Don't Do This!!!

More people driving through the flood waters.

Dangerous Waters

Don't try this at home kids! People were actually driving through the flood waters, the water covering the road (facing north across the intersection) came up in ;ess than a half hour. The guy in the bus is my husband John.

A River Runs Through It!!!

Here's a shot of the flood waters here in Ames at lunch this afternoon!!! I can hear the helicopters going overhead most are news choppers but I'm sure FEMA is here accessing the damage as well. We only got 3.54 inches of rain, it's all of the rain from up north, however, that is causing the most damage here.

Fabric in the Bucket!!!

I pulled the fabric out of the bucket, finally it had stopped raining long enough for me to retrieve it, and washed it yesterday. If you remember this is fabric I didn't even know I had put out for rusting ;-)

Sky Shots

I'm too tired to care right now see my other blog Survival Kitchen to see why! So here's a shot of of yesterday's sky for today's post. There were tornado's north of here yesterday, and entire town lost not good.

Surfacing Sunday

This is this weeks piece for Surfacing Sunday - a Surface Design group I belong to. Because of the bad weather I'm not getting much done so this week it was paint. I'm thinking of cutting it up and making it into a garden piece.

Vintage Hankies

I picked these three hankies up for a dollar a piece and the buttons for two dollars at a local antiques mall yesterday. The pink floral one is really soft.

Severe Weather

Well my rusted fabric endeavors have been cut short due to severe weather - will update tomorrow that's if we don't get blown away.

Found Rusted Fabric

Dh has been on me to empty some hanging buckets on the side of my garden shed, these are old decorative metal buckets and they had quite a bit of water in them - sure to become a home to a new mosquito population. So imagine my suprise when I found fabric rusting away in the bottoms! I'm thinking it's two year old fabric, seersucker variety. The first photo is kind of blurry, sorry about that!

I didn't remove the fabric tonight, will work on that tomorrow, because we were still working on the yard - dejunking. I'm curious to see what it looks like, it had leaves and all sorts of stuff in the bucket along with.

Peacock Feather

Today's Inspiration!

Silk Cloth 3

This is my cochineal sack cloth, silk chiffon, I filled it with cochineal bugs and used it repeatedly to create red dyebaths over the span of two months. This is how the fabric looks untied.

Mystery Bundle

It's in the washer now who knows what it'll look like when it's done! The fabric is silk chiffon.

Wild Flowers

I've been spending a lot of time in the woods of late, getting inspiration, photo journaling the native plants throughout the seasons. When I'm not in the woods I've been in my garden, it's starting to warm up here and we are in the throes of creating a new compost pile - just in time for dye season!

You can see what I've been up to at my nature blog Thistle Quill, and over at my home blog Survival Kitchen and of course some artwork pieces on my art blog

Wood Anemone and Blue Violets

Weathered Cloth

Here it is after washing, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with this piece, might do some auditioning tonight.

It didn't develope holes which is a real bummer as I thought it might there are some very "thin" areas where it had been folded.

Weathered Cloth.

The small piece is a piece of white searsucker fabric that I found out in the garden, it had been out there for two years.

Admittedly I'm finding the weathered clothes pins I used for creating the fabrics bound resist to be a lot more interesting than the cloth itself. Said cloth is currently going through the washer and we'll see how weathered it is in an hour or less. I'm thinking of puttng it through an indigo vat as well.

New Wool and Silk Batts

I posted some new batts to my etsy.com store tonight, here's a group photo that turned out quite nice. I didn't get far I have morels on the brain again!!! I have a lot of blues, reds, and yellows with green, not sure why they didn't get photographed tonight - but there is always tomorrow!

I hand dyed the fibers myself, the batts are a blend of merino, lincoln locks, some romney, silk bombyx, and angelina fibers. These will be wonderful for spinning or needle felting.

I have an progress felted piece called Moss on my art blog, I needlefelted it with the Janome Expression and am now hand stitching the surface.

Comparison

Upside down but it definately has appeal in this orientation as well! The piece tells a different story when oriented in what I consider the upside down position.

Right side up, bottom needs more quilting, looks like an abstract of a barn with the sun setting behind it, which is what I had intended. Now I'm not so sure ;-) Moral of the story be careful when hanging your artwork so as to not give yourself more to think about.

Passion

Well I think I might be getting my groove back, after being royally screwed over this spring! I've been spending a lot of time out in the woods, mostly identifying native prairie plants, getting new ideas for cloth, artwork, etc. When I'm not in the woods I'm in my garden pulling weeds or trying to get the plants into the ground. You can see what I've been up to at my nature blog Thistle Quill.

Tomorrow, if the wind isn't blowing I'll be cleaning fleeces of burrs and other vegetable matter and preparing them for washing. I may even start some fabric to rusting and composting. It's that time of year again to start thinking about dye pots, solar dyeing, and the like. Summer does has it's usefulness after all, I think it goes without saying I'm a winter person.

Horizon Scarves

Compost and rust dyed (natural dye processes) silk crepe de chine.

Well I was going to sell these scarves and decided it needed to be turned into artwork instead.

The bottom scarf reminds me of a photo my mother took of the lake a long time ago, the water was so still you couldn't tell the lake from the sky.

Collage Mania

Ghost Tree No. 6

Ghost Tree No. 5

Ghost Tree No. 4

Ghost Tree No. 3

Ghost Tree No. 2

Ghost Tree No. 1 by me the artist Kimberly Baxter Packwood. These collage pieces are available through FFAC Collage Mania all proceeds go to the American Cancer Society

FFAC Collage Mania

The Fiber Art for a Cause Collage Mania Sale begins today! Virginia Spiegel is raising money for the American Cancer Society, and there are many many artists participating in this wonderful cause!

What do I blog about?

Angel, standing still long enough for a picture! I think she was wanting to know what I was doing to Thomas, which was taking his picture.

Well me I blog about everything of course and here is one prime example, the loves of my pet life! Here's a shot of Thomas I woke him up last night when I turned on the bedroom light he has that sweet dopey "what did you want" look on his face.

Fiber Art for a Cause

The auction for Fiber Art for a Cause is coming up! You can see the six collages I made here:
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CollageMania0816.html

And if you were interested in owning a piece of my artwork I am donating 1/3 of the Sale to Virginia's FAFC, that's 1/3 of the sale, as she's trying to reach a goal of 30K for this year! Available artwork can be viewed over at my etsy.com store or click this link here:
http://www.kbaxterpackwood.etsy.com I will be adding more collage pieces throughout the week so check back regularly.

Writing this reminds me that I really need to get my art website back up again!

Brainstorming!!!

Well yesterday wasn't exactly the best day for me intellectually and artistically speaking! I'm blaming it on the weather that's my story and I"m sticking with it! It does help from time to time to brainstorm with others and get some feedback on a piece which many people gave me both online by posting a comment or by emailing me directly.

Feel free to post a comment still I have yet to make a decision but now have some serious thinkig to do about these pieces. The caramel colored piece I'm thinking of adding fabric paint to, I know it looks orange on a lot of monitors but it reality it's caramel colored. So it should be interesting what comes out of the studio today.