Happy Birthday & Other Stuff!

First of all, a Happy Birthday to my brother, Don, who is on vacation somewhere between Manitoba and Newfoundland!! His birthday was yesterday.

Next, I've been off the grid for awhile. In fact, I've hardly looked at the computer or at the various blogs I usually check out for a week or so. I now have a new computer to get used to. That's not much of a chore as I have my own computer guru (how lucky is that!!).

Here are a few blogs to check out:

• Quilter in Motion has some excellent Friday Finds 
• Let's Learn Embroidery 
• And Then We Set It On Fire 
• Shawkl Designs       

Windsor, NS, May 27th. You can see these flowering crab trees everywhere!

Windsor, NS, May 27th. Lilacs in bloom already!

Day 2, Art Challenge

Today is day 2 of the Art Challenge on Facebook. Here are three of my textile landscapes (earlier work). The rocks are printed from my computer on silk, cut up and hand appliqued to the background. The skies and water are hand dyed. At first glance, they look like paintings but as you get closer, you can see the dimension. The first one is called 'In All Its Glory' and was on exhibit at the Grand National Quilt Show, Waterloo, Ontario, 2002. I kept that one but the others have been sold.
Now it's my turn to challenge another fibre artist, Anne Lucas, of Foggy Rock Fibres, to show her work over the next 5 days.

Merry Christmas - A Bit Late

This Merry Christmas is a few days late. For one thing, I'm getting over a bad head cold and just didn't have the energy to do any computing other than check e-mail. On another note, my computer was out of commission for a bit as a new one was installed. I received a Windows 8, all in one computer, for Christmas! No computer box sitting on the floor as the computer and the monitor are one. I can use the mouse or just move things around on the screen with my finger - very nice piece of technology! Of course, some things on the keyboard are in different places and I have to keep searching for them. Now I really have to keep the screen clean as every finger print (there will be lots) will show up in daylight.

However, to keep with the season, here are a few Christmassy things from my home.

Enjoy!

Last year's Grandma's 1st. Christmas

Stain Glass fish was made by my brother a few years ago. The trees are
about 30 years old.

Larry's moose is hanging on my tree!



Summer Challenge

This will be the third year for the Eastern Edge Quilters. Our first meeting is tomorrow evening. We meet the first Tuesday of each month. Part of tomorrow's program will be to bring along our completed summer challenge:  Design Your Own Name Tag. There was a constraint on size - no smaller than 3" x 3" but we had the freedom to make it any shape, be a lanyard or pin . . ., and be any colour. It must include our name (of course) and the initials "EEQ".

My first idea was to piece some wavy shapes together to simulate waves or maybe do a fish shape. However, those were cast aside in favor of doing some free motion stitching over a colourful piece of batik fabric - a whole cloth quilt block. Works for me!

So here I am, the day before our meeting, making my name tag! To save some time, my husband put my name on a memory stick so that I could embroider it with my embroidery machine. All our original designs for embroidery are created in a computer program called DRAWings 5 Professional. This is an excellent program which we have been using since it was developed several versions ago.

The first picture shows the fabric I choose. Next, the free motion stitching was applied. I used 'fast 2 fuse', a double-sided fusible stiff interfacing, on the back of the batik. Recycled suede from Value Village was put on the back of the tag. The suede is bonded with 'Heat n' Bond Lite'. I wanted to keep the name tag simple!

batik fabric

free motion stitching

finished name tag

back of tag is recycled suede

Experimental Piece: Row Houses

This is an experimental piece I did a number of years ago. The house fabric is hand dyed. The clapboard lines were printed onto the white cotton after been treated with Bubble Jet Set 2000. The C. Jenkins Co. invented this solution so they could print neck ties from the computer.
The sky is hand dyed satin which gives it a nice shine. In this piece, the sky should have been stitched to prevent sagging. The trees are stitched green organza that has been cut out using a stencil burner. The window openings are satin stitched. Black cotton covered with a grey organza is used for the glass. Bits of lace represent curtains. The flowers are hand embroidered.

After working out the bugs in this wall hanging, I decided to make a larger piece with five houses. That piece was matted and framed. It is now part of the Newfoundland and Labrador Art Collection.

Fabric Designs

Finding interesting fabric designs for a special project isn't always easy! Many textile artists will usually take a piece of fabric and change it in some way using such products as dyes, paint sticks, fabric paints and crayons, resist, stamping . . . the list is a long one! I have also printed directly onto cotton and silk from my computer.

In my search for things, I came across Spoonflower where you can design and print your own fabric. I was also fascinated with the blog for this site. Check out the many fabric designs. They are fabulous!

This site also has a list of interesting blogs and links to check out.