Thursday, January 31, 2008

falling leaves

I made & taught this wall hanging last fall - I call it a door style - great for that long skinny piece of wall at the top of the stairs.
It is from a pattern by Bee Creative Studio called Drifters. But I started calling it Falling Leaves. I like how the yellow leaves form a soft S shape for your eye to follow
the background is paper piece and provides wonderful variety. the leaves are freezer paper applique.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Horoscope

do you read the horoscopes? do you believe in them? I do and I admit they are very general so you can read into them what you want. this one from last week spoke to my heart.
There needs now to be a plan, a strategy, a real mood of certainty about what can be achieved. It is coming if you don't have it already. And it will alter everything in your life. Your daily world advances from black and white into full colour.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

needlefelting

I like needlefelted work but prefer if all those little holes are not visible. Beryl Taylor always writes clear, concise instructions for projects that have such visual interest & depth. Her latest is in the Jan/Feb 08 issue of cloth, paper, scissors.
I had started working on my felt piece for Carmi's swap with a plaid mohair scarf. I bought the scarf at the Toronto Clothing Show but found it too itchy to wear. It was felted onto wool felt and felted to a piece of cotton velvet. circle of wooly yarn punched in & painted fusible ironed on.this is what it looked like at that point.
many more layers- copper & blue foil, punched sheer from an old skirt, a sprinkle of bo-nash & a layer of orange chiffon. then machine stitched, sliced & diced & the edges finished with yarn.
when I was cutting it up I realized it looks like rust or patinaed copper. Is patina a verb or a noun? both?
as a bonus the back looks great too.
this is the front scanned

and the back


extreme gleaning



I admire the work of Mary Fogg. I was fortunate enough to see one IRL at the quiltart 20 show at the Burlington Arts Centre.
While tidying up my work surface in the studio I decided either use em lose em. That lovely fuzzy first strip cut off a piece of washed fabric. Sew horizontally on a background with a pice of batting about journal size.
They became a lovely way to document the fabrics used in a piece and remind me of the exercise we did in Katie PM class

Sunday, January 13, 2008

how I've felt


some times things are just MFEO (made for each other) I sometimes feel old cuz I've missed out on the whole IM, ICQ, now facebook thing. by choice that is. I don't even own a cell phone for pete's sake. but I digress.....
some things just fall into place, I've been wanting to play more with the Xpression. Having worked very hard on samples of classes I will be teaching at Ultimate Sewing Centre I rewarded myself with this little book. while tidying up in the studio these yummy supplies fit the bill. A cover-up top of unknown content - basically two panels stitched together with gathering ties at the shoulders and a huge skein of gorgeous wool yarn bought at a yarn shop on Queen St in Toronto. Here they are laid out on a piece of water soluble stabalizer with wisps of light pink roving following Her Majesty's directions!
flip & repeat on other side & pin to hold in place.
needle punch to hold everything together. then stitch. I used two kinds of water soluble stuff, one didn't even punch into the fibers so I got it all back (except for 1 tablespoon- remember the Crisco ad!)
Into the tub to wash away the remaining Solvy & scrunch to wet felt.
It it turned out gorgeous. still soft but not slinky. It shrank in length quite a bit so I am going to put a slit near one end to pull the other through so it will sit close to my neck.