Busy, Busy, Busy!!!!!!!!

Some things tend to get pushed off the plate when one gets super busy and I have found that computer time and writing blog posts and visiting all of my glorious friends blogs has been one f those things!!  I have truly missed the blog hopping and visiting and as I sat down today to finally write a new post I was a bit shocked to see that I have not updated you since April 6!!  That is inexcusable!!
So as evidence to show that I have been truly busy I am going to share a quick photo tour of what I have been doing art wise. Of course there has also been family stuff, house stuff, the garden, taking care of all the PR for our gallery- Artful Dimensions.  BTW we would love it if you would check out the gallery on FB and "Friend us" if you are so inclined!! Here is the link.
As many of you know I have been experimenting with felting and combining harvested silk gauze and wool roving to make unique wraps of wearable art.  Here are a few of my latest creations!!

( Click on any picture to enlarge.)

 This is my latest piece.  I am calling this wrap Peaches and Cream.  I put it all together using ultra soft merino top roving , silk fibers, and some Rusty Nail Angelina fibers sprinkled in for a bit of sparkle.

As part of the felting process I have added in clusters of silk flower "blossoms", made from some of the fabric and rolled and attached solely through the magic of the wool fibers.

Some of the silk fabrics have shots of metallic gold threads running through them, perhaps you can see the shimmer in the upper left.  This will be on display and for sale at Artful Dimensions Gallery of Art and Fine Craft.

I have finished  a new free form beaded collage bracelet as a commission for a good friend who owns a wonderful knitting shop on Cape Cod.  ( If any of you vacation on the Cape and are out on the Outer Cape- Orleans area- plan on stopping by and checking out the wonderful offerings of yarn and great hospitality at A Stitch In Thyme.)

 My friend wears lots of soft blues and green tones, quiet earth tones you might say.  So I had a grand time sorting through my bead stash to find the perfect beads for her bracelet.  the closure is made using a loop of seed beads and a vintage mother of pearl button.

 In this bead soup you can see beads made from porcelain, some Picasso Jasper dagger shaped beads ( a bit left of center with the brown veins), a glass face bead, several recycled glass beads from Tanzania, and lots of different seed beads.

She should have received the bracelet by now and I hope that she likes it!!

Here are some other felting projects that are on their way to becoming pillows.  Each will have a flange around the outside- kind of like a ruffle but NOT ruffled, so as not to loose the wonderful organic edge of each piece.

 After taking a wonderful class with the AMAZING Margo Duke, I learned how to add fabric roses, ruffled and pleated silks and gauze fabrics and how to incorporate some of my hand dyed vintage crochet pieces into the felt work.

         After the felting process comes the even more fun part, the beading and hand stitch work!!!

This purple piece is on it's way to becoming a very special pillow for a special friend.  The others will become part of my first ever Featured Artist Show to be held during the month of September at Artful Dimensions.

I made this quick little bracelet for a special visitor who will be coming very soon!!! This specific pattern is called Tapestry and was created by the amazing Carol Cavanaugh of Beads On Parade a wonderful bead store in Fredericksburg, VA.  The pattern calls for using two different colors in several sizes of beads but, as you can see, I modified it just a bit!!

          I have also been working on curriculum development for a new Class that we are offering as a camp this summer at ADG. (Artful Dimensions Gallery)  A good friend Barb Posey, and I are offering a Fairy and Troll camp for all ages 10 and up.  We will be creating our own fairies and trolls and then working with found and natural objects to make environments for those little people to live in.  We are very excited about it and I have really gotten into making little accouterments for the fairies!

 This little baby fairy is based on instructions offered in a wonderful book by artist Sally Mayvor.  I discovered Sally's wonderful work from a listing on Pinterest.  I have since learned that she lives on Cape Cod- where I used to live and where I still have family.  She is a very gifted artist and shares all of her techniques.  If you are at all interested in crafting your won fairies with very simple supplies check out her book Felted Wee Folk.

 Here is the little guy hanging out with his new pal Mr. Cicada.  We are currently in the midst of a 17 year swarm hatch and the buggers are everywhere!!

                       This is our sample of a troll for those who do not wish to create fairies.

 Here is baby fairy with his Momma seated in their little moss and bark floored environment, in front of her mosaic table and serving up a polymer clay strawberry cream cake and tea in blue ceramic mugs!!

A better shot f Mr. Troll with his bones and his fish bone stool.  I\did his dreads  ( hair do) with brown wool roving and twisted it quite a bit to get the right look.

Here is a detail shot of the mosaic table- I used molding paste and little broken shell bits to craft the table and polymer clay for the other bits!!
 We have had quite a few adults inquire about the camp and we have decided to offer some classes for adults as well.  We had a nice write up in the local paper last week about our classes so hopefully folks will really follow through and sign up!!

So as you can see I have been working very hard and I will try more diligently to keep you up to date on my creative projects in a more timely manner! I hope that wherever you are the cicadas are not driving you nuts, the tornadoes have avoided you and you can find cool or warm place to create beautiful works of art of whatever type you choose!! ART ON!!!

This, That and a Sprinkle of Something Else

I have been felling a real Need to Bead lately, so I have been feeding the need.  Here you can see my first go at a Cellini Spiral.  This is a tubular spiral peyote stitch design.  I have been interested in working on this spiral for a long time and I am planning to create a short choker style necklace with this pattern.  The purple beads on the outside of this spiral are a size 8 and the inner spiral beads in black and white are a size 15- teeny tiny!  By working from very small to quite large one can achieve the undulating spiral shape.

although it looks a bit complex it is actually quite simple once you get going.

 These next two pieces are now for sale at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg, VA.  This first piece is a bracelet that I have titled Sea Spray and again, despite its complex shape, it is very easy to achieve using extreme increases in each row of beading to achieve the wonderful ruffly effect.

 This bracelet is titled Cherry Blossom Fizz.

This next piece is the beginnings of a felted picture collage for my upcoming show in September. This  is the piece so far after the wet felting step.  It is a beach scene from Cape Cod .  It will have lots of stitching and details added with machine and hand stitch and probably some beads.

 It is done entirely with my hand dyed fabrics and I added quite a bit of thread painting to the cone flowers  and to put an edge on the table cloth.

And last but not least, for this post anyway is a newly collaged ,wet felted scarf made with various bits of silk ,wool and mohair curls, and roses that were created during the wet felting process.  For this piece I used several of the techniques that I learned with Margo Duke .  You can read about that class and see pictures of my work in the previous post, here.

I am in the process of adding beads to the centers of the flowers and some sparkle to the bits of green wool curls.  I have several more pieces like this one planned so I must get going to get them ready to roll!  Till next time....................

Ruffles and Flounces with Her Majesty Margo

Let me start by saying that if you have any interest in felting, fibers, Textile collage or texture and you get the opportunity to take a workshop with Margo Duke JUMP AT THE CHANCE!!!!   She has earned her Title of Her Majesty!!  Her work is stunning and innovative and luxurious and she loves to share all of her tips and tricks as she is secure in the Knowledge that no one can collage fibers and fabrics exactly like another person.  She is a total delight.  Ruffles and Flounces was my fourth workshop with Margo and this class was held at the fabulous space and shop for Altered art and Fabulous batik fabric, Artistic Artifacts.

Whenever we gather with Margo, she brings out her glorious samples and inevitably we all get caught up in asking how and what and exclaiming and drooling over each piece.  This little tease of a trunk show is well worth the cost of the workshop, but wait there is more!!!  Then we see garments and my friend Chris is asked to model the garments so we can see the fit of each!! Then the pieces are passed around and finally they are counted to make sure they have not sprouted little furry feet.  ( just kidding about the last bit)

I took several photos fo a couple of her samples . These pieces are done with wool roving and collaged with silk fabrics, lace doilies, yarns and other fibers.  All of the work that you will see here are achieved using water, a bit of soap and woman power.  No stitches were taken to create these pieces!!!!

The Texture is totally breathtaking!!  The little red berry like bits are called wool nepps.  They are a bi- product of not good shearing.  The bits from bad shearing practice are called second cuts, by spinners.  This happens when the shearer does not get as close to the skin and therefore the longest fiber form the animal and has to return to make a Second Cut to even out the sheep's wool appearance.  this second cut ends up as lost part of the best part of the fleece, at least it was till some bright person figured out how to make these Nepps.  They can be dyed any color and they give wonderful texture , as you can see!

The first garment that Chris modeled was this wonderful vest.

Margo explained how she makes her collaged felt two sided so the garments can have interest on the inside as well as the outside.  FABULOUS!!

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The next garment was a wonderful soft colored jacket.  

This back view gives a great idea of how collaged Margo's pieces are- remember this is all done with water, a bit of soap and lots of hand  manipulation.  Then the pieces of felt collage are stitched together to make the garment.

( Click on any of these pictures to see enlargements and more detail)

I started out my project with a piece of green silk gauze with pink roses on it and a piece of tan cotton gauze that had red and blue floral print.  These remnants were topped by a large piece of chartreuse green pre-felt.  you can see the pre-felt in the picture above along the bottom edge.  I then layered the green pre-felt with hand dyed vintage cotton doilies, silk hankies, silk fibers and silk gauze  fabrics, sari silk ribbons and fun yarns.  Some of the silk gauze was rolled into 3-d rose shapes.  You can see the rose shapes in the center left of the above picture and in the middle of the picture below.

These two pictures were taken before the piece was wet down with soapy water and rolled and rolled and rolled some more!!!

This is a picture of the fully felted and fulled collage!  It shrank by 30%.  Along the bottom edge you can see the silk ruffle that was created by capturing one edge of a long piece of silk gauze ( cut from a thrift store skirt) .  As the wool shrinks that has penetrated the silk fabric, the silk gets carried along with the wool, resulting in wonderful ruffles and flounces.

  At the top of this picture you can see the felted in cotton doily- look at the wonderful texture- I do so love it!!!  The base of the silk roses have been captured by the wool and drawn in more tightly and are secured.

The br
ight blue areas in this picture show the pleating that I accomplished by hand pleating the fabric when wet and then covering with a very wispy bit of wool roving before the rolling process.

Here you can also see a good view of the ruffled silk from the pink skirt.

Here is a shot of the almost finished collage piece.  Just below the green pre-flet area you can see a piece of bright blue silk with a beaded motif on it.  This bit was cut from a silk beaded blouse, again from a thrift store.

now here is the same area once the felting and fulling is complete.  the beading is there along with the wonderfully puckered blue silk fabric.  So fabrics that have been beaded and sequined can be used to add yet another element to the felted collaged piece.  No needle and thread required!!!

Here you can see the back of half of the piece,  the half with the green silk gauze.  You can see how the green pre-felt fibers have penetrated the silk gauze.

This is the other side of the back , the half with the tan floral cotton gauze.  I love all of that texture!!!!

As you can probably tell I am more than a bit excited about  the possibilities for all of these wonderful

techniques!!  You will definitely be seeing more of this type of work here very very soon!!

So if you ever see classes, workshops or lectures offered by Her Majesty Margo Duke, DO NOT HESITATE TO SIGN UP AND DIVE IN!!!

No Rules- Crazy Quilting!!

Over the past year or so I have been developing a class called Let's Go Crazy (er) - The Rules of NO RULES Crazy Quilting!!  I have asked the amazingly talented and generous quilt/textile artist Allison Aller, if I may use her fabulous book as a reference and she has given me the green light.  You can see and read about here fabulous book here!  If you have any interest in textile collage, this is a Must Have book!
This past week I taught my first sessions of this class at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg, VA.  We have a great roster of classes at the Gallery and we teach whenever it is convenient for the student, that is why you will not see times and dates on the schedule!!

My dear friend Leslie Brier and her wonderful mom came in to learn how to piece a Crazy Quilt Block and then how to embellish their newly created textile canvas.  We had a wonderful time and we could have worked through the day!!  This class has been designed to allow students to express their personal artistic style in their textile collage- crazy quilt art form.  We want to throw open all the doors and windows and allow all the rules about crazy quilting to flow out and make everyone comfortable with asking themselves those wonderful "What IF" questions that lead to personal works of exuberant textile collage!!

During our first session we covered the Flip and Stitch method for piecing a quilt block.  Then I shared a wonderful method for collaging fabric scraps on Steam a Seam 2 fusible web to create a very crazy collage, Such fun!!

(click on any image to enlarge)

Here are the first blocks that my students created! I enticed them to jump in with some wonderful focal images that had been printed on fabric.  Each lady was delighted with the selection of printed images- they were perfect for their respective personalities!!

After our first class, Leslie and her Mom left and with homework to practice piecing and to return with several blocks that they had created on their home! Here you see a very simple block that Paula created.  We worked on how to start the embellishing process and things to think about and now Paula is itching to get to the FUN part!!  ( Aller's Book does a fabulous job with inspiring ideas and directions for this stage of the CQ ( Crazy Quilt) process!!)

Paula went ahead and created several Christmas themed blocks  as her practice pieces!  For a gal who is not yet good friends with her sewing machine, she did a great job!! we worked on some parts that she was struggling with in her relationship with her machine and things seem to be getting Much better!! It is so nice to be able to ease the frustration of a seamstress so they can get past the anger stage when learning to use their machine!!!

Her you can see one of Leslie's amazing practice blocks.  Leslie and I have both found our local Goodwill shops to be a great resource for fabric finds.  The black lace swatches that you see in this block was salvaged from a dress that Leslie found at Goodwill by the Pound!!  ( Locally , we have an outlet where Goodwill takes their older donations and makes them available to the public for a "By the Pound' price!)I really love how Leslie has crafted this wonderful selection of black and white patterned fabrics!

Here is Leslie's block from our first session.  Leslie has started on her embellishment journey and has added this wonderful flower trim to bring some more color closer to the gorgeous lady in the center of the block.

 Here is another practice block by Leslie!! I love seeing how an individual artists personality is expressed in their work!  With the black and white block and this numbers block above you can see the "Steampunker" part of Leslie emerge!!  I can't wait to see how Leslie embellishes this amazing block.  we will have to wait till our next class and AI will be sure to share pictures with you here!!

For another peek at Leslie's artistic personality you see this third practice block above!!  I know just how Leslie thinks as I myself often go to opposite ends of my artistic expression meter to create very different pieces of artwork!!  This only serves to keep us interested and inspired and excited about all of the wonderful possibilities available to us!!

Check back soon to see the further adventures of Paula and Leslie as they continue to follow the No Rules approach to Crazy Quilting!!

My First Series!

I am almost done with my first series, art work series to be precise.  This is something that I have been trying to get myself to do for a long time.  This series began as a long single wall piece and I decided to make it into three separate, though very related single pieces.

The title of the series is Love It Forward.  I have used many of my own hand dyed fabrics and sun printed fabrics and stitched the majority of the pieces by hand.  all of the embellishing has been done by hand.

(click on each photo for close up shots!!)

This is Love It Forward I and it is currently hanging on my studio door at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg.

In the pictures that follow you can see some detail shots of the hand stitch work on the various pieces.

When I stitched on the backing I also added a few bits of Free motion Embroidery work on the machine.  You can also see the beading that i added to the sun prints.  these sun prints were done with a wonderful old plastic place mat.

Here are Love It Forward II and III.  They need to be backed and have a hanging sleeve added and then they will also go to the Gallery. 

    

I really had a a great deal of fun stitching and adding beaded details to these pieces and hopefully someone who visits the gallery will want to take one or all of them home!  Why not think big!! As the first Love It Forward was hanging during our March First Friday event , i have gotten  a lot of very positive feed back about the piece and folks are anxiously awaiting the second and third installments!! Off to stitch!