Fun new project

 One of the blogs I follow is Linda Heines. Last week she blogged about these cute little window cards. They were 5" square with a 3" opening and made of a very nice, heavy duty, slightly textured  paper. They come with a good quality envelope and would be suitable for framing in a 5" square. I knew that I would order some here. 

Then I remembered that I had made Christmas cards several years ago with window cards and embossed velvet snow flakes. I thought I had a few left. Yes, I did and there were 18 left! My cards were 5" x 7". I first thought that I would cut them down to 5" squares on my great paper cutter. Here is the first one I made.

I am using squares from a quilt I made and never finished, not sure why, but it gave me quite a few of these cute little succulents that had been color changed in Photoshop. I added the die cut border, but now I'm not sure if it needed it.

Then I went on to make a few using the the 5" x 7" cards, ging me more room for stamped sentiments. And of course, since these are cards, there is plenty of room inside for another stamped sentiment.

The backing for the quilt was a yummy hand-dyed look-alike of pretty pastels merging into each other and they looked good in the openings, too.

Lots more of those squares.

I went searching my studio to see what else I could use and in my big stash of shibori fabric I found these little stitched circles. They are not quilted, but that's okay.

This makes me want to do some more shibori

So thank you Linda, for inspiring me. My cards arrived yesterday (one day after ordering, gotta love Amazon) and I'm off to "play" some more.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

 

I'm still here

 A few years ago Arizona artist, Ann Morton, led the Violet Protest. It had a political theme in which we were challenged to make quilt squares of an equal amount of red and blue . You can read all about it here. I made five squares and absolutely loved making them. The Project was a huge success. 

Now Ann has a new project, TOWARD 2050, which is when we hope to be carbon free. Again, you can read about it here.

I sent in my request to make a flag and really enjoyed working on it. I chose to do hand embroidery which took me many an evening in front of the TV stitching. 

Here are my two sides. These will be hung in prayer flag style. The row of stitching you see along the top is where the rod will go.

When I was finished I wanted to do another with a much simpler and speedy technique. I chose to do fusing with machine stitched button hole stitch around the edges. These took no time at all.

I just couldn't resist using a cactus printed fabric for this one.

So please go check out the project, using the link above and see if this is something you might like to do. They are not due until December, so you have a lot of time. 

Be sure to check out Off the Wall Friday and see what some talented people are doing.

My N Wall

 As promised, I am showing you my N wall, which is one wall in the alcove with my two sewing machines. The opposite wall is pegboard with sewing supplies.

I thought that I would hang my hoop art N, but it looked better propped up on the shelf. I'm also showing some my collection of miniature dress forms. The rest are scattered throughout the rest of the room.

The photo is of my grand mother as a a sixteen year old apprentice seamstress. I don't remember how I acquired this photo, but I knew it belonged in my studio. My grandmother was petite and we lovingly called her "little Grandma". She was an incredible seamstress all her life.

Here are all of my "n's" and some of my  dress forms. The spools are in a vintage box that used to hold letters for printing. I have another one that holds some of my vintage thimble collection. There are a few thimbles in this one, too.

Come back next week and I will show you my latest sewing project.

More Hoop Art

 I am enjoying working on these embroidery letters This one is for my sister, Ruthie. I used the same color palette as my N and played around with flower placement and lots of French Knots. 

Back to CT next week, where I will have access to everything in my studio, including some nice linen. These were done on unbleached muslin, easy to stitch. 

I'm linking up to Off the Wall Friday. 

Hoop Art

 I really missed my daily stitching that I did last year and was trying to come up with something else to do. While perusing Pinterest I came across a lot of embroidered letters.  In my studio in CT I have one wall in my sewing alcove that has several Ns hanging, wooden, metal, cloth, etc. I looked all over (I thought) but I couldn't find any patterns and couldn't even find an N to copy. So I borrowed ideas from an R that I saw. I have since found a vast supply of patterns on Etsy and have downloaded some.

I went to Youtube to see how to finish the back of my hoop art and found several different ways . This one was pretty easy, using a piece of felt cut to the size of the inner hoop and attaching it with a buttonhole stitch.

I am currently working on an R for my sister, Ruth. I sure wish I had baby to gift because I thought it would  be a nice one, but no babies in my life for now.

BTW I am not sure if my N is upside down or not. What do you think?

Stuff

 I'm here in Florida. I wish I could say warm and sunny Florida, but it has been a cool and cloudy January that is continuing into February. Looking at the weather in the rest of the country, I guess I shouldn't complain. We have no extreme rain, no flooding, no bitter cold and no snow storms.

I celebrated my birthday here, twice! The first one on last Friday with a group of friends. We went to a fabulous museum exhibit at the Baker Museum in Naples. Then out to lunch, of course.

 Dinner at another great restaurant last night. My cup runneth over!

Here are some pictures from the exhibit. the artist is Tamara Kostianovsky, who makes her art from recycled clothing. I am hoping to try some of her techniques in a future piece.

Several pieces were free-standing , such as this and the next one.

Some pieces were hung on the wall.

This is a technique I hope to try when i am back in CT with all of my supples. This looks like cotton T-shirt material, cut into strips. I know that it will roll on itself when cut. The large stand-alone pieces used the same technique. I'm not sure what was underneath.

This whole section was called Abattoir. The artist lives in Argentina, known for its meat. When I was there several years ago I ate more meat than I had previously eaten in probably five years.

There were several of these life size carcasses, showing the inside and the outside. 

This was a decent led tour and our docent was amazing. 

That's it for now. I'll write again when I have something worthwhile.

Stitching

 I finished December just a little late and now my whole year is finished. I really enjoyed working on it and especially liked having a theme each month, whether color or topic. December, of course, was Everything Christmas.