Yesterday's Find

Orange glass beads, in necklace form, found this at JB Knacker in Gilbert, Iowa.

I plan to take the necklace apart and use the beads in a project, I'm not sure who would wear this necklace anyway as the beads are incredibly rough and scratchy.

Inspiration

Inspiration for a future stitched piece!

Kneading Fabric!

 

Ok I couldn't resist!

 

Pepper going to town kneading a pile of a fabric!

 

Quit watching me!

 

 

Leave me alone!

 

 

Back to kneading the pile of fabric he's claimed as his own.



My Office Assistant

Thomas in his summer coat, can't wait for winter to come so that he will be all fuzzy and adorable again.

WIP - Big Blue Stem

Here it is hanging vertically, I started this piece many moons ago, as in like sometime around 1999 many moons ago! 

This piece has always bothered me, there's a thread over on the Quilt Art list about cutting up a piece.  Well I've been tempted to cut the dark side of this quilt off for some 12 years now!  Now that I have Adobe CS 6 I've started experimenting with this piece

Here it is without the marks, I'm thinking some additional stitching and or embellishment is needed to make this piece really sing.

Thomas

Thomas sitting in my basket of natural dyed silk organza's, wondering why I'm bothering him.

What's on My Sewing Table

Or you can't see me, right?  NOTE I do put in my descriptions that my items come from a pet friendly home, someday my studio WILL BE out of the house again.

An Unhappy Pepper

No room in the inn for a tabby cat, Pepper's VERY UNHAPPY because a box of inks is sitting in what he percieves to be HIS chair! ;-)  Poor baby.

Sunset and Pattern

Stopped at the end of a new development to take photos of the setting sun last night, these warning signs looked pretty good against sky.

Studio

My retro vintage oranged crushed velvet wing back chair.

I finally got the chair into the studio, I'm not sure but I think I may have used a few muscles I haven't used in years! The view from the doorway - my studio isn't really that large something like 10 x 13 feet, less actually because the doorway is on the corner which has been lopped off, old victorians are a lot of fun. My head hurts today I wacked it and pretty good last night on the drafting table, bent over to pick something up which was all the encouragement I needed to move the table out of the room permanently.

Poppies WIP

Machine stitch or hand stitch or should I do both??? 18 x 22 inches wool quilt batting, black cotton backing fabric.

June Poppies WIP

Tangerine Glow Treasury

My silk fiber kit made it into this beautiful treasury by heartsabustin

Nothing Rhymes with Orange Treasury

My Wild Punch Silk Kit is in this GORGEOUS Treasury by RozzyToz

keep me warm at night Treasury

This gorgeously beautiful treasury was created by flameonglass

Studio Helpers

Osage Orange Dyed Fabric

I found this pic in my files it was from 2002 when I taught in Cincinnati for the weaving guild there. The yellow fabrics and yarns were stunning hanging on the line under the large trees.

I have Osage Orange Sawdust available here http://prairiefibers.etsy.com/

Barn No. 1

I have to take a break after over two hours of stitching on this piece. I dyed the fabrics today, the bottom half is dyed with indigo ala bound resist and then over dyed with cochineal. The top fabric, and middle two fabrics were dyed with cochineal cream of tartar and citric acid. The top fabrics are as follows crinkled silk haboti, deeper middle red fabric is silk organza, and the lighter middle fabric is silk dupioni. The backing is osage orange dyed cotton batik fabric and the batting is wool.

Size approx 43 inches wide by 60 inches tall. I won't have a traditional binding on this piece, I very rarely ever put a binding on my quilts. I haven't stitched the bottom half or the middle field yet.

Can we say YUMMY!!!

I think I'll make some attachments with these silk organza fabrics, they have all been dyed with natural dyes. Somewhere in this mess I have some silk ribbons, yarns, etc. that I dyed at the same time that'll also look good on the surface of my latest baby. I also have some raw handspun muga silk yarn that'll do for branch defintion, can't seem to find my brownish raffia I had on hand - it was a weird coffee color that would work really well for branch material.

Blues - Indigo
Pinks - Cochineal
Yellows - Weld (bright yellow and light yellow), Osage Orange (golden yellow)

Needle Felted Pumpkins

I'll have to take more photos tomorrow, the class went really well today. I ended up with only one student which was fine as she left with a really lovely pumpkin, I made one with her to show her the techniques. I'm thinking of video taping this and putting it on YouTube.com as there are some important tips to know about needle felting a 3D pumpkin, like keeping your fingers out of the way! Sounds easy enough but in reality it can be really problematic, I'm thinking of getting a bunch of tongue depressors for the next class, amongst other things. Luckily it was me that got stuck with the needle, twice I might add.

Looks like I won't be able to add photos until later the photo launcher is apparently broken!

Well I'm off to make some constructed cloth bags for the next class, later.