I just can't resist

Better than Campbell's soup

Challenge quilt

Our patchwork group - Grünstadt Quilters - has its 25th anniversary today. That is really rather old for a German patchwork group. We will have an exhibition in November. The group was called upon to make a challenge quilt with a K. Fasset- fabric,green Lutradur and a mix of seed beads. The only rules were to include the number 25 any which way and the size of the quilt (which was not to be larger than 60 x 60 cm). This is my quilt.

Sex and the City

Went with a friend to see that film. My daughter was exasperated - she thinks this is not something you should invest valuable time in. Well, we liked it very much! And now I found this Blogthing - I had to share it.

You Are Most Like Charlotte!

You are the ultimate romantic idealist You've been hurt before, but that hasn't caused you to give up on love. If anything, your resolve to fall in love is stronger than ever. And it's this feminine optimism that men find most appealing about you. Romantic prediction: That guy you are seeing (or crushing on)? Could be very serious - if you play your cards right!

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

Make a Smilebox postcard

Paperwork

One of the things I really love in online classes is the variety of links you can collect. Here is one which brings a whole new meaning to the word of paperwork:papercut
Have fun looking!

Wordl

This is the quote I want to put on the first page of my journal for the class with Sharon: Artists forge their way into the darkness fueled by creativity, leaving rainbows in their wake.
With Wordl text can be set up in various colors, fonts and directions which you can see when clicking on the the above.

Color wheel

One of the exercises for the Studio Journal class was doing a color wheel. Since my last color wheel for City & Guilds was some time ago I painted a new one. I keep forgetting the correct applications for terms like "split complementary", so I decided to enter the key words to the color wheel and glue this into my journal, so I will have them handy.
Unfortunately the paper from the journal I bought is not heavy enough to tolerate watercolors. I tried a wash for the first page and the paper buckled and stayed that way even after it dried. I think I will have to glue several pages together, try gesso or glue more heavyweight paper into the journal since I want to have some color experiments in there, too.

Frottage

Sounds like something to eat, doesn't it? Actually it is something everyone did as a kid, I think: Laying paper upon a structure and then rubbing with a pencil to get the outline and surface.
This is one of the exercises we have to do - or rather which are suggested to do - in an online class with Sharon Boggon at joggles.com called Studio Journals. I have been working with a sketch book on and off (lately rather off) and thought that training in a class would perhaps help me to keep up journaling on a more regular basis.

Zentangle

Ever heard of "Zentangle"? This is kind of a philosophy combining doodles and the idea of Zen. You try to fill every piece in a given design with another overall design. This takes time and you are to enjoy the process (live in the here and now). Drawing is done with a very fine Micron pen on exquisite heavy paper. I enjoy this process when I am stuck with an idea or just have no inclination to really work in my studio. You can do this for hours (although my neck starts screaming after a certain time) or just for a few minutes.
For the materials needed and for inspiration look up www.zentangle.com

Origami book

So this is one of the diversions I mentioned in my last post. It is a really tiny book (1 1/2" square) which is totally folded. No glue, no tacks, nothing. I found the kit at www.greenchairpress.com and had quite a lot of fun after I managed to work out how it was meant to be. (Believe me, that took some time. I am totally lost when it comes to spatial sense.)
Sorry that the picture of the interior (small pages you just insert which I decorated with paper inchies) is upside down. It was too dark outside to make a new photo when I realized that.

Another birthday

Seems that I am constantly working for friends - or rather their birthdays ;-)
But I have been busy otherwise, too. One of these days I will show you pictures of some artistic diversions I took.

Friendship

For my best friend's birthday I made this small wallhanging. I know that she loves nostalgic things, so I thought this a perfect gift. In hindsight it would have been better had I not chosen the background fabric with the small roses on it. It rather competes with the appliqué and stitching. Alas, too late! I hope she will like it nevertheless.

Finshed

Finally the quilt is finished. Since this piece is going to hang on a slightly curved wall I did not quilt all three layers. The center piece was quilted on the batting. Later on I added the borders, added batting to these, too, and then quilted only the borders with the background. I was afraid that quilting all three layers might make the wallhanging too stiff for the situation it was going to meet.
That is not the only reason why I haven't been blogging as regularly as before. My husband's computer is not working, so he is occupying my laptop all the time. Arrrrgh! I really look forward to the time my son is coming home. Between them they will hopefully be able to repair the other computer and give me free reign with my laptop again.

Memories

This booklet is for my stepmother. My father and her invited my husband and me to a very expensive hotel. We stayed for four days and celebrated my father's birthday. I collected everything I could lay my hands on and made this booklet which includes photos, cutouts from the hotel's advertising folder as well as the daily menu and my guest card for instance. At the back I sewed our buttons into a small see through bag. I really hope she will like it.

Work in progress

A commissioned wallhanging is finally reaching its completion. I had the measurements and the preferred color green to work with. Starting with several sketches I worked by auditioning my fabric. Later I freecut the fabric and translated the sketch into a quilt. Everything was done by raw applique and then quilted.
As is often the case I discovered a fabric in my stash that worked much better than the ones I had bought for the foreground. So I discarded the precut shapes and just added this fabric which has a kind of watercolor appearance. Now there remains the border to quilt and then it will be finished. I am quite pleased by the outcome, especially since I have been procrastinating several weeks before finally starting to work on this piece.

Results from the workshop

One of our loosening up experiments was the felting of a pincushion. Looks like an UFO, doesn't it? Plus we made these small pins with shrinking plastic. That was fun!
Later we tried to achieve a somewhat trapunto effect by quilting a piece of "fabric" made by felting rovings, fabric and other stuff together.
At last Sara had a challenge for us. We had to randomly chose five words from a book and make a piece using these. Mine were the words location, glass, hall, staircase and girls. This really forced us to work outside our comfort zone.

Embelisher experiments workshop

So this is what it looks like when you have a workshop with 12 women wildly experimenting with the embellisher.... and when you have a host who supplies you with all imaginable things you might need for these experiments.
It does not matter how many boxes of supplies you carry with you - there will always be something you left behind because you thought it would not be necessary. This item will be needed most of all, I assure you.
No need to worry, we could buy everything, and of the best quality, too. Wools and rovings and silk carrier rods and silk throwster waste and yarns, these hand colored yarns!! No need to say that every one of us later took off with quite a lot more or heavier boxes than we arrived with. I wonder how I will keep the family nourished this month....

Brooch

This brooch was the first thing I finished during my workshop with Sara Lechner. This and a small pincushion were sort of a warming up exercise to get our embellisher going. We even made some pins with flower heads (from shrink plastic) which I think are quite charming.
The next posts will give you an impression of the workshop which was very informative and quite exhausting!

Felting experiments

Yesterday I attended a class to make Nuno-felt. We had a lot of fun and I came home with a selection of 6 felted pieces. It is quite interesting to realize how the kind of wool as well as the underground fabric influences the outcome of the felted piece. Since I am going to make a felted jacket in autumn I gladly accepted the opportunity to test various backgrounds - I decided on a striped silk fabric for my jacket, since this was the fabric which felted best.