Art apron in progress

I went to a friend's house yesterday for an art day - we started working on art aprons using the instructions in Cloth Paper Scissors. This started out as bib overalls but the back of the overalls is now sewn to the front to create more pockets. I wanted to preserve the front top pocket so I put the back a bit lower than it should have been. Now the back pockets are down by my knees, LOL. I will have to do a bit more redesigning before I start painting it. I put the black and white border on it but that's it. It was a fun day - I need more play dates!

Bags and Hot Flashes

Okay, hot flashes don't really have anything to do with bags but I'm having one right now and I'm miserable. Working on this laptop isn't helping either. I keep asking my husband why he turned up the heat in the house, LOL. Anyhow- I finished this bag today and it's near impossible to get a good photo of it because it's mainly metallic copper fabric. There are pockets galore - the front has 2, one huge one with a flap to hold your knitting needles or paint brushes- and a small one between the handles. The front of the flap has 3 pockets too. Then there is one long pocket on each side panel - and 5 pockets in total on the back. I learned a lot making this bag and it's going to be my knitting bag. Oh, I didn't tell you? I signed up for a knitting class last week. It's on Monday nights for the next 5 weeks. I have quite the slog to get there - a 45 minute drive - but I think it will be worth it. This was one of my goals for this winter - to take a knitting class. I was running out of time so it's now or never!!!

This is the back of the bag:

This is the front:


This is the front with the flap open - notice the pockets on the flat piece. I discovered that this really needs a piece of velcro on each side - stuff will fall out if you don't keep the bag perfectly straight and upright.

Another cat bag

I love computers except for when I get a new one and I have to move everything over. I bought a laplink cable/software and that worked really sweet - it moved all my files over. It would have been sweeter if I did it before I manually moved the mail over though because I managed to wipe out a couple of days worth of letters. Darn.

Oh the creative front things are moving way more slowly - all I've managed to do is make a little tote bag (toy bucket?) for my 4 year old niece. I used the pockets that I didn't add to the cat purse and made my own pattern up for the tote. Not much of a pattern - cut matching panels - sew into a tube - add a square to the bottom - add a lining - turn inside out - add a strap. Pretty simple!

I still have more computer stuff to do too - the wireless printer kit I bought didn't work with Vista so I had to return it and get another one. This one is made by HP for HP printers - so that should help immensely - plus it is certified for Vista. I just keep putting it off ... I find that I tend to get kind of depressed when the computer stuff doesn't work like I think it should ... and I don't want to be in a bad mood! I need a teenage geek!

The purse is done!

It's done! I have to tell you that making the zipper pocket was very interesting as I had no clue what I was doing. I am really bad at visualizing something from a bunch of words. I can do it with dolls but this was too confusing for me. All the layers of the pocket ended up being the back panel of the lining - which would have been nice to know when I started. I put the lining in backwards too somehow, so the inside zipped pocket - which is usually in the back of a purse - is now in the front. Oh well. I have copious notes on the pattern now. I'm going to rock the next one now that I know what I'm doing!

I spent most of yesterday playing with my computers. I really wish someone else in my house was a computer expert! I took the hard drive out of my desktop (which died) and today I'm going to try to turn it into a backup hard drive for the new laptop. I managed to get the wireless printer kit installed and working - yay - so now I can print from my old laptop. I still haven't set up the new laptop though - this Vista is really different - every time I click on a letter in Yahoo mail the window gets tiny instead of opening the letter. Weird.

It's me ... I escaped from the computer

Can you believe it? I told myself I can do computer work until noon and then again after supper. The afternoons are going to be mine, mine, all mine! So today I decided to start on a little purse. I had bought a pattern when Laura at Dollmakers Inc had her end of year sale. I've never made one before. See the little cat pocket panels laying on the table? See the completed front of the purse? Oh my. The paragraph title on the pattern was front/back pockets - so that is what I labeled them after I sewed them up. I didn't realize that they turned into the front/back panels. So when the instructions called for the front/back panels I cut out different material, LOL. If I had cut it all out first I might not have made that mistake but I couldn't tell what piece was what from the photo, it was too dark. So I just cut as I went along. But it will still make a lovely little purse for my niece - just without front pockets! It has side pockets though. Plus now I have front/back panels for the next one - can't send a purse to one nieice and not the other. I am learning though and my pattern has all kinds of notes on it - because there were a couple of things left out. Don't these people have their patterns tested like doll makers? They need to take lessons from us! HA!

Oh, and how cool is this .. the cat fabric? It was given to me at our doll club's annual junk swap. We all swap bags/boxes of stuff we don't want but is useful at our Xmas party. I hate cats - but my niece loves them! So this will work out great for everyone. Tomorrow I have to sew a zipper into the lining! Ewwwww.

A good day to dye

How's that for a title, LOL! Actually it *was* a good day - it had rained in the morning but when we got together it had cleared up and it got hot. Of course hot for Alaskans is probably cool for some of you! Four of us got together at Karen's house to play. We had a great pot luck lunch and then we got to work making messes. We invented downhill dyeing - which consisted of laying a large piece of material on a slope and then squirting color onto it to see how it ran. We had some interesting pieces to say the least. We also played with those Pebeo Setacolor paints. That was fun - although I got the biggest kick out of watching the girls go through Karen's garden cutting flowers and leaves off her plants. I brought about 7 fat quarters of fabric to play with and only made mud out of one, so I'm happy. Too bad I still have to do the wash out - it would be fun to just play with them all!

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Painted fabric sleeves

It always amazes me that even though I have umpteen million yards of fabric none ends up being what I need. What do you do when that happens? Paint your own fabric to match! I cut two pieces of plain white cotton fabric the size I needed for the sleeves then wet them down and dunked them into some yellow Jacquard Dye-na-flow fabric paint. Then I got out a brush and painted flames on with red. After they dried a bit I added some orange accents. The flames bled because the fabric was still pretty wet and they lost their shape but I like the look. I think the sleeves came out fabulous! I love Dye-na-flow and I use it all the time. I have developed the habit of drying it with my heat gun and then finishing up with the iron - that way there's hardly any waiting time before you can use the fabric. Of course - they are usually small pieces - but what the heck. Instant gratification!

Looking good, eh? This is The Charmed One from Sherry's online class. Hopefully this coming week she will get her hair and a face!!!

Home Dec ... pillow covers 101

I was doing a bit of sprucing up around the house today. Painted some trim on a couple of interior doors and had to do an exterior one too. Then I decided to change the look of my couch pillows. I had found some fabric in my stash that looked to be a match to the pillow I bought from Kelli and it actually wasn't just 1/4 of a yard! It is enough to do all three of my couch pillows. I hardly ever do any home dec sewing. I made these so the existing pillow slips inside. I saw these all the time at the quilt shop I used to work in but never saw how they made them. I didn't know what I was doing but it worked out fine.

Before

After

This ought to liven the place up a bit!!!

The back piece is actually two pieces of fabric and they have an overlap - that's where the pillow slips in. I'll show you ...

If you want to know how to make these leave a comment and I'll do a photo tutorial when I make the next one.

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Freedom Flight: patriotic folk art eagle

Sometimes it's nice to do something different. I enjoyed making this eagle from my friend Kerry's pattern even though I didn't follow directions too well. She said to stuff the wings lightly before sewing the channels. Well, it seems that stuffing lightly isn't in my lexicon. Therefore I not only broke needles but my Bernina 440 actually refused to sew. Seems that it has a pressure foot sensor and if something is too fat it thinks the foot isn't down and it won't sew. Period. At all. I had to get out another sewing machine. But at least I've learned a new quirk of my 440!

Back to making fabric postcards

Remember when I made the flower fabric using the silk flower petals and free motion embroidery? How about the saran wrap fabric that I didn't like so didn't take a photo of? Okay - so you can't remember something you didn't see, LOL. Well, both pieces ended up as fabric postcards yesterday. I'm really happy with how these came out. Some of the shininess is from using monofilament thread to sew the pieces to the backing of Timtex. I was given a spool of monofilament made by Superior Threads and it's awesome. Doesn't break like some of the others do.


The saran wrap was just a background piece so I free motion embroidered some petals and leaves on top of it. The saran wrap ripped when I was sewing it to the Timtex so I had to add a piece of tulle over the whole thing. I use a piece of overhead transparency film cut to the size of a postcard to decide where to cut out the big fancy pieces. Our theme for this swap is Winter Wonderland .. but it's optional .. and I'm tired, tired, tired of winter!

Flower fabric

I wanted to make that saran wrap fabric that a couple of my friends have been talking about. So I got out my saran wrap and I THOUGHT I remembered the instructions from Di's blog - but I was obviously mistaken because my plastic didn't fuse. So instead I made this using silk flower petals, fabric snips, and tulle. I fused it down with BoNash powder and then I free motion embroidered it with black. I'll probably use it for postcards. This was fun but I think I better re-read Di's instructions!

Coffee cozy

My brother takes his kids to Starbucks as a treat - kind of special time with Dad. He gets a latte and they get hot chocolate. I thought making a coffee cozy for everyone in the family would be a great gift. A New Year's gift since I missed all the December holidays! The pattern and instructions for these is in the current (Winter) issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I lucked out and found one piece of fabric already free motion embroidered so that one went together fast! It's the one on the cup. The two front ones are made with Laurel Birch animal fabric and the orange one is a superhero fabric - although cut up into a little patchwork. The dark one in the back is made from scraps from my Makerira doll's outfit and is fabric confetti with thread bits, covered by tulle, that is then free motion embroidered. These are fun and quick to make. I need to make one for Fran now! Maybe one for myself too!

Lending a hand

Tired of these yet? I submitted a photo of my last hand to the Halloween contest photo pool hosted by Craft magazine.. They featured the hand on their blog on Tuesday. It generated a lot of traffic to my Flickr photos and I received two orders for hands. It's very satisfying to know that there are people who appreciate your work, as well as having my slightly twisted viewpoint. I have one more to make for my friend Kai - I'll be working on that at the quilt shop on Friday. You do realize that this Friday is 'Friday the 13th'??? I couldn't ask for a better day to teach a severed hand class, LOL.

I'm stuck on these hands !!

I finished another pincushion today to put up on eBay. I did a bit more decorating on the glove this time and gave it fake fingernails. The nails give it a whole other look - it's pretty freaky. My dogs really aren't thrilled about modeling for me, but I'm having fun. I'm easily amused, what can I say ???

Halloween fun

I made another severed hand pincushion. I'm selling this one on eBay. I'm also going to teach it at the quilt store. I made up my own pattern for a glove, very simple, but pretty. I think these are just plain fun.

Can you hand me a pin?

Remember that hand I made out of wool felt that I was supposed to send to some exhibit in Michigan? Well, it never left the house. But it has been put to good use! It's a pincushion! It makes me laugh every time I walk into my sewing room. Kind of makes me think of Thing from the the Addams Family - remember that TV show?

The glove is from an old costume and since the pattern is my own hand I figured it would fit! I get such a kick out of it that I decided to made another one to put up on Etsy. Figure it will be a good Halloween gift for a crafty person!

I just finished painting the Dye-na-flow on the new one and it's dripping into the sink. Kind of a Kai thing, eh?

Fiber Art for a Cause

Today I completed two postcards which I will send to Virginia Spiegel who is the heart of Fiber Art for a Cause, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Virginia has raised over $50,000 through the sale of fabric postcards just in the past year. These postcards will be available at the Houston Quilt Show.

Two totally different styles!
This piece is kind of interesting. I quilted the background and then I cut and fused the little blue-green pieces over the top of it. I tried to find a quote about balloons to use but had no luck finding one so I wimped out and used a stamp. I need more stamps with words - this is all I have besides one that says Art and a bunch of greeting card style stamps. Maybe I should have used Get Well Soon, LOL. This little girl doesn't look happy at all!

This postcard was made from pieces of a scrap bag that my friend Heather sent me. All the fabric was sewn into little tubes so I opened them up and used parts of them. I even left the seam on one piece for extra interest. The center piece is a neat embellishment that was in the bag. A lot of quilting and it's done. A nice simple piece.

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I'm counter art !

My good friend Judy, who lives in Pennsylvania, asked me to send her an Artist Trading Card so she could enter it into an exhibit at the Transit Fine Arts Gallery in Oil City. They were hoping to get one from every state. I sent her one of my favorite fabric ATCs. There are about 1000 ATCs on the wall in 9 pocket displays but mine is in a frame on the counter! I’m so pleased! The gallery director was afraid that the fringe would get damaged in a plastic pocket plus it's probably one of the only fabric ATCs. Whatever the reason I'm just tickled pink!

Click image to enlarge
This is the whole display - fun, eh? See the frame on the counter? That's my ATC.


Here's my ATC up close and personal. My friend wrote the little bio blurb for me.


These are my friend Judy's watercolor ATCs. Don't you just love them?

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Not more &*^)*# postcards!

Yep, but these are the end of them for a while. I am not going to do any more swaps. At least not fabric postcard swaps. I have hosted a Yahoo group for just about a year now and I've been involved in all the swaps. I'm pretty burned out on postcards. Most of these are from the elinor peace bailey mystery quilt blocks. The ones that I showed earlier now have iron on studs as embellishments. So - this is it! Yay!

How to cheat making fabric postcards

A few years ago I got talked into making a mystery quilt designed by elinor peace bailey. It was one of those one pattern a month things, which ended up making the quilt pattern $60, pretty steep for a quilt pattern, LOL. Anyhow, the pattern didn't fit on the paper so you were supposed to add 1/4" to each side and to each applique piece that went to the edge of the block. Of course I forgot to do that on some blocks. I could have cut the bigger pieces down by 1/4" but then it threw off the whole design. I ended up so frustrated that I never finished making it. So I've had these blocks hanging around for a few years. Yesterday I started cutting them up into postcards. They need some embellishing but sure is an easy way to cheat!

More fabric postcards

Made a couple more postcards for the third round of swaps in my Posta L'arte group. I have no clue where I come up with some of my color combinations ... lime green and orange? See what you think of them ...

Click image to enlarge

So this has nothing to do with the postcards. How many of you listen to music on an iPod when you sew? I hear a lot of quilters use their iPods and listen to podcasts and stuff. I have one, it's not an iPod but a Rio - same thing, different flavor. I only seem to use it when I'm on an airplane or going fishing. I have a book on it that I've been listening to for over a year now. Maybe I'll finish it this summer. So ... do you iPod or don't you?

ATCs from Cloth Paper Scissors swap

A while ago I sent off some Artist Trading Cards for a swap sponsored by the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. It was to be held at the Chicago International Quilt Festival. You had to go in person to swap but since one of my best internet friends, Heather, went to the show she was allowed to proxy for me. Okay, now this next bit is kind of terrible ....

Heather said she wasn't allowed to pick out the cards we were given - they were just picked in order from the ones posted on the wall. She said the ones we were given weren't comparable in quality to what we sent in. Then she noticed someone walking about with a basket saying 'Trade with the Editor"... so she traded in all 8 of our cards. I received four that were made by Patricia (Pokey) Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors, and another from Deborah - who also works at the magazine. The one from Deborah has the big pink heart - the other are from Pokey. They are all awesome - they utilitize cloth, paper, stamping, paint, all techniques taught in their magazines. I uploaded a huge photo so you can see the details - but you have to click on this picture to get to it ...

Those darn postcards!

When I told my friend Natalie that I had 17 more fabric postcards to make for the current swap she stated "I'd run out of design ideas". Actually it's fairly easy when you do abstract designs. The key is color.

Take a look at this - it's kind of plain - it's just strips - kind of like a strange log cabin. But the blue and green are analgous colors as are the red and orange. Plus the red and green are complimentary, as are the blue and orange. It's simple but it works.

Another one just played off the colors in the main fabric. Purple and orange. Repeating the colors in different shapes. This works too. This is actually a really good thing to do if you aren't sure of colors. If you look at the selvedge of some fabrics you will see lots of little dots of colors. These are the colors used in the piece of fabric - so you can just match to that.

I'm melting ...

When I bought all the Kunin felt a few weeks ago I also bought some heavy glittery felt. It's really stiff ... nearly like cardboard. I was curious whether it would melt like the lightweight stuff. It does ....

This is a page for a flat stanley-type doll round robin journal (whew, that was a mouthfull!). If you read my earlier post about melting felt you'll remember that I heavily free motion embroidered before I put the heat gun to it. This stuff is so thick that I didn't think I would need to do it. So I just hit it with the heat gun. It melted just as easily as the other felt. It's stiff but you wouldn't use it for clothes or anything anyhow. I had actually thought of using it as a base for ATCs. After I melted the holes I rubbed paint over them. Then I put these beaded patches on - the patches actually have a button on the back so I just slipped it through a hole. Don't try to understand the story ... only Kai, Sandy W., Darla, and Judi A. will get it, LOL.

Click to enlarge

Melting felt

I'm at it again! I bought a new heat gun today, oh my, oh my, oh my. I had *NO* clue that what I had before was a pale imitation of one. Now I know why my fabric melting experiments never worked out as well as I thought they would. But tonight's experiment was FANTASTIC .. I am *so* happy with it!

The latest Quilting Arts magazine had an article on Stitch and Felt. It was pretty simple and comes out looking stunning so I thought I'd give it a go. The base of the fabric is Kunin felt. I thought Kunin felt was some exotic felt until I went to their web site and realized it's the little squares that you buy in the craft store. I can even find that up here in Alaska! I think you can get it in bigger pieces too. The instructions said to stamp a design with fabric paint - so I stamped some flowers. Then you satin stitch around the edges so you have a border that won't melt away. After that you free motion embroider the piece - really heavily on the flowers and enough to tie it all together elsewhere. Notice the felt is a nice light blue. Until you hit it with the heat gun. Oh boy, that was a blast - the new heat gun withered that felt away - I couldn't believe it. BUT, BUT, BUT .. it stinks and you really need to wear a respirator because it puts off fumes. I need to buy one before I kill myself. Anyhow - isn't the lacy piece awesome? See how the color changed? I love this! I bought 10 pieces of felt today so I can see a lot of practicing. I promise to get a respirator first, okay?

Fabric ATC kit

I'm trying something new ...everyone always asks how I make my ATCs. So I thought I'd offer kits that will teach you some of the specialized fabric manipulation techniques that I use on ATCs - or bigger pieces. The kits will include all the items (3 fabrics, timtex, wonder under, gold metal foil, wool felt, fabric/thread/yarn snippets,watercolor paper backing) to make the ATC pictured here. The techniques include free motion embroidery, layering and melting, and sewing on metal. All you need are basic sewing supplies, a sewing machine, an iron, and a heat gun/embossing tool. For only $10.50 you get enough supplies to make two cards and the instructions that will walk you through each step. Shipping within the U.S. is included. **SOLD OUT** THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Face ATC #7

Here's #7 ... he's up on eBay .. he's based on a photo in a book of art from the Louvre. The photo is of a piece of a wall decoration from a tomb. All fabric, all the time ...

Heart Pins

Last night at doll club we learned some of the basics of wire bending. Since it was the day before Valentine's we used the wire pieces to decorate hearts. I made two hearts ...

These will be going to a couple of girls in the Embellished Circus for their Member of the Month gifts. I hope they like them! Spirals are about the easiest shape to bend - just take your wire (20 gauge is good) and make a loop with your round nose pliers. Hold the loop with the pliers and just bend the wire around the loop. You can have an open spiral or a closed spiral depending on the distance you leave between the pieces.

Click on image to enlarge

Funky face #6

Here's the latest ... I make these for sale on eBay.
This photo doesn't do her justice at all. I had a really hard time taking the photo - the contrast is really high and the fabric grain kept showing up. The face is actually a lighter brown - same with the hair.

Fabric Face Art Card

Fifth in the series .... I just love this one, of course, I love all of them, LOL. This is the first time I've used a model for inspiration - if you call a picture of an anime character a model. I make these for sale on eBay. This one was even more fiddly than the last one. I used fabric for the pupils and had a hard time getting the backing paper off something that tiny. Next time I'll take the paper off before I cut out the shape!

Click image to enlarge

Funky face series

Made another one of my funky face cards. I really enjoy these except they make a huge mess. Lots of tiny little pieces floating everywhere and they are hard to corral to use or throw away. As usual with art - sometimes the first piece just doesn't work out - so I might make a few eyes or lips. Then I also have all the tiny pieces of backing paper to contend with. Luckily Zach doesn't come in the studio anymore so I don't have to worry about him eating the pieces that fall to the floor! I have the card up for sale on eBay if you're interested.

Another face

I made another fabric collage art card today .. it's up on eBay now. Sure is hard to place all those little tiny pieces of fabric .. it's fiddly as can be. But it's fun ... here's the link for the auction and here's the card:

This one is much prettier than the last one I made. The contest in Quilting Arts magazine sure got me going .. this is the third one of these I've made!

21 Fabric Postcards

I decided that I needed to get all of my swaps out of the way so I can concentrate on dolls for a while. One of the swaps I am involved in is a postcard one - it's the second round of my Posta L'arte fabric postcard group. I made these over the course of two days, which is pretty good for me as I tend to get distracted really easily.

I used the leftover pieces from my daughter's quilt for most of them and I fused, fused, fused. I took strips of fabrics that looked great together and ironed them next to each other on Wonder-Under double sided fusible web. That gave me good background pieces - then I took a bright tropical piece that had big flowers on it and fused that to some WU. Cut out some flowers and fused them down on top on the background pieces. Did some free motion embroidery over the top of everything and .. voila .. done. On some of the others I took leftover pieces that had been strip pieced and used that for the background - then I just fused some contrasting material on top and free motioned over that. The final pieces that you see on the far right .. well, those are a BIG cheat! About a year ago I started a project from the Cloth,Paper, Scissors magazine - but never finished it. It's a big piece of felt with strips of material fused down (also strips of dictionary definitions - paper) and it has tons of stitching on top. I just cut it up into postcard sized pieces and .. ah ha .. ready made cards. Oh, I'm bad! But, hey, it got the job done and done fast!

Click to enlarge

First Needlepunch Experiment

I bought one of those new needlepunch attachments for my Bernina a couple of weeks ago. Just got around to trying it out last night. I can see a lot of possibilities for this tool.

In case you don't know what it is - it's a foot that goes on the sewing machine that has five barbed needles. You don't use thread and you have to take out the bobbin and bobbin race to make room for all those needles to go down through the needle plate. It basically causes your roving/wool/embellishments to bond with the base material by intermingling the fibers. So I used a piece of black wool as my background, some roving and fancy yarns and laid them out to make a flower. It was easier than I thought. Although when I decided to try it with a piece of Timtex behind the wool I nearly immediately broke a needle. Darn. One thing I did figure out pretty quickly is to tack the yarns in place before you starting running back and forth to punch them down. It's hard to keep a shape unless you do that. Also figured out that I have to buy a stiletto tool to guide the woolies so I don't punch five barbs through my fingers!

In case you're wondering why I'm not posting much - we're doing some house renovations and it's not leaving a lot of time to play right now.

I'm experimenting again!

My daughter is staying with me now that she's out of the hospital and that has actually given me time to do some projects. Today I got inspired by some papers and images that I received from Heather yesterday. In the package she sent me were two Paris decos - one for me and one for her. You don't work in your own deco but you do in your partners. So this is what I did in hers.

Then I decided to try printing on a piece of sheer organza fabric. I cut a large piece and taped it down with low-tack painter's tape on a piece of cardstock. Ran it through my ink-jet printer hoping all the while that it wouldn't get stuck. Luck was with me and it ran right through. Now this is cool - it makes kind of a ghost image on the fabric and also leaves a decent print on the cardstock. How the image looks will also depend on what fabric you put it on top of when you use it. I chose an orange/yellow batik. You can see the rest of what I did ... a couple of columns of another batik, free motion embroidery clef symbol, then I burned the organza around the symbol in a quasi sheet music design. This goes off to Australia next week. Hmmm .. I think I have some sheet music fabric .. bet this image would look neat on that. Might have to try this again!

Click on image to enlarge

It feels good to be back in the studio!

ATCs .. again

Just when I think I have enough fabric Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) on hand something comes up so I need more. I have six on hand now .. including the three I made today .. but I just realized that I need one or two more, sigh. I have a private swap I'm doing with a gal in Australia, and to make it worth the postage we are going to swap 2 fabric and 2 paper ATCs. So it will be back to the salt mines!

Here's the three I made today. I'm totally nuts for that gold mesh, although I'm not sure I understand why! After making two of the vintage photo cards I figured I'd better do something different. So I dipped into my stash of little triangles and patched them all together. If you recall, I went 'trashcan diving' at the quilt store one day and now I have a couple of hundred batik triangles to use up.

The metal tag says "The Sweetest Thing' and the washer says "Friendship".

Starter fabric book

After nearly a week when there was so much 'stuff' to do that I didn't get to play in my studio today was for me! It felt so good to be able to get back in there and make something. Still trying to get caught up on presents and swaps though. Today I made a starter fabric book for my friend Heather. I seem to be making quite a bit for her lately. She sends me boxes and boxes of supplies for paper art and, since she doesn't sew a lot, I make her the things she'd like to make for herself but can't at the moment.

She had mentioned that she'd like to make a fabric book .. so ... I made her one that she can embellish. Each page is 6"x6". These are so simple to make - cut your fabric 1/2 inch larger than the finished size - sew the fabric right sides together with a layer of batting on the bottom (use 1/4 inch seams). Leave an opening to turn it right side out. Flip it - sew the opening closed, and then topstitch. Sew the layers togther with a seam down the middle. There are two layers -which equals out to 8 pages to work on. All the inside pages are batiks with nothing on them so she can do whatever her little heart desires. I dyed some dimensional trim to match and added a vintage photo to the cover just to give her a head start. It was hard to stop at just two embellishments - guess I'll have to make myself one of these next!

Alcohol Inks

I finally got some alcohol inks to play thanks to my friend Heather. She spoils me! I have to be careful when I talk about wanting to try something because the next thing I know it will be in my mailbox! Yesterday Kelli, one of the artists in the Embellished Circus, did some awesome work with alcohol inks and she inspired me to give it a go today.

I made a bunch of ATC blanks but I can't figure out how to photograph them, way too much reflection. I tried like three times and finally gave up. So instead I'll share the medallion I made and a domino. The medallion was based on one that was taught in Maggie Grey's Workshop on the Web - this is a great quarterly workshop with articles and lessons by some of the world's best textile artists. It costs $25 a year but I think it's worth it. I used the alcohol ink on gold foil after I sewed the design on it. There is a second piece of gold foil in the center with a bead under it (the nipple looking thing). The second piece is held in place by some free motion embroidery lace. Colors aren't the best but it was more of a practice piece than anything else. I'll make more of these - this was FUN!

Here's a domino. I have to go back around it with the gold metallic pen. Didn't see it wasn't even until I took the photo.

Now I just have to DO SOMETHING with them. Soon, soon...

I'm having too much fun!

Moving right along with these ATCs .. got another two done today. I've finally smartened up and actually lay the whole thing out before I start cutting, fusing, and sewing. Before I just kind of built it as I went along. I like this way better. I'm happy with these latest two too.

I have a couple of pieces of Asian themed fabric that I've been dying to do something with. I like using images on my ATCs and I had a great one of Japanese ladies that I got my from Dover sampler. So I took my last page of Printed Treasures fabric and printed a whole page of various images that I could use on ATCs. The hand on the Printed Treasures is really nice and soft - too bad it's SO expensive! Anyhow - still playing with mesh - but this time I used some of mine - I used a red piece layered with silver to tone it down - worked well.

Pretty much did the same thing with this one - framed a picture. Made a crazy quilted background out of various black/whites - I have a huge collection of them and have wanted to do something with those for a long time too! That's Greta Garbo, in case you're wondering. Lots of silver, silver gimp, silver mesh, silver studs. I even tried to put silver piping on the edge but it didn't work out too great.

That's it for today! Tonight will be movies and popcorn .. hubby brought home three to watch! Typical guy movies too - action, action, and more action!

Procrastination - my middle name!

I'm hosting an Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap for one of my online groups and I've got about 75 gorgeous pieces of art here now. But talk about last minute .. I haven't made my own ATCs yet and they are going to be swapped out and put in the mail on Tuesday. So that's what I've been working on today.

When I signed up to be a charter subscriber to Quilting Arts' new magazine, "Cloth, Paper, Scissors', I got a little gift certificate to spend in their store. So I bought some vintage images that were printed on fabric. I've been using them sparingly but I pulled them out to use tonight.

This one has a sheet music background, two pieces of interesting material that I frayed, and a printed ribbon. I also used a piece of gold mesh that I got from someone -it's awesome stuff and I want to get some more. I'll have to find out where she got it.

For this one I used the gold mesh again, a very neat shiny material that I got in the mail from another friend, some black and gold ribbon, and some iron on gold jewels. I don't have one of those special applicators, I just use the tip of my Clover mini-iron. It works great as long as I'm careful! Oh, I don't keep my heat gun anywhere near the mini-iron anymore - so no chance of explosions!

Last of the postcards

I really hate it when things I 'have to do' interfere with the things I 'want to do'. For instance I really need to finish the last few postcards for my swap - they are due to be mailed by Sep 14th but instead I've spent the last couple of days dealing with the hard work created by my husband's hunting passion. Yes, he got a moose on Saturday, thankfully my girls and a couple of their friends came over and helped with the butchering. So today I finally got back into the studio to play with fabric.

I made two of these postcards today. I like the design concept but I'm going to work on the colors and contrasts. I used a stamp for the face and drew in the suggestion of a jaw line. Used some colored pencils to soften the stark white of the muslin I stamped on - next time I'll use something else. Dug into my scrap bag of triangles - which I still have a couple hundred of - and just used some other geometric shapes. I think I'll work on this design and make some of these for the breast cancer fundraiser that is supposed to happen at the Houston Quilt Festival. It actually looks better in person, LOL.

Fabric Dyeing Class

Yesterday I went to a fabric dyeing class - and it was a blast! This was the first time I actually used proper dye, not watered down fabric paint! I tried a few different techniques and some came out great and some weren't so hot. Let me tell you (and show you) what I did.

We were using Procion dyes and the teacher had mixed 10 colors up for each of us. She also provided the soda ash solution (which activates the dye and makes it take - I think). Made mixing the colors interesting because she didn't give us just the primary colors - she had made blends.

We started by taking our dye and squirting a few drops into a cup and adding 1/4 cup of water. Then we took our wet fabric (we were using fat quarters) and crinkled it up and stuffed it into a container (like yogurt or margerine ones). Then we poured the dye over the fabric, squished it around, and added 1/4 cup of soda ash solution. This is how that came out. It's okay but not vibrant. I think it's because it was so diluted. We had no idea how much dye to squirt in the cup before we aded the water so it was a guessing game. Because the fabric was all squished and crinkled it gave it that marbled effect. The green one was kind of chartreuse in the cup but it dried to this pukey shade, sigh.

I did the same thing with some white-on-white fabric. The design really stands out. The color was kind of blotchy on these although I don't know why. But they are still neat.

Then we made what the teacher called a parfait. We took three pieces of fabric - squished one up and put it in the bottom of a tall container. I put fuschia dye on it, then squished up another fat quarter and put it on top, added some fuschia with a few drops of violet, then squished up another and added that to the stack with some violet dye. The dye was supposed to run down through the layers.

Enough of that I thought. It was time to try direct dyeing. To do that we had to soak our fabric in the soda ash solution for about an hour before adding the dye - instead of afterwards. Then we just took the dye bottles and squirted the dye right on the fabric. You can get more vibrant colors if you don't screw around like I did, LOL. Look at the photo and then I'll tell you what I did for each one.

Okay - so upper left - I pleated the fabric and then squirted dye on in a random pattern. I used my fingers to try to squish it around but it left blobs in some places. Upper right - the orange one - this one would have been so cool! I pleated it and then used yellows and oranges in circles. It didn't get enough time to dry and I took it home in a plastic bag and the colors ran. It's still pretty though. I'll try this again. Lower left - pleated it again - added a bunch of colors and squished it up. Kind of a fall feeling. Lower right - this one was neat - I twisted the fabric really tightly and then wound it up into a coil. Poured greens and blues on it. After an hour I undid it and there was lots of white, so I took a foam brush and filled in the white streaks with a brilliant green. The corners of this fat quarter are really dark - it's awesome.

Shades of the 60s! Pleated and then dye squirted on in stripes. I sprinkled salt on it to see what it would do but I didn't get the starburst effect. It might have pulled some of the dye to the salt though and that's why the purple and red have lots of white in it. Dunno - would have to do a plain one and a salt one to figure it out.

Well - that's it! I have lots of dye left and another yard or two of fabric so I'll have to try it again in a couple of days. I don't think I'll do the diluted thing again - I liked squeezing it right onto the fabric - brighter colors!

Puff it up!

I figured out why my postcard didn't puff up like I thought it would when I heated the craft foam - my stitching was too dense. I made another sample yesterday and did some really big stippling stitches - it puffed great! The sample was big enough to cut down for two postcards but then I had the problem of 'what do you put on top of a bunch of puffy fabric'? On one I put an applique I have had for about 5 years and the other got a leftover piece of the sample put on top (cut much smaller) and a little heart applique that I fussy cut from another piece of fabric. Didn't take photos - they're not that great - they are nice - but not great.

Oh - I bought some watercolor-paper postcards to try as a backing for the postcards instead of fabric. I'll have to dig out one of my old needles to use so I don't ruin the one I'm using on the machine now. I've been reading that a lot of people do this and it will be SO much eaiser to write on than fabric!

Not much else going on - today I cleaned house instead of play in my studio. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

Melting - my new hobby

Made a couple more pin dolls - I have to get three done and in the mail this week for the swap on FOCD. I did some multi-media work on them so I was using my heat gun and my mini-iron. The two of them tried to set my studio on fire today. When I wasn't looking the cord from the heat gun draped itself over the hot barrel of the iron. The vinyl cord melted all the way through and when the wires hit the hot metal - KAPOW! There was a huge boom and then fireworks. The two of them sent sparks flying! I nearly had a heart attack. Luckily the pins were done except for their backs. Phew. Here they are ...

I like the green one best - so does Kai. They both started life as a piece of ecology cloth - which is an unbleached rough muslin. I stamped the face with Staz-on ink and then colored it with watercolor pencils. I colored the bodies that way too - just wet the whole thing down and then blended different colors together. When that dried I cut some pieces of stitch witchery into thin strips and, using the heat gun, melted it to the fabric just enough to stick. Poured embossing powder on it, shook off the excess, and then melted it all. Makes some great texture. After that I just added v