That 'L Do

"That'L Do" was a phrase that I had to say over and over to myself today as I cruised the walkways at the Annual Fiber Festival and Sheep Dog Trails at Montpelier in Orange VA!!!
This was what the slightly eccentric shepherd used to say to his herding pig Babe. We certainly could have been on a movie set today with the blue skys and clear crisp weather of autumn and the sheep and the dogs running to the commands of the shepherds. It was such fun!!
The people that one meets and chats with at such events are the salt of the earth type of people! As far as I am concerned they have their feet planted pretty firmly in the earth and are well tuned to the land and the creatures and working with their hands. Terrific and Happy people!!!

I had to stop myself several times with a muttered That'L Do !! as I wanted to gather up all of the wonderful fibers and patterns and feltings and rovings and needles and critters that I was surrounded by!!

I just adore this guys ear tufts!!!

SOOOO SOFT!!!

That'l Do- the checkbook is not a bottomless pit!!!!

That'L Do, this is not the last bit of fleece left on the planet!!

That'L Do!! One can always contact these folks via the internet if you want more of that purple roving.......I am SURE that you understand!!!!!

Now my good friend Lynette was In the FIber Zone with me, as we picked our curls colors at The Wild And Woolly booth fo fiber delights. How could we possibly stop picking and choosing???

As it turns out the wonderful folks at Wild And WOolly actually know my brother Peter from his days as a County Extension Agent in West VA. Making connnections is always such an amazing thing!! For those who don't know , My little bro is working in Africa in Tanzania reclaiming soil and teaching organic gardening techniques. He began his career in Berkeley Springs W.VA and knew these folks and their critters from his early soil days!! Too Cool!!

Sorry to digress!

Look at this amazing roll of combed top Merino wool that has just come in from the processor! Now that is ALOT of wool!!! Quite the sculpture to, don't you think?


And look at these glorious creatures who were strolling down the pathways! What a kid magnet they were!! Several of us adults had to wriggle in close to stroke their muzzles!!!

I did manage to pick up a few select goodies to use in some felting projects and as a few gifts for some fiber addicts who refuse to give up their addictions!!

It was a wonderful day!!

Parfait Pincushions!!

I have just finished creating some cute pincushions using vintage aluminum Jell-o pudding cups! i have used some wonderful fabrics rescued from upholstry sample books that were headed to the dust bin. I topped them with vintage buttons and weighted the bottoms of the cups so they would be extra stable. I am trying to get stock made for Christmas sales. I have just listed all three of these pincushions in my ETSY shop and you can see them all here! I think that they will make the perfect little gift for the crafter who loves to stitch and who loves vintage items.!!
They were also a lot of fun to make! I have quite a few of these little cups so I am planning on creating a few more!!


As the saying goes, "There is always room for Jell-O!!"

In the process of the never ending clean-up, I have unearthed some wonderful blue fabrics, so look for some more pincushions coming soon!!

A Lot Going On!!!

Yesterday I wrapped up my third round of Beaded Cuff classes. My two students, Kim and Linda, did fabulous work with both completing their glorious pieces by the time class was over!!! Big GOLD STARS for you both!!! I do love teaching this class as each student is so pleased with what they have been able to accomplish. They realize that the whole process looks so much more complicated than it really is and that with a bit of time and work , they, too, can create beautiful pieces!!! First I will share Linda's wonderful piece.

In this shot you see her wearing her cuff with the jacket that inspired her piece!! She is going to cause quite a stir when she wears this wonderful ensemble, don't you think????

Here is a tighter shot. This piece speaks so much of Linda's art style- she does wonderful collage work and you can read her blog here!

Here is Kim's glorious bracelet with her inspiration purse!!

And a tighter shot for more detail of her beadwork!!

I am sure that Kim will get raves about her bracelet. I love how kim created her textured ocean of green beads for her fish!!!

During this class we did a wonderful critique of various glues that were used for the final placement of the beadwork on the metal cuff form. Thank you ladies, for your open and frank discussion about which glues you prefer!!! :) These are all invaluable tips for future classes!!

As the Class was taught at the Artistic Artifacts Annex and Judy was out of town , I had the job of unlocking the shop and disabling the alarm system. I was sooo nervous till I actually got in the door and accomplished the tasks without setting off the alarm and alerting the local police. I was so proud of myself!!! What a ninny!! Anyway, Judy is in the process of prepping for a big Sewing Show that takes place enxt week at the Dulles Expo Center where she will be a vendor. Her work tables were covered with wonderfully lucious piles of hand dyed linens that she is putting together into fabric collage packs for art quilters.
I could not resist snapping a few shots of the wonderful textiles that she has to offer!

It is amazing how Judy's wonderful dye process can transform these old linens into wonderful pieces for fabric collage and garment work!!!

I just love the texture of this dyed and washed cheesecloth!!

But I like this shot taken with light coming in through the window, so much better!!

I have also finally gotten around to finsihing up the lining on my neice Mali's beaded cuff bracelet. It is an 18th birthday present and it is already late, as is the ocean cuff that I created for her sister Kate!!! Now I can finally get these two gifts on their way to Africa for my gorgeous girls to wear!!!
Here you can see Mali's cuff with the ultra suede lining all stitched in and finished off!
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I love moving projects off of my To DO list and onto my Taa Daa list!!!

I also just delivered some more jewelry to Liberty Town for sale in The Emporium.

Now I have to get working on items for Christmas sales and create my shirt from my Sunprinted Linen!!! So many fun projects to work on and dream of, and so little time!!!

Art on!!!

The Great Butterfly Migration

Here in the Piedmont region of Eastern Virginia we are lucky enough to be on the Southern Migration route for many species of butterflys. As the wonderful critters undergo this perilous journey they really count on home gardeners and fall wild flowers for food sources and places for rest and recuperation along the way. Providing a welcoming habitat that is pesticide free and full of nectar producing flowers, is something that I am quite serious about. many fo the most common annual varities of flowers provide power packed nutrition for out wonderful visitors. Zinnia's, Cosmos, Asters , Verbena, and Daiseys are the big favorites and my garden is very active with butterflys coming and going every day now.

Crystalline White Garden Phlox.

Cosmos and verbena.

Sweet Autumn Clematis is also a big favorite.

I thought that you might like to see some of my better photo journalling of this year's migration. Enjoy!

The monarchs are always so very trusting and very intent on their eating. Perhaps they know that theya re safe from predators because of the poison that they carry in their bodies. They know, developmentally, that birds will not bother them anyway!

This little jewel of a hummingbird happened along when I was out with my camera!! i was so excited to be in exactly the right place at the right time!! If you right click on the photo you can get an amazing close up of this hungry guy!! What a treat!!! The birds are all over my garden daily but I have never been this fortunate with my camera!!!!

Next spring and summer , I hope that you all will consider planting some wildflowers and annuals to attract and noursih our butterfly visitors as they undertake their amazing fall journey south.

I hope that all are enjoying the wonders of Fall, that my friends in Georgia are able to dry out from recent deluges and that everyone can get outside and enjoy the natural world around them this weekend!!!

New Projects!

This past weekend I took part in a new venture being launched by my good friend Judy Gula at Artistic Artifacts. Judy will now be offering a selection of wonderful "artsy- Classic" patterns for creating clothing using hand crafted and embellished fabrics. Judy specializes in hand dyed vintage fabrics and wants to encourage all of us to create marvelous clothes that speak of our passions. She asked a group of us to pick a pattern and create garments that we would wear to unveil her new direction for her business, at an Opening Event. Judy and her Mom put on a wonderful Opening Tea on Sunday last! It was such fun to wear my new shirt and to see all of the incredible garments that others had made!!
I went thru my extrensive stash of fabrics and chose a wonderfully vibrant Red Linen/Rayon blend fabric that I had picked up years ago in Oklahoma. ( I really am Stash Busting!!!!) Just this past June, while at a Quilt Expo, I met the wonderful Proprietress of Batik Tambal, a business that travels the world collecting wonderful Batik panels for use in the sewing arts. You have probably noticed their adds in Quilting Arts magazine amoung others. I bought 6 small panels (they were 50% off!!) knowing that I had to have them but not sure what they would become.

As I love the color combo of red and turquoise, I went for bold and beautiful ,and chose the above panel to bead and embellish to put on the back of my shirt.

Once beaded, it looked like this:

I had another panel with similar colors that pictured two masks. As I knew that I wanted to put some sort of embellishment on the front of the shirt as well, I cut that panel in half and beaded it.
Here is the half panel to be placed on the front.

So at 11:30 am Sunday morning I was still stitching on the last little details!!! The event began at 1pm Sunday afternoon!!!!
I had hoped to have a nice pair of black slacks to go along with the shirt but everyone felt that the shirt went great with Jeans and could also be dressed up with black pants!!! Good thing, as making another garment was just not in the cards for this time!!!!

As I was not at all excited about putting a last minute button hole right on the front of this piece (for fear that I would mess it up) I went with a more creative closure. I used a vintage button (again from my stash) and made a beaded loop using beads in the same color scheme as the batik panels. This small detail has become my favorite part of the whole piece!!!

I did not take as many pictures of all of the other wonderful garments at our show but I do have a few to share. I got swept away in looking at all of the marvelous details and talking with the creators to have time to bother with lots of pictures.. Here are the few that I did take!! .


This is a detail shot of a glorious silk shirt made by my wonderful friend and sewing Mentor. Jean Trammel. Jean is an amazing artist, beader and seamstress extoirdinaire who is an invaluable resource and source of encouragemnet for all of us. She did this wonderful japanese embroidery work on the yolks of this piece! Simply Stunning Work!!!!
this shirt was created by another wonderful artist and new friend Lynda Poole Prioleau. Lynda is an amazing textile artist as well as a phenomenal singing talent, who teaches several classes at Artistic Artifacts. A textile class with Lynda is an incredible treat!!!!

With my fresh experience with clothing design and creation, I plan to forge ahead and make the garment that I spoke of in the previous post. I'll be making use of my collection of hand dyed linens and sunprints!! I hope to have results for you by sometime next week!!!

Art On all and have a great week!!

Perfect Weather For Sunprints!!

Crisp and sunny fall days are perfect for sunprints and Saturday was THE day. I was up and out gathering my weeds , seed pods and ferns quite early. I carefully laid them in a pile in the shade of a tree, near the sunny portion of the yard.

The boys were up and out early as well' as they wanted to get the lawn done quickly. A warning was given about my pile of gatherings and the mowers started to rumble. I came out with my fabric to find the pile mulched and the warnings forgotten- at least the lawn got mowed!!! SIGH!!!

So I gathered again!! As the most successful foliage to use is either in my garden or growing by the roadside, I had no trouble finding more supplies!!!!

Here is the linen( pieces of a large rustic tablecloth- a yard sale find) laid out in the sun with the dye and the foliage bits, drying.

On the cobalt blue piece I used everything from weeds to Hosta Seed Pods to ferns to dill seed heads!


For this oragne piece I used Creeping jenny Groundcover and tiny maple seedling leaves. With such low humidity, everything was dry in about an hour!!
Here are the results!!

Here you can see the hosta seed pod stalk and an umbrell seed head from my Dill Seed crop (near the top). I love the airy versus crisp outlines of the various folliage elements. Or as Ariel Freeman, my watercolor instuctor would say, "All of the wonderful mix of hard and soft edges!"

Here are the sunprints paired with some of the same pieces of table cloth that were dyed in my recent dying workshop at Artistic Artifacts. The blue sunprint will become the back of a shirt, with the orange as a sleeve, and the other colors will be used to fill in the remaining components to create a very colorful linen shirt!!! Can't wait to get started!!! Must be sure to heat set the sunprints before I do anything else!!!!!!

Have a wonderful day!!!