New Work

Is anyone finding, as I am, that November is slipping by very quickly? Where do the days go? I'm doing some new work, but here are a few more photos of the pieces I completed recently for an artisan show.

My photos are not great - sorry! This picture is mounted on white linen and 

is made with fabric, hand embroidery, beading, trims and machine stitching.

This little tree sold quickly. I used similar materials on it, 

with the addition of painted green lace in the foreground.

This piece has a lot of machine stitching and hand painted fabric for the sky.

It was framed with a black frame and also sold.

I love purple and this is my favorite piece from this group.

Terrible photo! I must make a little photo booth - I've seen some on Pinterset!

I'm working out a simpler method of mounting pictures and I'll share it with

you soon. Meanwhile, here's a photo of me at that last show. You can see here that 

the linen borders were very crisp, and outlined with black chenille yarn.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend and not too stressed out preparing for

Thanksgiving next week. We are keeping ours simple this year!

A friend of mine passed away this year - very suddenly - 

and I always loved the way he ended his Facebook posts. In memory of 

Joe Donovan, a very sweet guy, I'm going to end my blog posts the same way.

Have a good week.

Smiles...

     Judy

Building a Fabric House

Recently I was delighted to be part of a lovely conspiracy - making a house portrait for a mother to give her daughter as a surprise for Christmas. What made it even better was that the two parties concerned are dear friends, Sharon of the blog Sallymomsprouts and her daughter Anne of My Giant Strawberry.

First, a photo of the house from Anne's mom

Next, photos of Anne's pets, gleaned from her blog

Then, a drawing of the house

And a version in colored pencil and cut paper, with animal faces in the windows

Fabrics selected, shapes cut out and prepared for fusing

Picture fused and machine embroidered

Little faces in the windows

Border added with embroidered vine...

Picture completed and mailed in time for Christmas!!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish another project I had hoped to complete, but it is first on my list for the new year. Thank you for your patience, Julie.

Hope you have had a wonderful weekend!

AEDM Day 8 - Making Progress

Good Morning!

I've just been working on my sunset silhouette and added a few elements to it.

So far, the trees are still just fused down. I added some trim along the skyline which looks like bushes, and a wool felt foreground into which I needle felted some colored roving. 

I can see that I need to add some irregular stitching to the foliage to make it look less precise,

 mute down the bright colors in the foreground and maybe add some subtle trees in the background.

AEDM is a great place to show progress on a piece of art, without worrying about perfection.

I also want to share photos of my favorite animal quilts

from the quilt festival I recently attended in Houston.

I hope that everyone who reads this is having a great day!

AEDM Day 5 - Tree Silhouette

Last night I worked on this silhouette of trees I had started a few weeks ago.

I had hand painted the sky and sewn down the trunks and branches previously,

then it needed "leaves" which I cut out randomly. I want to make the edges less "tight"

so I'll cut out some individual leaves for the edges. All of this is fused to the background.

I'll also be adding a foreground. The white is the cotton flannel I use as a base.

And, as I promised, here are more photos from the International Quilt Festival 

in Houston, from which I just returned.

The Grand Prize winner:

and another winner:

and another favorite of mine:

More tomorrow!

Hope you're having a wonderful day!