blue gem and bead necklace

Tonight I finished this necklace, which will be mailed off as a gift on Monday (at least I'll have a picture). It is a mixture of sem-precious and glass beads, with a tiny bit of wire working (the first time I've made these swirled headpins (the first looked good, but didn't fit through the bead).

I love paintsticks

I started with one of my hand-dyed fabrics, then applied black, and lastly gold paintsticks. (The designs are from the rubbing plates that I used.)

goddess dolls

Last night I finally got around to finishing these dolls. They are from a simple goddess shape that I designed in my quilt program, then made and embellished. It would have been much easier to do all the embroidery on the light pink one before sewing and stuffing, but I would not have been able to wrap the embroidery around the doll.

Songbird fatbook page

Would you belive I made 56 of these little 4" x 4" pages??? Of course each one is a little bit different, and for some reason, when I went to sign the backs, I thought I had made 60 so they are all labeled x/60, but I guess it was better than numbering up to 56 and having to go back and change all of them? The main image is from Dover (clip-art), and the background is watercolor scraped with several colors of acrylic paint. Stamping, hand coloring with watercolor crayons and a tiny distressed title gave them the look I was going for.

Bargello in progress

Here's a preview of my bargello quit. It's coming along, and as long as I don't get too many interuptions this week it might just get finished. Right now the center panel is quilted, so I just need to quilt the borders, as well as details like binding and the hanging sleeve.

Busy, productive week!

After the fish quilts were finished, patterns finished, and everything delivered, I decided to do some of my messy projects. One of them was a third try at making soy silk paper, and the third time was the charm! The first two times I tried, I didn't want to hang the paper to drip dry, and let them dry on freezer paper - problem was the back was shiny and tacky - not what I wanted:-( So, this time the floor was covered, I let them drip dry, and was rewarded with beautiful soy silk paper (still need to heat set, but almost ready to use). Next, tissue paper was layered with jute string, and painted with thinned painting medium. Once it dried, I painted parts with watered down liquid acrylics.
Two pieces of paper came from the art store unpainted(I think they're both from Japan), but I added paint, and now they're beautiful!
Here are more of my painted tissue paper. The matt black is the only color that I painted both the front and back to make sure it would be opaque when used in a collage, the others are much more transparent, some more than others.
Of course, I didn't sit around waiting for paint to dry, and among all the other things I'm re-creating that bargello that I never got a picture of.

And here's the small Fantasy Fish quilt

This quilt is much smaller than the other two fish quilts, so it only has a couple types of fish. The tie dye center fabric is a hand dye that I made a few years ago.
Now I'm off to work on my bargello quilt, and this one is going to be mine for a while, so when it's finished I'll definitely have a picture to post (unlike the one I sent off without one).

Fantasy Fish quilt pattern is done!

Well, I've finally finished all three of my fish quilts! This one has all of the fish and other creatures, so it is the patttern quilt. The other two are smaller, and can be made from the same patterns. Of course, you could also make a larger or smaller quilt with more or fewer creatures, and a single fish would look great on a placemat! People are always asking about my quilting, so I've included a few close-ups so you can see all the details. The earlier fish quilt post had the quilt that is just a bit smaller than this one - it is the same width, but shorter than this one, so could not fit the last couple of fish. It also had extra embellishment that is not in the pattern. This quilt only contains the fish and other creatures that are in the pattern. Fussy cutting the fabrics you have, or can find in the quilt shops can help to create a more realistic-looking undersea world.

If you live in Western Washington, the three quilts are going to be in three different shops for you to see. Today, they are going to Gathering Fabric, Quilting by the Sea, and The Sundown Quilt Shop. Links to these shops can be found under links, in the upper right.

Later today or tomorrow I'll upload pictures of the small quilt, as I'm out of time right now - have to go deliver those quilts!