Wild About Fiber

The Connecting Threads show put on by the Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Artists art quilting and fiber art group that I belong to has come to a close.  The show at the Women's Art Barn in Mariemont, OH was a huge hit!  It was very well attended and 8 art quilters sold work in the show!  That is always a thrill when someone else loves your vision enough to take your work home to enjoy every day!  The hanging committee put the show together in a thoughtful way that caused my eyes to flow from piece to piece until I had seen the entire show!  That takes a considerable amount of talent in itself!  Here is my coiled piece, Desert Sun on a stand in the show, part of the flow!

Tomorrow, June 17th from 1 to 4 pm is the opening of the Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Artists second annual show at the Women's Art Barn in Mariemont. What you can expect to see is amazing fiber art.  Most of our members are art quilters and elevate their work to fine art through their skill and attention to detail.  We actually hold our monthly meetings at the Women's Art Barn, a beautiful art space.  If you think you might be interested in joining our group, come to the opening and view the art, talk with the artists and get a feel for the group.  It is an encouraging group of people who are enthusiastic and fun, and above all, so talented.  I am honored to be a part of this amazing and sharing group of artists!  If you are interested in the group but cannot join us for the opening, leave a message below and I will contact you!  Light refreshments will be served and we look forward to seeing you there! My coiled piece, Desert Sun, is my entry i...

I'm excited to announce that I have been accepted as an artist in the gift shop at Bay Arts in Bay Village, Ohio, near Cleveland.  It is a beautiful complex that includes an Art Gallery, restaurant, and Gift Shop and is in a lovely area. I will have the Journey Guides for sale in the gift shop.  I hope you will look up Bay Arts if you are in the Cleveland area.   The Gallery space hosts regular events and is an open and inviting space.  You will feel when you walk on the campus that you are entering someplace special.  It is a delightful and fun space to walk around in.  In the summer there are concerts and farmer's markets to enjoy.  They feature many art classes.   I couldn't be more thrilled to have my work in the Gift Shop at Bay Arts.  Please go to their website to learn more about this wonderful art space:   www.bayarts.net  

Giggle Fest These little faces make me smile!  I hope they do that for you, too. Each one is unique, hand drawn and designed to bring a giggle.  I delivered new Journey Guides to Under the Stars in Batavia, Ohio, last week.  You can find the address on this page. It is time to replenish my supply, so I have been busy sewing and cutting out new Journey Guides and now stuffing the bodies, drawing the faces and deciding what "hair" they will get!  Along with all of that, I decided to re-design the tags that hang with each Journey Guide describing the characteristic that I assign to them.  Some are called Grace, or Skye, Nurturing, Joy or Fierceness.  As we travel through life, sometimes we find we want to work toward something.  Maybe we need to be more fierce in defending ourselves or even those we love.  These Guides are meant to be a reminder, and a reflection of what we already have within us.  We just need to bring it out and fine tun...

I recently had the pleasure of being a featured artist at the Miami Valley Christian Academy for their annual Fine Arts Night.  It is organized at the school by the Art Department and was my first such experience!  The students even made a sign for my table.  My obligation as a participating artist was to demonstrate coiling.  The elementary age children and the parents seemed to be the most interested in the coiling.  One little girl was so attentive and asked such good questions!  It was fun to explain the different types of core material I had used and how I use them for different effect when she said, "hmmm....that makes sense."  SO CUTE!  It was a great experience to participate in this annual event! While I was demonstrating, I had a signup sheet on my table for people to sign up for a coiling class and so now I have to get ready for that class!  Gotta run, lots to do!

I recently started making Journey Guides again after 5 years.  They are fun little dolls that will hang on the wall and have characteristics attributed to them that we might need in our lives.  I am doing more embellishment on the bodies and more facial expressions on them.  I think they are fun and I hope you will as well as you decide which one you will choose to travel with! The Journey Guides are available at Under the Stars, 97 E. Main St., Batavia, OH 45103.  The shop phone number is 513-238-7913.  Under the Stars is a wonderful shop owned by Vicki Watson and she has the works of about 150 artists in the shop.  It's a gem of a shop and easy to find as it is right off of Rt 32 in downtown Batavia.  I hope you will check the shop out!

A little over a year ago, my friend, Robbie Porter taught one of my art groups, Creative Saturday, how to coil.  I have found I enjoy coiling very much.  It is an old way of making baskets and can also be a very artful form of basketry.  These are the first 3 pieces I have made.  With every piece I make, I explore what happens when I do something different to them.  With my first piece, I had no finished product in mind, but as I worked on it, the yarn started suggesting sand and surf as I worked on it.  Before I finished it, I had a trip to Florida and another artist friend, Charlie Patricolo of  Charlieclothdolls on Facebook, was teaching classes in Florida and I was visiting friends in Florida.  Charlie picked my friend Cheryl and I up and off we went to Naples, Florida to visit one of the galleries that carry Charlie's dolls.  We had a lovely day with lunch in Naples and a stroll on the beach just off of downtown Naples.  The ...

At last!!   Yea!  I have wanted to do this for several months but other projects got in the way.  More on those later.  My dad loves to play music, primarily bluegrass but he also plays hymns.  When I was at my parents home for Thanksgiving, Mom got the mandolin out for me and I took some pics.  So here it is finished with some detail photos, as well.  I had a lot of fun putting it together.  I hope he will enjoy it.  What do you think?

Progress as promised.  Now I am stitching the frets  and have more to add, I don't know the names of all the parts.  But there will be more.....stay tuned!

When I was a kid that was the thing we would say when the intended receipent walked in on a conversation about their gift.  That meant turn around, you cannot hear this!  So don't tell my Dad everyone, but I am working on a project for him for Christmas.  He has played musical instruments since before I was born.  In fact, if you look at my profile photo here on my blog, you will find a photo of my Dad and me with a couple of his instruments.  Anyway, this is the start of his gift and I hope it works out as I planned it on paper.  I will post another photo of the finished product soon since it IS part of his Christmas presents and I have to get busy to finish it!  More soon, in the meantime, remember, shhh....Christmas Secrets!

Recently I had lunch with some very creative women and we exchanged handmade gifts.  I wanted to do something for them that was unique, I had not seen and had not made before.  After giving it some thought, I decided to come up with these stylized leaves.  And I personalized them for the recipients.  Starting at the bottom, Rosiland always puts a flower in her quilts, so I gave her a flower.  Next, counter clockwise the orange and gold was for Jereena who is from India.  Then Barb hand dyes a lot of fabric so hers was made with a batik with the look of one of Barb's hand dyed fabrics.  Then there is Billie, and she is new to our group.  And lastly (but not least) is Carole, a fabulous quilter and all who know her know she has a very distictive look using her signature colors so the one I made for her was in celebration of that.  Thank you to all my Creative Friends.  I look forward to a new year of creating together.  ...

I call them Journey Guides.  Who will you choose to travel with?  And they come with different characteristics.  Joy, Fierceness and Grace are a few of the characteristics I attribute to them.  They are reminders of what you may want more of in your life.  Of this group, only the one on the far right, Skye, remains.  The others have all found good homes.  Currently you can find them at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center in the Holiday show, but after December is over, I will have them home again.  If you are interested in more information, or think you are interested in bringing one home with you, post a comment and I will contact you.

Do you love rings like I do? Oh here is something great for you! I am a fiber artist, but like most artists, I also enjoy other forms of creativity. And one thing I like to do outside of fiber art is making these great "scrunchy" rings on a stretchy cord. They look more expensive than they are. I sell them for just $29 apiece. One of my girlfriends told me she doesn't travel with her good jewels anymore. She travels with my rings and then if she should lose one, she won't lose any sleep over it, she will just call me and get another "scrunchy" ring. And another friend bought one for her Mother-in-law who loves rings but now has arthritic fingers and by the time a ring is large enough to slip over the enlarged knuckles, it spins around on her finger. Not fun!! My stretchy rings easily glide over the large knuckle and then shrinks back to original size and NO MORE SPINNING RINGS! YEA!!!! My rings are for sale in Eula Boutique, 7337 Montgomery Road,...

My quilt guild is sad right now.  We have lost Casey.  I posted this pic on an earlier post when I was making my name tag for the art quilting and fiber art guild.  She was a special woman and in the short time that I had the pleasure of knowing her, I could see she was a talented woman and strong.  She had fought serious illness for many years, yet cancer did not have her, she had cancer.  She had a lot more art to get out and nothing was going to stop that.  She could always make a suggestion on a project that had you stumped.  She was very curious and explored new techniques all the time and shared them with the group through workshops.  She was always encouraging to those around her.  She was just one of those people that made me glad I had the pleasure of knowing her.  Talented, insightful, thoughtful, interested.....amazing.  These are some of the words that come to mind when I think about Casey....

The Diversity Council at my place of employment brings many interesting events to us but one of my favorite is Dawali, the Indian celebration also called the Festival of Lights. Each year they bring in a Mehndi artist and sometimes I take part in that. I love the stylized design. The traditional dress is also inspiring to me as a figurative artist. I have been making a very simple figure lately so I decided to design one using a Bindi the Mehndi artist brought with her. She was offering them and I decided to put it on the covered button face I was drawing for my Indian doll. What fun! Someday I will make a larger figure with traditional Indian dress, but for now this makes me happy! What do you think? By the way, she has found a good home.  Somewhere she will be appreciated and I am happy about that!

Last Saturday I had lunch with my friend, Carole Gary Staples, an amazing artist. Carole had a mannequin she was looking to get out of the house and I just happen to be in the market for a dress form. Julia, as I have named her, will go with me to shows when I have wearables she can rock for me. And at home, I can put some batting on her and she can be my dress form. There is some water staining so I have decided to give Julia a "facelift". I started with a coating of gesso and will sand and gesso again. Then I will paint a new dress for Julia. She is going to be fun! More to come...

Yesterday I went to the Pendleton Art Studios to the new studio of my friend, Nancy Gamon. Everyone that came brought a sweater or two and the idea was to spread the sweaters out on a table and chop 'em up to make new sweaters. Here is what I have so far. It was a fun thing to do and a good way to get out of my comfort zone. I was able to finish most of what I wanted to do, I need to put a new placket on the front and finish stitching around the "flowers" and add one more flower to the front. Thanks for a great experience, Nancy!

Making progress! If you look back a couple of posts you will see the jacket that I started with. Now I have 1 purse in progress. Notice the zipper on the back of this bag? It is the pocket for the jacket! And the chevron on the jacket in the bosom area will be the front flap of the bag. I have some lovely leopard print satin to make the lining with that I think will go great with the aqua leather bag! I am learning a few things with this bag and I think the next one will be slightly different. It's fun, don't you think?

I have been thrift shopping again and found a beauty! An aqua metallic leather that I want to turn into something else. So I have removed the knit sleeves and collar, as well as the front zipper. Now the fun begins! After I finish turning this fun piece of leather into something else I will post the results. I am excited to begin!

One of the things I see happening to me as I am learning art quilting is I "see" the world a little differently. My camera is going to be very important to my creative development. Often now while I am walking in the woods or through some other serandipity, I find something that literally or figuratively suggests a quilt. That is what happened the other day. I was getting in my car in a parking lot and heard an awful squawking and looked around to see this little bird on the side of the parking lot looking at me and giving me the what for! I could almost imagine her little wings on her hips! I realized she either had babies or eggs nearby and so I stood and talked to her for a minute all the while scanning the side of the parking lot. I could not see any babies or eggs. While I talked to her, she didn't move a muscle, but as soon as I turned to enter my car, she hopped back on her eggs. She blended so well that it took a couple of minutes to find her. I got out of the car...