Material Obsession

I'm excited to be able to meet Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession tonight. An prolific quilter and writer from Australia.
She is here as part of the Black Creek Pioneer Village Outdoor quilt show. As luck would have it our local library has her brand new book.

It is lovely to look at, we are visual artists after all. Her delightful sense of enthusiasm comes through with every word. can't wait to hear her talk and see her trunk show.

Another pillow

I often start my hand stitching with no plans. More often than not they end up as pillows. Like this one.

I bought a lovely piece of hand-dyed fabric from Elaine Quehl when she visited our guild.

One can only admire fabric for so long. I took a piece with me when we went to Northern Ireland for 4 weeks earlier this year.

A variety of embroidery threads and a old tea towel from my MIL for batting and I was off. A few rows of stitching every day and it was finished.

I wanted to try something different than piping on the pillow. Inserting a flange while sewing the front and back together was easy.

The backing is a Nancy Crow fabric. I love having a handmade souvenir of precious time spent with family.

summer in The County

The County as in Prince Edward County, or PEC.
My first encounter was long, long ago. My very first job off the family farm but I'll save that story for another day.
Decades and decades later, I find my self back there with a wonderful husband and a summer home or two. Our weekends tend to follow the same pattern, not by design but in a natural easy going way.
We awake to the birds chirping early, very early. A warm-up coffee and breakfast of fresh local fruit on the patio.

 Then a leisurely drive, trying to travel on new roads each outing, with a keen interest whenever we see a "FOR SALE" sign.

The County has a summer sport, residents list their properties and wanna-be residents dream of owning those properties. Some transactions actually take place.

The reward on the outings are wonderful displays of wild flowers. In the spring miles of lilacs in every shade of purple. Now daylilies are putting on a good show.

 and in certain areas the hollyhocks will take your breath away.

DIY vs Etsy

If you sew, quilt or craft it gets easy to get stuck in the "I can do that" frame of mind. You know, you see something gorgeous and wonderful and think, yup, I could do that. Yes you can and you might or more likely might not. I am so guilty of this.
 I can and I often do. But, but sometimes it is just easier and faster to have someone else "do it". The it in this case are these lovely felted pebbles. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do such a lovely job. Check out the wonderful felt creations at the delica Etsy shop.

The colours are gorgeous. They sit in a thrifted shallow bowl on a thrifted tray on this thrifted night table beside my bed at the cottage.

I could try making the felted acorns though!

colourful pillow of handstitching woven strips

I love colour, in nature, in paint, in fabric. For me, the joy and excitement comes from seeing the colours together, interacting. Fabrics that have a variety of colours in gradations make it easier to give the impression of a multitude of fabrics. These can be monochromatic or analogous colour schemes.
I used one of these fabrics and a variety of torn related fabric strips.  One of the most basic ways to generate lots of interaction is weaving. The act of the simplest weave, over & under makes one slow down. The weaving would be temporary at this point without some stitching. I used a variety of embroidery floss and large stitches to add texture and a thin batting for dimension to the flat weaving.

 

 

 

Hand stitching is time consuming and that affects the size of the work. These pieces often end up as pillows.

 

 

for the backing I used a vintage hand towel.

The colour story continues when the pillow is placed in this lovely gold chair. Add some lovely Flor tiles and things get really interesting.

Colour makes me happy.
This post is included in Suzanne's link-up party at The Painted Drawer



Happy New Year again!

Time does fly doesn't it? And is it accelerating or is it just me?
I found this in an altered book I did. I was trying to document my work.

I have to tell you I had very mixed feeling seeing the date.
10 years.
First reaction was what happened to the time?
Second reaction and the one that is most useful is my interests hasn't changed. I may have been making a tote but what I was documenting was my interest in colour, texture and creation.
So my medium of choice may be switching from fabric to paint but the essence, the core element remains.
Many people have resolutions and words of the year. I have decided on several. Two are perennial choices -focus and finish.
That is a topic for another day.
The other is explore. I want to explore various techniques of painting. I'm hoping as I experiment I will find out what interests me the most.
Where I can then take some time to concentrate to develop.
I also want to have FUN.
So my first exploration will be the book by Tracy Verdugo  - Painting Mojo

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Contest

For Canadians only!
They are featuring a stockist and a colour each day of October. Today's paint colour is Old Ochre. I entered this dresser. I do need to learn to take better photos!  You can see (and please LIKE) my entry in the CONTEST  thanks