inspired by blue

-More silk paper made this past weekend.

The shades of blue were so inspiring that I made blue beads while the silk was drying in the sun.

Then, I strung them together and

and made a bracelet.

 

I'm working out some details with my beads and intend on adding them to a quilt.

Halloween Greetings from

our town of Mendon, USA

to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

My friend Susan's husband is stationed in Afghanistan and through her, my son adopted one of the soldiers under his command.

While corresponding, my son learned his American soldier, pen pal - likes Halloween.

This Halloween wall hanging will be sent to him this week.

A very thin silk batting and 100 wt., light thread was used for most of the piecing and quilting.  Doing this, really kept the bulk down of the wall-hanging.  We need it to be thin and light so we can send other essentials, along with this, in our care package.

We gave the skeleton a little heart, that way our American friends will be reminded we are thinking of them.

He has a few pumpkins. . .

. . . . and he holds a banner.

 October will be here next week already!  

 Enjoy your Halloween projects.

fun with beads

Last week Pat Delaney gave a lecture and trunk show to our guild. She sometimes uses buttons in her work so she taught us how to make them.

Making buttons was fun, but I wanted to try beads.

I liked working with the clay.

I can see making some smaller beads and adding them to my next Fiberactions piece I'm designing.

- - - - - -

how did you celebrate the full Harvest Moon last night?

at my house the air had turned summer like again, so there was - 

 the midnight swim dare.

(well, not quite midnight)

first went the green guy

 then went the pink guy

boys will be boys.

happy first day of autumn

silk fusion

I asked SueB to host a workshop on Silk Fusion. 

Last week, Sue, Kathleen and I were able to meet for Sue's workshop.

Hard to believe this wad of color can be turned into beautiful silk paper.

It was a nice day so we met outside and here SueB is showing us the process.

We hung our pieces to dry on a drying rack like this and also the clothesline.

(then we dined on a delicious lunch)

A few of my pieces weren't completely dry so I took them home before taking apart the netting screen.

This is what I got when I peeled everything away!

There are several solid colored sheets and then, you can see the pieces on top are mixtures.

   Before going ahead with a bigger project, I made up some postcards to try out the hand and properties of this silk.  The first pic of this post is what the cards look like. 

I enjoyed this process.

mending on the go

A travel sewing kit because

nobody should be sidelined because of loose threads or a missing button.

Made from fabric recycled from another project that didn't work out.

Inside

-a thread card

-a pocket

with pins and buttons

 -straight pins, a needle case

and scissors.

Given as a gift, this was fun to make.

surface tension . . .

Today is the Fiberactions reveal day.

We created pieces using the word stretch as our challenge theme.

Click the link to see the interpretations revealed throughout the day and to learn more about our group.

Seemingly like magic, the water strider skates across the pond as if on a length of stretched plastic wrap.  Magic, it is not. In addition to his hairy legs which trap tiny air bubbles and act like life preservers; it is surface tension which allows him to stay afloat and stride so gracefully. 

planting seeds. . .

. . .  an inch at a time.

In the beginning of the summer 13 friends swapped inchies. 

We sent them off to eachother and it was great fun when one would randomly arrive in the mail.

We all made a little something with our collection and yesterday I was able to see some of the girl's work.  What a riot of color! 

Later in the week I'll show you some pictures of the little gems.

Planting Seeds is what I call my little piece.

I loved making it.

The fabrics I used were mostly from the Cherrywood collection and some from my own hand dyes.  Working with super bright palette was a treat.

Each inchie has it's own square . . .

. . . and is attached with a small piece of velcro so the inchies can be viewed from the back. Notice the baseball on the back of this one. 

Perfect.

Each is different, but all work together.

Because I exercised some bad inchie swap behavior, and was the last to send mine out -

I included a small inchie envelope.

Mine is attached to the back of my quilt and I'll make a small inchie label with our names to put inside.

My plan is to make tabs and hang the quilt from a little wooden ruler I have in my collection.

I would do this again it was fun.

Caribelle Batik Bag

Using the Caribelle batik fabric I finally finished the string back packs.

The batik is Sea Island Cotton and has a beautiful hand meant for lightweight clothing.  Because of the lightness and silk-like feeling, the batik required quilting in order to be used in a bag.

The blue bag has straps made from webbing and the green bag's straps are fabric covered clothesline.

(and, to those friends who know i have a collection of clothesline waiting to be turned into a bag...

i think you will have to keep waiting-

i had my fill of covering just two lengths for the straps.  i do not like that process and it shows....

 it will continue to sit in the pile and mock me, or i guess could string it between two trees and actually hang laundry?)

But, anyway, on with the post. . .

All the string back packs have plastic grommets rather than the traditional metal.  The plastic is easy to use and I think they look okay for this type of bag.

The batik fabric was purchased at Caribelle Batik, Romney Manor on St. Kitts.

The manor sits right aside the rain forest and is a beautiful hidden treasure.

Everything about this place was a feast of color and texture.   The heat of the day was intoxicating but with a gentle breeze that smelled waxy from the ongoing batik process.

I loved every minute of it . . .

vintage charm

Yesterday we lost power for a little while. 

-No power- is not conducive to a quilter's livelihood

... so ...

I finished some wire work which was patiently waiting attention.

Using a vintage key, glass chandelier parts, vintage buttons, crystals, wire and beaders hemp...

I made a funky necklace.

... my favorite part is the crystal clear, glass button I used for the closure...

... or is it the brass key tag I burnished and found it to say

'NORTH OUTSIDE DOOR'

-enjoy your holiday weekend!-