Creepy Eye Pincusions

Yesterday Leila sent me a link to this cool tutorial for creepy eye bottle cap pincushions. I went home last night and made one. Mine has a vertical pupil for added creepiness. I began a second one. I think it will have green skin. Hallowe'en's coming!

I haven't been stitching much lately, just not motivated, so this feels very good. It got the ideas flowing---for a less creepy pumpkin bottle cap pincushion and for a evergreen tree pincushion. I feel like I'm back!

loads of goodies

Yesterday I received a belated birthday gift from Lula. It was chock full of the best goodies -- luscious laces, ribbons, trims, buttons and roses!

Her card features dressmaking fairies which remind me of my favorite scenes from Cinderella, with the birds and mice making the perfect dress, and Sleeping Beauty, with the fairies who kept changing the dress's color as they worked on it. Needless to say, this is the perfect card for me!

She wants to see what I do with them. I'm itching to dye some of the laces.

But then, what if I leave them white and use them on brighter fabrics? Or an all white design, just the texture of the laces. And the buttons.

And I want to hunt through my stash for fabrics to complement them. Already I find myself grouping the ones that feel compatible to me. I have two piles now, neutrals and brights. Perhaps I should mix them up a bit.

The last time she sent gorgeous ribbons I ended up folding them into 2" squares to put in a little box of 2" fabric collage squares I keep on my desk at work. I couldn't bear to cut into the ribbon and folded and tacked it into place to show both sides.

I feel the urge for some crazy quilting coming on!

Portuguese Embroidery

A very good friend sent me these pictures from a recent trip she made to Portugal. The pictures are of antique embroidery in Alentejo, Portugal.

This first one is intriguing, with the photos stitched in place on it. At least it looks to me like they are stitched on.

My initial inclination would be to print the photo onto fabric but I like the contrast in texture with the paper print.

The other three pieces are even more intriguing--they are made using chestnut skins. From what I can tell, the skins are cut into shapes and stitched down to the fabric.

They're combined with other embroidery stitches, ribbon embroidery, and photos to make really interesting pieces. The chestnut skins have a bit of a sheen and are somewhat similar to the photo paper. I have no idea what the very shiny material is in the red picture

My friend was on tour and didn't have the opportunity to ask more questions about the embroideries. She knew I'd be interested so she took the pictures and sent them on to me. I tried to search information but I don't have the name of the embroidery so I didn't have any luck.

As in most places, there is at least the perception that women no longer have time to stitch. However, my friend indicated that there was a needlework shop there--in an area where there weren't too many shops. It is an undeveloped region, but needlework is something they did have.

If you know anything about this type of work, please let us know!

More anniversary and stuff

Here's a photo of my anniversary flowers (along with some of our other plants in the kitchen). They are really pretty. My dh also scrubbed the bathroom, vacuumed, and we cooked dinner (tacos) together on our anniversary. It was a nice, relaxing evening. Oh, and he shaved, something he likes to avoid doing.

This weekend we had summery weather, almost hot. Saturday we went to downtown Hammond to what we thought would be a car show. Not many cars showed up but the Bizarre Bazaar had a community flea market, some local artists booths, a hot-salsa eating contest from El Taco Real (one of my favorite places) and great music from the Northwest Indiana Symphony. We did a really fun architectural scavenger hunt with clues you had to find on local buildings. A bit of history was provided for each of the locations.

Sunday we went to the Park Forest Art Fair. The fair is always a fun one and we've gone for ages. We thought the crowd of shoppers was noticeably smaller than in previous visits--probably the economy.

When I had some spare time, I stitched up this pumpkin mat. After I took this photo, I added a ribbon loop at the top so I can hang this. We don't have empty horizontal surfaces for mats.

The design is by Wooden Spool Designs (Thanksgiving Pumpkin) and was kitted by Erica's. In addition to the black perle cotton called for by the pattern, the kit included a skein of watercolors. (The ribbon I used for a hanging loop was actually the ribbon that tied the kit together!) The kit was very generous and I've cut out another kit I got on our August trip there. This one is a spring chick with an umbrella.

To continue my fun interlude and extend the weekend, I had dinner last night with a friend. Every time I do this, I tell myself I should find time to do it more often. I had a great deal of fun and talked her ears off (sorry!). It's just too much fun to visit with someone who has many of the same interests and tastes, stash piles and book stacks. Not too many people are willing to engage in serious discussions comparing various fusible web products! A.C.--we'll have to do this again!

Last, JLC Studios turned me on to this great time waster. Make Your Own Snowflake. It creates images somewhat similar to those I mentioned a couple of months ago with the kaleidoscope program. These rotate, too, forming new papers but this site also does a 3-D spin. Wicked!

Anniversary

Thanks go to Pat at Gatherings for the idea for my anniversary card. She came up with her puzzle piece swap just about the time I was looking for something to do to celebrate our 32d anniversary.

We have concert tickets for November but I was looking for something for today. Initially I was going to stitch two puzzle pieces that fit together, but time was tight so I made a watercolor. Two, in fact. It doesn't show in the photo but the puzzle pieces are about 1/2" above the background--I used folded paper strips to give some depth. The two pictures follow the same general outline of bands (dunes grass, sand, water and sky) but the proportions are different as are the colors.

I was also going to have two separate pieces that fit together but once it was done it seemed better to leave them together. I wrote a bit on the back.

I never would have thought to do something like this before taking SharonB's Studio Journals class, which got me back into working with paints and such. I used watercolor pencils and a new "water pen" I have to create my paintings. I find I have much more control than with "real" watercolors. I did a layer, wet and blended it. Added another layer on top and blended it. Then added a layer which I didn't blend. I only have about a dozen watercolor pencils and I got loads of different colors by blending.

Then I scribbled on top with a Pigma pen to make the dunes grass and plants. The outline is a black Sharpie outlined all around with a silver Sharpie. Now I'm going to head home for our evening together!

September TIF done

Here's my September TIF journal page on lists, all done, early for a change!

I stitched my chain of lists in a random order and intertwined them a bit when I stitched them to the background. The binding loops are more selvedge strips.

The top and bottom edges are "finished" edges of selvedge strips. I left the sides unfinished. I was going to bind them and then I realized, lists are never done, they're never finished, so I left the sides unfinished.

There's more description of the selvedge background in my previous posting.

It's certainly colorful, a bit raggedy feeling and uncharacteristic for me and to get myself back to my comfort zone I added a plain backing of tan felt, attached with buttonhole stitch in red perle cotton. I wrote the title with a Sharpie. I can now check this off of my to-do list!

September TIF underway

I've finally gotten underway with my September project. It's been pretty much a one-step-at-a-time project. I realized my problem with lists is that I have really mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, they are a huge help for someone with the memory of a gnat. On the other, they sit there on my desk and just nag at me endlessly, all these lists of things that really need to be done. Sometimes I write down things I've already done so I have something to cross off!

I began with the selvedge meaning of list that many of us liked. I shipped selvedges from fabrics lying about and overlapped them and stitched them to stiff felt with a running stitch. In a way, they make their own list--of projects I've completed and those waiting to be done.

That's the photo here.

Then I took a sheet of plain paper and wrote down all of these lists--the good ones and the nagging ones--shopping lists, to-do lists, supply lists, chore lists, book lists, instruction lists, member lists, lists of things I want to do, lists of things I should be doing. I used gloss gel medium to back the paper with some muslin that I'd used as a paint rag--I like the random splotches but never quite know what to do with it other than backing things. In keeping with the randomness of this month, I used an old catalog to keep glue off the counter and some of the images transferred ink splotches to the list.

Then I cut the list into strips and will make them up into a chain--the chains that keep me going and together or the chains that weight me down with shoulds. I'm not sure how this will work or how I'll attach the chain to the background but, as I said, it's a step-by-step process this time. I don't think it's going to be really readable, but I think that's okay.

This month I've noticed I've integrated the TIF project fully into my life. At first, it was overwhelming and seemed to be all I thought about or did. I was exhausted at the end of January! Now it's just part of the flow of my days. I don't think I really think about it less overall. Perhaps the designs are a little less time-consumingly stitched. I already know a lot about the engineering of the pages and don't have to spend as much time on it.

I am very much more relaxed about the whole process. At the beginning of the year I was in a panic until I came up with a viable idea. Now I'm trying to work with the ideas a bit more, at least on a conceptual level. And if one doesn't manifest immediately, I keep trying to look at the question from different angles and see what I learn.