The Wooly Whale Project

A few days ago, I was introduced to the Wooly Whale Project.  Alexe Hanlon, textile student, College of the North Atlantic, is knitting a life-sized Minke Whale. That's right, life-sized. She has started a blog to record her progress. It is well worth your while to have a look at what she is doing.

I also found a few sites showing whales in quilts. I hope you find them inspiring too:

• Humpback Whale Quilt Pattern
• The Whale and the Lighthouse
• Whales Mug Rug
• Whale Quilt

Soft Sculpture

As I was exploring the internet this morning, I discovered soft sculpture artist, Ed Bing Lee. As one who works with textiles and fibre, his work fascinated me. Lee uses coloured thread and ribbons as well as thousands of knots to create soft sculpture versions of all kinds of food. Have a look at the many pieces he has created using his knotting technique. For a close-up of the food sculpture check HERE. I also found a short video of Lee working on a knotted vessel. He says that the process is more important than the object itself. How true that is! This video shows more of his work. The links above are well worth a view.  Enjoy!

Latest Art Piece

It is finally finished, frame selected and all!

Here is my textile piece showing a section of the fishing complex in English Harbour West, on the south coast of Newfoundland. When I visited there this summer, I took lots of photos including the colourful buildings along the wharf. This close-up of the facility caught my interest. Little did I know at the time that it would become the subject for my next art piece.

In September,I was asked to do a presentation on 'making clap board' from fabric, for the Eastern Edge Quilt Guild November program. Apparently many quilters have expressed an interest in adding buildings to their work and want to give it a try. So to get ready for this, as well as do an art piece for the Comfort and Joy Christmas show and sale at the Craft Council of NL, I bit the bullet and spent many hours creating 'clap board'! Check HERE for making the clapboard.

Enjoy!

Ottawa Street, Hamilton

Yesterday, I went to Hamilton, Ontario, to visit relatives. While there, I took a detour to Ottawa Street (scroll down), the textile and fabric district. Unfortunately, been Sunday, most of the shops were closed. I thought that strange as the malls and big box stores were all opened. At Fabricland, I was told that the local fabric shops were family owned and as a result kept Sunday as a family day. Here are a few photos I took of the area.

Had a fabulous brunch at this diner!

View from the Hill

The weather in Nova Scotia has been great since I've been here. I haven't been able to post to my blog as often but I have been taking lots of wonderful photos. Some of them are definitely worth consideration for future textile work. The view from my brother-in-law's back garden is spectacular. You can look way up the valley in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. Off to the side of the driveway is a small pond with tall grass, cattails, tall trees, lots of noisy frogs, turtles and gold fish. It's the perfect spot to sit with a sketch book. (I used my camera instead). Enjoy!

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.

Back Garden: FINISHED

The stitching for this textile art piece is finally finished! Now it has to be framed. The actual size of what you see is 8" x 10". This particular scene is from photos of my parent's back garden. The house, built by my father 60 years ago, was sold last October. I did take some liberties with the photo. The trees are there but some of flower/foilage placement have been changed. The poppies, as I mentioned in the last post, migrated from the garden behind the fence. In fact, they did a lot better in our garden. Poppies are among my favorite flowers but their blooming stage is so short.

Photo is not showing up in Firefox on my computer for some reason. If you do not see it, please use Internet Explorer.

Canadian Artists - textile & fibre

Today I'm highlighting some Canadian Artists. Please drop by their sites. You won't be disappointed.
Enjoy!

Quilted Textiles of Andree Fredette
Andrea Graham, Feltmaker - Fibre Artist   Blog
Fibre Artworks of Deborah Milton
Patti Morris Fabric Art Designs
Karen Neary, Nova Scotian Quilter
Lesley Turner, Stitch Artist
Nancy Yule, Fibre Artist
Lesley-Anne Green, Fibre Artist
Quilt Matters, Ottawa, Canada
Pippa Moore, quilter, teacher, designer and writer from Vancouver Island

Grab a cup of something while you look around!

Happy New Year

2011 was a very eventful year full of wonderful things - the best of which was the birth of  my granddaughter in March. I even managed to get some quilting and other art work completed. My goal for the new year is to experiment with new techniques and apply them to my textile work. I received a few new books for Christmas which I will report on in the new year.

Mini Art Pieces

I've been doing a series of framed 5" x 5" textile art, called 'Back Yard' since the fall of 2009. Check my previous post here for information about them. The photo below shows two of the pieces that are currently in the Craft Council Shop, Devon House.

The Craft Council just opened an on-line shop to make it easier for people to buy unique one-of-a-kind ars and crafts. One of my Piscius Fantasticus is one of the items listed.

Skinny Taste Recipes

I was catching up on Face Book and one of my friends recommended Skinny Taste Recipes. I had a quick look and it looks promising. I realize this site isn't about textile art related 'stuff', but we all have to eat and if it tastes good as well as been low fat - then it's ok!  The photo shows a super moist low fat chocolate cupcake.

Check out one of my previous posts for cup cake related stitching.

Enjoy!

Paint Sticks

Have you ever played with oil paint sticks? Check out Cedar Canyon Textiles for information about this product and where to get them. I have a few sets of the paint sticks as well as some of the rubbing plates. However, I haven't spent much time playing with them. They do have lots of potential for adding decoration to fabric. Cedar Canyon Textiles blog has a wealth of information about this product.

Here are some sites to check out:

• Sue Dennis
• Threads
• You Tube Embellishing with Paint Sticks (there are lots of demos)
• Quilting Arts
• Melody Crust - Fiber Artist
• Better Homes and Gardens: Color Your Own Fabric
• Stitch with the Embroiders' Guild (a fantastic British magazine) - Make Your Mark
• The Magic Bean - Shiva Paint Stick Tutorial

Down Under Blogs

One of the things I like to do when I visit another blog is check out the favorite sites listed there. You never know what you will come across. I've selected a few interesting blogs from the land down under for you to visit today. Enjoy!

Linda Stokes ... textile artist
The Quilters' Guild of NSW Inc. - check out the member's blogs
Serendipity and the Art of the Quilt
The Quilting Owl - traditional style quilting
Patchwork Fundamentals
Suzanne Gummow - a journey in Textiles
Crafty Quilting with Pamela
Fairholme Quilters

Down Under Textiles

I finally got a chance to check my blog list. I'm sure I've missed a lot this past month or two but things are starting to settle down. Life will get back to 'normal' soon (I hope)!

I came across Down Under Textiles, an Australian magazine, launched in 2009. In it are the latest techniques, tools and products; instructions for making projects; colour, design and composition theory as well as galleries of textile art work. Issue one is available online for FREE. I had a quick look through it and was impressed! It just might be my next magazine purchase. Have a look at it here.

The Textile Blog / William Morris

I came across The Textile Blog a few days ago. This site is a very comprehensive educational resource for anyone interested in the history of design, decoration and craft. It is easy to navigate. The photos and information are wonderful. You just need the time to explore!

Their latest post is titled the Work of William Morris which refers to some ceramic tile designs by Morris. However, if you go to the subject index, you will find many other articles written about Morris. For example: William Morris and the Snakeshead (Snakeshead was a textile fabric first produced in 1876); William Morris and the Daisy Wallpaper.

Here are some quilts that are inspired by William Morris:
William Morris Quilt Inspiration from Stitching Cow
William Morris Inspired Quilts from The Earthly Paradise
A Quilter & William Morris in Iceland
William Morris and Kelmscott
William Morris Fan Club

Paper Piecing - Eastern Edge Guild

Paper Piecing was the topic for last month's guild challenge. Here are the ones brought to guild last night.

The first piece with the three iris and the one showing the sail boat were wrapped around a canvas frame. It is a very nice way to display a small textile art piece.

Eastern Edge Quilt Guild

Esmerelda 2006

Tuesday night the Eastern Edge Quilt Guild had a wonderful presentation by local artist, Carolyn Morgan.  She works in several different media, one-of-a-kind art dolls, painting, textiles, clay and enameled copper. 
Carolyn had photos of her work which were displayed via computer unto a large screen as well as actual pieces of her art. Everyone was delighted with her show and tell. It gave all of us something to think about when designing our own art.

International Night at Eastern Edge Quilt Guild

India

Last evening was International Night at the Eastern Edge Quilt Guild. Members were asked to bring along quilt related items from different countries. The items were amazing. Here are some photos I took of the things on display.

You can see all of the photos on my flickr page.

Enjoy!

Peru

Laos

Forte Framing and Gallery

Forte Framing and Gallery now has a new web site. The original one has been totally redone! For those of you new to my blog, this framing shop in Chicago belongs to my daughter and husband. For those of you living in the Chicago area, please stop by and see the place. Some of my textile art is on display as well as some of my shimmers.

They also rent out their shop space for art shows and parties - the shop is very spacious and a fantastic place for a party!

Jill is working on some original art pieces just in time for Christmas. You can see her at work if you drop by.

#2 Textile Art from Knitting & Stitch Show, London

Just Photos