Birds are flyin'

I cooked more food this weekend then I have in the last 4 months combined!
but I took a little break yesterday to create my first ever banner :) I am happy how it turned out, I was going to make a departure from my own style and try something new but I gave myself a 2 hour time limit to make this so I had to stick to what I know.
This is for a bird them swap hosted by Tammie Moore and Mrs Moore her self is my partner :)

Felt and altered fibers along with hidden elements and papers along with machine quilting comprise this banner,
I really want one for myself!
I hope Tammie likes it :)
now I am off to make some jewelry for the book "A Charming Exchange"... its so hard to believe that I only 8 weeks to get 40 pieces of jewelry completed for this project! I am a dreamer at heart and a procrastinator till the end! but I always get my work done by my dead lines! so its off to work I go! :)

Weird-Bird by Shel Silverstein

Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."

enchant your life

So what do you do when you have a dead line but also want to play?
well you take your work pool side of course and take a dip and bask in the sun!
This is the beauty of jewelry once your past your design stage it is totally portable :)
This is the out side of the jewelry holder that I made to put it in.

This is the holder open.

This is my trusty assistant Bruizer :)

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." — Kahlil Gibran

2 AM

when the muse comes we have no choice other then to embrace her! :)

(atc)

I did not sleep a wink Thursday night I tossed and turned from 2am to 4am, I have two upcoming magazine articles that I had to write and I am not a "real" writer so this is the part that I stress about more then anything! there were pages in my head all full of words, really good words and full sentence! I really needed to go to the computer and type it all down! but it was 2am and I really did not want to get out of bed so I turned on my bed side light and took my journal and I wrote down a few things thinking that this would free my mind... but this only made room for more words! at 4am I gave up and got out of bed! but I am happy to report that I got both finished by 7am so all in all it was worth the insomnia!

Art Girl :)

Sharon Wisely
and I were in this Round Robbin altered calender group last year and when she
read my sew charming article in Cloth Paper Scissors she thought that these word stamps from Her shop Red Lead
would be to my liking! (you must go to her shop she has some amazing stamps and oh so many wonderful things!)

oh my! was I ever inspired! thank you Sharon! I only just started to play with them but here are a few peeks of what they look like stamped on fabric :)

(these cones are for sale on etsy)

I am over my head busy right now with so many projects and I have found that the more I HAVE to do, and the more SERIOUS the projects the more likely I am to PLAY!

cure of soul

When I look back over my work from last year I can see the roots from where I have grown...

(life, My hands)

I want to stretch more with fiber art, I find myself at a crossroads with my skills and I am starting to become limited and I believe that I can not go forward with out steeping back and truly understand the foundations of sewing, so a few classes my be in order.

Dear wonderful Sara in Austria has suggested that maybe next summer I could come and spend some time with her in her studio and we could create together! Now this is just a dream right now but it is one that I hope to make come true! Sara inspires me so completely! I love how her work is constantly evolving and growing! and her sewing skills are so vast it's amazing! I would love to be her appearance!

cure of soul(doors closed)

(close up of door details)

So here you have it, my 9 x 12 Fabric secret door project, this is my last swap for a while, its time for me to go deep into a hole and create jewelry for my book "A charming exchange" Kelly and I have been working on the lay outs and I must say that the art we have to work with is truly amazing! I am a little confused as how I will blog from here out... I am not sure how many sneak peeks any one can handle!

(doors open)


(close up of inside details and heart pocket with secret inside)

So why do I use such a limited color pallet?

I guess in part its because when I create with fabric its come from more of a dream state deep from inside of myself... the textures and layers and all the hidden elements are things found inside my dreams... when I work on a piece things are always being shifted and moved until it seams as if it where something I had seen before. so for now I am lost in sepia tones.
but I promise I will try to steep out of the box soon!
(you can see more close up's of "cure of soul" here)


"There's too much beauty upon this earth for lonely men to bear."
— Richard Le Gallienne

be still my heart!

I got the most amazing thank you in the mail on Friday from Elaine Kerr
I sent her a few little goodies in the mail and she went over the top and
She created this art doll with my daughters face that she found here

at first glance I just thought that the paper it was wrapped in was just news print... but this was not just any news print Elaine had made up a copy write en-figment story about the Sarah~Jeanne art doll! Elaine you are one amazing and FUN artist!!!
Sarah~Jeanne was very impressed with her self :)

I never take on a commission... I guess its my ego mania, but I could not say no to this one because it was a favor for my aunt... and it is a challenge square side drilled tigers eye! oh my!
what will I do ! I have till the 30th to get this done.. I just started to play with the lay out this morning.
Then I started to do some fabric work I needed to get done, My goal was to work in my studio until 3, then as I stated to sew I ran out of my gutermann thread! and there was not a substitute in site!
So off to the fabric store I went but along the way there was my favorite thrift shop where I got the most amazing crystal fringe for $4.95 ! but to my sadness when I got to the fabric store they were out of my thread! so I had to settle for my next favorite color, then of course there was the drive through Starbucks on the way to get kids... yes before you know it 3 o' clock comes by so fast and not a thing was really done!
so after my son's piano lessons and my daughters shopping spree at the mall (oh to be 16 again!), we grabbed a pizza for dinner then I made it back into my studio and got to finish up on my project!

I really love this little detail there is a flat glass heart on top of the word "Romeo?"
oh be still my heart!

"Nonsense and beauty have close connections." — E. M. Forster

I am a little late with this post this is the fun that was May 5 , 2007!
This is what a fun group of art girls looks like!

here's we all are outside the ArtBar in Santa Anna. left to right starting on the back row there's pilar, jennifer, tanya, julie, Me , beth, maija, mija and sylvia. left to right on the front row there's peggy, sandee, kelly, and mary.


This is Kelly's Amazing husband Tom who took the above group photo and was brave and had dinner with all us wild and crazy art girls!

we started the day off at 10am (ok so maybe I made it by 10:40 but it was a Saturday! and a girl needs her weekend beauty sleep!) it was quite the party a few girls brought goodie bags for all 13 0f us and there were Kelly made wonderful pink cup cakes,


Tanya and Maija were are lovely bartenders and made us all the most delightfully STRONG mango margaritas! all this was going on as we tyred to create bracelets for charms that we all made before hand to swap!

This is how my bracelet turned out :)

Mija was so sweet and gave us all a needle felting demo and gifted us all with felt and needles!
This is my 5 minute attempt at the craft!


at 5pm we head out to dinner but first there was some need for sidewalk dancing now the big treat seamed almost planed outside the was a DJ playing 80's music... now the whole group of us are in our 40's so this was a complete high school/collage flash back for all of us!

after our dinner at Memphis we walked around all the Santa Anna Artist Village art gallery's, I was really taken back by this one artist who's name I did not get!( the top 3 photo's) I only have mango margaritas and pink lemonade Martini's to blame! Thanks girls our play date was a true treat!

STAY CLOSE, MY HEART

I must confess that I am a wild crazy romantic! I just adore cutting hearts out! and pink and red are my 2 favorite colors! and Rumi is my favorite poet!
this little atc card I made to go out with one of my ETSY shop orders yesterday :)

STAY CLOSE, MY HEART

Stay close, my heart, to the one who knows your ways;
Come into the shade of the tree that allays has fresh flowers.
Don't stroll idly through the bazaar of the perfume-markers:
Stay in the shop of the sugar-seller.
If you don't find true balance, anyone can deceive you;
Anyone can trick out of a thing of straw,
And make you take it for gold
Don't squat with a bowl before every boiling pot;
In each pot on the fire you find very different things.
Not all sugarcanes have sugar, not all abysses a peak;
Not all eyes possess vision, not every sea is full of pearls.
O nightingale, with your voice of dark honey! Go on lamenting!
Only your drunken ecstasy can pierce the rock's hard heart!
Surrender yourself, and if you cannot be welcomes by the Friend,
Know that you are rebelling inwardly like a thread
That doesn't want to go through the needle's eye!
The awakened heart is a lamp; protect it by the him of your robe!
Hurry and get out of this wind, for the weather is bad.
And when you've left this storm, you will come to a fountain;
You'll find a Friend there who will always nourish your soul.
And with your soul always green, you'll grow into a tall tree
Flowering always with sweet light-fruit, whose growth is interior.

~Rumi (translated by Andrew Harvey)

(atc cards going out to Heather)

The best and most beautiful things

At the first of the year I had a goal to update my web site... this never really happened !
I did a small update tonight but the site truly needs time that I do not have right now! if you go to my site you will be able to view the fabric jewelry that I created for Cloth Paper Scissors larger then life! (remember I said I did not have time for my site and this included reformatting pitchers to fit the site!) but please take a peek all the same hereNow if you find your self in Claremont over the next mouth the sew charming group of fabric bracelets are on display at stamp your heart out


I updated my ETSY shop as well today and I noticed that I work in blocks of colors, the reason why I do this is because when I paint and dye I do it in a big batch of one or 2 colors the last project that I was working on was for a rain journal so I played around with the color blue... and the coffee dyed fabric... well what can I say I am hooked on the muted tones!

these are the 6 new art quilts on sale at my ETSY .
"The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, not touched, but are felt in the heart." — Hellen Keller