Category Archives: Fiber Goodness

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!

First Art of the Year

I started with this photo taken a couple of years ago.

DSC06138

Then I played with some filters in photoshop…
sidewayscutout    sidewayscutoutfindedges

Then I layered some sheer white fabric over some printed white, along with some other sheer colored fabrics in places. I began the free-motion sewing to thread paint the lines.

img023

This is what I have so far and I am not totally happy with it yet, so I will continue to play with it until I feel like it is done. Then add a border and backing.

It will also include my focus word of the year, which is ~drumroll please~

Vibrancy!

But for now, my doggie is upset that I have been in the studio for so long, so I must tend to him.

HAppy New Year!

Free Tutorials

snow day #2 2008

Surfing around a lot while snowbound here in the Pacific Northwest. We have more snow right now than in 30 years!

Two Creative Studios  is one site that I found today that has a bunch of cool free tutorials in addition to some great looking online classes. I am so inspired that I am heading up to the studio to work on some fun fabric stuff! (probably more doll clothes, but I also have a quilt to finish for Christmas gifts.)

Are you trapped in the snow? What are you up to for the holidays?

Dolly Dress Form

Based on some instructions for making a duct tape dress form, I used Enchy’s doll to make a mini doll dress form.

American Girl doll duct tape dress form

Here’s how I made it.

  1. First, I wrapped the naked doll in plastic wrap.
  2. Then I covered it with a piece of fabric. This was to represent the t-shirt that is used in the sample instructions.
  3. Next using masking tape I did one layer of tape around the fabric. Mostly I used this type of tape because I knew I would not have enough duct tape and because I thought it would be more flexible for this small dress form. Next was a couple layers of duct tape, I added some partial sleeves at this point.
  4. Now I had to carefully cut the tape off the doll without damaging the doll. I cut up the front and up one sleeve. The other sleeve came off without cutting once I had enough give to pull it off.
  5. I taped the cut lines closed.
  6. I had some old candle sticks that I never use that I realized were the perfect size to be a stand. yippiee! I cleaned off the wax and dust, clipped off the leaves and put it up the middle of the duct tape form.
  7. I stuffed the form with recycled stuffing that I get from Charger’s destroyed toys.
  8. I taped up the bottom and I am done!

I was thinking about covering it with some nice fabric, but that will add more bulk, which will make the dress fitting less accurate. At this size mere fractions of inches will throw off all the measurments. The layers of tape and fabric already make the fitting a little different from the actual doll. It doesn’t need to be pretty… Perhaps when the girls don’t need doll clothes made for them anymore I will cover it and make it an artsy dress form sculpture that is not meant for the fitting function.

Beaded Journal Project September 2008

Sept2008

So this is the first of my 12 alter/door style journal pages. I am still up in the air as to how I am going to finish/back them. If I will do the sculptural approach in which case I will need to do more work on this one.

So I am a teacher, a middle school art teacher. September always means fresh starts, new kids, new lessons. I like endings, but more I like fresh starts. that is why September is one of my favorite months EVER. perhaps this was wired into me at an early age, since we moved every 2-3 years and I had to start over, make new friends. I always thought I would reinvent myself and start over. becoming the me that for some reason I had not been in the place before. We always moved in the summer with September being that moment of the fresh beginning…

This piece is 11″W x 8″H at the peaks. It is made from a ‘novelty’ fabric (one with the teachers, combined with a separate one of the flowers and edged with a third of the measuringtape. I included the tape because I have been working hard and lost 13 pounds over the summer. Plus it looks like a school type thing.

The ‘crazy’ art teacher has red hair (like me) and I added a fuzzy yarn to give it dimension. She also wears funky shoes, apron and glasses…like me too now (the glasses are new)

Sept2008DT

Now to go figure out October’s page….

PS I would LOVE to hear feedback, as I am pretty much new to the beading thing…

What If?

CQR_sept, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy.

Crazy Quilts Revisited a new challenge started by Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth asks us to as “What if?”

So my first What if? Crazy Quilt piece came from:
What if I pieced together fabrics that are really different in texture? This has fun fur, Corduroy, silk, linen, taffeta, felt, and tulle combined. Then I asked, What if I made pockets in the tulle and sewed in beads? Only one pocket is filled so far, because this is still a work in progress. Finally I decided, What if I added a cut out window in the middle? Which is a new technique for me.

SO I will start by saying I don’t like it. It is all scraps so I haven’t lost anything by trying. It was hard to sew through the layers since I started with the thickest stuff towards the middle and used felt as a backing. I am not sure if this block will go any further. Or I might have to ask, What if I kept working on something I didn’t like and finished it anyways?

BJP prototype

BJP_prototype with pages side by side and open, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy. Check out my flickr for more views of this project.

This is what I whipped up today to be my prototype for my bead journal project. I was having a hard time trying to explain what I wanted to do. Plus I thought I better make one to see if it really worked the way I wanted it to.

So These are some fabric and paper collages that have been sewn and embellished with ribbons and beads. They are cut in an alter book type shape. They have a layer of cardstock on the inside for support. They have 2 old paint brushes that slide into the back to support the book so it can stand. (will have to come up with a slightly better way to get them into the pages, as I just cut a hole in the fabic and shoved them in. the Ribbons are sewn to the back in such a way as to allow the different ‘chapters’ to be tied to each other. Another set of ribbons hold the front doors closed. in the final pages these will be little metal bead clasp things I found that have the letter S on them.

Since these are prototypes the edges are unfinished. and the outsides are fairly plain.

These are made from scraps in my studio.

In other news… my favorite online fabric store is now selling fabric for my favorite TV show.