Monthly Archives: February 2009

Tree Sprite

This little Tree Sprite is finally finished… let’s review her creation.

treesprite005

Originally created for the Mythology Show of December 2005! I started her body and had plans to make her a Medusa based doll. She sat HEADLESS for all these years, because frankly the heads are difficult in this medium and I got interested in other things and time moved on.

She has sat on the shelf by my sewing area, so it is not as if she hasn’t been staring at me, headlessly, pleading for me to finish her.

Then there was the WIP show from this same time last year. So I entered  her in that show  more as a guilt trip for myself to finish her. But it has taken a whole year for it to happen.

The wings were created this past Christmas as I made doll clothes for my nieces’ dolls. I wanted to make them both fairy costumes for their dolls, because they are really into fairies right now. I had some extra trial wings leftover so I decided this doll needed to be a fairy instead of a Medusa.

The reason it has finally happened, is that I made a goal for myself to finish up and clear out all of my half-started projects. I even made a calendar determining which ones I would finish when, and how they might apply to a show.

Now showing in the 3-D Figure show @ EBSQ

Purple Sunset Finished

At first, I thought I had NO purple beads. I was very upset and immediately went online to order some. Then I found enough to add to my landscape quilt for the Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio. Her landscapes are very cool. I do like the ones with trees and might do a second one that way to see how it comes out. Now she does not bead her work, but I have been so into the beading lately that I just couldn’t see this landscape without some.

purple sunset finished 0215

It is finished. The completed quilt is 9X12″ and has a hanging sleeve on the top binding to hang with a wooden dowel. Lots of beads, trim and a variety of fabrics. The purples are terribly hard to photograph. I finally got this one with some natural daylight, but it still does not show the richness of the colors and the variety of textures. I am totally in love with how this came out. Purple really is a royal color. I probably need to come up with a more regal name for it.

Next I am doing my February Beaded Journal Page in this same fashion. But I am going to wait for my new beads to arrive and I still need to finish up my January page!

(Can you tell I am on vacation?)

Joggles Class Quilt #2

quilt2 spirals

Our second assignment in the Joggles Class, Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio, is to make a Molas inspired felt quiltie. I haven’t really done much with felt in my own art. Seems like a grade school type medium. Although I have to admit that I LOVE Gwen LeBlanc’s felt creations. So I was pleasantly surprised at how fun and easy a mini felt quilt was to create.

After cutting out and placing the felt pieces in my studio, I went down to the living room to stitch. I finally had a great medium to try out some of the stitches in Sharon B’s Stitch Dictionary. So I went through alphabetically until I found a stitch that both looked easy enough and looked like it would fit my spirals. I used the Threaded Back Stitchin between my blue felt spiral, with blue and white floss. Then I used the Chain butterfly stitchon one of my spirals with blue and yellow floss. Sewing with embroidery floss on felt is so easy these stitches were a cinch. Of course it helps that Sharon has step-by-step with pictures!

I also discovered that my local library now has free downloadable audio books. So I have been listening to Inkheart while stitching! Much better than having on the endless news or other TV garbage as background.

Purple Sunset


purple sunset WIP 0214, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy.

Happy Valentine’s Day…

Not a big holiday for me, but I am on Mid-winter break as well so celebrating with some art time, finally!

This is the first lesson from a joggles class I am taking.
Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio

My friend Diane was posting her work from the class and I was so impressed I decided to take the class too. This will be my first time taking an online class from Joggles, so I plan to post a lot of comments and progress throughout. I am currently waiting for my forum account to be approved so I can post there.

I decided instead of a traditional grass and dirt colored landscape, that I wanted to do a sunset style color theme. Mostly because I wanted to use purple!  So after grabbing a bunch of fabrics from my stash, I went on flickr to look for some purple sunset pictures for inspiration.

Here are a few that I found:

Then I went back to my ironed pile to place them in a fashion that looked good to me. Next I did some satin stitching and fancy styles to hold the layers together. Now I am going to go add trim and beads and embroidery floss.

I have several other projects on board for this 5 day ‘weekend’ mostly for EBSQ shows. So expect to see a lot from me in the coming days.

I still need to get a February page started for the beaded journal project. I am thinking of making a duplicate of this but in my alter shape… we shall see!

Self-portraits don’t have to be pretty

Self-portrait

It is the self-portrait show over at EBSQ this month. I submitted a couple of pieces and you should go VOTE for your favorite. This was not entered. This is an example for my students and not really finished… working on both value, proportions and expression. I haven’t felt like finishing it because it makes me look so old and grumpy! This does not fit my mind’s image of what I look like. Unfortunately, I was using a mirror, so it must be fairly realistic.

Here are my other self-portraits “Love of the Bizarre” and “Stop and Smell the Vibrancy” I also have a piece in the Alice In Wonderland show