Art Spirals

Here are two views of the surface of the veggie juice I made last night. It's a combo of beet, carrot, spinach, apple and parsnip, and wow, was it yummy! And artsy too!

From Cool Things

From Cool Things

Don't you love the quizzical expression of her mouth?

My second grader made a wonderful art doll last night. On her own. And I love it. I asked her if I could have it, when she was ready to give it up, and she was so tickled. She gave it to me. It’s in a place of honor on my shelves in my room, near Wendy’s journal and Diane’s philodendron leaf book, and my sister’s goodies.

It might be because I’m nostalgic, that I love it so. it's hat is a sock they wore when they were little, and I’ve always ADORED those socks…want to stretch them to fit me…and they know it, I’ve told them many times. the body/head is a wooden game board, for pegs, from Cracker Barrel restaurants (garage sale), the glasses are cut coin holders, held on with a pipe cleaner with feathers for ears/hair. and she drew the little mouth and eyes/nose with colored pencils darkened with water. The same technique she was using to "paint" her fingernails earlier in the day! and her sister was painting HERS a midnight blue. Here's the back. Handy, it doesn't even need an doll stand or anything!

We just got back from a little vacation in New Mexico, and I shopped at three great fabric/quilting stores, and a neat Art Gallery, so I thought I'd do a show and tell, and plug for the places. First, the glorious fabrics:



The top batik is amazing, the second is called Botanical Bugs, love it, the next I plan to fussy cut to make some peaches for my next project, and the bottom I saw in various colorways in all three stores, Fairy Frost. It has a lovely sheen to it. Cotton.



The dark green print is a brushed cotton, I LOVE the lime green pine needle print and the others are wonderful.

Can you tell I have certain colors in mind? I just Love this screaming wonderful colors now. I still love blues/green/purples but I certainly have a ton of them, and I'm sorely lacking these (and also bright yellows, but I didn't find any pure yellows that I really liked.) And I watched the Ricky Tims video. I doubt I'd do the tulip pattern he does, but I might use the techniques to do other things. An enjoyable view though. He seems like a neat person to know.

Here are the fabric stores: Jill's Fabric & Design, (505) 885-1184 121 S Canyon St, Carlsbad, NM 88220 (the downtown). Martha's Fabrics in Ruidoso, NM and Homestead Quilting in Alamogordo, NM.

In Ruidoso there's a neat scrapbook/yarn/beading store called We Cree8, in the midtown section of Ruidoso, that if you're there, you'll want to check out. Martha's Fabrics is immense, loads of decorating fabrics and fancy fabrics, smaller section of quilting fabrics...be careful, you may get lost in there and never get out!




The ultrasuede is a request from Wendy, it's definitely more of a blue grey than it shows there. The blue/peach fabric is a Thomas Kinkade piece called Sunset. I see now that the selvage says: "intended solely for noncommercial use". Geesh. I have some thoughts on THAT!

And, I can't figure out why the font changed in these paragraphs, I LIKE IT, but can't make the preceding paragraphs bigger. I think I need a different blog platform!

The yarn is hand dyed and spun by Dedri Quillin. Here's her blog and website. Her work is BEAUTIFUL! I was hard pressed to pick just one of the gorgeous colors of wool there in a lovely basket. If there were smaller balls, I would have bought many, because I won't need this much for the work I do, but these colors will be great for my peach/blue project. I wish now I had taken a picture of the basket of wools. It was SCRUMMY!



Now I just had to have this blue print, not as though I don't have tons in those colors already



I bought (gasp) these two 3000 yd spools of King Tut. More than I wanted to spend to try it out, but I had already spent the gas to get there, and wanted to support local. I know now I could order them online, but that's ok.

I love the teal varigate, and the blue grey is for my peach project. The purple varigate is signature, the only 20 wt she had (it was a mistake that it came), the orange varigate is a sulky 30 wt. and the YLI yellow/orange is a Jean thread...I thought I'd try it in the bobbin. These white on white fabrics I think will dye/paint wonderfully, maybe like Diane's? and I got the scissors Wendy suggested I get for FME.

Oh and yes, I filled up on any possible fusible needs. I had steam a seam 2, but was running out; tons of Heat n Bond (which I'm not happy with)...so now I have Misty Fuse, Wonder Under, Stitch Witchery (bought before I found the first two), Sulky temporary adhesive, and also Bo Nash. Whew. Now I just have to remember what to DO with each of them!