FREE SHIPPING

.............In the spirit of Christmas giving.......I'm offering free Priority Mail shipping on purchases made from Dec. 14-19th from my gallery shop:   This includes gallery wrapped pieces, the only exceptions are the 2 traditionally wood framed pieces.

I can be reached via the email link at the top of the page if you have any questions and to arrange payment options.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

 Okay, after my many complaints about airlines.....it's time for a feel good story......and a thumbs up to United Airlines employees in San Francisco..... Thanks to my DIL for alerting me to the link.

KIDS FABRIC BOOK

What with the holiday season in full swing and me fighting a BAD cold....I've been unusually quiet this week.  Nor, am I stitching as much as I'd like. 

I saw this cute fabric book idea on Sew How We Sew blog. My friend Judy and I have grandkids several months apart in age so we decided to pool our conversation print fabrics and make our own version. 

We made them larger to accommodate the fussy cut motifs we had.  Our patches were cut 2 1/4 square.  Let me warn you....this is NOT fast.....as is typical for many of us....we under-estimate how long a project will take.  It's worth doing, but don't plan on getting it done in a day!

 We selected fabrics, two each for each book....fused the wrong side, and cut them out.

One piece was then fused to a felt background, the other to another piece of felt which was later cut out.

 Fabrics arranged, and fused to the felt base....machine stitched in a grid for better duribility.  

 Here's the 2nd set of fabric pieces, fused to felt, cut out and machine stitched.

The idea for the child is to match the pieces...turning the appropriate piece face down...indicating that one has been matched.

A second piece of felt becomes the cover (which hides and protects the stitching).  Rather than making a pouch as suggested in the tutorial linked above....I decided to add a pocket to the front of the book to hold the game pieces. It was personalized with our grandson's name. 

I'm linking to Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday, Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Friday, and Crazy Mom.

ANOTHER BIG GAME

Well.....if you follow my blog enough....you know I'm an avid Green Bay Packer fan......win or lose......I'm a fan. They are the only community owned franchise in American professional sports major leagues.  I grew up about 45 mins. from Lambueau Field.....when the Packers play....Wisconsin stops to listen or watch.

The weather won't be very harsh tonight as they face the Atlanta Falcons.  Our flags are flying and we all have on our lucky shirts.     GO PACK GO!!!!!

My pal Kay (another Wisconsinite, Packer fan, and quilter supreme) sent me this charming youtube link.....check it out.

MEET NANETTE ZELLER

Over the last several month, active bloggers have engaged in a world wide blog hop.......the idea is to introduce all of us to new artists.  When invited to participate, we are to pen a post answering several questions about what we are working on, why we create, and our creative process.  Then we are to link to two more bloggers...which widens the exposure for all.

However, so many have already participated, that finding a blogger to agree to jump on board has been challenging.  Instead, I'm going to link back to my friend Nanette Zeller's website so you can get to know her work.

I met Nanette through my fellow quilt instructor pal, Ami Simms.  Nanette became my webmaster and friend.  This is one multi-talented gal.  She studied botany in college, has a vast understanding of computers, works as a technical editor for a major quilt book publisher, she draws, she's a fabulous art quilter, runs a Feather-weight sales & repair business, acting president of PAQA-South.....and she's a great friend!

Do check out her skillfully designed and executed work at the link provided above.

WOODLAND FERNS - DISCHARGED DYED FABRIC PROJECT

The border treatment has now changed from the ideas I was considering and shown in the last post. Though I liked the spider webby look using the perle cotton, it seemed a little messy and incomplete.  Fortunately, another Fiber Junkies meeting was right around the corner, so I brought all these ideas and asked for an opinion from my fellow Junkies.  We all agreed I needed to scrap the notion of using contrasting thread as an accent.  So instead, I did some simple stitching using 1 strand of pale green DMC embroidery floss.

WOODLAND FERNS  27" x 14" 

AVAILABLE HERE

Artist dyed cotton fabrics, hand embroidered, machine quilted.

***CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE

CREATING WITH DISCHARGE DYED FABRICS - CONTINUED

 ......CONTINUED...

 The border fabric seemed to help set off the motifs and frankly, allowed them to settle them down as well.  Yet, it was lacking pizzaz.  I found a fabulous hand-dyed perle cotton hank (gift to me by Jill at her Quilt Rat Blog) and desperately wanted to use it.  I liked the spider webby look as it was pinned to the fabric.....

.....and I also like it stitched in straight lines......

.....Before deciding, I also tried creating a mesh using a water soluable product......

See what happens next.

CREATING WITH DISCHARGE DYED FABRICS

DAH......please excuse the uncoordinated posts in reference to this project.....it's what happens when one writes & schedules posts with too little time to double check the posting schedule!  So, this is a do-over for me.....hope you won't mind reading some of them twice!

 I've been unsuccessful sticking to my goal of creating larger or more of the same colorways during our monthly Fiber Junkies play days.  Often the excitement (and yes trepidation) of trying new methods leads to the creation of unrelated small sections of fabric.  Which can be difficult to develop into a cohesive project.

This (probably about 1/4 yd.) black fabric was made during our discharge trial and error meeting a couple of months ago.

 Purples are NOT colors I work with....or in fact are even in my stash, with the exception of what you see here.

Stretching for a composition with too little fabric choices.

 If replacement fabric could have been found for the upper right and lower left blocks, I may have used this idea.

In the end.....a horizontal 3 block setting was the choice....made mainly in order to introduce a greenish/purplish over-dyed print....I 'think' it was ice dyed.

To be continued......

GO PACKERS

Our Packer flags are flying high and we all have on our lucky shirts.......GO PACK GO!!!!!  

JUST NEEDLE AND THREAD

At a recent Fiber Junkies meeting we played with house paint and other acrylic fabric paints.  

The goal was to transform previously quilted pieces with a new look.  But we never stick to the original theme. So, when  Judy shared a plain piece of canvas with me, this was the result.  The background is house paint and the foreground is acrylic.

 I'm always so content to have numerous evening hand stitching projects lined up.  My plan is to cover the background with simple stitches using two strands of regular DMC embroidery floss.

 After more and more and more hours.....not a complaint, but even I didn't realize this would be quite so time consuming.

Like many of you.....Thanksgiving is a busy week.....I may pop in from time to time to chat....but mostly, I will be enjoying family time.

Happy Turkey Day to all.......