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

Thanksgiving weekend

I have so much to be thankful for. I try to remember this on a daily basis. It is nice to celebrate with friends and family and fabulous food.

All the veggies are ready to cook, just have to stuff the bird, pop it in the oven and relax for a few hours.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

A little behind

I am. I know. But a BlogPodium recap has been on my mind.

Times does fly.

Unlike last time the room full of younger women didn't bother me!

 Jennifer Flores did an amazing job again leading her team to pull off an organized, fun, educating and stylish conference.

The Keynote speaker was Donna Williams of Funky Junk Interiors fame. All the way from BC. Her presentation was about being authentic, and she was.  Shedding her jacket to put on her trademark plaid shirt she was real as she gave us the emotional and tearful story.

That's what it is really about, after all. Donna's story, my story, your story.

Later in the day I ran an idea past her and she said "what is the worst thing that could happen?"

"Fail" I said. And she gave me a look that said, ya so? So I have had that thought rambling around my mind for the last few weeks.

The rest of the day was equally inspiring.  I am going to open an Etsy shop for my quilts and upcycled items.

Avery Swartz always does an awesome job explaining the techie stuff like Google Analytics. I took her Camp Tech Wordpress class last fall. I will be putting it to use soon.

The afternoon Keynote session was full of nuggets of wisdom. Scott Mcgillivray charmed us with his phenomenal success story.  Jennifer said her secret is to start in the middle not at the beginning.

I was fascinated by Monika Hibbs .

Monika is a former physician that started with The Doctor's Closet. I had a hard time wrapping my head around her decision to give up a medical practice. After the incredible amount of study, hard work and dedication she quit.  Maybe because I've been a pharmacist for over 30 years and quitting never surfaced as an option for me. She shared that after spending some time waiting in an ER she realized she has no regrets. That is the way I like to live.

Do you remember the scene in the movie "You've Got Mail" when Meg Ryan's character decided to close her bookstore? Jean Stapleton's character says 'closing is the brave thing to do.' That's how I feel about Monika's story. She encouraged us to search for our natural skills.

I enjoyed checking out the sponsor booths. Chatting with the ASCP ladies from New Orleans and Florida.

So the take away for me......be brave, risk failure, have a mantra, tell my story.

check out the new contest

for Canadians who love Annie Sloan Chalk Paint at the 31 Days of Chalk Paint Love

here is my night table in its home at the cottage.

Looks like a fun contest.

more painted furniture

with custom colours.
We need to have very small multi-functional furniture at the cottage. What could be better than nesting tables? This is before I started mixing up the ASCP. and yes I do know there is only one table here!

 

 

Nesting tables painted in custom colours. All three neatly tucked together. I love the legs altogether each with its own gorgeous colour.

 

Here they are opened just slightly with my two favourite 1970's pieces.

 

 

I put the most dark wax on the smallest blue table.

 

 

the colours really work with this 9 patch quilt top too.



 

 

I mixed new colours

of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to make the colours used to paint this chair. Sturdy, comfortable, clean yet boring.

I had pinned a similar one done with a Union Jack that Annie has shown to feature Napoleonic Blue. I wasn't really up for the math to do a flag so stripes it was. I started with a pale base

 whipped out the Frog Tape and varied the width of the stripes while trying to match up the seat and backrest.

 

 

it looks all bright and childish until the dark wax knocks back the colour and makes it looks aged.

 

 

 

 

The paint is also great on metal. The chrome parts were painted in graphite then waxed as well.

 

 

 

 

No stripes on the back.



 

 

so much better than before. Don't you think?

 

 

I wasn't going to go but once I had a purpose I signed up for

I went last year. You can read about my experience Here

My purpose, well it's too early for details but lets just say I've bought to much furniture and "STUFF" for our little cottage.

Hehe!

Colour scheme

Our new cottage is a builder's model.  That means their designer picks out the paint colours. I love colour, any colour so I am fine with using what we will be getting. We found this picture in thrift store, of course. The colours are perfect.

It is about 24" sq.  Just not sure what room it will end up in. We'll see!

They're here, they're here!!!!

Yup my  Heather's prize arrived.

Paint cans in their own winter wear. only in Canada eh?!

We got 12, yup, a dozen cans of ASCP, a can of each dark and clear wax and Annie 's workbook.

So many yummy colours. Thanks Annie Sloan Unfolded.


It all started Here

What are gleanings?

I love the name of my blog but it is not self- explanatory.
My new in-my-mind-only blog will have a menu explaining the term Gleanings and  have examples.

The new blog may be a while so I'll start here.

Gleanings

pl n

1. (Agriculture) the useful remnants of a crop that can be gathered from the field after harvesting

This is the meaning I grew up with living on a farm. Collecting the missed cobs of corn into sacks for chicken feed after the large harvesters had chopped acres and acres into silage.

Cutting the small broccoli shoots that sprout after the main head was removed.

This sort of thing is now done on farms in an organized way to yield tons and tons of food that would other wise not be harvested.

I obviously take a more creative use of the term!

Yesterday had a spur of the moment gleaning opportunity. There are still piles of broken branches from the recent ice storm sitting curb side.  Spot and I stopped at a pile of curly willow branches and  gleaned  an armful of lovely twigs.

I'm not taking a photo cuz they are outside on top of ice and now covered in fluffy snow.
They look exactly like these

And we plan on using them to decorate the urn at the front door in the spring.  I wonder if they will sprout leaves?

Blog posts need photos right?  So here is the urn still decked out in red before Christmas and all the ice and snow.

We made it happen

Do you believe in manifesting your future? Vision boards? Asking the universe for your hearts wishes?
I know it all sounds sort of hoey hockus-pockus but I have experienced it enough in my life to recognize it when it happens.
Where is this going you ask?
Once  I knew we wouldn't get enough votes to win first prize I knew we would win the draw for Canada to get $500US for Annie Sloan products. Heather felt the same way. So when David read the list of winners names to me at work on Dec 13 I thought he was joking. But it really happened.

We won!

Cool eh?
So I've been making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty......
sorry too much Christmas radio.

Making a list of colours I want.

I've had great fun playing with this Paint mixer

The rest of the reasons.....

The contest is over. We got lots of votes, 178 to be exact. Not enough to win but we had great fun.
So in no particular order here is the rest of the count down.......
8.
I have chairs to paint, I'm afraid to count how many. The latest is a cute vintage stool.
I found a similar one done with a Union Jack. http://relovedrubbish.blogspot.ca/2012/09/chalk-painted-union-jack-chair-on-wheels.html
There are also folding chairs and Windsor back chairs. And I have my eye on these six. I bought them as well as four others yesterday.

7.
I have frames,many frames. Small ones, huge ones
6.
I want to try to make some art with the paints.
5.
I love colour. simple. To sit and mix colours would be heaven. I have a book to alter for that purpose.
4.
I have Christmas gifts to finish. A lingerie chest will be painted with ASCP Graphite and silver foil for accents.
3.
I want to sell furniture. That way I can continue to buy it too. Maybe a pop-up store is in my future!
2.
My daughter would be able to give me an awesome gift.
1.
I will paint her some dining room furniture, maybe she will take some of my chairs!

reason number ...9

 get to do silly and creative stuff like this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

no brass was polished making this strip and only one cracker broken.



Top ten reasons to vote for me...

Number 10


Vote

Vote daily please

To give David something to do when I work evenings. Left on his own it is all about the Legos.
Surfing Kijiji, ebay, and craigslist, not to mention flyers, online ads, cross border shopping leads to this.......