Art and Soul

Art and Soul is in Portland next week and I'm taking 5 classes. See you in a week.
Be sure to check out the new art challenge Art Squared for the reveal on Oct. 1 http://artsquaredgroup.blogspot.com

Felt

This is an 8" square piece that is needle felted with a thick and thin yarn. I liked the swirl in the middle and decided to use that as the main part of the design by hand stitching around it. The black beads are vintage and spiral out using slightly smaller ones in the middle.

DVD

Sue Bleiweiss has made a wonderful DVD for Interweave Press. She is very thorough and shares everything you need to know about dyeing the fabrics and making the quilt. I learned a lot and I've been doing this for a long time. I love this series of quilts she's been making.

Quilt

 I love to stitch. The leaves came from a design I did years ago. The background is a batik. Once I had done the leaves, I started placing the flowers. The way I work is to make a certain type being sure to distribute them across the piece. Then I work on the next type of flower. The shisha is actually large sequins. The piece is about 30" by 24". It's machine quilted. As much as I like to hand stitch, I don't like to hand quilt.

The detail shows the flowers better.

Knitting

This is the necklace from a kit by Laura Nelkin http://www.nelkindesigns.com   She has tutorial to explain different techniques in addition to the directions in the pattern. A friend gave me the kit, so we could work it together. It's the first time I've knitted beads in.

Bead Journal Project

Here is the Piece for http://bjp2013.blogspot.com  The colors are so much alike that it is hard to see, but they reminded me of fall.

It's a glass ring in the center held in place by beads. Both the background and the binding are batiks.

Mother Daughter Challenge

In looking through boxes I found three buttons that I had covered with Angelina that had been stitched to decorate using the automatic stitches on my machine. I decided to bead them, because they looked unfinished. The tension for the machine work was tightened on the top, so the bobbin thread would edge the pattern. The top thread was variegated.

My daughter decided the challenge this time. I was to finish a UFO. Since the buttons had been sitting around for years, they certainly qualified. Click on Karen at the right to see what she is doing.

Shopping

 A good friend and I met last week to enjoy a day together shopping. We went to 2 yarn shops, a thread store, Joann's, and Michaels. This is what I got.

Here is a scan of the yarn on the upper right-weird, right? But so intriguing that I want to use like I do the painted cheesecloth to go under my stitching. Both Joann's and Michaels have it.

Crochet

Here's the third baby hat that I crocheted for www.clickforbabies  Our guild meeting is this week where they are collecting the hats.

Beading

This is the last in the series of bracelets done on grosgrain ribbon---I think. The pearl shapes are surrounded by number 10 seed beads. The edging is picot stitch with smaller yellow beads. The buttons are a couple more from my collection of old buttons. There is a mirror type thing behind the metal to make the shine.

Crochet

No matter how tired I am from the yard and garden chores, at night I can crochet a baby hat for the program sponsored by the hospital to remind parents not to shake their babies. www.clickforbabies

Quilting

I did manage to get some sewing done and tried the 4 patch from the class Pattern Free Quilting from Joe Cummingham at www.craftsy.com  He likes to mostly use two colors in his quilt, but I wanted to know if this pattern would work in 3 colors.

The detail shows that I used two hand dyes and a batik.