Wild About Fiber

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!