Growing pains
I think it’s important to keep growing, learning, honing skills and expanding ones repertoire. The hard part is how all encompassing it can sometimes feel. I’ve been very busy with several projects that unfortunately I can’t really talk about. One is an art quilt entry for an exhibition, and the rest are projects and prep [...]
Making Felted Wool Eggs
Since Easter is right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to repost this tutorial on making felted eggs. These are really fun to make and stitch, enjoy! While I was poking around on Pinterest I saw quite a few pretty dyed eggs and thought it might be fun to make some [...]
An Artist Date at the Museum
A few months ago I moved to Sacramento and one of the first outings I made was to the Crocker Art Museum. Right now there is a fantastic exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings and I have already seen the exhibit twice in less than a week. Wow! We think of Norman Rockwell’s paintings portraying the [...]
Getting back into creative mode
Now that I’m pretty much settled in, the holidays are over and life is returning to its new normal, it’s time to get back to work. Recently, my good friend Lesley Riley, asked me to submit a piece for a new book she’s doing on quotes, if you’d like to participate check out her call [...]
Printing some last minute wrapping paper for the holiday
When I left Chicago, I ruthlessly tossed a lot of things, one of which was my stash of miscellaneous gift wrapping paper. Now that the holiday is imminent, I made some new gift wrap using the beautiful carved wooden stamps I got from Colouricious, acrylic inks and kraft paper. One of the most crucial tips I [...]
Prepping fabric
I have so much on my plate that I have very little creative time right now, but I did pull out paint and fabric to prepare for my next teaching gig in Springfield MO for the Ozark Quilters show next month. It was a really nice break from paperwork, computer time and purging. You can see the [...]
Tea bags revisited
My life is a in a bit of chaos right now and I havent been able to work on anything art related for a couple weeks, so I’m reposting a couple of older blog posts about using tea bags and paper on fabric to make mixed media art quilts. Drawing on a tea bag. 1. After [...]
Painted ipad Bag
I have been wanting to buy a case for my ‘new’ ipad, but have held off because I read the ipad 2 cases didn’t work with the new ipads because they moved the magnet that puts it in sleep mode when you close the cover and there aren’t that many options in covers for the [...]
A Simple Resist Technique with Acrylic Inks
One fun little technique I found works great with acrylic inks (this would also work with Tsukineko inks) is to draw on fabric with a colored pencil or china marker and paint over it like a simple resist. Kind of like in grammar school when you colored with crayons and painted india ink over the [...]
Would you like to buy a thermofax screen designed by me?
Lynn Krawczykof Fibra Artysta, you may also know her as the thermofax queen, invited a few of her fellow creative friends to design a thermofax screen to sell in her Etsy Shop. The screen I designed goes on sale today and with a nod to Cinco de Mayo, I present you with Florabunda. The image on [...]
Off to Cincinnati for International Quilt Festival
So I wish I could say I’ve been doing all sorts of creative things the last couple weeks but unfortunately I can’t. It’s been mostly teaching type stuff; signing and sending contracts, negotiating future teaching engagements (a few downunder, yipee!) preparing handouts and samples for new classes, accumulating supplies for my teaching gigs and packing. [...]
DIY Ombre Jean Skirt
I’ve had this jean skirt for a couple years and have hardly ever worn it, the first reason is the length was not flattering being right at the knee, as you can see here in this photo from quilt festival with my friend Jane LaFazio and one of my students, Nasreen. It makes my long [...]
Hectic days, an old artquilt gets a face lift and spring fever.
I’ve had so much going on the last couple weeks it’s been hard to sit down and write. Between my recent travels, I sold two quilts to a friend/collector who’s moving to England and sent my daughter Indigo off on a last minute month long trip to help her get set up in her new [...]
Felted Eggs
While I was poking around on Pinterest I saw quite a few pretty dyed eggs and thought it might be fun to make some felted eggs. After all they aren’t going to spoil between now and Easter It might be fun to also add some decorative stitching with embroidery floss and adding some cut out wool [...]
Conversation Hearts
As valentines Day is coming up I thought I would repost this simple little Valentine project from last year. Wanting to share a little Valentine’s Day love, I decided to sew up some conversation hearts for the special people in my life. I stamped endearments on wool felt and cut a paper heart to use [...]
Chocolate Peppermint Cream Heart Cakes
Chocolate Peppermint Cream Heart Cakes Zucchini Chocolate Cake 2 cups flour 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 3 cups shredded zucchini 1 cup semisweet chocolate baking chips 1 cup salad oil 4 large eggs In a large bowl, mix flour, [...]
Making the 8 of Cups
The 8 of Cups came about after going through a rough period emotionally last fall, it was a cathartic piece that I created for an upcoming exhibit called Rituals that will open at International Quilt Festival, Long Beach in July. I began by drawing an anatomical heart from an old medical illustration engraving, extending the [...]
8 of Cups – finished
After the quilting was finished, I marked out the finished size: 24″ x 60″, sewed a tight straight stitch just inside the marked line, then trimmed it to size. To finish the edge, I chose 3 different cords that picked up the colors in the quilt and used them to make a couched twisted cord binding. [...]
In the home stretch…
The quilting is done! I chose to do my curvy meandering fill stitching that is reminiscent of leaves and flourish-y shapes in the white background areas to contrast all the linear stitching on the cups and flourishes. I stitched with Bottomline thread which is generally used in the bobbin, it’s a lighter weight thread, because I wanted the stitched lines [...]
8 of Cups progress
I have been really loving spending time stitching! There are some other things I really should be doing, but I am feeling so in the groove right now, I don’t want to stop. I decided to continue using monofilament for stitching the feathery flourishes since I do not want to obscure this part of the [...]
Things were humming along and then…snap!
Isn’t it ironic that my free-motion presser foot breaks at strength?! LOL Well as frustrating as that is I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, this machine is over 20 years old and it is my favorite so it gets a lot of use. Luckily I found a replacement online pretty quick and have ordered [...]
Painting Canvas
This week I had a need to paint so I pulled out a big piece of canvas, threw a layer of gesso on it and drew a big octopus. Indigo‘s always telling me I should paint on canvas more. I painted the octopus body with acrylic inks. and painted the water and seaweed with regular [...]
8 of Cups progress
I am finally getting some time to work on my latest piece. I decided I want the quilting to have less loft and dimension and instead have more stitched illustrative details, so I am using wool felt instead of batting. Luckily I had a big piece of yellow felt that a friend gave me during [...]
