Art Spirals - show_and_tell

Lana's latest Art Doll

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:14:54 -0600

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!

Fabric Art Purchases

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:05:00 -0600

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!

Interesting curtains

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:15:00 -0600

Isn't this an interesting reuse of jeans? Curtains at a local rib restaurant.

New Viking Quilter's Edition

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:06:55 -0600

My new (to me) Husqvarna Viking Quilter's Edition. 10-15 yr old model, loved before me, that's so much better than my 40+ yr old Singer. I'm SO psyched about this machine, so fun to use and easy to figure out what's wrong.

Interesting curtains

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:50:00 -0600

Interesting reuse of old jeans and bandanas. these were in the windows of a local rib establishment.

New stuff

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:40:00 -0600

Last week I was at an arts festival and a vendor was selling lengths of yarn ...cute packaging. I bought a couple.

From Cool Things

The varigated wool is alpaca, and I used it on my wallpocket.
Also got cool shell/bead earrings, really long and dramatic.

I've been on a book and video ordering jag. These two came quickly, and I'm enjoying reading them: Creative Quilts: Inspiration, Texture & Stitch and The Painted Quilt: Paint and Print Techniques for Color on Quilts. And then from Terry White's site I ordered the first of these Free Motion Embroidery videos (the basics) and thought it was so well done, that I ordered the other two. I've watched Designing by Thread video and learned a bunch about tension, needle size, speed of stitching and various feet in using specialty yarns and threads. Can't wait to view the other. The videos are well done, most of the shots are of actual stitching, the feet, fabric, settings on the machine, etc. No affiliation, but I'm a satisfied customer!

Lastly, the new addition to the backyard. A 30 inch deep x 10 foot pool with a filter and chlorine -- Perfect for our size kids who swim like fishes, and I can see it from the living room windows and from my studio bedroom window, so it's ideal. They've been in the thing for three hours running now, and loving it. View from my desk/sewing area.

OMAR -- "Our Mountain Art Retreat"

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rachel Murphree) — Sat, 3 May 2008 19:15:00 -0600

Well, the day finally arrived for Wendy and Diane to arrive, and all too soon, they had to fly back home. It's been two weeks now, and it seems like much longer ago. We rented a cabin in the mts of New Mexico and spent three days/four nights laughing, playing, arting around, organizing, show and telling, exchanging, having fun! Here's some of what I got done;

Organizing my seed beads/small beads for embroidery/sequins. Wendy brought me these way cool bags, heavy plastic with zippers, from England and I spent nice time fondling, er I mean, sorting my beads into colors and bags:

From OMAR

and the envelopes all lined up in their hand painted Mexican suitcase:

From OMAR

My almost finished "The Mommy Glove" is in the top pocket.

I also learned needle felting, by hand, and loved it. Felting with bead embellishment. Now I'm thinking it might be part of a purse I got carried away and it became too big to be a pin, as intended.:

From OMAR

Wendy's wild woman pin is in progress, and Diane's is, of course, finished. :) Wendy got the needle felting kits from Sarah at CraftyNotions as well, and copies of her book Wild Women. Sarah sent along extra goodies for us, which was very nice of her!

I haven't been participating in many swaps on ClothpaperStudio, but I did this one, at OMAR, and it was fun! the object was to draw portraits onto tickets, a la http://snipurl.com/portaits [www_independent_co_uk]

From OMAR

The "man" at the end started out being Oprah, from a picture in her magazine O, but then the shading under her neck was too dark and turned into a beard...all on its own!

And then we made silk fusion paper:

From OMAR

From the extra stuff from silk cocoons (that has its own adhesive naturally occuring), ribbons, roving, spray dyes from CraftyNotions in the UK, and bits of copper foil. FUN!

Also tried my hand at free motion embroidery, and bead weaving, and liked them both. I'm pursueing the FME right now, and considering treating myself to a newer machine. We'll see.

We also each altered six pieces of a 9 piece puzzle, and I still have the other three left to do. Pics of that coming when it's finished. Wendy's pictures from OMAR are here

All in all, it was a fun trip, and so lovely to have it end wishing it were longer!