Self portraits revealed!

It's reveal day over at Art Quilts Around the World!  The Art Quilts blog is a  "group of 30 art quilters from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Singapore, and the USA. Every two months we make a small art quilt on a designated theme, and we share our quilting journey and its results here with you. We welcome your feedback/comments." 
Our first challenge was a 'self portrait'...and here's my self portrait!  

I'm a 'spring' kind of gal who loves, loves, love hand work and beading!  So of course I had to include those elements in my self portrait!


BUT...I dislike drawing intensely...so this is my first and last attempt at drawing!!  I used the technique of putting tracing paper on the mirror (read this in a mixed media book but I forget the name of it!!) and then tracing your face!  Well, this was still no easy task!

I created the background piece by painting diluted fabric paints onto Radiance white fabric.  Then, I scanned my portrait tracing and printed onto the painted Radiance.  After stitching the commercial fabric to the portrait,  I stitched around each painted area to give the appearance of patchwork.  The entire piece was then free motion quilted.
Of course I had to add some beading around the portrait because it's all about me and my beading! and handwork! And here is a pic showing more detail of the edge beading and handwork. 


It was fun to work on once I had the 'drawing' part finished....but I'm looking forward to our next challenge, which is 'Carnival'!  That should be fun!!


So if you get a minute, head over to see some of the great self portraits on the Art Quilts Around the World blog!  Each piece is really nice, unique and an insight to each of us participating in this year's challenge.

Progress

Another beautiful day...I headed off to WalMart this a.m. to run some errands and now plan on working on more Valentine fiber cards.  I would like to sit and read!!  My friend, Carol, here in Florida, loaned me the book, Two Graves, by Preston & Child.  I love their books and have read every one they wrote together.  This is their latest book and it's hard to put down!  If you read mystery books, theirs are the best!  Start with their old book(s) as the characters continue in each book.  I read out of sequence and I still got the 'drift' of what was happening! 

BUT...no reading for me.  I have to get stitching!  I'm only making two like the one in this pic.  It has lot of outlining and hand stitching on it.  I'll be hand stitching and/or machine stitching on each piece along with other embellishments but i don't want to put a lot of hand work in these.  I don't think it's necessary.

Have to say now that I've decided on what I'm doing, I enjoy the process of creating this years fiber cards!  Guess that's always the way.  The design is the hard part isn't it!

So here is some of my work!!

Yes there is some metal hearts on some cards along with machine stitching and who knows, most likely, some beading too! 

Another warm day today...should be in the 80's today and tomorrow then we have what Florida calls a "cool down"...in the high 60's or low 70's!  That's called perfect weather for me! 

Back to work?

Sometimes I think I never get a vacation!  Spoiled aren't I!  This a.m. after feeding the dog, bird, Bob; taking Kalee for a one mile walk, I changed sheets and started laundry; went to the post office and now I'm going to try, I say, try to work on my fiber cards!  Guess "woman's work" is never done is it!  Hubby has it made, as do most men...he doesn't even have to do lawn work here in Florida...just eat and golf!  What a life!

alright, I'll stop complaining!!!  I did get to 'play' with dyes yesterday.  Michael's had some good $1 buys on embellishments so I picked up a bag and dyed them.  Thinking I might use them on my fiber cards...but then again........

I still haven't a clue as to what I'm going to make this year.  I printed onto fabric my Flamingo doodle I posted about last time and then started some hand stitching on it. 

Not that folks who receive these cards aren't appreciating them but it takes so much time to embellish by hand I'm just not sure I want to hand stitch 20+ flamingo's!  Last year I did add beads by hand on each card but I must have been in a better frame of mind!  Yes, I'm getting lazy in my old age but that's what old folks do.  We get lazy, grouchy and just want to do what we want to do, when we want to do it! 

This is a piece of paper fabric I made on Sunday.  I picked up some muslin, painted on a layer of matt medium, then layered tissue paper and some of my doodles I printed out. 

So now I'm going to try and put my thinking cap on and see if or what I can do with this piece of fabric.  I actually made two pieces so we'll see. 

It's another beautiful day today...slight breeze and in the 70's.  I guess back home they had freezing rain and schools are closed.  Sure don't miss that!  Guess doing laundry, cooking, cleaning and playing with fabric "ain't" so bad after all!  could be worse...I could still be working! 

Quilt show and some art work!

Well, I have been working on my fiber cards the past few days...I did a 'doodle' of a Flamingo but I'm so tired of the doodles...but I still might use it! 

I printed some on fabric to do some hand stitching, but it's so predictable. 

Boring!

Today I played with making some paper fabric using some of my doodles.  I'll post those pics tomorrow. 

Susan and I headed off today to the Villages for a quilt show w/vendors!  And we didn't buy anything!  go figure!!!

There were some really nice quilts and workmanship to match.  I did take many pics with my phone so they may not be that clear.





I really liked the quilting in this quilt so I had to take a snippet pic.

This was quite pretty and workmanship very nice as well.

The workmanship on this quilt was beautiful, as was the quilt.  You keep seeing little touches, embellishments the quilter added.

Just some of the detail above!  Beautiful.

This is another very nice piece...again, workmanship is outstanding!  Almost...I say, almost, as nice as my friend, Susan's, workmanship!

and of course, I have to show my dinner from my "date" last night!  We had dinner at Harry's and it was spectacular!!!  I had crab cakes and snow peas and yes, 2-4-1 margaritas!  Yes, I drink margaritas with everything or anything!

The Dali Museum

To continue with my visit with my sister....Tuesday morning we headed off to St Petersburg, crossing over this bridge.  I'm sure it had a name, which everyone but me knows....anyway, quite a sight.  I took this picture with my phone as we were driving across...keep in mind I was in the back seat so you can only get a so, so shot..but you get the picture (if you've never crossed over). 

We were headed to the Dali museum to see Salvador Dali's artwork! 

Amazing! 

You can learn more about the museum building here but this is a quote from their website on the buildings design:
"Designed by architect Yann Weymouth of HOK, the new building combines the rational with the fantastical: a simple rectangle with 18-inch thick hurricane-proof walls out of which erupts a large free-form geodesic glass bubble known as the "enigma." The "enigma," which is made up of 1062 triangular pieces of glass, stands 75 feet at its tallest point, a twenty-first century homage to the dome that adorns Dali's museum in Spain."
The building itself was amazing...but the artwork!  It is overwhelming to think you are looking at artwork created by one of the masters and to see the detail and strange artwork Salvador Dali created up close is worth the trip!  

 After seeing all the artwork, we drover around the downtown area then headed off to eat at the Columbia Restaurant right on the pier in St. Pete's.  Just another quote..."Waterfront views and outstanding Spanish/Cuban cuisine are what you'll find at the Columbia at The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg. A panoramic 360 degree 4th floor waterfront view of sailboats drifting by and dolphins playing in Tampa Bay complement our award-winning family recipes."  
So much easier than me trying to describe a restaurant or building, isn't it!  But the food was fantastic!!!!  

My sister will kill me for posting this picture...all I'm going to say are two words:  handicap sticker and limp! 

This is my sis, MaryAnn, Nancy and myself after our lunch...and visiting us were pelicans!  I didn't do a good job of getting the pelicans in the picture so this is the best I could do!!

This is a better picture of my sister and Nancy!  and you can see the pelicans!!  Anyway, we had a great afternoon....the ,museum was wonderful as was the company!!!!  I loved my time with my sister and look forward to going back for another visit!!  MaryAnn isn't in Florida for long periods of time and they are worse social butterfly's than Bob and I!!  They have something going on every night!  Yesterday after I left they were headed off to Sarasota, tonight meeting up with friends, Friday night hosting a Martini night at their house and Sat. off to the club house for dinner and entertainment then heading home @ 3:00 a.m. Sunday!!! 
Whew!  Makes me tired just thinking of all they do while in Florida....thanks again sis and Nancy for a great time!!!! 

Eat, Drink & Be Merry!

Of course, before we "ate, drank and were merry" I had to drive to my sisters.  We love, love, love our GM cars and for driving a large SUV my Enclave gets great gas mileage!  26.1!  And I was going 71 (on cruise) the entire time.  Not bad for a big car, is it!
Now on to the visit with my sister!  Yahoo for arriving but...boo hoo...it's over!

We started the afternoon off by riding the bikes up to the pool area.  There's a resistance pool, a swimming/lap pool, whirlpool...it's just beautiful at their Deb Webb community!  

 The lady you see in the hat is Nancy in the resistance pool!  My sis and I just sat and watched!  Of course, partly because I don't own a bathing suit!

This is my sis relaxing but also working at the same time!!  She only had a few 'work related issues' to take care of then she was back to being the hostess!


But first we took the dogs to the dog park!  They have a small dog park and a large dog park.  It was really nice and Kalee and Remy had a great time running around.  Sherry on the other hand preferred to lie in the shade.  I took several video's of Remy catching the ball along with Sherry but those will be posted on Kalee's blog this afternoon!  Per her request!

After the dog park, my sister was the cook again!  And did she ever put on a feast! 

Nancy grilled lobster tail and steak for seven of us!  And my sister made risotto, asparagus, chopped salad, sliced Cuban bread and it was all delicious!  She also had two different sauces for the lobster...one a horseradish and the other butter.  The entire dinner was fantastic!!!  I don't eat meat much but Nancy grilled a piece well done for me and it was perfect!  As was the lobster and all the other side dishes!  Sis, you and Nancy did a wonderful job!!!  Thanks so much!!!!

My sister also invited to dinner their neighbors, Norma and Steve and they were delightful as was another neighbor, Hetti (I'm probably not spelling her name correctly!)...we laughed and had such a good time!  They are all a hoot to be with...and I even had a great education on wine from Steve.  He and Norma brought over a bottle of cab for me to try.  I'm a Merlot kind of gal but this was also a good wine.  And as I said, I did learn some new facts about wine and wine tasting!

This all took place on Monday!  Tuesday we headed off to St. Petersburg, which I'll post about tomorrow!  I had such a great time visiting and just spending time with my sis.  So nice she's only two hours away!  They are heading back this weekend to Pennsylvania but she'll be back again late Feb. or March so I hope I get to visit her again!

Now it's time to do some laundry and get back to Florida living in the winter!

Off to see my sister!

I don't think my sister will have on her 'babushka' when I arrive for my visit tomorrow!  But I think she'll be waiting at the door for me!  See you soon, Sis!!

Playing and playing!

So back in 2006, I had to create a small (8" x 11") self portrait for our Complex Cloth Fiber group.  As I've stated and shown! I'm not good at drawing so for that self portrait I took my high school photo and a current photo hubby took and combined them to make my self portrait.  It was called "now and then"...figures, right!






These were the two pics I used to make the piece above.

I did finished my self portrait for the Art Quilts Around the World challenge but can't show it until January 31st!  At least it's finished and I didn't use any photos of myself!  Whew! 

Now onto playing....below are some of the stamping and playing I did yesterday.  I don't care for any of them, with the exception of the stamped red fabric piece...but it was fun to play. 

 This was using gel medium through stencil...

So back to the drawing board!  I am getting some other ideas spinning in my head so I'll have to try those next.  I'm really over hearts and doodles for Valentines fiber cards.  Now to come up with something else!

What a BD!

What a nice BD I had yesterday!  My morning started off with phone calls from family and friends and of course, FB friends giving me BD wishes too!  Gotta love the 'social media' gig, don't you!!

This is my friends, Carol and Peggy who joined us for dinner at Carrabba's last night.  We had a great meal, as usual.   Nice friends, good food and company! 

No, Bob wasn't really sleeping...just hard to take pics so close to each other!  This is Sammy, Tony and my better half! 

After dinner we went back to our house for one of Bob's favorite desserts.  For some reason, I only make this cake for my BD!  It's actually a cup cake recipe my daughter gave me several years ago but since Bob doesn't like cupcakes (don't ask!) I make it into a cake. 

So for the past 3 years, this has been our routine...dinner then back to our house for Bob's cake!  Yes, that is cream cheese frosting on it.  It is really good!!! 

After we each had a small piece last night, I put the other half in the freezer.  Maybe I'll haul it down next week when I visit my sister!  Now there's a thought!

And I had two deliveries yesterday!  The flowers were from my Dawn and Jeff!  Aren't they beautiful!

And this was at the front door when we got home from dinner - another long story....UPS makes deliveries at 8:00 p.m. and later here in the community!  Don't ask!!

So now I'm a Wildcat grandma!!  Yippee!  Both Amber and Nick play sports and their mascot is the Wildcat!  I mentioned last fall that I needed to buy a sweatshirt or something that says Wildcat!  This is a really nice sweater and I also got a necklace that says 'special grandma'. 
What a nice BD!!!   THANKS to all!!!

Trying to get inspired

 Well, it's getting to be that time of the year I need to think about Valentine fiber cards. I've been going through some of my fiber cards from the past few years. 

Lots of doodling...making paper fabric...beads, of course...






So today I started some more doodles with hearts...

But I'm bored with the hearts and doodle "thing"....so back to the drawing board or table!










These are some of what I've done...I usually make over 20 and trying to come up with something different is taxing my brain!  But I'll think of something...just a matter of time!  Although, time is running out isn't it!  February 14th will be here before we know it!