It's been how long?

Wow! It's been almost two years since I wrote in my blog. That will change now that I'm doing the Sketchbook Challenge.

HELP ME!!!! ADVICE WANTED!

I need advice for this 11" x 11" piece of quilting to be attached to a quilted background. My problem: I attached the photo transfer image of my Grandmother to a lace handkerchief and a piece of wool felt. When I did the Kantha stitch on the surrounding hankie, the wool felt puckered and made the image buckle. If it weren't for the bead border, I would just make a new image that would fit the space. I don't want to do that, so if anyone has any suggestions for how to remedy this problem, I would be eternally grateful.

Bought on eBay

Here are three of six items I bought on eBay to use on my Grandmother Art Quilts. The Lot of Madeira embroidered napkins I had to fight for with another bidder. I won during the last 15 seconds of the auction!

Two Postcards for Grandmother Art Quilts

These postcards originated in Valparaiso, Chile. The first is a Happy New Year's card. The back shows the card was sent to my grandfather, Alexander Burt.































This second card I thought interesting. The title is Floret Chilean, which I take to mean Chilean Flowers.



















I guess I forgot to mention that my mother and grandmother were born in Valparaiso, Chile. After Alexander Burt abandoned her during WWI, my grandmother came to California bringing six-year-old, Alexandrina with her.

Grandmother Art Quilts

After my visit to Columbia, South Carolina, and seeing the fiber art of Ellen Kochansky and Susan Lenz, I wanted to do some art quilts about my grandmother. I went to our local thrift shop and found one doily and four lacey handkerchiefs. At this point I'm still thinking. Will post more when I have some ideas or start to work on the quilts.

How I Plan to Use my Silk Yarn

I took three different silk yarn colorways and used the Embellisher to "felt" them to a piece of 100% wool felt. The fuzzy part on the left was achieved by felting on the back side which pushes the felt fibers to the top. I hope to use this method for embellishing a series of small art quilts honoring my grandmother.

More Goodies to Play with on my Embellisher

I came home from South Carolina so excited about creating more fiber art, I spent more money than I should have on this wonderful 100% silk yarn at 50% off! I plan to pull off the thread that is wound around the silk fibers and use it for felting. I'll post an example when I make a piece. Shamefully, I ordered eight skeins in all. I have in mind an art quilt based on artifacts, postcards, and letters belonging to my grandmother. Doesn't this silk yarn look scrumptious?

My Visit to Cyber Fyber in Columbia, South Carolina

I returned last night from two days in Columbia, South Carolina, visiting the Cyber Fyber exhibit and enjoying the gracious hospitality of Susan Lenz, Fiber Artist and coordinator of the Cyber Fyber Exhibit, and her husband, Steve Dingman. My visit was beyond expectations. I truly enjoyed every single moment I was in Columbia: meeting Susan, meeting other fiber artists, dining on the Southern cuisine, staying in an historic downtown hotel, the friendliness of everyone I encountered. Awesome!!!

One little anecdote: I was returning from having dinner at the Blue Marlin, heading for the Gervais Street entrance to the hotel, walking with my cane, all bundled up for the freezing weather, when a black man in his 40's (also bundled up from the cold) riding his bike up the sidewalk, said to me with a smile as he passed, "You almost there, Mama."

I will tell more about my visit further on in this blog, but I believe in serendipity. The day I left Columbia was January 20, the day of the Inauguration. The moment President Obama was sworn in I was sitting in an "English Pub" at Washington, D.C.'s Dulles airport, dining on Fish and Chips and a cup of English Breakfast tea.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE



















Susan and I pose in front of some of the postcards. (I never can smile for the camera!)



















Susan is soooo enthusiastic about explaining the exhibit to show visitors.



















Working on one of her Decision Series art quilts.



















Ellen Kochansky and Susan check Cyber Fyber email. (The weird abstract wall of postcards was adjusted in Photoshop to cut down on the contrast.)

Susan allowed me to photograph her studio. These are a few of the photos I took of her work.















The Blues Series



















The Doors Series


















Quilt-in-progress: "Crazy Blues." The person portrayed in the quilt is Mamie Smith, the first African American to record a blues song (1920) titled "Crazy Blues."



















Two of the Embroidered "Architecture" Series (I may have the title of the series wrong.)



















Susan's stash for making art on the Embellisher.








TO SEE THE COMPLETE CYBER FYBER EXHIBIT GO TO THESE URLs

To see the Invitational Art go here:
http://cyberfyberexhibitioninvitationalart.blogspot.com/

To see the Postcards go here:
http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/

To see the ATCs go here:
http://cyberfyberonlineatcs.blogspot.com/

Catch Up Time

I haven't been posting for awhile because on December 3, 2008, I had a complete knee replacement. It's now January 7, and I'm am glad to say my rehabilitation has been most successful. I can walk without a cane (except outdoors where there are more hazards for falling) and can go up and down stairs. I've yet to try driving my car so my daughter has been a wonderful help in buying me groceries. On January 3, I had my 80th birthday. I took my daughter, granddaughter, grandson, and great granddaughter to lunch for a celebration. The event turned out to be more tiring than I had expected. We should have stayed in Sonoma instead of driving all the way to Corte Madera (about 50 miles roundtrip).

I may fly to Columbia, South Carolina, to see the Cyber Fyber exhibition coordinated by Susan Lenz. I am most excited about seeing all the wonderful fiber art on display. I may also meet up with Susan Sorrell (who lives in Greenville, SC) for a chat and a cuppa tea. I won't see my surgeon until January 16 (I plan to fly the next day) and hope he will okay my trip. The only difficult part would be having to sit so long on each leg of the trip (a stop in Dallas) so I'm going to try to get an aisle seat on the port side so I can straighten out my leg when necessary. If I go, I'll take lots of photos to post on my blog.

Our Cruise Ship, the MS Ryndam and the Explorer's Cafe - Post # 5

The MS Ryndam is one of Holland America's smaller ships suitable for
cruising the Sea of Cortez.







I spent many pleasant hours in the Exploration Cafe sitting in comfortable leather sofas, drinking lattes, listening to my iPod, and knitting. Oh, and also using the computer.




We had a luxurious Deluxe Verandah Suite. More about this later.

Macyn and Nancy in the Lido pool Post #4

Grandma Nancy teaching Macyn to love the water.

More coming soon! Post #3

I will keep posting photos and information. Please notice that the posts are in reverse chronilogical order. Go to the first post and work your way up.

Lifeboat Drill Post #2

As you can see, Macyn refused to put on her life jacket. I'm the only one who wasn't pissed at having to go through the drill.

Mexico Cruise Aboard the MS Ryndam Post #1

We began our cruise in San Diego. I brought my daughter, my granddaughter, and my great granddaughter along on the cruise. We started out with the airlines losing Macyn's stroller. They gave us a loaner to take with us on the cruise. Because of my arthritic knee, I had a wheelchair at the airports in Oakland and in San Diego. We all got to go through security ahead of the waiting line. We also pre-boarded the plane because of my being in a wheelchair.

Flickr Flash

www.flickr.com Go to freeflyinglady's photostream

Colors for April TIF Challenge

I found this image of an Aboriginal painting that has a brighter version of the April colors. I think I will go with this palette instead of the dark and gloomy palette Sharon posted for the April TIF Challenge

March Tif Challenge

I needed to do something fast so I made my piece for March on the Embellisher. There's a bit of magenta fabric paint on the yellow pieces (to tone them down a little), but otherwise the whole thing was put together using my Embellisher. I may still attach it to a larger piece of black felt with running stitches around the edge.

Original (altered) Image

This is the original image I started with after squaring it up with Photoshop. The background will remain the color of the felt (green), the heavy black lines will be black embroidery, and the rest of the spaces will be embroidered with colored silk thread. (See former post)

Colors for the Primitive Embroidery Piece

Vero, in answer to your question, these are the colors of silk thread that I've chosen to use on my Primitive piece. I will leave the green background as is and fill in the design spaces with the colors. I may do a "mock up" on paper, first, to see which way I want to go. The lines will be heavily embroidered over with black silk thread. As you can see, the thread is Splendor's 12 ply silk. The thread easily separates into 4 ply strands which is how I use the silk. I love the feel of pulling silk thread through wool felt - very satisfying.

Primitive without Embroidery Paper

I tore off the embroidery paper, and because I hadn't knotted the thread, some of the treads pulled out. If I were to do this again, I would use a thinner paper such as tissue paper. I would also use only one strand of thread instead of three as I intend to embroider over the outlines.