Art Spirals

From Felted peaches

I strip pieced a background from a recycled silk skirt and cotton fabric. I meant to have the lines be more random but they ended up looking uniform, kind of. Now I'm working on samples to figure out how to attach them with thread painting to the background.

And now for the quandry. Here's my yoga tree.

From YogaTree

It started out as a Bead Journal Project 2" square concerning yoga. You can see the square in the middle. I decided to put it on this beautiful piece of hand dyed fabric from Anne Marie and stitched my heart out on the tree and embroidered the trunk. Then I thought I would like to make it as though you are looking through an arch and seeing it. So I added more fabric to it, don't like the seams, but that's what happens sometime, my project gets bigger than I expected. anyway... so then I've sewn on this beautiful vintage trim (from a vendor at IQF) and I've stitched it on several different ways and I'm not happy with any of them.

So I've decided to lay it out and try two ways and see what you think. What do you like, or how should I handle it? I don't want to cut it before I know I'll like it, so that's why I'm trying the trim, but I think seeing the rest of it outside the arch makes it hard to visualize. Hmmm...maybe I could stitch a stucco feeling/looking background and put it on top of it, creating an arch opening in the stucco top piece. hmmm..

anyway, here are some ideas.

From YogaTree

or

From YogaTree

Here's another of the squares done for this project, this one celebrating a winter play day. Shh, don't tell anyone, but this is as far as I got on the BJP project....

From A Year in Beads

From Leaves

Well, here's today's production. leaves done in various ways with the embellisher. one I left the pieces attached so you could see it. It's on a gold/green mesh to which I attached roving and then used a space dyed thin ribbon for the edges...you can see it sticking up at the tip. In reality, the blue isn't so visible at all. These leaves are for a project, to be attached, either with handsewing or thread painting/FME.

One side benefit of reorganizing -- and this is a HUGE side benefit, is that I found my beaded baby shoe start. I beaded this five years ago, intending to bead a baby shoe of one of my daughters, and it's been lost for almost all that time. Not for lack of hunting, I assure you! anyway, here 'tis, and I'm so happy to see it again!

From BabyShoe

and the shoe for which it was made (as the vertical top piece)

From BabyShoe

Well, today was a VERY productive day...following four days of massive art supply reorganization and assessing what I have and where I want to go! I was considering renting an artist studio, did a final reorganization to see if I really needed it, and realized with creative rearranging, I can stay right where I am, using my bedroom as a studio, but having places for baskets for each work in progress, and cleaning up after I'm done.

I think this was a suggestion in the last Studios issue of Clothpaperscissors, allow 10 minutes to clean up before your alloted studio time is up. Another trick I did was to include tools with the supply in question. For example: I tied scissors and tape near the gift wrapping section of the closet, the eyelet setting tool with eyelets in the Altered Book section, etc. I also made a spreadsheet with all my supplies and their location so that I can easily do a keyword search or scan the alphabetical list and see where something is. Hopefully this will avoid double buying of supplies (with the extra money I would have paid in rent -- Credit Wendy with that suggestion!)

From Felted peaches

So, my four works in progress are a journal quilt on Carlsbad Caverns, another on the Gila Cliffs, a larger piece on childhood memories of South Allentown, and a "happy" piece of needle felting in yellows/pinks/oranges. So I dragged out the South Allentown piece, of which I have fabric gathered and a study of porch steps finished, and pulled out shiva painted blobs I painted before, with thoughts they would become peaches, and sure enough, it WORKED!

Here's what I started with, shiva paintsticks blobs on a textured type of interfacing. Don't know what it really is, an estate sale find.

From Felted peaches

And here's the reverse side:

From Felted peaches

What I learned from this is that what I thought was the front side (i.e. the side I was working on) became the backside because the fuzziness of having the fibers protrude from being meshed into it was really what I wanted. I used images of how to paint watercolor peaches to help with the lights and curves, and when I attach these to the quilt and add some extra threadpainting to supplement them, I think they'll be smashing! And I using the 'back" as the finished piece let's me use eyelash and other fibers that look too stringy when embellished and the front is used, but if they're the right color, they look fabulous on the fuzzy back. I did the leaves from the finished side, so they don't have as fuzzy a look. one of the stems is a piece of brown/gray velvet.

I'm also pleased with scheduling studio time worked so well for me. I scheduled three hours of time, turned off the phones and the computer, and just had fun (once I got over my initial strange fear of getting back into working). how odd. I even considered puttering more on the reorganization and never starting the actual WORK/FUN of it all. Ever have that happen to you?

From Mommy Glove Pics for submission

So what do they say? Collect your rejection slips because they make you stronger? Well, that's what I'm starting to do!

I submitted the Mommy Glove to Interweave's Beadwork VI: The Beaded Book and I was asked to send it in, but it didn't make the final cut. I blogged about it earlier last year. I'm thinking that it didn't meet the "show your love for books" theme they were wanting. In reality, it shows my love for my kids -- insert big grin. I see that now. Ah, hindsight! don't you love it? I'm hoping it arrives home soon, safe and sound.

And, if I can figure out a way to display it attached to something heavy and bulky, I may just submit it to our International Arts show in town, and put a hefty price tag on it (since pieces entered have to be for sale). Pieces aren't guaranteed to be secure, and I don't want somebody to stick it in their pocket and wander off with it. Any suggestions??