This was a gorgeous sunny but cool day here in St. John's. AND there was no wind!!! We went downtown this afternoon for a walk around and some shopping.

I remembered that the Book Arts Association for Newfoundland & Labrador was hosting their 3rd annual printers fair in the Rocket Room (Rocket Bakery, Water Street) from 11:00am to 5:00pm. Local artists and craftspeople of the paper persuasion were selling their wares – books, broadsides, prints, cards, chapbooks, lino cuts, etchings, lithographs, screen prints, letterpress goods and more!

We saw lots of locally made paper products and made a couple of card purchases from two of the vendors.

Merry Chris-Moose can be viewed at Driven To Ink. 

Warm Greetings card set is part of Running The Goat Books. This set was printed and hand painted, making each card very unique.

It's important to support our local artists! 

Road Trek - Part Two

As promised, here are more photos from yesterday's road trek to Herbie's Olde Shoppe.

The owner of Herbie's Olde Shoppe is Rhodie Anne Woodland. She told me that her shop is a one stop shop as there is something for everyone. For example, t-shirts screen printed in NL, art work, greeting cards, knitted goods, jewellery, toys, books (NL authors), jams, tea towels, rug hooking patterns, ornaments, quilts, cloth tote bags . . . She did remark that there isn't a lot of items for men. She said there's a definite market for that but not many crafters are taking advantage of it.

My shimmers are displayed in a step up clear acrylic stand, as you can see below. Rhodie Ann decided to put out the rest that couldn't fit in the stand in the yellow basket. For some reason, most of the shimmers sold, come from that basket instead of the display case. Interesting!

Some of my wearable art pins

Shimmers

The cards shown under the row houses are mine

This wagon belongs to Rhodie Anne. She played with it as a child.

From 1933, this old Singer Sewing machine is still in perfect working order!

We also stopped at Chafe's Landing (around the corner from Herbie's) and had lunch. We had the most delicious fish and chips. The cod fish was fresh and just lightly battered. It melted in my mouth and the best I've had since the last time I was there. If you are ever in Petty Harbour, you must drop in there for a meal.

Grow Your Blog & My First Giveaway!!

It's a good thing that Wendy, from The Crafter's Apprentice, reminded me of my participation in this hop! Thanks Wendy, for the reminder. Much appreciated.

This is the 3rd Grow Your Blog hop hosted by Vicki from Two Bags Full.



For those of you visiting for the first time, Welcome to my part of the world. My name is Judy Cooper. I am a retired primary school teacher who now creates one-of-a-kind textile / fibre art. My complete bio can be found HERE and my artist statement HERE.

I have received awards for my work and several pieces belong to the City of St. John's, NL and to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Greeting Cards on my web site, show images of textile art that I have created. More images of my work can be found HERE.  My latest large piece is pictured below.

At the moment, I am creating fibre art pendants and some new Shimmer Ornaments (scroll to the previous post).

Besides having a place to show my art and some of the techniques I use, I often write about other artist's work and link to their web sites. One of the other things I like to do is find tutorials and patterns for all kinds of textile / fibre art (usually freebies). Since 2009, I have blogged about a lot of interesting 'stuff". Please come back, grab a cup of something and explore my blog. I guarantee, you won't be disappointed ( even if I do say so myself - GRIN )!!

I am also going to have my first Give Away and I will post anywhere in the world! You don't have to be a follower to participate (it would be nice if you did). Just leave a comment on this post. Make sure I can contact you if you win.

My gift to you will be two of my shimmer ornaments. Deadline to enter will be February 14th and the draw will be on the 15th. The winner will be posted on my blog. I will also contact the winner for mailing instructions.

Enjoy the blog hop!

A list of participants can be found HERE just scroll down the page.


Fishermen's Museum, English Harbour West.
Property of the City of St. John's, NL



New Needle Felted Art Cards

This is a busy time of year for those of us who produce certain items for the wholesale market. I create unique products that are very affordable and small enough to mail in an envelope. 

• My greeting cards are digital prints made from original textile-based art. 
• The art cards are images constructed by using various combinations of needle felting, hand / machine stitching, and / or painting, then attached to a card.  
• Shimmer Ornaments consist of a variety of images stitched onto a hand constructed, translucent background with machine embroidery outlines and details. These can be designed to be site specific.
• Felted ornaments are constructed from a variety of needle felted yarns.
• Wearable Art Pins consist of a wide variety of images constructed on a hand layered background that I call 'fantasy fabric'. They consist  of a variety of decorative yarns, glittery threads and fabrics, tulle and lame with machine embroidered details and outlines.

All my needle felted art cards are sold so I had to get busy and make more. Here's the ones I did today.

Another sheet almost ready to be needle felted,

Happy New Year's Eve!

What a difference a year makes! Last December was a mild one with very little snow. In fact, we had a green Christmas. This year, winter started very early with piles of snow and very cold temperatures. The thermometer below shows one of the very few days that was above freezing.

I am looking forward to 2014 and all that it will bring.  Last March, I decided to go wholesale with some of my small production art work (Shimmer Ornaments, Wearable Art Pins, Art Cards, Felted Ornaments and Greeting Cards). It was a big step for me to take as I had been resisting it for many years. However, it has opened up other opportunities. I was invited to the Atlantic Trade Show (ACTS) in Halifax so I will be going there the end of January. Then, the local wholesale show is in March.

Production work is taking up much of my time at the moment but I'm hoping to set aside some time to experiment with more surface embellishments. I have some copper wire that I want to play with as well as a small gel printing plate for fabric printing. My yarn stash is overflowing and my wool roving needs attention. I have a few new toys to play with in my studio! Who knows where all that will lead.

Thank you for following my blog posts and to those who leave comments. I may not respond to all of them but they are read and appreciated. Happy New Year! I wish you health, happiness, time with family, and lots of fun in 2014!!!

Enjoy!

December 2012

December 2013

Something Fishy Comes This Way!

Today I'm sharing my latest Pisci Fantasticus creations. If you are in the St. John's downtown area you will soon see some of my 3-D fish hanging in the window of the Newfoundland Weavery. The Weavery is carrying some of my smaller creations: shimmers, art cards, greeting cards and pins. There will also be a limited number of the hanging fish. I use batiks for the fish as the fabric colours are so vibrant! Check here, here and here for more fish on my blog.

I will also be having a guest posting an article soon. Check back!
Enjoy!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Although I'm rather late posting this, I hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day.

I had a very rewarding one at the Crafter's Wholesale Show. One more day to go. I decided to wholesale my packaged card sets (the newest ones aren't on the site yet), shimmer ornaments, and a select few (row house, fish and starfish) wearable art pins (scroll down). Sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done!


Check here for previous post on St. Patrick's Day sites to visit.

Greeting Cards

I finally got some more greeting cards printed so this morning was spent getting them cut, folded and packaged. Most of the larger pieces of my textile art have been made into cards. Usually a set of cards/envelopes has four different images. Here's a sample of some card sets.