BUSY WITH BOOKS AND BOWLS

 With a positive attitude, I continue to create smaller items for my space at Woolworth Walk Gallery.  Shoppers often like to bring a token of their visit to Asheville back home.  When art quilts don't fit the bill, these items tend to fulfill their wish.

Wet felted wool bowls, two feature beach glass from Lake Michigan, mini notebooks are just the right size to carry into one's purse.

NEEDLE FELTING BOOKCOVERS

Wet felting has always been my preferred method over needle felting....which actually is suprising since I'm such a neat-nick and don't usually like messy techniques.  

After noticing how many curls, strands, etc. of wool roving that have accumulated in my stash, I set out to come up with ideas how to utilize them. 

Since one of my staples of small items for sale at the gallery are composition book covers, it's a good place to start.  The base of the grey one is a National Nonwoven product, the red is 100% wool.  They measure  9.75" x 7.5".  Happy with outcome and I'll be creating more!

MORE BOOK COVERS

Between the total frustration of 2 days trying to get my not that old printer to work with Mac's NEVER ENDING UPGRADES, I worked on creating new large and mini book covers.  I'm trying NOT TO VENT!!!  Why oh why can't they just stop all these  constant annoying upgrades that inevitably cause more glitches!!!

Teaming up print batik fabrics with screen printed symbols with English definitions.......Love, Health, Success, Faith, Happiness.

Plus a slew of over-dyed plaid wool mini notebook covers, featuring an adorable baby black bear.  Bear sightings are ramping up around here as bears forage constantly to fatten up for their long sleep!

MORE NOTEBOOK COVERS

I think I found my creative gene again!  AND....the best part is I'm utilizing unique fabrics to make each book special. All measure 7.5" x 10.5".

 Left - Resist-dyed felted wool   Right - deconstructed screen printed cotton

Left - (first two) antique hand pieced quilt - circa appx. late 1800's
Right - Indigo printed & screen printed Japanese block - translation 'DREAM'

USING VINTAGE LACE AND LINENS

What started out over a month ago as a whirlwind of activity and accomplishments, has slowed these last few days to simply floating through my day.

So, now that every photo and all paperwork has been organized, every drawer & closet cleaned, and finishing an ugly brown lap quilt for the man cave, it's time to get back to creating.

 I pulled out a piece of rusted vintage lace, paired it with a hunk of ice-dyed damask table cloth to create a few filled composition book covers.

Since the galleries are still closed, they will be added to my growing inventory here at home and ready to add as replacements when shoppers are back in the stores.  Of course I welcome direct sales but given the cost of shipping for an item at a lower price point, I haven't added them to my online shop.  But, holler if you are interested.  **  Large book sold.

NOTEBOOK COVERS

I've been finding snippets of time to make more notebook covers......

I've uncovered some previously indigo-dyed vintage lace to feature on this pale white batik cover.

BOOK COVERS

It's so satisfying when small pieces of hand-printed fabrics can be turned into useful items such as these mini notebook covers. Visit my items at Woolworth Walk, Asheville, NC.

BREAD AND BUTTER

Wall art sales unfortunately take time so I've always offered smaller 'bread and butter' items where my work is for sale.  The fiber notebook covers I create in several different sizes make great use of the smaller pieces of my hand-dyed & printed cottons, silk noil, & felted wool.

 I'm always experimenting with new looks like this one, taking advantage of digital printing of unique subjects.

 And these two using some screen printed fabrics.

NEW LIFE FOR VINTAGE QUILT TOPS

Now that nearly all of our house renovations are complete and the new updated industrial railing is installed, I decided to scale back on the number of quilts I planned to display on it.

 Several were actually just tops and had been hung over railings both here and in Wisconsin.  None were in great shape to begin with and now they were pretty tattered with deteriorating fabrics in some areas.  Look at this unusual design change of this bed quilt.  Elongated hexi patches with an abrupt color change at about the halfway point.

 Fortunately most of this area, with careful cutting, was still quite useable.

But in many other sections.....it was truly falling apart, allowing me to use this as a cutter quilt guilt free.

 I set about making more bookcovers for Woolworth Gallery, downtown Asheville.  Of course this was far more time consuming than I wished but to preserve the fabric, it was important to securely stitch it to a batting foundation.

I don't even want to admit how long these took me......certainly no profit left after a sale if I counted my time!  However, I suspect they will find homes since my first batch of red/white composition bookcovers were sold in about a week.

Visit these links to see what other artists have been working on this week:  Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday.

MAKING GIFTS

My desire to make a few more bookcovers as gifts for the 2nd of two family events I'll be attending this summer moved me into a new direction.....by mistake!  Instead of purchasing 5" x 7" compostion books, I accidently ordered size 9.75" x 7.5.  DAH!!!

Coming up with closure ideas led me to an almost forgotten drawer of interesting buckles and closure gadgets.  Fortunately I have a fairly large collection of Ultra-suede but not many in the way of longer pieces.  Thank you to my pals Arlene and Judy for gifting me some of theirs!

 Marbled silk noil with Ultra-suede strap and vintage buckle.

 Mono-printed wool felt with Ultra-suede strap and recreational gear snap buckle.

 Mono-printed wool felt with Ultra-suede strap and vintage buckle.

Authentic Dutch Wax cotton fabric with leather tie closure.

UTILIZING HAND-DYED FABRICS

 I've spent the last couple of days....yes days.....far more time consuming than one might expect......creating book covers.  It's so gratifying to utilize a variety of my hand-dyed & screen printed fabrics

 These are 5" x 7" composition book covers.

While this collection covers the mini-composition size books.

 Ice-dyed silk noil - mini

 Ice-dyed bamboo rayon felt - mini

 Deconstructed screen printed silk noil - 5" x 7"

Deconstructed & traditional screen printed cotton - 5" x 7" 

Contact me if you are interested in any of these.

ON A ROLL WITH NOTEBOOK COVERS

This wraps up the week of book cover making.....check out the previous posts to see more if you missed them.

Top two are indigo dyed wool.  Because this wool was high quality dress goods, it didn't felt....thus the edges unraveled easily.  Working with it in a larger format composition notebook allowed for adding a batik lining without becoming too bulky.

The three smaller ones are silk noil, mono-printed with acrylic paints and batik lined.

Each utilizes Ultra-suede scraps for the spines and closures......I knew I was saving them for something!

I've had numerous inquiries about purchasing these notebooks.....yes, they are for sale.  Email me using the link on the right side bar for details.

Linking to:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday and Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday.

CONTINUING ON.....ECO-PRINTED NOTEBOOK COVERS

My adventures into notebook cover making continues........

I returned home from my recent Arizona 'girlfriend' art camp with numerous eco-printed wool pieces.  Funny how strongly they were calling me to be turned into book covers.

It was a bit more challenging to work with this denser material.  Not surprising, I found it so much easier to create in a larger format, rather than the 

4 1/2" x 3 1/4" mini books.

Some of my large collection of Ultra-suede scraps I've been hoarding for years were utilized for the spines, flap trim, and tie closures.  Hummm.....am I done yet? Perhaps not.....now my indigo-dyed wool fabrics are waving at me.

FELT-WOOL MINI-NOTEBOOK COVERS

My wet felting wool supplies are now packed up as I shift my attention to making notebook covers.

Here's a look at one of the newest bowls that will be added to my inventory for sale.  My generous SIL gave me a nice collection of sea glass she'd gathered in her younger days along the shores of Lake Michigan where she grew up.  I've found them to be the perfect accent for these organic vessels.

The recent dive into making mini-notebook covers led me to eyeing a stack of felted wool fabrics that had been altered during the many Fiber Junkies play days.  This one features painted pine needle impressions.  The spine was made from an ice-dyed piece of bamboo/rayon felt.

This winter the FJ's worked with paint quite a lot.....printing fabrics with all sorts of tools and techniques.  As is often the case, I work with felted wool....which can be challenging due to the texture of the material. The marbled appearance of two of them was derived from a shaving cream printing session we had a couple of months ago.

Next I'll be digging into my stash of eco-printed felted wool....hoping I can find some pieces suitable for covers!

NOTEBOOK COVERS

An upcoming event has had my mind digging deep for an idea for small gifts to share with the participants.  My pal Kate has been making and selling outstanding one-of-a-kind book covers for mini and small composition books that utilize many of the small fabric pieces made during our Fiber Junkies meetings. 

Happily she gifted me one and while using it the other day I had that 'ta-da' moment.  Yup, I have lots of small unique altered fabrics too and decided to try create a few of my own.  Kate's are more elaborate but for starters, I'm pleased with my attempts.

Since I love working with wool and my stack of altered felted wool is extensive, my next goal will be to see how that fabric translates to book covers.  Stay tuned.

Linking to:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday and Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday