo is always so very generous with the materials that she provides for her classes and we each chose some silks and ribbons and fleece and silk fibers to create with.  Our class was held at the wonderful Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria, so anything else that we might need was readily available, including the felting machines.  (Judy Gula is now a distributor for the Simplicity Felting Machine which works like a dream and does not cost an arm and a leg.  If you are considering buying one of these wonderful machines, look at this machine first- Judy can tell you all about it and sell you one too!!

                                                   This is the palette that I chose to work with.  No surprises here!!!

This is the progress that I made on my piece during the class.  All of the work that you see here was done using the felting machine.  you can also see that I used my regular sewing machine to add some free motion embroidery work .  once the wet felting portion of the project is done you will see just how much texture this extra stitch work adds.

The small pink circles that you can see are little circular rosettes of wool yarn that i felted down into the wool and silk fabric.  All sorts of fibers and yarns and trims can be added to this process and my piece became a sampler of sorts for many of the techniques that Margo was demonstrating for us.

Our time together literally flew by and none of us wanted to pack up and leave.  We all would have gladly stayed for a three day marathon class if we could have!!!
Margo has plans to give a class on creating her wonderful little Fascinator Hats and you can bet that we will all be stalking her blog waiting for the next class announcements!! If you ever have the opportunity to work with this delightful lady, DO NOT HESITATE!!!  You will be so glad that you jumped at any opportunity that arises!!

                                  Here we are as a class showing off our work on our gown fragments.
                             (Susan Elliott is standing on the far left in the pink shirt with the great smile!!!)

Once I got back home I set to wet felting my sampler piece.  If you look back at the area around the large purple flower you can see a border of green wool that had been embellished to the edges of the purple silk.  once the wet felting was done the green wool had shrunk up so much that it was no longer visible and it had pulled the purple silk along with it to form the much more ruffled and blousey flower!!!!

In fact, all of the luscious silk fabrics had been gathered and ruched in along with the shrinking wool!!  What fabulous fun and a delightful set of techniques to apply to all sorts of different projects!!!
                                Thank you so very much for yet another delightful and delicious class Margo!!!