KINDRED SPIRITS Calendar for 2009

I have finished my three pieces (all 12" square) for our 2009 Calendar and this one I call 'Where the Moth Fairies live'. The design is inspired by the Artist Stephanie Pui-Mun Law from the book Watercolour Fairies
This piece I call 'The Magical Unicorn' and was inspired by a picture on the internet suggested for a child to colour!
This is Elzeba, the wicked witch of the West and was inspired by an old newspaper cutting I kept years ago, artist unknown. I did actually enter this into Quilting Arts challenge for their Calendar 2008, as did Carol and Vinnie (two other members of Kindred Spirits) Vinnie was chosen as a Finalist, although she wasn't chosen as one of the Winners. We are so proud of her, and are keeping our fingers crossed that she might get published anyway, you never know........

Misty Morning Magic

Look what I saw down the bottom of the garden this morning, isn't he beautiful - even though he is chewing the heads of all my flowers!! (I took the pic. in bare feet and nightie as it was so early) Back to stitching..........

My 'Heartfelt' Round Robin

A Round Robin has recently been completed in a local Quilting Group (Upcott Valley Quilters) to which I belong, and these are the pieces I received, after seven months of anticipation. I was delighted with all the little hearts. I had originally said I would like to make a little book of heart felt sayings, and prepared about a dozen backgrounds from one piece of fabric, for the ladies each to stitch a heart onto, representing a saying.

The seven pieces shown are what I received. I added one more, and then made the accordion-style book, inspired very much by Beryl Taylor and her article in the Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine May/June 2007 Issue.

The pictures of the finished book show each side, and what I did to finish off each piece.

I've also used a lot of hand stitching on the pages, and felt beads to top them off.

I just LOVE surprises, and the little quilt, postcard, and hand made cord (made on an overlocker) were sent to me from Doreen (Grey) in Australia. Doreen reckons she came across the little quilt the other day and thought I might like it, due to what I had put in my Profile - isn't that just great!

I asked if she would swap postcards with me, and this is the one she sent. I hope she likes the one from me, as much as I like this one.

The picture of the cord does not do it justice, it is so pretty, with gold bits in amongst the red.

South West Quilters Workshop

There is nothing quite like spending a beautiful sunny Saturday inside a Village Hall with like minded people, making painted texture - is there? I did just that yesterday. I attended a South West Quilters Workshop tutored by Janet Gibbins at Exton Village Hall, South Devon, and had a whale of a time.

As you can see from this photo, Janet had us snipping bits of different fabric off piles she had brought with her, and stitching them down onto calico, with felt behind. We then painted the piece with emulsion paint (works just as well as Gesso) then put it out into the sunshine to dry.

While this was drying Janet had us painting another piece of felt with 'blobs' of metallic paint (three colours) smearing it on with a pallette knife. We then put that out to dry and brought the other piece in.

We then painted all these bits of fabric with acrylic paint, which of course came up in various shades, as we had various colours of bits under the white emulsion. That then went out to dry.

In came the other piece, which we then covered in a chiffon scarf and stitched all round the shapes with metallic thread (that woulnd't melt when you attack it with a soldering iron!) When finished we cut our pieces out with the soldering iron, so what you see in the pic. is my piece sitting on some blue fabric. I have yet to mount it onto something.

The textured piece was now dry, and we just added some metallic paint with a very dry brush, just to highlight all the texture.

I reckon the painted texture would make super fabric Postcards... must get stitching and painting more bits.

KINDRED SPIRITS

Last Sunday I and three friends paid a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society at Rosemoor, Gt.Torrington, North Devon, for a photoshoot, with four Art Dolls we had made. The photoshoot was for publicity for an Exhibition we are planning to put on there next May 2008. We call ourselves Kindred Spirits and the theme of our Exhibition will be Myths & Legends. We have each made a doll representing a myth or legend, and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours clicking away amongst all the beautiful flowers and veg. As you can see from this picture, Sarah's fairy has a hangover, and would lie down by the water dangling her hand in it. The others were behaving reasonably well.
This is Carol's Fairy, she is a wood nymph and plays the flute (Carol Rowland)
This is Sarah's Fairy, she is the Fairy of Recyling, and has a very bad hangover and misbehaved all day (Sarah O'Hora)
This is Vinnie's Goddess called Danni and relates to the Greek Legend about the shower of gold (Vineta Cable)
This is Val's Frost Fairy (Val Thomas)
All the girls behaved reasonably well considering how tiring it is to pose for the cameras for two or more hours.
We hope to have some postcards printed, as well as the publicity that RHS Rosemoor will be distributing in their leaflets of upcoming Events at Rosemoor.
Kindred Spirits are also planning a Calendar for 2009 (well it takes a lot of thinking about you know!!) with the theme Myths & Legends, and we each have to make three pieces. I will post pictures to share with you as I get them. Watch this space .....................

I bought a Felting Needle Tool yesterday and have been playing with it this morning. I don't think I am doing it right, as the card attached to the Tool says 'no thread or glue needed' and 'both sides look good'! The first time I tried I didn't like it much (wrong fabric) and just pulled it off....! However, I had another go with some silk, and quite liked the texture and effect I achieved. It is 'punched' into black felt. A while back I pushed some air drying 'marshmallow' clay into the felt and stamped it, let it dry and painted it. Now it has some felted silk around it, but I have had to stitch it down, else it would have pulled out.

I will have another go, and try to do better next time.

WOW! Look what arrived on my mat this morning. Isn't it gorgeous. I introduced my friend Dot to the Artist's Muse Website recently, and after completing her first Challenge and posting it onto the website, she has made this postcard for me in a very similiar manner. It is so beautiful - I can't tell if it is on green felt, but the background is various shades of green organza, cut and placed and machine stitched on top of each other, free machined leaf shapes are added, then the gorgeous flowers also using organza are free machined on. Two different coloured threads are used for each flower, with a seed bead added in the centre of each. Hand running stitches have been added in a lovely curvy shape, and finally, a little printed label in the top left hand corner that reads 'the spring of creativity'. The whole thing is topped off with a green eyelet through which is threaded organza ribbons, as you can see. What about that then? Whose a very lucky lady then? Thanks so much Dot.