Clever Counting Sheep

Creativity is followed in many different ways in my studio. Besides graphic design, fibre art, felting and quilting, I have been interested in drafting patterns of my own designs.

My first pattern is now up for sale on Etsy! It has taken me a while to get all the details finished and now that the pattern has been officially tested, I feel very comfortable putting it up for sale. It is available here, for only $9.99 plus shipping.

If you have time, go online and check it out... along with my other Etsy fibre arts.

Dragons... Flying

Back home from holidays. We had a great time in Maui exploring and snorkeling and relaxing. I picked up a Sashiko kit at the Maui Quilt Store. It took only two or three hours to finish and now is ready to be made into a pillow. It was nice to work with my hands while I was away!

Aloha

This week my husband and I are visiting Maui! We are staying near Kaanapali along the West shore of Maui. We arrived late in the day after the Tsuanmi warning was lifted. Everyone is happy their homes and livelihoods were spared.

Yesterday we took a lovely afternoon drive to Kihei and found the Maui Quilt Store. My husband found another husband outside waiting for his wife and they quickly became anti-fabric-buying team buddies and stayed out in the sun for a visit. The other gentleman was from Edmonton... just five hours from our home of Grande Prairie, so they had lots of things to talk about (read hockey & golf).

The Maui Quilt Store is a wonderful shop to visit. Every kind of Hawaiin Quilt pattern you could ask for and lots of unique Maui-esque products. The balis were so Hawaiin in colour range (yellow, orange, pink, sky-blue... compared to the many earth-tones we have available in Canada.

I bought a book The Hawaiian Quilt: The Tradition Continues. Great instructions and many photographs of high-quality Hawaiin Quilts. If you are interested in this form of quilting (and I wasn't until yesterday), I recommend getting this book.

Tomorrow we will be checking out a quilt store in Lahaina!

I Caught my Rainbow!

It has been three weeks since my last post. My husband and I took a short trip to Florida and I have been busy catching up since. I hope this weekend will allow me to spend some time in my studio!

I was honoured to be invited to speak to the Edmonton and District Quilt Guild on February 17th. This was my first public speaking event. I was asked to share how my career as a graphic artist has influenced my quilting. I thought I might be nervous, but not so... I was very excited to talk about something I am so passionate about. What a great opportunity AND what a great bunch of people. I was warmly welcomed and I appreciate all the kind and supportive comments made to me after the talk. Thank you!

On my way home to Grande Prairie the next day, I stopped at Pam's Wooly Shop in Stony Plain. I found this lovely wool batt, which is about 1.5 feet square(ish). I have no idea what I am going to do with it, but the colours are gorgeous and the batt itself is so inviting to touch. It is meant to be spun, but of course this won't happen in my studio. I will incorporate it into a project eventually... or maybe just enjoy it as the rainbow that I caught :-)

Merlot and other great volcanoes :-)

This quilt was finished last Friday, but I had to wait for weather to cooperate for a photo opportunity. I am submitting the quilt to be included in an exhibition called GeoPhysical held in May as part of Quilt Canada. The Fibre Art Network (FAN) of which I am a member, is putting together this particular exhibition. It is great to have it finished. I really enjoyed machine quilting this one... a more manageable size and maybe some of my practising is paying off.

Friends

Penguin has a new friend. King Penguin that is... or mini-Giraffe. I made this Giraffe over the weekend with instruction from Wool Pets by Laurie Sharp. Turned out kind of hairy. Maybe in the olden days, giraffes were hairier? Or maybe this is a Northern Alberta Giraffe. And must admit Giraffe is kind of buff... more like horse muscles than giraffe :-)

My quilt is now listed on CraftHope for Haiti... http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38828647 hopefully it will sell and the money can go to help people. CraftHope is close to raising $10,000 in three days for Doctors without Borders. Kind of exciting to help by sharing a skill.

Craft Hope for Haiti

A little post :-)

Craft Hope for Haiti is an Etsy Site that is selling handmade items to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. If you would like to donate some handmade items, please visit this site and learn how. There are some excellent items for sale, so if you don't have anything to sell, you may find something to buy!!

If you have a blog, put up the Craft Hope for Haiti Button to help generate traffic to the site.

I have donated my little snowflake quilt... Snowflakes for Haiti.

Wild Roses

Here are a couple of photos that I took near my home in the forest. I edited them in Photoshop. Possible quilt ideas??? Maybe.

One of my goals for this year is to create a body of work. A series. I've never done this before. My theme is going to be Wild Roses, which I have been photographing since last May. I have a LOT of reference material now...

January - I'm Back

It's mid-January almost and I've decided to come back to blogging. I needed a break from the electronic world for a few weeks... and I now I'm re-energized.
I've joined Creative Every Day 2010 to keep focussed on creating. I will share a lot of my work during the year, but I won't be able to share everything! I'm looking forward to being part of the Creative Every Day community of artists and seeing their creations during the year as well.
I'm starting today with my little felting penguin. This little guy is not my original idea... I made him after reading Laurie Sharp's Wool Pets. Making him was fun and not so hard. He went together quite quickly once I got the hang of needle felting with one needle. And I only poked my finger ten or fifteen times, so the pain was minimal :-) I am a slow learner!

I'm also sharing my GeoPhysical Exhibition Quilt that is almost finished.

The quilting is done, the binding is on, the hanging sleeve is on and I am adding beads. I don't really know if I like the beads yet, but I'm not nearly finished with that part. The beads are all made from real stones, shells and gems... obsidian, pumice, shells, garnet, jasper, etc. I am using beads that would be part of a real volcano landscape process. The machine quilting went very well. It is the first time EVER that I have been satisfied with and enjoyed machine quilting. I think partly it was because the quilt was a manageable size, and partly because my confidence level got a little better.

Enjoy!

Frosty Day

I'm a typical Canadian obssessing about the weather... only -10 today! It was -44 on Monday, so I am glad to get outdoors again.

I am posting Trevor's quilt today. I have been working on the quilting of it. I traced some music into the panels and will begin quilting and painting it this weekend. I'm excited to see the results. I think Trevor will like it no matter what happens. The music idea was suggested during a critiquing session at the Fibre Art Network retreat I attended in October. As did a suggestion of music... Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. I found a few bars that appealed visually and in they went.

The rest of the photos are from a walk this morning. What a great day!

And these are some Angel Prints I found...