I made this piece last week. It is an example for a class that I am working up on Experimental Quilting techniques for Tiny Stitches. The class will be on ongoing class on "non-traditional stitching and surface design techniques. The one part that really didn't work out as well as I wanted is the word "Magic" that I stenciled. I really wanted it to be a more pronounced element.

I have enrolled in a printmaking class at Chastain Art Center starting next week. I haven't done any printmaking in a few years and am very excited. I took a few printmaking classes in college and have always loved it. In true "Sharon-ness", I couldn't wait to get started and free-hand drew this relief block print. I thought it was fun. Of course, drawing it is only part of it and now I have to carve it (which has where I make my mistakes) now. I took the picture just in case I really screw it up! Of course, the idea is bring the printmaking back to fiber. I have also spent the holidays working with acrylic paint on canvas. I will post some of those pictures later.

Journal Quilt 2007

This was my submission for the Journal Quilt Project 2007. It really doesn't photograph well as it is such a dark background. It is about renewal/rebirth. when I get it back I will post a close up of the background which was some "complex" imagery worked in.

Do You Believe?

One of the art groups that I belong to, Fiber Art Fusion, a contempary fiber art and quilting group, had a holiday exchange of a 5 x 7 piece of art. This was my piece. I had so much fun making it. The backgroup is painted lutrador which I burnt out the flower/star shape. Next, I fused angelina behind the lutrador to show through the holes. I spent the day at Rubber Stamp Fantasy on the Saturday before this was due. RubberStamp Fantasy is owned by one of our members Deb Taratoot (I think that is how you spell it) and her husband. Although they do have classes there, they will stop and give you a personal "lesson/demonstration" in almost any of their products. One of the things that he showed me that day was using this paste/sludge compound. It was wonderful as I love adding texture to my work. After it was dry, I colored it with soft pastels and then Shiva Paint sticks. The flowers were done using water soluable fabric and thread. The fairy is a little clay piece that I picked up years ago.

My inspiratation for this piece was my friend Rebecca's 7 year old daughter, Sarah, who is in reality a fairy princess! May her magic live on!

My friend Hellenne is also a silk painter. The other day I asked her if she had any "mistakes" that she might give to me. This yellow scarf has some blue/green spots and it is one of a few which she thought she couldn't use. I used some beautiful orange wool and nuno felted areas to create a textured scarf. Several of Hellenne's scarves are on display at the Chastain Art Show and Sale.

Felted Vessel

Here is one of my felted vessels. I am going to create a dozen felted flowers to go into it! It really was easy and fast. My only complaint is that I put some red silk hankies which didn't show up nearly as much as I hoped!

Creating Art Clay in Carmen's Kitchen!

Here we are going to town in Carmen's kitchen! What fun and how much fun!

Art Clay Play Day!

I belong to an "Art Bee" as part of our local quilt guild, East Cobb Quilt Guild. Each month one of us "leads" the group in a new technique. This month it was Carmen's turn and we played with art clay. I haven't had time to paint them put what great embellishments!

Marble resist felted scarf

Here I am working on shape and texture with resists in feltmaking.

So I really need a new camara!!!! The colors are completely wrong. The flower is really golden with red and purple highlights.

Blue Nuno Felted scarf - finished

Blue Nuno felted scarf in process

Hand dyed silk in preparation for Nuno Felting

I dyed some silk last night so that I can experiment some more with nuno felting. Actually, the red on the right is scrim, then a silk scarf (I got it from Dharma), then the next three are a heavy silk organza. I used the blue one second from the left for my first experiment. I have done nuno felting before, but I saw some gorgeous stuff at SAFF and feel inspired.

Okay, maybe not the "prettiest" necklace ever, but kind of cool, maybe??? Actually, it is too close to being a deviation from a Lori Flood necklace, so I am going to keep working! I was also thinking about adding some beaded dangles to it. I would take any suggestions! Sharon

And two more! Actually there are about three more which I didn't take pictures! I am finally starting to slow down. I have made two or three scarves everyday this week. Now I just have to find a place to sell them.

Here is another flower that I felted. Isn't it pretty!

Another scarf!

I did this one last night. I wanted to do another Airy Fairy scarf in more mottled colors. I used Gale Evans' space dyed wool. It is Blue Face and felted pretty easily. The colorway is called "Potluck". www.galesart.com

Isn't it lovely! I am going to lunch with my friend Heidi Miracle and will come home to felt a little more!!!!

I just finished this scarf today. I bought the wool and silk hanky from Lori Flood at SAFF (Southeast Animal Fiber Festival). She has instructions on using silk hankies in your felting on her website. She has wonderful dyed wool bats and roving. www.spinstertreadle.com
For this scarf, I used a bat and some silk hanky. I have never used bat for a scarf before and it turned out slightly uneven in places - just another thing to work on.

While I was at SAFF, the amazing Lori Flood had a great vendor's booth there. She did a demo on making felted flowers. As soon as I got home I had to do my own and here is my first attempt. I thnk that by the end of the week, I will definitely have a whole bouquet!!!! Next year, I hope she will teach at SAFF. (Lori, I hope you are listening!)

Here are two more scarves I made and a hat! I can't tell you what a great time I had. Chad is an amazing teacher and I learned so much. I also bought her new book, Fabulus Felted Scarves which she wrote with Jorie Johnson.
While I was up there, I was able to reconnect with an old friend from Tokyo! I hadn't seen her in almost 20 years. We took our first quilting class together. She is a wonderful person and it was great to see her again.

I just spent three days just outside of Asheville at the Southeast Animal Fiber Festival. It does sound funny and yes, there were many animals: sheep, angora goats, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits. Although they were all very cute and yes, I want one but I spent all of my time in the vendor and classroom areas. I took four classes from Chad Alice Hagen. What a blast! This is one of the scarves I made!

Yes, this is a weird post. I am going to the Southeast Animal Fiber Festival in Asheville this coming weekend. For the most part, I am going for felting and looking at roving wool.

This is the runner up to send to Wonder-fil for Houston. The flower has petals that go over the border.

I am sending this to the nice people at Wonder-fil Speciality Threads. The picture isn't the best, but it was a lot of fun to make.

What happened to September? I don't remember it! Work was crazy (I work three days a week at Georgia Tech) with the beginning of the semester. Home life was crazy with getting the kids (a 14 and 18 year old) back to school, with one starting high school and the other finishing it (a senior). I also had three quilt deadlines! I had one due for the local quilt guild (East Cobb Quilt Guild) which had an extremely successful show and I co-chaired vending! Then my art quilt group, Fiber Art Fusion, had a show locally - also, a great success! Last but not least, journal project quilts were due to Houston last week. The good news is all three quilts were delivered on time. I can't post the journal quilt until after Houston. Oh yeah, forgot to take a picture any way. I really wanted to post something. This is one of my assignments for my C&G course that I am taking with Design Matters. I needed to start a color collection and needless to say this is "Purple".

But, as I was saying I went to Nashville with my friend Hiedi Miracle (www.crazyforcolor.blogspot.com) and we met Rebecca Reasons Edwards there. There really weren't a lot of quilts there though, but I did enjoy the special exhibit, "Expressions". I had thought about submitting something to it but (of course) didn't seem to get my piece finished in time! Basically, Nashville was just an excuse to get a lot of quilters to come and shop. This really wasn't a problem to me as I loved it! You of the big "finds" of the show was a couple of great artists, Debbie Bates, Liz Kettle, and Terry White. They were in the WonderFil Specialty Thread booth. Debbie and Liz wrote a book (which I bought) Stitch Journeys and I think are the wholesalers here for WonderFil Threads. I really loved the look of their threads and purchased quite a bit of it. I am going to play with it in my Journal Quilt that I am working furiously on for Houston. Terry White was demonstrating the threads and how where they cool. She has several videos out on thread painting and I bought one and can't wait to get into it. She was so talented!

Another view of my very messy studio! I am blessed that I have a large workspace. I love my stuff!

I left my extremely messy studio this weekend to go to Nashville and see the AQS show. How can I even move around in there, well, it takes creativity!

This is my thread purse. It started out as a vase, but I think it is turning into a purse. It is done with a water soluble a little wool roving and several spools of thread. I am going to try and get a friend to take a close up photo. I love thread painting.

Here is my Hope quilt, I haven't decided what to call it yet. either, "You are not alone" or "The Dark Night of the Soul". I like the basic design, but still think that I should have spent a little more time in the design phase. It doesn't look finished!

I am mentioned in Quilt Art

I know that this may be nothing to some, but I think it is still very cool. Claire Fenton, who I met at the Focus on Fiber Retreat earlier this year, mentions ME in her article on needle felting in the most recent issue of Quilt Art!

July 19, 2007

I hope this picture shows up properlyl. This is a little purse that I felted! I wet felted the purse and handles. I then needlefelted the yarn on the bottem and the leaves as embellishments. I am getting ready to teach a two day felting class in October at Fiber on a Whim. It isn't an advanced class but it won't cover the VERY basics.

This is a piece that I am trying to finish for my quilt art group's (Fiber Art Fusion) group show in September. The theme is "Hope". I am going to piece a star in the background to symbolize hope in the jagged landscape. If I can't get this "resolved", I will work on a "100 points of Light" piece. I will have to see!

I just heard that I might be "side-lined" from the Artful Quilt webring for inactivity. Sorry, I will try to post more often.

Sharon

I rarely do someone else's pattern and here I actually tried to copy her work completely. It was an amazing study. If you don't recognize the piece it is a Caryl Bryer Fallert pattern, Soaring Compliments. I bought the her fabric, her pattern and her workshop on CD. It was such a worthwhile endeavor. I learned so much from my very first quilting goddess!

She truly is my inspiration for quilting. I have since bought her machine quilting workshop on the web - also great.

This is what I have been spending most of my time on. I wish I could say it was my pattern, but I can not tell a lie. It is Judy Niemeyer's 4th of July. As you can see it is still a work in process. Sorry that it takes so long to upload, but it is worth the wait. I haven't posted in almost two months. I have been working on this and the my very own Soaring Compliments (see other post). I also had a quick drive to Florida for my sister's wedding and then the following weekend my DH and I had to drive down for my Uncle's funeral - it was a very emotinal and exhausting month. I also taught a few times this month and added an Embellisher class to the list of classes that I teach. It went amazingly well. What a cool machine!

Here is a picture that Claire Fenton took of my other faces during the Focus on Fiber Retreat. The week was amazing for many many reasons; great studio space, great location, good food, uninterrupted time to work, but one of the key parts was the incredible people that were there. It was such a great group of talented women who shared themselves with the group all week. Do I really have to wait until next year???

I spent a week down in New Smyrna Beach last week at the Focus on Fiber Artist Retreat. It was great fun. I went down with my dear friend, Rebecca and met up with a bunch of amazing artists. These pictures were actually taken by another amazing artist, Deb Lacativa. Her website is listed below. Check out her work. This is another one of her pictures. Isn't it a great surrounding.
http://www.lacativa.com
http://morewgalo.blogspot.com/

Here is the purple felted face that I made while at the Focus on Fiber retreat. Next to it is some silk ribbon that I dyed and then part of an embroidered piece that I am working on. I started the retreat happy and creative, but on about the third day, I started have a bit of a confidence problem (well, I was surrounded by some pretty amazing artists). So, I knew that I needed to face my internal monsters and in true artist fashion, this is what I created. Of course, once you face your monsters, you realize how truly begign they are. In fact, they are really just small scared beings.

This is as far as I have gotten this week. I will add thread information later. The orange ribbon row does not look nearly as uneven in person. I will have to work on it somemore. The last like is not finished. I have done a few running stitches with Rachelete and will come back and do the chain stitch.

This is the beaded part of a bead embroidery cuff. I still need to attach it to the brass cuff part, but by scanning it flat, I have a better record of the whole piece.

This was our "more" resolved piece from my Jan and Jean workshop. It is inspired from the open chestnuts left by the squirrels. I worked it on the adhesive water soluable stablizer with just small scraps of scrim and roving. The piece is then put on kunin felt that has been distrissed and then used the embellisher to attach it to an orange piece of hand dyed scrim.

Here is another embroidery sample that I did in Jan and Jean's class. It was done on Avalon Fix which is an adhesive stabilizer and then hand embroidered. Very fun and very cool. I have it attached to hand painted paper as a background

This is the base of box for my tome. I created it on my embellisher. My box is going to have a garden them and this to me was a great garden floor base. I am planning on doing some relief/3 dimensional felting on top of this base.

This is the other piece that I felted on Friday. I was very busy this weekend. I felted these two rugs, dyed about 4 yards of scrim, felted a doll, and felted some beads!

I was very busy on Friday. Here is one of the rugs that I felted. I had half felted the foundation of both. It was then very easy to lay out the design and finish felting the piece. I will be teaching a class in wet felting at Fiber on a Whim in Atlanta (www.fiberonawhim.com) at the end of March.

Here is another sample that I hand stitched using an adhesive soluble (spelling???). Now that this class is behind me, I can concentrate on my City and Guild course.

You can see where I am now beginning to go back and add some "detail" work to it. I still need more.

I ended up staying an extra week at Jan & Jean's class. It was quite an experience. What was truly amazing was my wonderful husband's response when I called him up and said that I wanted to stay an extra week (which meant double the already substantial cost!), all he said was "I knew you weren't going to be able to leave." What did I get out of the class:

1. Remembering that this is art; always remember the basics.

2. Don't let your work be defined by "cool" technique instead of good design.

3. Work our your ideas before trying to come up with a finished project. In art school, we started by doing tons of drawings, then creating a mock up, BEFORE making the decision of whether to create a more "finished" or "resolved" work. I don't think I have spent more than short time trying to work out my ideas before beginning a piece in a very long time!

4. Don't add glitz just to add glitz.

5. I really do like stitching by hand.

Well, there were many more things that I learned, but I think that these were the most important. This is one of samples we did in class. It is a pattern based on butterfly wings.

I am leaving for 5 days of art with two of my idols, Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn! I will be back next week, hopefully, with lots of cool stuff!

More details of one of the smaller pieces. You can see that this is just a lot of a varigated ribbon yarn; I think it is a collenette. To my Fiber ArtBee friends. See you next Friday and email me if you have any questions. Sharon