I found time to pull out yarn, wool, and fabric Friday evening when a friend came over to play. She had seen some of my raw edge applique picture quilts and had a desire to make a fall quilted hanging with pumpkins. I showed her how to use needle felting and fabric on a felt background. I did a little color blending but didn't seriously work on my own project being more interested in enjoying the visit. I finished these little experiments the next day.








Saturday morning I went to an awesome huge charity garage sale. I stood in line to wait till it opened at 8:30 and made a bee-line to the "notions" area where I found a beautiful supply of wool tapestry yarn, embroidery floss and pearl cotton. Then I looked at the neat bundles of fabric for wool to felt and found 2 yards of creamy off-white wool knit and a yard of woven wool fabric. I plan to dye these to use in doll making and art quilts.








I looked for wool sweaters to felt but there were none to be found! I don't know if they had been purchased the previous day. I did find several garments to wear.

I saw such a wealth of discarded items that I am quite inspired to do more without buying new from stores! Of course that garage sale is not available year round and going regularly to small garage sales is time consuming! Oh well, I have enough now for a lifetime of art and crafting!

Books I Am Reading and Project I Have Started

I reread three volumes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS by JRR Tolkien this summer. Then I re-read the HOBBIT and THE SILMARILLIAN. Now I am reading the UNFINISHED TALES. I did not remember reading it at first but as I read I could remember reading it when my mother was in the hospital. All the stories were familiar but the actual reading had been lost in the memories of that traumatic time!

When I am too occupied with work to have much time to be creative, or if I come home too tired to do anything but the essentials, I like to have a project book to be reading and dreaming about!

I have a tendency to start new projects when I am frustrated and not having much art time. Then when the schedule is more reasonable, I will work on finishing several things in one or two weekends. My Art Quilt Group is using Jane Davila and Elin Waterston's book for our monthly meetings.

I have started making two dolls using Patti Medaris Culeas's book and patterns, though I used felt for the body and plan to make another head. She is not dressed yet except in a "make-shift" fashion for modesty! The character design is fun yet to come! Will she be an elf maiden or medieval princess?

My new Etsy store is launched with one item!
Have you heard of Etsy and wondered what it means.
It means "and if" in Latin spelled ET SI.
Here is a TV news clip about Etsy.


Isn't technology wonderful? I didn't think so last night when for about 4 hours I thought I had lost all my blog posts! I had just put my first item in my new store and was in the process of adding a link and rearranging links. When I did something.

All better now! Isn't technology wonderful!

What am I doing this beautiful day?

Laundry, dishes, sorting mail...the never ending stuff!

Spending way too much time at the computor

Drinking iced Jasmin Tea

Doors and windows are opened for the coolish breeze

Listening to the birds and Finding Neverland Soundtrack - the best thing about this movie was the music!

I have made several new ACEOs, Art Cards Editions and Originalsthat I am listing for auction on Ebay. I love the format of tiny art quilts.

I find them a challenge and a pleasure. I have had the pleasure of trading cardswith some of my flickr friends but at the moment I need to make some sales.

I still plan to sell some books on Etsy as soon as I iron out the wrinkles in my new store. I also need to research the new postal rates.

Almost done with this one! Photographing it outside changed the colors somewhat; the previous view was scanned this morning before the sun came up. The sketchy black free motion quilting also gave it a different look! Sort of brought it to life! I also added some silk roving for highlights.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Claude Monet

I love flowers! And when I paint them I tend toward botanical accuracy, a look I love. But at times I desire to break away more into abstraction or interpretation of the flower. That has taken place at times when I am painting with children using tempera paint, a "throwaway medium."

Then two years ago I painted purple petunias with a decidedly stylized look. It is one of my favorites, the flower and the painting! Now I am trying to interpret the painting with cloth and fiber using needle felting and sewing. I am using bits of cloth, yarn, and wisps of dyed unspun wool to paint the picture.

Quilt Rebel?

This morning, 4:30, too early to start sewing, too noisy. So I sat and looked at my recent unfinished projects.

But I am very unhappy with my machine quilting. The stitches are big, uneven, almost random. I should get better with practice but I want to do too many things to practice that one thing enough to get good. I want to play in an orchestra on several instruments tonight then tomorrow afternoon play bluegrass...fast! But I can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on lots of instruments.

I love to use free-motion quilting like drawing or doodling or embroidery. I make art quilts because I don't like the level of precision that traditional quilts and traditional quilters require. I can match points and hand quilt with small even stitches, if not tiny, but the overall composition and quilt as a painting are most exciting to me.

That’s my story; I am trying to doodle on a quilt with stitches. It's a sketch. I meant those stitches to be big! After all I am making ART QUILTS! Is this the height of self delusion, obnoxious snobbery, spin, or rebellion?