Happy Valentine's Day!

By now 60 recipients should have received their fiber Valentine from me!  This is my last year of making fiber Valentine cards.  I've really enjoyed the process each year but now that I'm up to 60, it's getting out of control!  And I'm sure I can find something else to occupy my art brain with! 

I have to thank Maryann from CedarRidgeStudio for the photo card/envelop idea.  Maryann has sent out some beautiful cards making her quilted fabric to place in the photo area.  I jumped on this idea for my Valentines this year....and next up I was totally inspired by Margarita from Margas Crafts!  I started on the fiber background back in August.  You can see the start of my background pieces here and some more of the process here.

Margarita does beautiful work and has several articles in QA and Simply Moderne' magazines.  I thought making hearts using Margarita's technique for incorporating magazine pages and foil would work great!  This is some of the pages I tore up to use in the hearts.

Next was using medium to seal the pages

Foil added

Then tracing all the hearts to cut out

I used different shades of reds and some blue fabric which I quilted then stitched the paper hearts onto.  Of course I had to add some beading, right!  Some I just embroidered but I don't think I have any pics of those!  You can sorta see one of the blue embroidered pieces in the first group picture.










I sent a card to Elizabeth and Jane here in Florida and look how Jane sent me a thank you for the card!  How clever!!!!  Thanks, Jane!!!

I'm quite happy with my fiber cards this year and for my last year!  Happy (early) Valentine's Day to one and all!!!  Now go eat that candy!!

Valentine Cards

Take a look at some of the great hand made Valentine cards I received this week!  I'm a lucky girl!
The first one I received was from my bud, Carol T., back in Michigan!  Carol is a wonderful artist and works in all different media.  I have shown her watercolor and pen work before.

She made the heart on the cover which is actually a pin!  I'll be sure to be wearing it for Valentine's Day!

Next up from my bud, Susan, here in Ocala!  Susan is a wonderful quilter and I've  also shown her work several times on my blog.  Her workmanship is impeccable!

A closeup of Susan's work.  

And I received this card from my bud, Mary A., another Michigan friend.  Mary is a very talented quilter and has shown her work all over.  She is in the process of setting up an Etsy site to sell some of some art work, which I'll be linking to within the next month.

Mary's heart was made using the same material as Carol's pin!  Such a clever technique!

I love Mary's work as it's always so bright and colorful and just makes you happy looking at her quilts or cards made from pictures of her work.  I can't wait to be displaying Mary's work on my blog for you to enjoy or purchase!

Of course I have received other cards and goodies (fudge by our own Jan M.!)...thank you each for the cards!!!

Checks in the mail! I mean Fiber cards!

I did end up making fiber Valentine Cards again this year.  But I was smart enough to start and finish them before we headed to Florida!  I will keep that in mind if I decide to  make them again next year.

 I am up to 43 cards this year! I started off years ago making only 7!  go figure!  But I do enjoy making them if I don't have that pressure of 'having to finish them' when in Florida!  That's the key.  Hope everyone who receives one enjoys them.

I made up my own picture and sent it off to get a thermofax screen made.  

Then I screen printed using black acrylic ink onto white fabric.  But that was boring so i started to paint each heart with some watercolor paint and 3D paint.  After making 10 of them I decided I wasn't going to do this for the other 30+ cards! 

So next up I just screen printed my design onto scrap dyed fabric I had on had.  

One print didn't seem enough so on some fabric I printed the screen twice!

Next up was sandwiching between some pellon, adding some quilting then printing out the labels on Sulky totally Stable iron on fusible .  I iron the Totally Stable onto printer paper and print out labels on the interfacing - just make sure to not use a lot of heat otherwise it is hard to peel off your interfacing.

Then it was time to cut away excess Pellon and interfacing and stitch the edges!  Easy!

Here are the results...until next year....maybe!

That's all folks!!

Yes, I am alive!

Yep, alive and kinda well!  HA  Wrists are bugging me again. (I'm waiting to hear when/if I can get in for injections in my wrists before we head south!)..so I've not been doing much hand sewing....ugh....therefore, I did not make the November 30th challenge date for the online Art Quilts Around the World.  Do check out their blog as some folks did meet the date!  The challenge theme was 'science' and some creative work is on the blog for you to enjoy.

I've have a few rows sewn together but still have a few to go!  I'll get it done eventually!

But I did finish 42!!!  Valentine fiber cards (my goal was 40 but I had to add 2 more!)!  That was all machine work so pretty easy to accomplish!  Boring work sewing the edging but I did catch up on some of the shows I had Tivo'd!

And look what my BFF, Carol T., gave me Saturday (we met for a lunch and to spend some $$ at a local craft show - which was really good and not as crafty as really cool gifts!).  Isn't it beautiful!  How sweet of her to think of me!  She was shopping for Christmas gifts for her sisters and said she thought of me when she saw this!  It was made by LollyElla a shop in Bloomfield Hills.  You can head to their website here!  Might be worth a field trip next spring!

I love my necklace...it is so me!  But that's what is special about your BFFs!  They know you better than anyone!  I met Carol back in 2000 when we both took a hand quilting class from another friend of ours!  Carol and I sat at lunch that day and we've been friends ever since.












I've shown Carol's artwork before...she's quite a talented quilter but she excels at watercolor/drawing!  Here are just two of her pieces she did years ago that I love (I've posted these on my blog before with her permission).   Aren't these great!!!  Carol doesn't have a web site/blog so you'll have to enjoy these two pieces of artwork!  I do post her work from time to time.

So that's all I've been up to of late!  Boring I know...how do you think I feel!  HA  I will be posting some of our Thanksgiving family time later this week!  Guess I did do something!

Thanksgiving

Today we are heading to my son's house for their annual, delicious Thanksgiving dinner.  Kris is a great cook and always has some unique dish she prepares.  Her mom is in charge of the rolls (home made of course, as she's also a great cook!) and she'll make a pumpkin cheesecake.

 I'm in charge of making two lemon meringue pies.  I have a recipe from the late 60's that makes the best lemon pie ever!  I saw  earlier this week on GMA where you use vodka along with water when mixing your pie dough (yes, I make my own pie crust).  I won't know how well the crust tastes so you'll have to wait and find out in another post!  They look good!  HA

I haven't been dong hand work on my hexes daily...I'm giving my hands/wrists a break and only doing hand work every other day or two.  UGH...left hand is starting back up with discomfort, which I'm not thrilled about.  I have a call into the Ortho Dr. who injected my wrists this past summer to see if I can get in before we head south the end of December for another injection.  Keeping my fingers crossed.   This is the progress so far...I have each row sewn now to sew the rows together.

And I only have 12 Valentine fiber cards to finish the edging on!  Woohoo....I have 30 cards totally finished!!!!  All I need are the stamps, which I'll do sometime in December.  I don't want to wait until Florida as the lines at the post office in Ocala are long, long, long!  It's all 'we' snowbirds you know!

Wednesday, Kalee had her 'day job' of visiting the local Assisted Living center.  She just loves all the people....

 There is also a Memory Care Unit next door, which we haven't visited until today!  I was talking with the manager of the Assisted Living unit and she asked if we have visited the Memory Care unit.  She thought the residents at Memory care unit would also enjoy Kalee and asked if sometime I would go over.  I said "sure, how about today?".  She grabbed her coat and off we went!  The residents were great and I know for those few minutes she brought some smiles to their faces.

Oh, just so I have documented on my blog....Tuesday night we lost power a little before 7 p.m. until almost 11 p.m.!  We are lucky to have a gas fireplace upstairs which kept the temperature in the house at our regular 72 degrees!  We were actually quite comfortable. I read, we talked and looked at pictures on my Ipod.  We do have a generator but Bob didn't think the power would be out too long...hence we ended up taking out items from the frig, put them in coolers and sat them out on the deck!  About 30 min. after we did that the power came on!  Go figure!

I do hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and you eat until you can't eat anymore!  HA  It's just what we do isn't it!

Holidays - Christmas and Valentines Day

Yep, I've put up the Christmas tree already!  Actually, it took me three days...one day to gather all the decorations and move into the family room; another day to put together the artificial tree and the last day to decorate the tree!  And here is it!  All done!

I wanted something different this year from the traditional tree I usually put up.  The kids will be here Thanksgiving weekend and I always like to have a Christmas atmosphere for them since we don't get to see them at Christmas.

I've also continued to make headway on my Valentine fiber card!  Woo hoo!  This shows the 40+ cards all trimmed.

Next up I printed out the address labels onto the iron on interfacing!

Here the labels are cut since I only get two labels per 8 1/2" x 11" sheet.  











And now I have a production line started up!  I need to iron on the label(s) then add decorative stitching on each edge.  This is a production for sure!  I usually either listen to my book on tape/Ipod or watch some shows I have Tivo'd!

I will be nice in January  to not have the card making hanging over my head when we get to Florida.  I'm hoping they'll all be finished and just waiting for the stamps!  Who  knows...I may even buy the stamps and put those on as well!  Then all I have to do is mail around the 1st of February!  Sounds like a plan to me!

Fiber Post Cards

Last Valentine's I said I was taking a year off in 2017 from making any fiber Valentine's.  Guess who decided to start working on them!!!  I know...it's not even Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas yet but I really need to start them early...I'm up to at least 35 at last count and will most likely add more!  I can't show what I'm creating this year but this is a sneak peak! 







I also needed to prepare some Sulky Totally Stable, which I use for printing the labels onto.  I had a roll of TS which I cut into 27-28" sections.   I colored each sheet using  Derwent's Inktense blocks.  

First off, you have to remember to color the fuzzy side!    TS is an iron on stabilizer so you don't want to color the smooth/shiny side!  I've done that on more than one occasion! 

I use the side of the block and rub lengthwise on the entire sheet. 

Next, you  brush on water (I use a foam brush) to color the entire piece.  The top part in this picture is covered with the Inktense block and the bottom has water brushed on.  The blocks blend quite nice with the water.  I've also used chalk pastels in the past, which also work well.  

Here is the piece ready to dry!

After the pieces dried, I cut them into sheets of 8 1/2" x 11" for printing labels onto.  I'll need to get another roll of TS because I can only print two labels per sheet. It is cheaper to purchase a roll vs buying the 8 1/2" x 11 sheets.  






So that part is finished!  While watching football this weekend, I'll update my Word document from last year that I use to create my labels in.  I'll have to add and correct some addresses!  I have a long way to go before I need the labels but it's nice to know I'm ahead of the game.  

I also made another snap bag today...not sure what I'll use it for but it will be used! 

Still working on my hand embroidery project so I really am keeping busy.  Since our weather has turned cooler (breezy and only 50 today with no sun!) I'll be staying inside doing hand work!  Bob wants to move the patio set into the garage this weekend...boo hoo...guess summer is over in Michigan!  


This is what fall looks like this year!  It's not a tree in our yard (they're all still green!) but dogs and I get to look at it on our walks!  We can't complain because the summer was beautiful this year and even the fall up until this week was wonderful!