Before and After

The last two weeks have been busy as usual. Here is a photo of Oatis before the BIG Operation!




Here he is after, no worse for wear and all duded out in a red kerchief! Today's check up went well . He is all set to go.




This is my first paper stitchery mounted on a painted canvas. I just need to stitch it in place. I used the same method, using paper,crayon, paint, stitch witchery, fusible pellon. I machine stitched then hand stitched with added beads. I am very pleased with the results.




This is my first piece with all the embellishments completed. I just need to paint a wrapped canvas for it.

Button Cloth Doodle for a Cloth Paper Studio swap.

Go Green Cloth Doodle

More paper pieces ready for stitch.

I started embroidering my flower pounding piece I made last year with Kim Maticiw.

A felted piece waiting for some hand stitching.

I discovered this really old machine embroidery book at our guild. It was published in 1961! The year my baby sister was born. The drawings are amazing! I am practising in my sketchbook using Enid's drawings for inspiration. I hope to add some of these to my crayoned papers as design or in stitch.

Finally, I found an Ikea frame for the felted art I bought from Aileen Clarke. It is hanging up in the living room.

I also displayed my ATC's from My Embellish and Enrich Group on a memory Board my sister gave me.

My first spot is complete with all books in the bookcase next to an easy chair. I still want to buy an occasional table and a free standing lamp.

Well, I am off to a retreat to my cottage with my friends, The Material Girls, for stitching and relaxation with a bit of food and wine! Hope you are having a warm and inspiring July!

Playing with Papers

Decorated Papers, using hand made paper, crayons and paint.



My mom, sister Brenda, my aunt Elly and I had a delightful time on Monday on the Grand River Dinner Cruise. We saw a movie about the Grand River, were entertained by the Blazing Fiddles and had a tasty lunch on the Princess pontoon boat along the Grand River. Captain Al told us about the local history, especially about the Mohawk natives and the Six Nations Reserve. We saw from the river where the poet, Pauline Johnson lived.



This past week I have been completely enthralled with making design papers for stitching on. Using the instructions from Jill A Kennedy's Florabundance article in Quilting Arts Magazine, I've made one surface to stitch on and I have a couple more ready to go. Above is a design paper after using wax crayons and painting over the resist with Dynaflow. I added some Shiva gold on top. It's ready to be fused to craft fuse stabilizer on the back and fused with stitch witchery on the top. Once that is done I will scrunch up the paper fabric to soften it. The next step is to cut the pieces apart and reassemble into a design.




This is a close up of my first crayoned and painted Paper with stitching on it.




This is an over all view of the same paper. After reassembling and fusing to craft fuse again, I zigzagged the edges and free motion quilted the whole paper. I started hand stitching using a straight stitch, a few french knots and cross stitches. Its amazing that I started with a piece of painted manila paper from school and ended up with a stitchery.



This is my first cloth Doodle. I enjoyed doing this so much. I am keeping this one and making 3 more for a swap with Cloth, Paper Studio forum.
I finally got to working on making my studio spots in my house. My bookcase is up and filled with my art quilting books beside an easy chair in my living room. This is my reading SPOT! Since I can not have one big studio, I will have spots all over my house. Right now I am at my computer spot in the basement family room. This will be a summer project for sure! Until next week, try paper quilting!

Celebrations and Publication!

This photo is for all my dog fans. Oatie will be six months on July 2nd! He is getting to be such a good companion. He sleeps on the floor almost under our bed, follows me everywhere, loves to go to the beach and is a good rider in the car! This is his second haircut and he is too cute!



More Swap ATCs arrived last week. Thank you to Meri, Barbara and Marci from the cloth, paper, studio forum! I am busy now making 6" x 6" cloth doodles. I just sent off my painted journal pages for a trade. If you would like to join our group, go to http://www.clothpaperstudio.com/



Symbols of the Beach

My cause for celebration is 3 fold this week. I was published in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine in the July/ August issue! WOO HOO! Thank you again to Susan Sorrell for the Symbols class! Today is my youngest son's birthday. Matthew is 25 years old and he proudly wore his Bluejays Baseball watch that we got him to the game tonight at the Rogers Center. My third celebration was for my son James' graduation from the University of Toronto Teacher Education. (OISE) He is now a Secondary School Teacher!



Finally I took a picture of my finished 'GO Green' Challenge that was an extreme challenge, using mostly leather and lace. Below are two of my painted journal pages.




My three Dotee dolls for the cps swap!

A graduation Photo: me, James and my hubby Ray. Got to love the coordinated green!

Until next week friends, I'll be on summer holidays!