April draw winner

Lelia's comment was #6, the random number generated for the draw, so she gets the copy of Needlelace and Needleweaving by Jill Nordfors Clark. Congratulations, Lelia!

I plan to post a new giveaway later this week.

"owl"

I just noticed this photo in my files. I forgot to post it last week. It's a nut (hickory?) pretending to be an owl. Seen in the grass at Bailly Homestead.

Also, this most recent weekend we visited the East Chicago century plant once again. It's grown--at least a foot--but still no sign of it blooming. It's become our weekly pilgrimage.

Pieces of Friendship are off...

I made arrangements to drop off my Pieces of Friendship at the Chesterton Art Center on Saturday, where Pat will be teaching. (Then I'm going to meet a couple of good friends at an Indian restaurant for lunch--woo-hoo! I am so excited!)

It was still dim and rainy this morning but I was able to take photos of the final version of piece 5 and the back of one of the pieces, with the label sewn on. Rapunzel's braid doesn't make much difference in the photo but it does seem to me to make a bigger difference in the actual piece. It took me a while to figure out how to do it and I'm glad I did.

I learned when I talked to Pat that the instructions for the pieces of friendship swap that I had printed out were the original version and had changed a bit. The deadline is now June 1 not May 1, but I have them done and am happy, so I'm going to drop them off and move on to other things.

I just got the latest (and, sadly, last) issue of Fiber&Stitch and the first article is felt beads that are really cool. And I have a big bag of felt out...

I found the NANI State Day Project last night, just where I thought it was (amazing). But it's counted and I just can't do much of that on weeknights. So I think I'll stay in "felt land" for a while longer, at least during the week.

Pieces of Friendship

I worked diligently and have completed the six pieces I wanted to create. Here they are, along with some labels I created for the back. Last night I stitched on the labels and added Rapunzel's hair coming out of the tower (hence no posting last night) . I'll get a photo of the Rapunzel block before I send them all off to Pat Winter for the Pieces of Friendship exchange--it was raining this morning and too dark for pix.


Number 4 is wool, pieced like a traditional crazy quilt but without seams. I used felted wool fabrics and wool felt. I stitched each piece to a felt base with tacking stitches and then added a line of herringbone wherever two patches meet. I overlayed this with meandering feather stitch, leaf stitches, and beads, all in greens to make a leafy bower for the bird on the brad. Yes, it's a scrapbooking brad but it's cloth covered (looks like ribbon). A couple of glass leaves and seed-bead flowers finished it off. Fibers used were silk floss, overdyed Medici wool, and perle cotton. The beads were unknown leftovers in a baggie from a kit.


This piece incorporates my original idea, that mostly went by the wayside. I purchased some pink fairytale toile that I planned to color and use as the center for my pieces. Most of the motifs, however, were too large. This is Rapunzel's Tower and it just fit. I laid the cotton fabric on a felt underpiece (I used a thick dark gray felt for all of my center "interfacing's" on all of the pieces) and then put the felt pieces over the top. I used pink perle #8 to tack each piece in place, covering the edges of the muslin. I had a hard time finding a harmonious seam treatment and ended up stitching coral stitch over each seam using gray perle. I used the same gray perle to buttonhole the outer edge.

My last piece was, again, an early idea. Last year at the EGA's GLR seminar (this year's is going on now), I found a small baggie of inspiration. It has some turquoise crystals, some silks, yellow metallic, a baggie of mixed beads, silk ribbons. I don't remember the designer but she had specifically created these baggies to inspire (wouldn't that be fun?)

I added a few more odds and ends (silk threads) and then pretty much set it aside. I found it as I began this project and decided to do a piece with it. Here's my jumble of threads, ribbons, beads and the beginning of my piece. Spring is bursting forth here and I wanted to capture that. The dark blue-green wool seemed to set off the thread and ribbon colors. The pink blob in the center is the center of my focus flower.

I like layering in my pieces. I began this one with a meandering stem stitch line creating a heart in each corner. You can't see it in the final design but I know it's there.

I've added a chain stitch outline, stems and leaves using two different variegated greens and begun adding layers of flowers. The pink wool blob has been satin stitched over with red silk for my flower center. Each chain in the chain-stitch outline gets a stem and each stem gets a flower (many also get leaves). The threads are all silk and the flowers are lazy daisy, cast on stitch, bullion stitch, oyster stitch, and sometimes straight stitch. I've begun adding colonial knot flower centers and accents using the yellow metallic thread.

And here's the finished piece. I couched loops of ribbon for the petals (that's one long piece of variegated ribbon). Then I added piles of beads around the center, further anchoring the petals.

This was really fun to do and experiment with and it went quite quickly because of that.

My last photo is a shot of the ribbons I made as tags. I used a letter printer that looks like on of those old office date stamps only bigger with dye ink on ribbon. I put some Fray-Check on the cut edges and let it all dry for 24 hours.

I need to work on my EGA chapter's Indiana State Day project next, but I can't seem to find it right now. I'm sure it's nearby. The thing is, right now I'm really into playing with wool and felt and not quite feeling like buckling down to counted thread. I know once I get going on it, I'll quickly get into the swing of things and have fun. It's a gorgeous design.

Buckminster Fuller

I just noticed today that there's an ongoing exhibit about R. Buckminster Fuller at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. I'm quite excited and making plans to get there. I read everything he wrote when I was a student and Steve and I attended a talk by him in the mid 70s.

If I had any sense as an 18-year-old, I'd have gotten myself down to Southern Illinois University where he taught and figured out a way to study with him.

If you're in the Chicago area, it looks like it would be worth a trip. Some of the events and talks are past but more are coming.

Quilt Fest #2

Shopping. The quilt festival is where I'd like to have a shopping cart and 10 minutes to fill it with everything I can. (There used to be a TV contest show like that--people would run through the grocery store grabbing food as fast as they could and then at the end someone would win what they grabbed--I'm probably showing my age here.)

The thing for me is--I see things at the quilt show that I just don't see elsewhere. Some, never (like Hobbs batting and Japanese crepe fabric) and some will turn up after a long wait. I'm sure these Clover rose-making templates will be in Jo-Ann's some day, but it will be months. I tried making a few roses with them--using some of my pink Easter-egg dye fabric. I watch for Clover's newest at the show. (These templates are fun, a little more fiddly than the yo-yo and pom-pom ones but once I had it figured out it worked pretty well.)

I always buy a sample set of Hobbs's Batting. For $7 you get 10 (ten) 24" square pieces of their various battings, cotton, wool, silk, black, bonded--perfect for framing, ornaments and other small projects (like my Japanese paper pieced flower project). I especially like the wool batting for filling pincushions. One set would probably last me two years but I can't pass it up and generally get it every year. (no photo, plain batting just isn't photogenic)

These are some of the Japanese fabrics I got. The one on the left (behind) is a variety of cottons. The two on the right are rayon crepe. I've been hunting for crepe fabrics for a while now and they had them. (Maeda Importing)

The Sun Felt booth left me drooling! We found it just before lunch and decided not to shop until after we ate. Yummy cakes, candies, cookies and chocolates--so realistic! And all felt.

I got a book, two kits for cake boxes, and felt for a strawberry cream cake. This is just too cool! The site is in Japanese but the pictures are worth it. I opened it through Babelfish for a "translation," here.

The kits come with precut felt and cardboard, floss, trims and even stuffing to make and decorate the cakes.

My other favorite find was Barbara Willis's booth. I got two patterns from her and got to check out her new book (well worth it--I can't wait!)

It's become rather a tradition for me to find a new (to me) doll designer and buy a pattern or kit. So far, I haven't actually made any of them them. I think partly it's getting my courage up to go in a new direction (doll making) and partly the sewing machine thing and partly the too many WIPs already thing. (that's my excuse today, tomorrow there will be a new one most likely.)

No, I did not take the same picture twice--take a look at the smaller green pattern--this is a really cool Two Sided doll. I'm really excited by this one. I think this doll would be perfect for those ribbons I just received--the ones that say "Elizabethan" to me.

Pat Winter mentions this mermaid book pattern---she was the first person I thought of when I saw it. The mermaid book comes with all of the images used in it, ready to scan and print.

I got some other odds and ends. Some trims and a mermaid charm from Barbara Willis. The paper piecing hexagons I mentioned previously, some sale goodies from the quilting arts booth, a package of metal for embossing and stitching (like Judy Coates Perez), a new transfer medium.

While I came home with bags, the main thing I bring home with me each year is the excitement and energy from the show. It's just awesome to be in this huge room, crammed to the gills with all of these people who create wonderful things.

not just stitching

Just to prove I don't just sit and stitch, here's a photo I took Saturday at Bailly near the Indiana Dunes. While we know the Bailly homestead and the area was occupied and farmed for years, we always attribute the garden flowers (iris, hyacinths, Narcissus) to Mrs. Bailey. So these are Mrs. Bailly's Hyacinths. We also saw many, many of our favorite spring beauties, some early violets, trout lilies, trilliums about to bloom, and a white flower. The trout lilies' coloration was very subtle and beautiful. May apples are coming up, too.

The color gradations of the grape hyacinths were just wonderful and, of course, the photo doesn't capture it. It does capture the memory of it for me.

We also changed the oil on my car Saturday (I use "we" quite loosely there--I help haul stuff to and from the garage and then sit and kibitz) and we stopped the the Century Plant which still hasn't bloomed. It's become a weekly pilgrimage. It was cloudy all day and the rains began in the early evening.

On Sunday it rained all day. We visited my sister and her husband and my brother and his wife came up. It's really cool. We have our own show and tell. I love seeing what everyone is doing. And it's great to get feedback on ongoing projects (like my Japanese paper pieced quilt in the works).

It's been raining since Sunday--Monday night snow was predicted but I haven't seen any. One evening I went through a pile of books. Found some things to discard or recycle (yay!). I found my wildflower field guide (which is why I began on this pile) and learned the white flower I saw Saturday was bloodroot (I thought it was that or hepatica, but I wasn't sure). I haven't picked up a needle since Sunday. Maybe tomorrow night.