Under the Sea

 I finished this cute little star fish this week. This is part of the monthly challenge for my FiberWorks group and I am ahead of myself.  I have to get to work on my big piece for the show in October. You'll see it when it's finished.

We usually see the bleached skeletons of starfish and they are white. So I went online to see what color they are when alive. They come in brilliant colors, including orange and that's I elected to do. The embroidery was done on orange felt with yellow embroidery, then used a buttonhole stitch to attach him to the linen page.

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go check it out.

One more fish

 This fish had its own challenges. I sewed the flat (as apposed to cupped) sequins in two different sizes to a felt cut-out fish. The fins and tail were fused on lame, which I have in a lot of colors. I machine stitched the accent lines on the head, tail and fins. Then I fused the whole thing onto the page. I had to use a pressing cloth to keep from melting the lame and sequins. I painted the backround with watercolors before I fused down the fish.

It was very hard to photograph. I toook a lot of pictures. In some the sequins were just a shiny blur. This shot shows the sequins, but not the shimmer.

My hernia surgery is well behind me and I feel great. BUT, I have been dealing with tendonitis of my Achilles tendon since January. Very painful! It used to hurt only when I walked but now it hurts all the time and much worse when walking. I went to a doctor in Florida and PT, another doctor in CT and more PT. Noothing was helping. 

So back to the doc yeaterday and as I suspected he put me in a boot. Up to the knee. Very awkward and uncomfortable, but hopefully it will get me better.  You cannot get a cortisone shot in the tendon because it may shred it. There are blood platelet shots, but they are controversial, are very painful, don't always work, are very expensive and not covered by insurance. So for now the boot is my best solution.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Another fish

 I was hoping to get this fish done by last Friday, but life got in the way. I painted the body and fins with acrylic paint thinned with fabric medium. It made it a little harder to stitch thru, but I like the look. I think he's pretty cute. 

I have my next fish halfway done. I hope to get him up soon.

Monthly Challenge

 Here's one more fish. This was also done on one of my fish fabtics. The fish was nestled in a clump of coral. I have sooooo many sequins left from my big sequin ball project a couple of years ago and I thught this was the perfect place for some of them.

Unfortunately the little fish gets a bit hidden by the sequins. You really have to look for him but he's there.

I thought I would get a lot of hand sewing done this past week while recovering from my hernia surgery. I even made up a couple of packets with all the necessary floss and/or beads. but  just didn't feel like sewing. I did do a lot of reading. I started and finished Fredrik Backman's My Friends and loved it. It was sometimes sad, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and always quirky. He is the author of The Man Callled Ove, which I loved, book and movie.  I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all.

My recovery was much better than I expected. One week later I am almost back to my old self. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

I'm still here

Once again I am prompted or shamed into doing a blog by my high school girlfriend, Judy. As I told her, it's so easy to get out of the habit  and discipline of blogging. WhenI first started many years ago, I would blog two of three times a week, then once a week, and now once in an eon. I will try to do better.

My weekly fiber group has a monthly chalenge going on. The theme this year is Life Forms, giving us a lot of leeway. I chose to do Under the Sea. I am making a little linen book with the pages being about 6 inches square. I'm trying to do a different technique each month. Here's what I have so far.

 

I saw this cute octopus on a mug in a catalog. I altered it a bit to fit my page. With all the ruffles and dots, I think she is a female. I did French knots, chain stitch, stem stitch and lazy daisies.

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Several years ago I thought Iwanted to make a fish quilt and bought a bunch of different fish printed fabrics. This being one of them. I just fussy cut the fish and embroidered over some of it. I never did make the quilt, but I have used those fabtics for other things.

These sea horses were done with just a few stitches, lazy daisy, outline stitch and chain. Seahorses do come in many colors, including the ones shown here.

The turtle was made with anther one of my fish fabrics. This one also had turtles. I used buttonhole stitch, French knots, outline and running stitch.

I am having hernia surgery tomorrow and will be out of commission for a week or two, so I made a couple of kits to do while I am recuperating. Two more fish, using different tecniques. 

Please come back and see what I've accomplished. I'll aim for next Friday.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday

Thanksgiving

 A lovely day at my neice's, again.  Everything was delicious, but I think my favorite this year were the mashed sweet potatoes with candied pecans. Yum! I am going to make them for my party. That's not to say that I didn't love the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, and pies (pumpkin and pecan).

She always has a signature drink and this year it was a chocolate martini with this cute ginger bread man perched on the rim. She got them at Trader Joe's and they had a big notch on the bottom, meant to sit on hot chocolate mugs, but equally good on a martini glass. I am going to borrow this idea, too. I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home.

Her daughter always make a charcuterie platter. So attractive and full of delicious goodies. I ate too much, as usual.

Lovely tablescape, different every year.

She found these large pinecone candles at Aldi's. Faux light, of course, but they even glowed inside, making them look so very real.

Another perfect Thanksgiving and now the rush to Christmas! I started my decorating today. So much still left to do. It's a lot of work,  but I do love the results. I hope to finish this week.

Toward 2025

 I am participating in a project, Toward 2050.  There will be a massive labyrinth at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. You can read all about it here. We are making banners similar to prayer flags. I made two of them a couple of months ago and Ann Morton, the designer, sent out a call that they are still 900 short of completing this huge job. The deadline has been moved to Dec. 31. If you are interested you can sign up on the website.

They are to be environmentally themed banners. The last two that I made  a while ago were flowers and cacti. This time I chose fish, mainly becasue I had a huge stash of fish fabric. The flags are two sided so I had to make 10 panels for my five flags. 

I chose to fuse the fish down and then button hole stitch around each one with variegated threads. I also printed out SAVE OUR OCEANS on some of them. On some of them I used an ombre blue fabric from my stash  and others my hand dyed shibori fabic in aqua. 

These last two were part of Round Robin a few years ago. I made the shibori fabric and the next person handpainted the fish. I had to piece the other side of the panel.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Please pop over and see what everyone's doing.

The Zoo Quilt

I started this baby quilt abut 20 years ago. I made all of the blocks and cut out all the sashing and then I never finished it. It was rather complicated piecing and I thought it would only be for future grandchildren. No grandchildren, so they were put away. Every once in awhile I would see them on the shelf and think how cute they were. My sister was over one day and I showed them to her and she convinced me to finish it.

The quilt was from Margaret Rolfe's book, Patchwork Quilts for Children. You made a grid, then drew the pattern on the grid, cut them apart and drew them on your fabric. The piecing directions were very good and I follwed them carefully. I am pleased with the results and now I am putting it together.

I am now in the process of free motion  quilting it. The quilt will measure about 46 x 68, a little big to FM quilt on my standard machine. So I picked out the stitching down the middle length of the quilt top, making two long narrow panels that are relatively easy to quilt. I will then sew the two quilted panels together. I have done this before many times with great success. 

I will show you the whole thing when it is finished. Now here are the cute zoo animals and the alternating pieced block.

Alternate block. I like the yellow for its cheerfulness and also making it gender neutral.

I have decided to donate it next year to the Festival of Trees, where all profits go to Ann's Place, which gives care and comfort to cancer patients and their families.

Please hop over to Off the Wall Friday and see what other talented people are doing. 

 

 

More alcohol inks

 I'm still in love with these inks and I did something entirely different this week. I watchd a video (down the rabbit hole again) by Debra Lyn Rosenbach on a very loose way of painting with the inks. Best to watch the video, but I will try to explain a little. 

This method uses way less alcohol and the inks get moved around with a paint brush dipped in Isopropyl alcohol. No hair dryer, compressor gun or any blowing at all. When you apply the alcohol dipped brush onto a blob of the inks, you can get many different looks. I was aiming for flowers, as was the video.

I watched the video all the way thru, a little over an hour and then I went back and tried to work along with her. She is a professional watercolor artist and many of the metholds are the same. What I like about this method is that you can fix your mistakes, by adding more alcohol and moving the colors around OR you can totally erase a mistake. When  finished I noticed that all of my flowers were round with centers in the middle and so I made another, without lookng at the video, but still aiming for flowers in a vase.

So here is my second attempt. I REALLY  like working this way and will definitely make more. These two were done on the reverse side of photo paper, 8 1/2 by 11. I want to try working on stretched canvas, which can be done if you thoroughly seal the canvas to make it impenetrable. I will use KillZ 2, as suggested by other artists. This way the inks will sit on top of the canvas and not sink in.

I tried for more flowers that were not round, maybe hyacinths or hydrangeas or lilacs. The fun and unpredictable part of this method is that the ink moves as you brush on it and then moves some more as the alcohol and inks move around and dry. What you may have thought was perfect, may look very different in minutes. BUT you can always go back and try again.

As many videos have told me, there are fumes and you should wear a mask, preferably a respirator mask. Oh, joy here goes another big expense, but much to my delight and surprise they are very affordable. Mine was only $17 and they were all around that price, unless you went for a heavy duty professional one. I think mine will be just fine. It arrived today and I haven't used it yet. I hope my Amazon delivery guy doesn't think I am up to nefarious deeds!

In case you are wondering where the Norma has gone who made art quilts and baby quilts and charity quilts or the Norma who makes all kinds of greeting cards. Well, she is still here. I will be working on an intricate baby quilt started many years ago. I just came across it a few days ago and my sister convinced me to finish it, so I will show that soon.

As for cards, I will always be making them and some of my smaller ink projects will turn into cards.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday, so please check that out and see what some very talented people are doing.

New Obsession

Alcohol inks! In case you don't know what they are.....they are inks or paints with an alcohol base. Unlike oil paints or watercolor paints. These inks are thinned and use with Isopropyl alcohol, at least 91% alcohol. There are many, many videos on Youtube, so if you like what you see, go check them out and maybe you'll be hooked, like me.

You need alcohol inks, of course, which you can buy at Michaels or Amazon or any art or craft store. You also need a special paper, such as Yupo (expensive) or the wrong side of glossy photo paper. You will need the alcohol mentioned above to push your inks around.

You also need an air source to push the inks around on your paper, such as a straw, canned air, a bulb puffer, a hair dryer or an air compressor (my favorite)

I will not go into detail, but if you are interested, just go to Youtube and search for alcohol ink techniques or painting and you will get enough to keep you very busy.

Now to show you just a few of what I have done. The first several were done by using a hairdryer (preferably one with a brush that you can remove). Mine is a Revlon, which many demonstrators use.

It is quite unpredictable and often surprising, sometimes frustrating, but always fun.

These next flowers were made using an air compressor to push the inks around. There are many tutorials on making flowers. I really want to make more of these. Many got thrown away, yet  some can be fixed if you goof up by using a tissue and alcohol to take away your mistakes. Sometimes!

 

These were all done on 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 paper, perfect to use on my cards,

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.