MORE MAIL!!!

I want to introduce all of you to my new blog friend in Australia, Suzy!  Suzy sent me some flowers via photo, most likely from her incredible garden in sunny and WARM Australia!  Suzy is a very talented textile artist so expect to spend some time visiting her blog.  She works magic with fabric! 

Know what else she sent me......

Look at the colours, textures, patterns!!  Luscious!

I wish you could "feel" them!  

 Thank you Suzy, I can hardly wait to start playing!

Inspiration in the mail......  

MAIL!

I arrived home Friday afternoon from a needle felting workshop to find several parcels had arrived that I'd be waiting for - it was early Christmas!  These are the ATC's Lori traded with me.  Aren't they lovely!  All use Graphic 45 papers which just happen to be my favourite paper company.  I wasn't quite sure when I got a surprisingly VERY large parcel what else was in there......

What a SURPRISE!  Lori had picked up these doilies and embroideries and shared some of them with ME!  Oh, lucky me!  Quite coincidentally, I happened to be reading a little about the history of crazy quilting over the weekend and saw several photos of hand work similar to what is shown in the larger embroidery above.  So, this gives me ideas.....  Have a feeling some of these are either going to be tea stained or end up in the dye pot!!!!  

Lori does some lovely work so go check out her blog!

Thank you Lori!

More mail tomorrow........ 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanksgiving wishes to all my American friends and followers!

Enjoy your time with family and friends.  I'll be back Monday.

Digital credits Lori Davison and Irene Alexeeva at Scrapbook Graphics, Shadowhouse Creations and Marie Otero.

MOO.......

Several weeks ago, MOO offered a promotion on their new stickers!  I decided to play around digitally to see how the small format would print up. 

They arrived last week and I am delighted.

I thought you just may like to take a look at the digitals I designed.

In some designs (bottom right), I found I needed to make the font much larger but I'll know for next time!  I've used one as a new avatar.

A special thank you to Terri Pringle for the little boy image! 

THRIFT YARNS

More thrift store finds!  Of late my thrift ventures have been most successful.  We have a very large and active group of spinners and weavers on the coast and I think one of them may have been

purging of late.  I've been keeping an eye out for yarns in a neutral colour scheme for some ideas I have in mind - this is a selection I picked up last week. 

I practiced ribbon roses yesterday - quite a challenge to say the least.  As it is very cold today, I'll like spend most of the day stitching after some errands.  Back tomorrow. 

MIXED MEDIA

This is the second file divider!  Again, I started with a manilla folder, loaded on the paint in layers, painted the iris and added some words.

"Simple Pleasures"

Participated in a wonderful beading class on Saturday, learned lots but need to finish my sample so no photo yet.   

We had our first snowfall but melted almost as soon as it fell.  Rather chilly today.  Winter's here!

ATC

One of my newer ATC's.  I suppose this must be my hubby's influence as he is an avid golfer.  I'm wondering if he was talking about his latest golf game when I put this together....hmmmmm....  

"Four"

I'm off to a beading class tomorrow.  I have not done much in the way of beading in the past so am excited to learn some techniques.  Weather has snow in the forecast and temperatures have certainly dropped in the last several days so will see if this materializes.  It may just hit the mountains with rain for us. 

Enjoy your weekend!

MAIL/NEWS

During my blog hopping last year, I came across Jackie Cardy, a self proclaimed "obsessive embroiderer" in the UK.  Jackie makes these most incredible felted and embroidered brooches in all sorts of colour combinations.  Of late, I have been quite enthused about fall/autumn colour schemes - must be the time of year.  I just had to have one of her brooches and fortunately for me, she had made a batch of fall ones.  This arrived on Monday - lucky me.

Jackie sells her brooches here.

Other news, Marie Otero of Lost Aussie has another online workshop coming up in January of 2011 entitled "Digital Journal Magic".  You may just want to hop over and check it out as she is offering a discount if you sign up prior to December 15th.  Until tomorrow..... 

 

LACE MOTIFS

I was shopping on etsy awhile ago and came across these beautiful hand dyed lace motifs.  Well, I couldn't resist so picked a package up. 

Then, my friend Patricia was over and liked these so much that I sold them to her and got another package of plain ones I

could rust and dye myself. 

You can find these at RavioLee Dreams.  Nicki Lee has a great blog also here.  Huge wind and rain storm today so power outages abound.  

Enjoy your day. 

COUTURE

I've been playing!  I started with an old file folder I picked up at, where else, the thrift store....  I went wild with paint then started layering with sharpies, more paint, sequin waste etc.  I added a face and body from a magazine, some stamps and experimented with some calligraphy and letters.  I really like to be able to "use" what I make in some way so after considerable thought I came up with the idea to use this as a file divider in one of my art binders.

This is what it looks like in the binder!  

CHRISTMAS...

It all started Saturday when I wrapped Christmas presents and ran out of tags! 

I had thought I would pick up some from the store and when I REALLY thought about it, decided it was time to use up some of my studio "stuff".  When I started looking through my drawers, I came across these tags from Elle's Studio which I had purchased several years back.  I really liked them but felt I needed more space for writing.  I pulled out ALL my remaining Christmas scrapbook papers, some punches and my spellbinder's dies and started using up bits and pieces and came up with these

They give me more writing space now.  I got on a bit of a roll and used up some small round tags too.

I especially like the star tags in the front.  I think I have enough tags to last awhile, don't you?!   

REMEMBER

In flanders fields the poppies grow.......  "Remember"

Will return to posting again on Monday.

BUTTONS!!!

I can hear you - LIKE I NEED BUTTONS!  I know, I simply couldn't resist a bag of buttons from the thrift store last week.  The bag was HUGE for $1.00 so I picked it up, came home and sorted what I wanted (I was looking for some coloured buttons) then returned the remainder since someone else can probably use what I didn't want.  

Now I have to figure out how I am going to store my growing collection!

Stay tuned for what I decide.....

KUMIHIMO

During the summer, I attended a workshop to learn Kumihimo, a form of Japanese braiding.  Historical use of the cords was by samurai as both a functional and decorative way to lace their armour.  

I hadn't know what to expect but found the class informative and fun.  These braids are much more time consuming than they look!  I can see using them as decorative features in future work.

For any of you who may be interested, you can see a video here showing how to braid.  

 

VINTAGE

Thank all of you who left me such lovely comments about my crazy quilt block, much appreciated.  

On Thursday I spent the day in the city attending the needle arts guild meeting and annual gently used sale.  I picked up the lovely bits of vintage lace above - aren't they gorgeous!  I don't find lovely bits like these at the thrift store so very pleased.  I also managed to pick up some older copies of Inspirations, a great needle arts magazine published in Australia. 

I'd love to get my hands on more of these!

Managed to scoop two stretcher bar frames for hand work.  All and all, very successful!

Stitching today.

CRAZY QUILTING - BLOCK 1

So today is the big REVEAL.  
During the summer, I decided I wanted to make a quilt for my window seat in the studio - a larger project to work on through the winter.  Of course, when I come up with these ideas they always change, quite significantly sometimes.  I decided to make 21 - 9 inch blocks to crazy quilt by machine.  As it turned out, my blog design ended up inspiring my colour palette in creams, taupes, greys, white, hints of yellow and hints of black.  I wanted a vintage feel so have added bits of doilies, hankies, napkins, laces, trims etc.  It was a challenge finding the colours that would work as I didn't want to purchase more fabric opting to use what I had in my stash.  On completion of the blocks, I liked the palette so much, I decided I would hand stitch and instead of making a cover, I'd end up making cushions or a wall hanging OR - this will evolve.....   
My plan was to show before and after photos of the blocks.  Regretfully, I have accidentally deleted the before photo of block one so this is the after photo with stitching complete.  In the future, I'll show the before prior to stitching as well.
Threads are silks, cottons, wools, rayons (very slippery stuff) and silk ribbon (those flowers are lousy but I'll learn).  This is a "learning" project and for those of you far more skilled than I in needlework, I will practice and improve in time.       
I'll be sharing blocks as I complete them. 
#1 for now....
I will return again after the weekend.

MAIL

These arrived last week!  Some ATC's for my collection.  These are from my blog friend Gaby in Germany.  Thank you Gaby, they are beautiful.  
If any of you are interested in swapping ATC's, let me know.
Thanks to those of you who commented yesterday about your bead storage.   
Not much new.  Backgrounds are drying and stitching continues.

Studio organization.....

Hope all of you with little ones had a safe and happy Halloween! 
Several weeks ago I decided I wanted to "see" my growing collection of beads and sequins.  I like to see my "stuff" so I know what I have to create with.  I have several drawers in my studio that have dividers but I decided I wanted something a little more portable.    
I started out with beads in old cigar tubes but found they weren't wide enough.  Then I tried the small pharmacy type clear containers but found they took up too much space.  So, this is the latest and I might add, least expensive.  They are clear plastic boxes with dividers.  They will work for now and in future, I could use them for something else.  
So, would love to hear any ideas any of you have on storing your beads!!!
Am off to get into trouble today.....