Stitching of a Different Sort

Several posts back , I shared some experiments that I did with acrylic paint, canvas fabric and old letter stickers form my scrapbooking days. (See post here)
Since then I have been working on individual bits of those painted pieces treating each one as a collage element to be used on a larger piece. I have been doing all of the work by hand. I am always so anxious to get to the Hand work part. It is so relaxing and quiet and infinately creative. I have layered fabric and trims,buttons and hand made beads and combined them all with stitch. You can see some of the finished bits above.

I have also been working on several other projects that I can only let you peek at for now. They are underway for various publication opportunities so I must keep them under wraps for now. Here are a few peeks!

As you can see they all share the wonderful textures created by stitches. They also include many of my own ahnd painted fabrics and papers. For me, these are stitches of a different sort, in all sorts of places!!!

Change of Plans

I had been planning on writing a post about some fun little gifts that I had received from my brother and his family in Tanzania. Somehow, after the total devastation in Haiti, that seemed hollow and trivial. Don't get me wrong, the gifts are wonderful and I will share them later but right now my heart and mind are elsewhere.

My HEART HURTS for HAITI.
My family, thru my brother , has a strong connection to Haiti. My brother, Peter, went to Haiti in the 1980's to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. To say that this experience changed his life and thus the lives of his immediate family, would be a massive understatement. In Haiti, Peter worked with people in the mountains on reforestation projects and agriculture. He had a merry band of Peace Corps Volunteers who were in the country with him and he established bonds with these people that have only grown stronger thru the years. As far as I know, every one of these people has remained in service to others throughout their careers. Peter married one of these wonderful people. Elise, my amazingly talented sister in law, worked in Port-AU-Prince in the nutrition clinics serving women and children. I know that as they are now living and working in Tanzania, Peter in the hills and Elise in the US Embassy, their hearts and minds are in Haiti.
I did a very quick search on google to see what I could find for Help For Haiti. Below is a very short list of sites where we can go to make donations to help with this massive effort. Click on a link or do a search of your own, but

DO SOMETHING!! GIVE SOMETHING- Whatever you can!!!!

As I am sure that you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. We have turned our eyes away from this huge need for too long and it has taken a massive disater to turn our hearts and eyes back in Haiti's direction.
Won't you please join me in making a donation to the efforts in Haiti and make it a lasting project to lift the country out of the abject poverty that is swallowing these wonderful people!

Turn this massive disaster into an OPPORTUNITY for HAITI!!! DON"T LET THE WORLD AVERT THEIR EYES AGAIN.

World Vision

This group has long been active in haiti and they are currently sending out moto bike squads to deliver food and water to those in most desperate need
Habitat For Humanity- Designated Donations for SHelters and food
White House.gov-A list of organizations that are taking donations as well as other ways to help
Oxfam make monetary donations from $5000 to $35 dollars and even less.
EDE- Endeavor to Develop Education less than $1 a day can get a poverty stricken child an education.
Humanity First-make monetary donations for Disaster Relief
Save The Children Long involved in Haiti and with your donation can act immediately to help.

Get involved- Stay involved!

Change Lives and Enrich your own life!!!!

Shhhhhh!! Don't Tell Him!

MY BABY BOY IS 18 TODAY!!

Yes he is quite aware that today is his eighteenth birthday, belive me! What he does not know is that his Mom (AWWWWH MOM!!!!!!!), is BLOGGING about that fact! Ha!! THis is my blog and I can share if I want to!!!
And I can cry if I want to!!!!

And I can sing his praises if I want to!!!

Just Don'T Tell him- he is alot taller than me!!!!!

I am not sure what it is about photos of people from behind, that I find so compelling, but this is one of my favorite pictures! Matthew was two when this picture was taken and we were in Charleston on a scorching hot summer day . We were prepping for Tom to deploy to meet up with the USS America that was already underway. Matthew was jabbering on a bout the boats and pointing it all out to Tom. I am sure that Tom was lost in thought about having to leave and dreading all that he would miss in Matthew's day to day two-ness. Not an easy time, but Matthew was very into his boats!!


Here he is just this past month. Topping his dad in height by an inch at 6ft4, teasing his 13 year old sister, finishing up applications for college and looking ahead to the next big chapter of his life!!! He has some very exciting books to write, of that I am certain!!!

Happy Birthday, my sweet Boy!!!!!

Phototshop Beginnings!!

It has been a bit since I have had a chance to post!!

On January 4, I began an on line Class with the fabulous Dj Pettitt. Dj does amazing work with paper and fabric , creating beautiful textural books. She also is quite an acomplished painter and photographer and she has put together a wonderful class teaching Digital Editing of photographs using Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. She uses her own photographs and combines them, adds to them and then prints these masterful images on fabric and paper, then incorporates them into her fabulous books. I know that she has a book class on her list of To Do Projects as well. I can't wait!!!
There are about 150 of us students and we all communicate thru an on line forum sharing ideas, trials, mistakes and successes, all led by Dj. Dj has done an amazing amount of work to create chapters putting Photoshop into artist's terms and then she has devised exercises for us to practice on .
Here you can see the first picture that she posted for our first exercise. We were then able to follow along step by step, to modify the picture using our own computers with the Photoshop program.




I had always felt that this would always be something that Other People Did. I am not shy to say that computers scare me and I am just as happy to let my kids and husband figure out the tough stuff with the beasts!!!But........I have become so enamored of Dj's beautiful work and so excited by the possibilites of using my own images in my work, that when Dj announced her class, I was overjoyed and even a bit hopeful that I could gain some level of comfort with the program with all of the tools that it offers.

Below is the image as I repaired it with Dj's wonderful instructions and advice. In the original above you can see a very distracting leaf above the birds head, I got rid of it. There was a distracting snowflake above the birds eye that I removed. There was a reflection on the birds breast that was removed as well as some "noise" along the top of the birds head that we learned to remove.

We are learning all about layers and creating brushes etc and all are having a wonderful time with the whole experience. So now I am on to the next exercise, feeling like I have accumulated a bit of working knowledge of this very complicated but oh so wonderful computer program!!!

Stay tuned!!

Painted Canvas Collage Experiments

WelL, believe it or not the Christmas Gift Making is not yet complete!! I have two items left to craft to send to my two amazing nieces who live in Tanzania, West Africa. The girls and their parents spent their holidays going on safari in two different locations with some friends from the states. They were snorkeling in the Indian Ocean on Christmas Day and watching giraffe and wildebeast herds and even lions in the grasslands 4 days later! Hard to come up with compelling gifts when these sorts of activities are your competition!!! Actually, we have all gotten used to having packages arrive at all times of year as the mail systems are not exactly what we are used to here in the states, so this year I have pushed the limits a bit!!

I have really gotten into playing with paint on fabric and when I saw a recent article in the Nov/Dec issue of Cloth Paper Scissors about using left over scrapbooking stickers as a resist for paint, I had to get out the paints and canvas and give it a go! The idea was to use letter shaped stickers secured to your fabric and paint over the stickers . Once the paint was dry the stickers are removed and you have the fabric show thru in the letter forms. I have quite a few stickers left over from my scrapbooking days that I ahve never been able to part with but that I don't really use anymore. I am all about trying to use up what I already have!!!

I chose some bright colors of my cheapo acrylic craft paints and some cotton duck and started to play. I had decided to make some colorful wall hangings/art quilts for the girls and I was trying to tailor the color schemes and the words/numbers/resist bits to each girls particular tastes.

First I took a long piece of fabric and just added paint in various patterns. then I took smaller pieces and applied the stickers ot the fabrics after warming the fabrics slightly with a warm iron. I burnished the stickers to the fabric to ensure that they were very well stuck down. Then I painted over the stickers in various colors.

In this picture you can see that I have applied paint over the top of the black stickers. Not terribly easy to see.

Here you can see that most of the stickers have been removed . I have left the J sticker at the top half on and half off to demonstrate the difference. this technique proved very effective and it was fun to do as well!

So now what remains is to cut up all of the resist parts and combine them in a pleasing composition with whatever embellishments that I come up with. Then I will stitch it all together some by hand and some by machine, into two art quilts!

Better get cracking! Hopefully , these will be on their way to Africa before Valentines Day!!!

Made For Giving

When I lived in the Boston area and we had long chilly winters, I knit sweaters all of the time. Once we started traveling to warmer climes all over the country other hobbies seemed to push the knitting aside. Since joining the Fiber Arts Guild in Fredericksburg, i have felt the urge to knit again as all of the members arrive at meetings with projects in hand. As soon as our gatherings begin , out come the needles and the socks and hats and scarves and sweaters created have gotten me re inspired to feel the yarn moving through my fingers!! The yarns and patterns that have come out since I last knit are truely astonishing !! THe fibers used, the colors and contents of the yarns are mind boggling and wonderful. So , during the Fall of 08 I took myself to the local yarn shop and purchased some of this wonderful Silk /Wool blend yarn by Noro.

OH is it lucious!! I wish that you could feel it!!! The idea was to make some fingerless mitts for a dear friend who makes exquisite jewelry in a garret type studio in New England. In the winter, they heat the place with a wood stove and till that beast gets going, it is quite nippy in her studio. I thought that these mitts would help keep her hands warm. They wer also the perfect project to get me back into the knitting groove! Well here it is Christmas 2009 and the mitts are finally finished. It certainly did not take me all this time to knit them, the project just got moved to the back burner once the Christams deadline that they were intended for, had past!! Well, better late than never!!!!

This present is one that I was most excited about gifting to my husband Tom. Some of you might know that Tom is a Fire Protection Engineer and has been a Volunteer Fireman since he was 14 years old. Everywhere we have lived, he has been involved with Volunteer Fire Departments in some capacity or another. He was even in charge of Fire Squads as an Officer in the Navy and now he works for the US Coast Guard inspecting cruise ships for adequate Fire Response systems. He has always had a fondness for all things old. I found this amazing poster at Whitings Old Paper earlier this fall. (to read more about Whitings click here)

This site in RIchmond no longer exists and the poster itself dates form the mid forties or ealy fifties. The graphics are just wonderful, aren't they?? I paid a small fortune to get it framed archivally but I think that it was worth it. Tom loves it and it went right up on the wall in the family room, opposite his reading chair!! Success!!!!

I finished the collaged hand jewelry holder for my niece Sarah. She was very intrigued and pleased by the gift, and it brought about much interesting discussion!!! Another winner, not to be seen anywhere else!!!

I love it when things that I create are so well recieved and appreciated!!!

Once the hand had been sealed , I mounted it on a cobalt blue porcelain dish. The dish gives the hand extra stability and also serves as an area for holding bracelets and earrings, or whatever. The cobalt really set the collage work off very nicely!!!

THese trees were created in arather unusual color scheme for one of my wonderfully creative blogging/art pals!! She happens to have a real "thing" for pink trees and I just Had to make some for her to add to her collection. I had these two vintage pieces of pink fabric in my stash, so off I went! I must say that I am thrilled with how they turned out! SO much so that I cut out three tree's worth of triangles to make a set for myself.! Both fabrics are totally reversable so making a set of three was fun as I simply used the opposite side of one of the fabrics for the third tree.

I was told of a request for unusual eyeglass/reading glass necklace type holders by a customer at Liberty Town. So for this months additions to my inventory at Liberty Town, I whipped up several variations on Eye Glass Bling!
The white one is made usiong all sorts of white beads with some real pearls and mother of pearl and brazilian opal thrown in . For the Blue Piece I used several of my own handmade fabric/paper blue beads interspersed with shells, glass beads and some fish shaped beads.

I priced them well to sell, I think.

Next, I have a few Christmas break shots to share with you. As you can see all of our pups are in need of comfortable accommodations!!!! The dogs claim the couch ans we humans get to squeeze in!!!

The dogs do their part, tho, they give off lots of heat!!!!

Here you can see what Becca accomplished with one of her Christmas gifts! She is going thru a Beatles craze right now and we are all enjoying it!! We have all rediscoverd our love of doing jigsaw puzzles as well! Next up, Abbey Road!!

My Favorite Christmas Decorations

For as long as I can remember New YEar's Day has had taking down the Christmas Tree on the top of the chore list. My family was never into Football and if we did naything social we ususally gathered somewhere for brunch. The tree put away was laways the big task to get done. So here it is New Years Day 2010, and I am taking the tree down . As I do I thought that I would share with you , some of my favorite ornaments that live in my collection. I did not get out the full collection this year. We stopped unwrapping when the tree was full!! As I am the primary "tree putter upper" and "taker downer", I get to decide when I think there is enough out!!
the glorious blue Star above arrived from the fabulously talented and generous Martha Brown of Ontario. marthat and I met through an on line art group and we have remained great friends. you have probably noticed Martha's wonderful work in all of the issues of Sew Somerset!! Quite an achievement.!! She has a fabulous blog that you will find here and she teaches kindergarten with such flair and artistry, I am in awe of her!!!



This little garden wheelbarrow ornament was given to me by my Mom and is part of a series. It is probably the first piece of altered art that I ever recieved- though at the time I did not realise what the term "altered art" or "assemblage" meant. (I'm talking back in the mid 90')If you look closely you will note that the pieces of this ornament are bits of children's toys, probably fromPlay mobile or Barbie Dollhouse or something similar. The artist painted everything gold and then made little scenes and glued it all together,adding rhinestones here and there!! So Wonderful!!!

This is a new ornament that I bought for myself this year, as inspiration. I love the colors and the hand stitching! It is crafted from felt and is stuffed. I think that this piece will hang in my studio year round.

This covered snow scene is one that I found after Christmas last year . I just love it and it is a wonderful addition to my Snow People collection.

This is the addition to Becca's ornament collection for this year. I got it at the same time as the House ornament above. Becca has a real love affair going with cats so this ornament really spoke to me. We cannot have cats because of allergy issues with Tom, for all we know , becca may ahve the same allergies.!! I just love how this little black cat is lounging on the cresent moon!

This bureau scarf, table decoration is from my Grandmother's house and I am fairly sure that she did the stitch work. I love the total Swedishness of it!! I asked her several times to translate it for me and perhaps she did, or perhaps she could not remember, but in any case I no longer know. I must find out someday. This piece brings back wonderful memeories of Christmas Eves spent at my cousins home where she lived, with all 5 of my cousins. All in all there wer 7 of us and my brother and I used to call the mayhem- "Living cartoons!!" There were 7 matching stockingshung on the fireplace, all knit by a dear family friend who had no children of her own. It was a wonderful time of my childhood.

This is one of a series of four handcrafted ornaments from Becca's preschool years. I treasure this one especially- she is so cute and innocent. I wisht ath I ahd similar pieces for Matthew but he was not in preschool when we were in Oklahoma. Sigh!! I might actually go back and take some pictures of him when he was around preschool age and make some ornaments. I had better write down this idea or it will be gone forever!!!!

This precious angel ornament was sent to me by my incredible friend patti. She created HOPE using an angel excavated from a factory site in Germany. These little frozen charlottes, as theya re called were throw out into the factory yard when it was determined that they were not perfect. This little doll was probably rejected because the glaze had flowed too far down the legs fuzing them together. By being discarded they were damaged further, and now they carry the marks of age. They are so beautiful in all of their imperfections- they are perfect earth angels-glorious, imperfections and all!!

This handkerchief angel was created many years ago when I came across this wonderful vintage hankie with the red tatting on the edges. I made several that year and gave them as gifts.

This ornament is made from a salvaged ivory piano key. The angel is done in Scrimshaw. this was also a gift from my Mom and done by a friend of hers.

This little mouse in his matchbox bed was created by a friend from Oklahoma. When we lived in Stillwater I was invoved witha wonderful group of artists at the local Parks and Rec art center. We had a wonderful teaching space with awesome classes offered for all ages. We also ahd a great gallery space where every Christmas there was an amazing Holiday Gallery. The ornaments that we all created for sale were always a huge draw to the gallery and we always did much of our holiday shopping there. Support your local artist!!! Jaqui did all of the detail work on her pieces with hand stitching.

Finally, this little lamb nestling in the branches was made by Becca last year after Christmas. Another project that I hope to get to this year, is to create simpleneedle felted animals as ornaments.

For now I have to get back to packing up the tree and seetlting everything down for long summers nap!!

Happy New year to all of you, my wonderful blog reader friends and may it be a fullfilling and creative year for everyone!!!