Beading Progress and Discharge Paste

Busy week just playing..shopping...eating! But I have been beading at night...and on Sunday I beaded for over 6 hours while watching both football games (break for dinner) but I ended up ripping out more beads than I sewed in my piece.

Here's one of my hearts I'm beading for the BJP2010. This is one of my zentangle hearts I drew back in the fall. It's printed on fabric and my beading is trying to follow my lines. Actually, that's the easy part. The hard part is trying to decide which color bead I want to use!

This is one of the small hearts that I filled in with size 15's! I'll be outlining each heart as well.

This is my 3rd heart zentangle that I filled in with bugles, size 6's, 11's and 15's.

So on to my next project or playtime!

One of my purchases on Monday at the Fabric Art Shop was the discharge paste from Jacquard. So I decided to play on Tues. with discharging some fabric I had dyed and a piece of black that I purchased at the Fabric Art Shop.

This was a batik piece that I used Tim Holtz stencils on.

This is the same piece after the discharge paste was dried, ironed and fabric washed. You can't see the stencil patterns but I do like the way it discharged.

This is a hand dyed piece that I stamped with the discharge paste using a ginkgo stamp. It's hard to see the stamped areas but you can see the stamp I used.

And here is the piece after washing. Actually, the picture turned out better than the fabric really is! The ginkgo leaves aren't as recognizable on the fabric but look really cool in the picture. Go figure! For once, a picture I took turned out better than the real thing!

This is another hand dyed piece of shibori I did this past summer. The edges and middle were stamped with some rubber pieces I had.Here's the piece after being washed. Turned out pretty good actually. It was one of my shibori pieces that I didn't really like. The center designs were made by me hand stitching in shibori style. I think I didn't care for it because of the color of the fabric and not that much contrast with the white stitching.
I think this piece turned out pretty good and I just might use it now.

This was stamped with rubber pieces.

I have a few more pieces but blogger isn't cooperating with me right now or else I'm just not able to move the pics around. I'll post a few more pics in my next blog.

Weather has broken here in Florida and we've had some great days of warm weather! The mornings are cold..39 @ 8:30 this a.m. and colder earlier in the morning. Frost warnings were out for the past few days..but the temps warm up 30 to 40 degrees within hours which is why Florida is the sunny state for sure!

Fabric Art Shop

Today I hit an art quilter's overload! Susan, Verna and I drove to Lake City to visit the Fabric Art Shop. This is the best art/quilt shop I've ever been to..actually I've NEVER been to a real art quilt shop! It was like going to the online Joggles.com store in person!! Yes, this lady was waiting for the 'restroom'! Is this the most artsy rest room door you've ever seen! They told us women come from all over just to use this room!

Here's what the inside of the rest room looks like (oops..someone forgot to put the seat down! I didn't do it!). The outside of the building is also purple.

Here are a few shots of the inside and the stock the shop has! On our next visit I'm going to take some video pictures just so you can have a real tour to appreciate all they carry for the art quilter.

This is a section of Jacquard products! The back side contained an entire section of DynaFlow silk paints! There had to have been at least 8-10 trays full of different DynaFlow paints! They also had Oplalite stamp pads and other stamping supplies, brushes..you name it and it's sold here! I finally asked what they "don't" sell!

This was some of the Shiva paintstiks, stencils and stamps they have. This wall is taller than I am!

Just some of the embellishments, fabric, ribbons, etc. Keep in mind this is just one small section.

Check out the supply of Tsukineko inks they have! My friend, Karen, in Michigan would have a field day with all these paints!

If you look at the back area, you will see four full of notions. There's also another wall behind the last wall which contains MORE notions!

This was another small area that contained threads. They have Sulky, Superior, Maderia, Bottom Line..I'm not listing them all. You can check out what they carry here. Again I'm not sure what they don't carry but they sure have everything I have used and will use in the future!

I have to say the Fabric Art Shop is definitely the place to spend the morning, go have lunch and then come back to shop. I had art quilt overload when we first arrived! I'm now keeping a list of supplies I need/want as we ladies are going to go back for another field trip before we head back to Michigan. I'm sure some of my friends back home may also place an order with me to shop for them!

If you are in the area of Ocala, Lake City, Gainesville or wherever! The Fabric Art Shop should be a stop you plan for! If you can't get there by car, then do stop by their web site and just browse! I guarantee you will be on the computer for quite sometime just browsing.

Red Rock Threads really rock!

I've been wanting to try Aurifil threads for quite sometime now but I haven't had much luck finding the 28 wt. When Carol and I took a class this past fall in Ann Arbor, I called a quilt shop there who sold Aurifil but not the 28 wt. No shop in our area back home sell 28wt either. So I was reading Dijanne's blog the other day and saw some of the threads she purchased in the 28wt and decided I'd search online. I hit upon a great thread site 3 days ago (keep 3 days in mind) and placed an order..and look above as to what I received in the mail today! In 3 days from Nevada! I'm totally impressed with Red Rock Threads web site! Plus, they have a flat rate of $4 for shipping! I'll definitely be looking to this site for other threads and sewing items! Thanks for the quick service, Red Rock Threads...you do rock!

Earlier today I made a stop at Ocala's best bead shop, The Bead Strand, and of course had to come home with some new beads for my February BJP project. Here are my purchases for today. It's such a beautiful day out today I'm taking my new 'finds' and beading!

Yesterday Carol came over (after we made a run to Panera's for a quick sandwich and coffee!) and we played with stamping and embossing. Actually, we did make a stop at Michael's and I picked up two new stamps.

This is the piece Carol played with embossing. The circles are one of the new stamps I picked up and the funky girl in the middle with wings and a button belly is the other stamp I bought. Carol had a really cool embossing powder which was more on the silver side. Really nice. A little hard to see but the art nouveau type stamp above the head of our funky lady was stamped with Opalite Archival stamp in Winter Rust. We also stamped with Glacier Blue but it didn't show up as well.

I took one of my zentangle hearts and played with some embossing...I didn't bring all my embossing powders so I had to go with four metallic type powders I had together. Not the best color but fun to play with. This heart is one that I printed on to my February BJP that I'm now beading.

Carol started to play with her new embossing tool she bought that makes flowers. check out her flower she cut and shaded with some watercolor pencils and chalk pastels. The circle pieces are some shrinky dink that we played with too.

All in all we had a fun afternoon playing with some of Carol's tools and mine. Play days like this are a great inspiration! Go find a friend and play!

Last project for a few days....

Yep..won't be doing any sewing with my machine for the next week to 10 days...had to take my machine in to get it's cleaning. I've put this off long enough and finally bit the bullet and took the machine in. My 1090 Bernina is and has been a great machine and I do clean it frequently but there are areas that I just can't get at. Hence, time to spend the $$'s to get a professional cleaning.

But before I took it in I have been busy doing some machine work. I wanted to make a book and found a cool one from Lesley Riley's latest book, Fabulous Fabric Art with Lutradur, which I bought last summer. It really has some good tips and she had a project using lutradur to make a small booklet. I wanted to use fabrics rather than lutradur so I just replaced the it with fabric and used a fusible interface to back the fabric just to give it some body

First, I took a piece of the interfacing, approximately 10"x 22" and marked the middle by folding top to bottom and then the sides to the middle and marked that as well. Then I just placed pieces of fabric squares on top of the fusible interfacing and then quilted each block.

The top left square is actually the cover and the one directly to the right is the back cover. Make sense...probably not....you cut a two square length in the middle of the piece then it folds in towards itself and makes a book. It's pretty slick and was fun to make.

This is the 2nd and 3rd pages after I did the folding. I added some binding on the sides and just filled in the pages with sayings. I'll post final pics later. Yep, that's one of my zentangle hearts I made this past fall. I just colored it in with markers.

Tomorrow, Carol is coming over and we're going to play with embossing powder, stamping and sticky back canvas. Should be fun just playing! Sat. I'm going to the bead shop and I can't wait. I do need some more beads for my February BJP project. Rain this afternoon but temp was in the mid to high 70's! Bob and I did some shopping and to the GM dealership to get our Saturn Outlook rear hatch fixed..which they did in less than 10 minutes! Talk about great service!

Birthday's and Beading

Another BD celebration...it was Harvey's '16th' BD, you have to read my blog post here about 'grandparents BD age'. The Ziel's invited 14 of us to join them for dinner out...which was a unique experience in itself. Dinner was at Ipanema a Brazilian restaurant here in Ocala. Our friends Carol & Tony have mentioned Ipanema's to us before but we thought it wasn't a restaurant that we wanted to try.
First, I'm not into eating meat other than chicken and Bob eats too much when it's offered to him, hence, I get blamed for him feeling bad afterwards, :)! At this restaurant, after you've eaten from their salad bar (which has over 50 items on it!), the servers come to your table with meat on skewers (sirloin, lamb, chicken, etc.) and slice it right on your plate. For meat eaters, this is your best choice in a restaurant and for non meat eaters your choices are endless. Bob and I both just got the salad bar which was MORE then enough. The food was of the highest quality and delicious but as expected we ate way too much...hence, our reason to stay away from any type of buffet eating! We just can't stop ourselves!!


Here' is the BD man!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARVEY!!
After dinner, the Ziel's invited everyone back to their house for home made carrot cake. The cake was made by Verna and it was fantastic! I forgot my camera at dinner so we stopped on the way to pick it up..hence, we were a little late and I didn't get a picture of Harvey trying to blow out the candles. So here's a picture of the Birthday Cake for 'HA...'

Here are some of the ladies around waiting our turn for the cake and coffee.

Some of the gang enjoying cake and friends. As always, we enjoy the time with our friends here in Florida and last night was no exception. A great group of folks and always fun to be around. Thanks Susan & Harvey for inviting us to share in your BD!!! It was a great night!!!

and here's one of our favorite 'landlords'! Larry is always stylish!

Now on to some artwork. I really didn't want to do a typical 'heart' for my BJP February project but I did end up doing just that! Although, I do have another idea and I just might end up doing that instead....but...in case I don't here's what I started for my February BJP.

For those who read my blog, you might recognize my zentangle designs I did back in the fall. I took a picture of them and then printed on a piece of my hand dyed fabric. To keep with my 8 1/2" x 11" size, I added some pink cotton velvet hand dyed fabric just to accommodate shrinkage, most of which will be cut off.

Here's the quilting I did yesterday and some of the beading I started in one of the zentangle hearts.

Here's a closeup of the beading. This is a rope pattern which I love doing. I just might have to make a stop at my favorite bead shop this week, The Bead Strand. This bead shop is the best and their inventory is like walking into a pastry store! You just want to try every bead they have! This Saturday Nestor Garcia will be having a Cabochon Trunk Show which I'm going to attend. I've never worked with cabochons but would like to see them close up in some bead work.

Temp is 44 and we're suppose to get up to 69 today and 70's the rest of the week, with some rain possible by Thursday or Friday. But right now I need to get on Larry's treadmill and work off some of last nights dinner!!

BD time!

I did get one small piece of art work done..this is a fiber post card I made for a friends BD. I'm going to start quilting my 'puzzle' piece as soon as I'm dong blogging!
Now...it's time to talk about my BD!! yep...63! Hard to believe. Amber and I were talking about how old I was and I said 63 and that's really old. Then I suggested to Amber that we add the '6' and '3' together and that's how old grandma is! Nine! Amber, the studious child she is, said "that's not right, grandma, because I'm 10 and you can't be '9'". I then said that '6' and '3' ('9') is in grandma years! That worked for her and she laughed quite a bit about that.
The kids (Darrin, Kris, Amber & Nick) sent me this jogging outfit for my BD along with some great cards. I told Kris (my DIL) that I was wearing the pants to the jogging outfit they got me for Christmas every morning! Now I have two of these outfits..one in white/black and this one! I love them!!! And Dawn sent me some 'diet' food! This is the food you eat then you diet!! Edible Arrangements has the best food!! You can see I did eat one of the chocolate covered orange slices as soon as i opened the box!

It was so good!!! This is another box that arrived! Check these out!!! They look delicious but I'm going to be good and only eat one a day! yea, right!

Last night our friends joined us for my BD dinner at Carrabba's. Carol & Tony built their house here in Ocala Palms about 6 or 7 years ago. They are the reason we came to Florida for a '10 day visit' that turned into a 3 month yearly event!

Each year since we've rented in Ocala, Carol and Tony have joined us for my BD dinner. Sammy and Peggy joined in our BD ritiual about 3 or 4 years ago..it's so nice to share my BD with our friends! And I just love Carrabba's!!

I made a BD cake yesterday so when we got back from the restaurant we'd have a dessert. I've been wanting to make this cake for quite sometime.

The recipe is actually for cupcakes but Bob isn't fond of tearing off the wrapper on cupcakes so I thought I'd try to make the same recipe in a cake - and it turned out!!!
This was the cake after we ate our dessert! The filling is similar to a cheese cake texture and is really rich. I made cream cheese frosting which really added to the richness and calories! No Starbucks for me this week!

And here's Carol..Mandy's favorite friend! Carol always feeds Mandy a treat so she gets so excited whenever Carol comes over! She had already eaten two dog biscuits...just waiting to see if Carol had anymore for her!!

This is Tony, Carol's hubby...Mandy figured if he's with Carol then he must have treats too!

Yep, Mandy made the rounds trying to see if anyone else had biscuits! This is Sammy and Peggy who we just adore. They are the best! Sammy does woodworking and makes some beautiful bird sculptures. Peggy does watercolor paintings and has her first commission! How cool is that!

All in all we had such a nice evening. Bob and I are so fortunate to have so many wonderful friends in our lives. Thank you one and all!!

3 Creative Studio Challenge 2010

After a migraine yesterday and no art work, it felt good to be back at it today! I started working on the 3 Creative Studio Challenge (click on their pic on sidebar). This is a challenge that has a different theme every two months. The theme we are creating a quilt for now is 'puzzle'. The unveiling of the quilts isn't until the end of February so I can't show my piece until then. I can clip pics and show as I progress so here's a cheater pic of what I'm working on. I'm afraid I don't get very 'deep' in my statements for my art work so 'puzzle' is the theme and guess what I'm doing! I just liked the colors for this piece and I can do either a lot of hand work or machine work. I think it will be fun to do! The picture looks bland but it won't be....

A hole in one!!

My hubby got his 3rd 'hole in one' yesterday! How cool is that! I think it's like winning a blue ribbon or view's choice or something close to that in my world!

This is my 'hole in one'! It's a quilt I made a year or so ago...I pasted the pic from my Flickr page so not sure is will show up very well or if it enlarges when you click on it but you'll get idea.

This is a closeup of the 'hole'. I cut out a smaller circle from another scrap piece and I beaded around the edges then used beads to hang the circle in the hole. This is a quilters hole in one!

I had a comment in my last post on journal quilts from Anne (you have to check out her blog daily! She's not only a wonderful artist but a hoot to boot!). This was Anne's comment to my post:

"Journal quilts are a great size to float on a dark background in a simple frame. They are, in and of themselves, pieces of art.If you have some you really love, consider having them floated. A framer can do it, or with good black foamcore and the right size frame, you can do it yourself.Or have a framer make one frame, then baste them to separate pieces of foamcore and change them out occasionally!They are too nice to hide away.... :)XXOO!!Anne "

What a great idea!! Think I just might give this a try when I get home! Right now I do look at my journal books throughout the year(s) but I just might pick some of my favorites and 'float' them. Thanks again for the suggestion, Anne!!

Stuff

First...look at the great fiber card my friend, Carol T. sent me for my upcoming BD! Pretty nice isn't it! It reminds me of Laura Wasilowski's work! Thanks, Carol, this was a nice surprise!!

I also received my copy of 'Alpha Tangle' by Sandy Bartholomew. This is 4" neat little book that Sandy has created by incorporating 'zentangles' in alphabet letters. You can check out Sandy's blog post on her book here. She has some great patterns on her web site and is a good source of inspiration for zentangles!
On a whole other note....this past week or so I've been asked "what do you do with the journal quilts you make?". This really got me thinking about what do I do with them or why do I do them!

First off, I love doing the journal quilts primarily because of their size, 8 1/2" x 11". This is a great size to work with and therefore allows you to 'finish' a piece quickly. Sometimes, a new technique I'm trying looks good enough to finish!

Second, I'd sure hate to 'practice' on a large art quilt only to find out a technique just didn't work out as I expected. My journal quilts allow me the freedom to 'practice' or try a new technique and make something really cool and sometimes make something that isn't so cool! Journal quilts also allow my creative side to be pumped so I'll make some other creative work. At least I hope my work is creative at times.

I'd sum up my making journal size quilts as a medium for learning tools and techniques. For example, the piece below gave me some insight on making pleated fabric. This journal quilt ended up looking like tree bark!
It also gave me some insight and practice on making my Frankenthaler piece here. Another piece was my 'eye of the pony' I showed on a post here. Again it was a great way to practice stitching for my 'wolves for the MQAI 2009 exhibit. My post and pics are here. So in a nutshell what I do with my journal quilts is 'create'! Then I hide them in folders to inspire me throughout the years! Yes, I have all my monthly journal quilts in folders (from Staples) by year/theme. I have fun making my little pieces of art and teach myself a lot at the same time! For me, it just works...

18 degrees in Ocala this a.m. but up to 49 this afternoon! Sun was out and my friend and I actually had our coats off at times going in and out of the stores..yes, we did shop today! But it was fun as always! I love spending Carol's money!!