Bud Vases and Paper Dolls!

Last week my bud, Carol, and I met in downtown Holly, Michigan.  Holly is (or was!) a small town where I lived  (BB - Before Bob! ha) and  both my kids graduated from Holly high school.  The town sure has grown!  Wow!  Parking in the street was packed at 10:30 a.m.!  Who knew! How's this mural on the side of a building!  Pretty cool!

 Anyway, Carol was looking for bubble  bud vases as a Christmas gift for her sister and Holly is known for Battle Alley and their antique stores.  So....off we went hunting for bubble vases!  I didn't know what they were either but we did find two of  them.  Actually, she found a third but it was eight inches tall so Carol passed on purchasing that one.  Hers are around six inches.

Carol and her hubby went out the next day and she found some more!   How's that for luck!  I think they are quite pretty and how the light hits them really enhances their beauty.

So, as we were walking around the Battle Alley antique mall, I spotted this picture of a former actress.  Do you recognize her??  This was actually a package of paper dolls....original price was over $20 for the package but marked down to $3.  Yes, I had to buy it! 

Do you know who she is?

Does she look familiar? 

I recognized her but could remember her name...

The paper these dolls are on is so thin!!!  

The owner and other lady, in addition to Carol and I, tried to remember who she was!

Finally!  I remembered!  She's Ann Southern!  Some of you 'babies' won't know who Ann Southern was.  She lived to be in her 90's and had her own TV show for awhile too.  I do remember her being so beautiful and had such a great smile!  Since I'm so fond of the old movies and actors I'm glad to have this package!   I'm sure when I'm gone my kids will wonder "what the heck was mum doing with paper dolls?"  Until that time, I will take good care of these paper dolls! 

Dye Dog Progress

Bob watches either baseball or his What on Earth series at night (if we don't have a show taped) or some other Missing show....when he does,  that gives me time to sew at night.   I can watch my movies/series  on my tablet and stitch!  Works for me!

I'm happy with the progress on my dye dog, even though it is slow going.  Now to decide how to finish the borders...I'm thinking I will just free motion some design vs hand stitching.  But who knows....

You can see the border on the right side...it actually is on all four sides.  Maybe I will get really bored and decide to add some hand stitching following the design in the fabric!  OH, NO!!!  Think I have enough hand work!!!  But.....you never know!

Blogger fixed?

So this is the latest note from correcting the Blogger update issue with blog owners not receiving emails.  I'm testing and hope it works!!!    I actually deleted and then re-added my email and I did receive an invite (which you need to click on the 'subscribe' button).  Make sure you hit 'save' on top when you delete and re add your email.  This is the note that was on the blogger forum:

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience. I'm happy to inform you all that the email notifications for comments capability is now functioning with some additional improvements:

What's changed:

When an email address is added in the Comment moderation (Settings > Posts, comments and sharing > Comment moderation), Comment Notification Emails (Settings > Email > Comment Notification Email), or Email posts to (Settings > Email > Email posts to) fields, notifications are not necessarily enabled as they were before. Instead, if an email address is added to these fields, an email is sent inviting the email owner to either accept or decline the subscription. If the owner accepts, they will receive email notifications on new posts/comments. If the owner declines, the email address will be immediately removed from the field in their Settings.

Please note that when you enter an email alias that includes multiple members (for example: myclub@googlegroups.com), all members of the group will receive the invitation to either accept or decline the subscription.

When email notifications are sent, an unsubscribe link will also be available at the bottom of the email, should the recipient(s) wish to opt-out. Therefore, if any member of a group alias clicks the 'Unsubscribe' link, the entire group alias will be unsubscribed.

Thank you again for your patience as we worked on these improvements!

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

Kelly, Blogger Community Manager

String art progress...sorta

First up, Blogger still hasn't fixed the issue of us receiving comments from folks!  Please don't stop leaving comments...I will try to send emails to those of you that I have your contact info....

I mentioned in my last post the 'assistance' I received at our fiber art meeting last Monday.  Well, here is another project they gave some input on!

I showed my buds two background pieces I quilted to audition the string art strips on.  They really liked the orange background......

Then I laid out one of my deconstructed screen prints that I quilted and auditioned the string art for their input.  Well, the keen eyes of my buds saw a fish in the background.  You can see his eye 1/3 of the way from the top/left, between the two strips! 

  See the fish now!  It really does look like a fish and he already has an eye!

 So that took off on a discussion that I need to make this an under water piece!  Add stitching to enhance the fish and find some more!  The fish is just where I did some free motion quilting...leave it to my buds!   So guess I'll work on pursuing this new path for the string art!  Who knew they would mimic seaweed!  Blue seaweed at that!  HA

Miscellaneous Stuff!

We had our fiber art group meeting this past Monday and I got feedback on a  few projects I'm working on, which is always a good thing.  This is my 'dye dog piece' that I'm adding hand stitching. 

All the circles are stitched as well as the circles in the square centers, 

Just doing straight lines to fill in areas.

I decided to add some embroidery in the shashing but wasn't sure I liked it.

 So I received some input from my buds!  They suggested the embroidery looked good...perhaps adding different colors of threads (e.g. maroon) vs all green would work or/and adding some opposite color (maroon again!) in between the stitching.  I really liked that idea.

So, I looked into my Perle cotton thread box and decided I didn't like the green shade above and found one a tad darker.  The yarn on the far right is what I used in pic above.  I'm now using the green on the left as well as the brown Perle cotton (both #5).

And off I went with the stitching! 

I think it's working and I'm liking where this is going now!  So great to get wonderful input from your talented friends! 

Amber house graduation party

This past weekend was Amber's graduation party.  As it turned out the weather was not her friend but it still turned out to be a great celebration for her.  The kids even hung up the Tshirt quilt I made!  How sweet!!!

The kids outdid themselves by all of the decorations, food and landscape.  Although folks didn't get to see the beautiful lawn/plants/pool/patio area the kids worked so hard on.  Kris always out does herself with the decorations and setup.   One lady said she "loved all the Pinterest"!

Kris' mom made dozens, and I mean dozens!, of cookies!!!  They were delicious too!

The tent over the tables worked out great!!!  Lots of room for all the folks who attended!

This was before they had all the food setup, which covered two tables!!!  Kids had their garage floor repainted and it was beautiful!  It had stones/texture added on top!  Just beautiful!  And they even repainted the entire garage!  

This is Kris' BIL who was playing Suspend!  What a hoot....so many folks played.  Kris bought another game in addition to the one I had purchased for the family.

Kris' nephew who actually won!!!  

So another milestone has been made....next will be Amber leaving for college the end of August!  Now that will be a sad time!

A Dooleybobber???

Look what I received from a Blog Friend, Jan Brattain from Laughing Dog Arts! 

It's called a Dooleybobber!  And it measures about 2.5" x 3.5"...you have to look closely at all the little items she included in the piece!!!  What is a Dooleybobber??  Here is Jan's definition taken from her blog back in 2014: 

"Some people have asked me what a dooleybobber is.  That is the name I came up with to call this series I continue to work on.  A sort of generic term for a nameless thingamajig.  I believe it is unique to me because when I Google Dooleybobber, my work is the only thing that comes up.  Google tries to tell me I want Doodlebobbers but no, if you make it find Dooleybobbers, that is all mine!!!  Maybe I should patent it."  

I've followed Jan's blog for quite sometime.  She always has such interesting posts on her art work and her life.  The property Jan lives on looks beautiful and so peaceful, which makes it so enjoyable  going on 'walks with her' when she posts about her surroundings.  Do check out her blog. 

In return, I made a humbug bag and sent to Jan this week. 

 It's so much fun meeting and acquiring new friends via blogs!  It's just a shame that right now Blogger has made so many changes to it's format we're having difficulty receiving comments and replying to them!!!  In the meantime, Thank You again, Jan for my Dooleybobber!!!

What to do with all the string art fabric??

Well, now that I have lots of string art fabric, its time to do something with it!  Last weekend I pulled out some screen printed fabric(s) and older hand dyes, as well as commercial fabrics.  Let the auditions begin!  I really liked the black/white commercial fabric with this particular string art piece.  Then I added a screen printed piece as a border on the left side.

This was a blue printed fabric I just laid the string art piece on top of.  Not bad...

Then I got thinking that I should cut strips of the string art and add sashing or borders  between them.

 Then I had a brain storm to cut out the string art design(s)!  Best that I fused the back of the fabric before I cut out the design.   Good thinking, right!

So back to auditioning fabric to lay my string art on!   This was a screen print I did a few weeks ago.

Not bad...kinda like it!

Then I decided to look for fabric more on the dark gold or orange side.  And what did I find!  A setacolor print I did a long time ago!  I took a class with Mickey Lawler on sun prints at QSDS and made two orange and two green prints.

I used the green sun prints of the leaf in this piece for an exhibit back in 2009.   I did a re post of how I made the piece in 2015.  You can see more detail here.

And I found the last burnt orange piece!  I can't remember what I made but I know I've used the other leaf!  Anyway, here is the last leaf...it measures 15" x 20"

And I really like the blue string art on top!  So I've sandwiched the leaf and started to quilt it..just doing echo free motion around the leaves.   Orientation won't be what you see in this picture.  I just wanted to see if I liked the blue with the orange...and I do...I think!  Guess we'll see...but it's a start!

A superstition involving lemons!

Have to share this post from last week on Carole's blog!  This is a hoot!!!  Who knew!  Check out Carole's blog...always good for food recipes, books and the occasional chuckle! 

Foodie Friday – A strange superstition involving lemons

So if you are single and want to know whether you will marry or not, just pop the peel of a lemon into your armpit and keep it there for a whole day! Then when going to bed you rub the peel on the four corners of the bed.  You should dream about your future partner – or if you don't, you're staying single.  Seems like a lot of work!  And how do you keep the peel in place anyway?

When I was looking for a pic, I discovered that if you do this, the skin under your arms will get whiter…

Screen Printing Results

Here are before and after pics from my deconstructed screen printing this past weekend.  I'm quite happy with the results...now to work some or all of these into an art quilt!

before printing

after printing

Before

after

before

after

after closeup

before

After

closeup

before

After



I don't have a before of this piece...but it turned out pretty cool too!