Class Tester

Here is another book I made testing the new Creative Book Making class offered by Sue Bleiweiss at www.twocreativestudios.com The binding makes it possible to add or remove pages. It's an easy and fun book to make. The center panel is a painted wallpaper sample.

Sue and Terri are also having a give away of wonderful things, so you want to visit the site. They also have free project directions for fun stuff.

Calendar Girls

This is the calendar photo for our inspiration for July in the group http://calendargirls2008.blogspot.com Here is what I did. The background is felted on the embellishing machine. Then I machine embroidered the details with a white metallic thread. It reminds me of Mt. St. Helens which is quite close to me. We lived in Portland for the first eruption and watched it. We were back from California in time for the second one.

Pat sent me her interpretation of the mountain. It's very nicely textured and beaded along the edge.

Bead Journal Project

Here is the next in this year's series for the Bead Journal Project http://www.beadjournalproject.com/ It's a batik that I have added beads to.

Class Tester, gift

Here's the next book in the Creative Book Making class being offered in the fall by SueB at www.twocreativestudios.com It's called a Stab Stitch Binding and is easy to do. Doesn't it look like an impressive way to bind a book? The center is rubber stamped and embossed. I really like to make these books and using good instructions makes it easy.

Look what came in the mail. I ordered Stitching the Textured Surface from England www.d4daisy.com . It's the new book by Carol McFee www.textiletales.blogspot.com and Lynda Monk www.purplemissus.com , and this postcard was in it. The card has such rich texture-very yummy. The book is filled with inspiring photos and directions for the textures.

Quilt, Award

This is a piece I started ages ago and decided I didn't like, so it sat around. I cropped it and like it much better-may finish it by doing a lot of embellishing in the large space. What do you think? It was sewn by layering sheers over a background, machine stitching lines, then cutting back various layers in the different strips. Decorative thread was couched over the stitching lines.

Marie at http://zquilts.blogspot.com gave me the Kreativ Blogger award. Thank you Marie. I'm glad someone is inspired. As usual I couldn't figure out how to get the icon, but I'd rather stitch then argue with the computer. I'd like to nominate all the blogs that inspire me, but the list is huge. When I'm tired, I surf and see wonderful things.

The 7 things that I like are:
1. Dogs
2. Walks in the woods
3. Leaves in all their variety
4. Anything to do with fiber
5. Books
6. Chocolate
7. All my friends both in person and cyber.

I asked for suggestions for the name of the last quilt and was surprised that two people saw broken glass in the piece. I thought that Shattered would fit the piece and how I felt at the time, but PamT mentioned a play on words pane and pain, so it became Shattered Panes/Pains. Other suggestions were:
Stargazing
Fractured Glass
Hopeful Trepidation
Purple Haze
Since several other pieces were waiting to be stitched-not sure how much I thought I was going to do-the names will be used on them. Thank you to everyone who responsed. Naming quilts is hard for me.

Boy, is this a long post-very unusual for me.

Painted fabric

A friend and I got together 2 weeks ago thinking we would do sunprints-the sun didn't come to play. Next plan-Shiva paint sticks. We used rubbing plates-leaves and animal skins and had great fun.

We both decided that we preferred the metallic colors or the iridescent. I think I was heavy handed on some of the ones below, but they will make backgrounds.

Quilt

Here's the finished quilt, but I need a name. Any ideas? The value contast in this one is not at all good but reflects how I felt waiting for the surgery.