Catching Up

I'm back!

For the first time in a very long time we actually spent two weeks on vacation!! Weird ---

As we have done shows and traveled for those in the past few years, our "vacations" have usually consisted of an extra day after a show to visit a place we've not seen before or to visit briefly with friends.

This year, since I will not be doing any shows that I'll be traveling to, and because a dear friend was celebrating her 80th birthday, we made a trip to California.

The point of the trip was that she and I got to "PLAY"!

In this post I'm going to talk about about the projects that I've worked on the past two weeks, then in another post in the next couple of days, I'll talk about our travel "adventures".


Project #1: The Angels
You may remember this project from a while back.

Even though in general I was pleased with the way it came out, I have long maintained that doing faces, especially human like faces, in any medium is not my strongest suite. This piece was no exception, so I took it and the fabric markers I had originally used on it with me, hoping for some help with it.

The suggested fix? Darker markers to do the shading/highlighting of the eyes, nose and mouth and under the chins.

The result I think is much better.

Project #2: Rubber Stamping
That we should be messing with rubber stamps at all is sort of funny as neither of us have ever been all that into the whole rubber stamping craze, but when we recently got involved with cutting rubber stamps from our own drawings, we got a lot more interested!

These are the pair of zebras that I cut and the first stamps of each of them.

There's only one problem with this -- my original plan was to have two zebras that would FACE each other --- except I got the transfer to the rubber wrong, and so both of them face the same way ---- Pfffttt!!

Okay, that means that I need to cut one more, but I'll have to get another sheet of the rubber stuff to cut first.

Project #3: Rubber Stamping and a Painting Technique Lesson
You probably remember that I've been sort of giraffe crazy of late, and that has spilled over into this project too.

There at the top is the giraffe rubber stamp, and underneath is the stamp with the embellishment of an added tail and mane that are drawn on with a fabric marker.

Because my friend has taken all those classes in painting techniques that come along with a BA in Fine Art she gave me a techniques lesson on using various sea sponges to create the tree and the ground beneath the giraffe.

My plan next is to use thread and beads to further embellish this and to create something that can be hung on the wall from it.

And yes, I'm thinking about something that will involve even more stamped animals.

Project #4: Dye Workshop
Ok, perhaps we should have labeled this "playing with dirty soap"

This project involved squirting dyes into a pan of shaving cream to form patterns then laying the fabric over the pan to take up the colors and patterns -- sort of like you do with marbling techniques on paper.

After that you pick up the fabric and let it dry for about 24 hours before you wash out the shaving cream and residual dye.

And these are my pieces from the project.

My plan is to use them as parts of more stamping/embellishing projects in the future


The Shopping Spree
This was not a trip where I did a whole lot of shopping for anything.

I did get the chance to go into a quilt store in San Jose while we were there and picked up a piece of fabric for a wall hanging we are working on that is titled Breakfast on the Hoof.

The "cow print" fabric was just too cute to resist especially since they were having a sale.

And here's the next question --- which is more useful, the purchase or the bag?

Since I work with lots of media, the bag will be just as good to have as the fabric!

A Project Complete!
One of the things I can do quite well while riding for hours in a car is knit.

While we were traveling I completed the last of the mittens for this year's Mittnz challenge.

I'll be sending along my picture this week.

Since those were finished by the middle of the second day out, I started working on this year's sweater project. Because sleeves are usually the last pieces I knit and I usually dread them if they are just plain sleeves, I decided to knit those first this time. And I'm now within 10 rows of having both sleeves complete.

And there have been some other knitting experiments which I will be sharing in the next few days, incuding the purchase of some absolutely amazing silk yarn.

And so there we are.

I'm back, I played, and now there is a ton of laundry to do ---- more soon!

Angels complete, and other works

If you've been reading here for a long time, you may remember this project.

When I first had the idea I wanted to make it all out of beads with no backing so the light could come through it like a stained glass window (in fact, I'm still fascinated with that idea, but haven't yet figured out how to carry it off).

Anyway, this is finally quilted and complete.

It's intended to be a wall hanging (I stitched in loops on the back so it can be hung from a rod or a wire).

As I've worked on it I've thought of it as a kind of worship piece --- something to contemplate about angels as I've stitched.

Now that it is complete, I'm not entirely sure what I will do with it (after I enter it in the State Fair, that is).

I'm hoping some inspiration for that will occur.

The last dog toy of this style stood up pretty well to those super sharp teeth of my daughter's "terrior-izer", so I whipped up another one yesterday.

It will go in the box I'll be sending them soon






All of the components are now stitched together!

The idea of using the twisted cord to put the leaf on really worked well, and I've got the crystals all arranged and connected together

There at the top is the beginning of the rest of the cord that will make up the necklace. I'll be making 2 of these and "zipping" them up then attaching them to each side to make the rest of the necklace.

Lookin' good!



Lookie what came in the mail yesterday.

Nice stuff -- not so difficult that a semi accomplished knitter like me can't figure it out -- hopefully

And of course as soon as I saw some of the patterns I immediately began to think "hmmm, this one could be made into ___ (insert something other than what the original pattern is for here)"

Guess we'll never escape that whole "a pattern is just a suggestion" thing

Speaking of knitting, the back legs of the zebra are slowly taking shape. For some reason, each knitting session is an ordeal of *knit one row, purl one row, untangle 4 strands of yarn, repeat from * It's enough to make one contemplate the virtues of bobbins --- like the kind I used once when I knit a pair of argyle socks (never mind, it's too ugly to return to). It also makes me think that those bobbin thingies will be REQUIRED when I start into the great giraffe project.

Yesterday we did shopping and I worked on taxes, so I never did get to the bird house project, and today I need to make the living room look like something other than a warehouse as we have someone coming by to visit this evening, but I'm hoping to get some project work done!

time to roll out!!

One more angel and a shopping trip

I finished the embroidery on the last angel panel last night

It was fun doing the hair of each angel a different color and style -- this is Raphael, and I did the embroidery with a rayon floss which has a lovely sheen to it, but is a real pain to work with as it wants to turn every which way and tie itself in knots!

The next plan for the three panels is to do some additional highlighting and shading with the fabric markers to give a little more depth to the faces, then I'll be ready to actually put the whole thing together so I can start quilting



Work progresses on the UCP -- the DH is working on the first of the drawings which will then be scanned and blown up to create full size patterns --- we're finally getting this process down to something familiar so that the drawing/pattern stage moves along much quicker.

I spent quite a bit of time working on a bracelet yesterday. I had started this one a while back but when I got to the clasp stage I was stalled because the usual methods didn't work. As usual, putting something aside and working on something else gives my brain a chance to come up with alternate ideas. We found some magnetic clasps in the bargin bin at the local craft store and I decided to try one of those (I've never worked with them before), and it's going to be great on this piece. Hopefully I finish this one today.

The shopping trip yesterday included purchasing the bright orange and blue yarn for the Christmas knitting project, and last night I started in on it --- the snoot has been knit of bright blue and I have just started into the first of the orange yarn --- pictures of the project "on the sticks" to follow soon

We've started taking down our Christmas decorations -- a little each day for about a week makes this a lot less stressful than trying to do it all at once.

time to get busy!!

Beach Glass, Angels and Christmas Future

Completed project #3 for 2009

another piece of Rocky Mountain Beach Glass made up into a necklace

This piece began as a purple plate

breaking, tumbling and bead work later, it is ready for wearing

What I think is especially cool about this is the was the pattern in the plate is actually still visable in the glass, though not as deep and the color is muted

Nice

The embroidery on two of the three angels is complete

And I'm working on the third one



meantime, drawings for an UCP (unidentified Christmas project) are in the works -- it's nice to have one quilt to be quilting on and one to be piecing/appliquing on at the same time


This is also a Christmas 2009 project --- picture this cutie knit up in bright orange and royal blue

I found the pattern on a free pattern web site, and now I need to figure out how much yarn it takes and see if I have enough on hand or if I need to go shopping

It's kind of fun to do these 3 dimensional knittting projects along with the knitting of clothing and afgan squares --- keeps things interesting!



Today I will be spending some time working on a HUGE power point presentation that I'm actually getting paid for --- nice to know it's worth putting the time in on it.

into the fray

What are you doing New Year's?

I don't do resolutions

My experience is that I don't keep them very well, and who needs the extra guilt?

I do start, complete and return to projects however!

These Christmas socks were made by my daughter and I last year for her house

This year she asked me if I could embroider their names on them

So yesterday, after the Rose Parade, I set up my machine and did the embroidery

The original plan was to do it right on the sock cuff, but even the smallest embroidery hoop for the machine was too wide to work, so I embroidered the names on some of the fabric left over from the sock lining (reason #2,954 of why you never throw away fabric pieces), then attached those embroidered strips to the cuff of the socks

It's probably acually better than the original plan since it's hard to work lettering over a patterned fabric and be able to read it

So, project #1 for 2009, all complete

Yesterday morning this was a t-shirt

A while back, when my daughter went off to finish college and live away from home she had several t-shirts that had been acquired at performances of things like Phantom of the Opera and Beauty and the Beast -- cool shirts but she didn't want to ruin them by wearing them (beside that, they were size XL, and she wears a smaller size). So, I made them into throw pillows for her.

When we were up visiting over Christmas, she asked me to make one of her husband's t-shirts into a pillow too.

A quick trip to the closest fabric store and about an hour's work later, the t-shirt is a pillow!

I'm thinking this might be a service I could add to my Etsy store too.

Ok, project #2 for 2009 complete!

If you've been with me a while, you may remember these .

I had gotten them all pieced/appliqued then put them away to make the big "get those Christmas projects done" push in the fall

Yesterday I pulled them out and looked them over

and decided that I want to do some embellishment with embroidery before I put the panel together to do the quilting

So hopefully today I'll get to work on them a bit after we run some errands

I guess if I have a resolution it's that I want to finish a lot of projects this year -- in fact, I think I'll start a list so that at the end of 2009 I can review and see how I did

How about you? What are you doing in the New Year?

June Bearry, Raphael and more

Here is the result of yesterday's work with ribbons and eyelet and glue (ACK!)

Most of the time glue is a forbidden substance in the bear studio, but for certain things it is required

like attaching fabric/beads/ribbon and bees to a plastic basket

(note the bee in the basket with the berries and the one on the handle)



and this morning we had the photo shoot

30 pictures from many, many angles

("I'm ready for my close up, Mr DeMille"!)

and yes, there is a bee on her right shoulder, and one on the end of the ribbon on the left of her face



Yes, she's standing up on her own!!

I don't know if its the weight of all those glass beads I stitched to her feet

or the fact that she has really BIG feet

or if I just got lucky when I tries this

(don't you love the way the dress stands out from the waist?!)



and here we are, stitting down to investigate that basket full of berries

we just have to watch out for the bees!










The bear was not the only accomplishment yesterday, however

This is the third and final panel of the angels

Raphael is complete

now I have to figure out how to put these together to give them the illusion of being a 3 dimensional panel even though it is actually flat










finished another block in the recycled afghan project

I cheated a bit on the CroKay edging -- I used a crochet hook instead of two knitting needles -- it went much quicker

I'll be starting block 6 soon



and another of the patterns is now ready, which means I'm now half way with the birdies

This block has 69 pieces which brings us up to a total of 258 so far


Meantime, the quilting on the lambie quilt is half done!! I'm so excited (and tell me, who but a crazy person would sit UNDER a quilt when it's 90+ degrees outside!?)


ONWARD!!

goin' to the birds

The first of the patterns has been drawn up on freezer paper -- let the stitchin' begin!!

This folks is supposed to represent a Pionus Parrot (if you'd like to see some AMAZING pictures of the growth of one of these, check out this site and go to the baby bird section. When they are hatched they are all beak! Fascinating.

but I digress -- the color coding is a new item on the actual freezer paper patterns -- I'm hoping it will be helpful in keeping the piecing straight.

Only 102 pieces in this block!!

Raphael now has both wings

Finished up the last piecing on this last night, so now its on to some much larger pieces that should go quicker

I find that the more of this I do the better I get at it. When I first started working on the wings of the first of the angels panels I thought I would never get it finished

(Hopefully this is also good preparation for all those feathers I'll be putting on birds!)























the name's not Mary
I may be contrary
and my garden does certainly grow!

what we have here are the two little rows of green beans (ok, some of them are wax beans and until they make beans we don't know which is which, but it's alright); the biggest of the anaheim chilis (there are about half a dozen of them on the two plants); the first (male) blooms on the pumpkin and one of the several (about 5) tomatoes

Last night we had the first "harvesting" out of the plantings -- the DH used some of the basil in a great fish dish (Yes, I'll be posting the recipe on Hattie's Kitchen today!)

Today we'll be doing mowing of the back yard and spraying for insects -- it seems there is some kind of little lawn bug that is investing our area and turning the grass brown, so we're going to try to head it off before we have to replant the whole back yard!

into the fray!!

just when you thought we were done cutting holes

two more get added!

This piece had been working under the title of "Earth Angel", but now I've renamed it "Lace Angel" as the background looks more and more like lace!

As I was starting to work on this yesterday, the DH said to me "what do you think about putting in two more tear drop shaped holes?"

It took me all of about half a second to say "Good Idea!!"

so here we are -- now I need to work the two new holes with the proper sequence of colors to bring them to the same stage as all the others then we'll see just how much else needs to be beaded -- or cut -- who knows!?

And at long last Raphael is flying on one wing

(and a prayer, no doubt)

probably flying in circles --

still lots of wing feathers to go here, but it's looking good

Yesterday afternoon I made the trip to the fabric store (to get a batting), and actually stumbled upon a fabric to use on the back of the lamb quilt! (just when I had quit looking for one) Pictures tomorrow (I washed it and need to press it before I take a picture)

In the same trip I found more pieces of fabric to use for the bird quilt, and this morning I spent considerable time enlarging the drawings so we can get started on that one.

This box of loveliness arrived on my door step on Thursday afternoon --

just one problem -- they substituted a color, so now we're trying to figure out what to do next -- meantime, I may not actually NEED that one skein they substituted, so it may not be an issue at all --

I'll be figuring out the pattern and knitting a test swatch to see where we are here (I just don't want to get within 2 inches of finished and run out of yarn!!)

One of the biggest time eaters in the world is maintaining a web site.

I have been working on a totally new version for about a month, and have now reached the stage where I need to clean off the server (I really don't need to have graphics of pieces that I sold 3 years ago still out there!) and start over.

Since I have had so little traffic to the site in the last few months, I decided to do the drastic thing and just put up a "pardon our dust" panel until I get it finished (hopefully by the end of July)

So this is what you'll see there for now -- and I'm working on it!!

time to get to it---

Angels all around?

Another panel complete!

last night I finished the last border piece on Gabriel

I have to say that I am quite pleased with how these are coming out!

So now I will have to spend some time pulling out all of the fabrics to start on the third (and final) panel -- Raphael

moving along!!



progress on this piece of beading

I started this last weekend and it is going really well

unlike most of the pieces of bead embroidery, I had no real clear "mind picture" of this one before I began -- I picked out the large pieces (the glass, quartz, bone face and the leaf beads) and "fiddled" with them until I like the placement, then I drew around them on the sheet of paper so I had something to trace onto the pelon for a guide

after that its been a "free for all" -- after I finished the bezels around the big stones, the DH asked me if this was going to be another piece with open spaces -- I hadn't thought about it, but I liked the idea, and so, there are now open spaces (currently circled with beads -- the edges get finished when I put the backing on)

so, we'll see where this one goes next




another piece of the mystery project

completed last evening

I can also report that the individual pages of the new website are coming along. These things take some time, but so far, I'm pleased with the look

time to get to it!

a small shopping trip and new projects galore!

My sister came down from Denver on Wednesday for our annual "play date". We worked on various projects, had some "good eats" (home made chow mein and a "quitata" -- recipes are posted over on Hattie's Kitchen)



On Thursday morning we made a trip to the local Hobby Lobby for some "supplies"

As you may recall (or not, its been a while!) I've been reworking some bears in a kind of "primitive" style, and I have one that I have been waiting for inspiration to finish.

DMC has some great new (well, ok, new to me, I don't really know how long the stuff has been available, I wasn't paying attention!), embroidery floss that is RAYON! I love the way rayon fiber looks -- it has this sort of "glow" about it, especially when dyed in very intense colors.

Anyway, I got 4 skeins of the stuff to do floral embroidery on that awaiting bear -- so watch this space (as they say) for pictures of that to come (hopefully) soon

I also picked up a package of very small brads to use for the paperdoll experiments -- I got the variety pack so I didn't have to make up my mind on the spot what color combos I might be using, and knowing that I couldn't buy a full box of each. This will be a totally new thing as I don't usually make paperdolls with moving parts -- it should be fun!




One of the things my sister brought along with her was a log cabin quilt top that she put together about 20 years ago.

I'm going to quilt it for her -- so that was also part of what we picked up while we were shopping -- fabric for a backing (its white) and thread (one very dark navy and one a sort of burgandy -- the idea is to do concentric "rings" of those two colors from the center out)

This project will get under way shortly -- I need to pin the sandwich together so I can get started






This box of goodies arrived on Thursday while we were out shopping

The awaited box of supplies for yet another project to be worked on

(Christmas project at that!!)




And in honor of the momentous occasion of swaching and getting both stitch AND row gauge, we will be issuing a stamp, minting a coin and striking a medal!!

This just never happens -- I almost always get stitch gauge the first time out with the stated needles (as long as I'm using at least a similar yarn), but it is equally RARE for me to get row gauge.

It must be that the designer of this new project knits like I do!!

(Oh yes, the color on this photo is a bit off -- much too blue -- the yarn is actually BLACK with little flecks of red, blue, white and yellow in it, very "heathery") But because the yarn is 4% rayon, it sort of "glows" (very like the embroidery floss) -- and it has a wonderful soft feel ---- mmmmmmm, I'm not going to want to give this one away!!)

I've also been working on stitching up a new bear design that the DH drew up (its now back to him for joints); making up the last of the black and white beads for the necklace; and putting a face on the angel panel.

Just the usual business of having a dozen projects going at once!