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!

Busy, busy as the School Year Ends

As the school year ends, nothing gives me as much pleasure as teaching art to kids. I've been at my favourite school teaching cartooning to grade 7, painting to grade 5 and mosaics to grade 6! I am often given the freedom to prepare for the class and teach my own lesson. It is my giving back to my profession and to the kids especially when they love what they are doing! My favourite tool is my sketchbook. Many students love flipping through a little part of my life and art. I hope it inspires these young artists.
I've been busy with entries, street festivals and year end guild meetings. It was a pleasure but hard work to program for the Oakville Stitchery Guild. Last night was our annual general meeting with a potluck dinner, silent auction and slideshow of the Onartio Network of Needleworkers Meeting and show. We had a great year and I look forward to planning next year's program with the theme: 'Celebrating with Stitch'.



I am looking forward to future art endeavours this summer, starting with a declutterization of my house or studio. Which is which? My bookcase is put together and the first job is to gather my collection of books next to an easy chair and out of my sewing area! Then to tackle the dining room or paint studio as I refer to it. I want to camoflage the many supplies behind a standing screen. Finally my sewing studio in the basement, to make it more user friendly!




I wish to spend more time stitching at the cottage with Oatie, who loves to play with stings and threads. On the weekend, I was sitting on the deck watching the robins, feeling the breeze and sun. I was stitching my first Dotee doll for the Cloth, Paper Studio Swap. The photos above are from our back deck looking at our neighbour's yard in Turkey Point on Lake Erie. I manipulated then glorious green and red colours on my HP camera. Who knew what that little camera could do!
Last of all, my 'Beach Symbols' finalist piece is on its way home from Cloth Paper Scissors with a complimentary copy of the magazine. I am anxious to see if it is in the magazine! I received a felted picture from Scotland today from Aileen. Thank you Aileen, it is beautiful! A photo is coming soon! Until next time, keep stitching!

Go Green Challenge Finished

A lovely spring photo at the cottage of two contrasting coloured trees in our neighbour's yard. Nature has the best colours!



As program leader for my stitchery guild. I planned a 'Go Green' challenge this year for our members. We exchanged bags of recycled materials in October and presented our final projects last night at our meeting. My bag consisted of pieces of leather, some from old purses, a variety of laces, ribbons and some vintage dress embellishments including beads and sequins. Just a very bit of fabric and 2 balls of yarn.
I decided to make a background of fabric paper using Beryl Taylor's recipe. I used muslin, bits of collage paper and tissue paper. I embedded a couple of pieces of lace and netting into the tissue paper. I painted, gilded it with gold paint, stamped and sprayed on walnut ink.




With the other materials I made little units that I crocheted, felted, embroidered and beaded.





I assembled a little leather bird and cut the leaves from the purse. I cut up the vintage embellishment and mounted it onto black felt with the gold ribbon. I tried to arrange it all on the background, but it didn't look right. Finally one night, I thought: ' cut it into pieces'. And I did! This project was really a difficult challenge! Here is the final effort on black felt.




I made use of some of each material in my bag except some green lace. I added a few of my own coloured beads and some little gold jewelery findings. The backing also is recycled fabric and the felt and batting are from my studio. It is hand stitched, embroidered, beaded and machine quilted. I named it 'Pretty in Pink'.



I am showing my Go Green quilt at our meeting Monday night. Finally finished! I learned a lot about using what you have and ultimately that is the challenge. Thanks to Beryl Taylor's Mixed Media Explorations book for some of the techniques used in my quilt. Until next time, remember to 'Go Green' for the planet!

Joshua Creek Heritage Center

The Oakville Stitchery Guild meets at the home of Sybil Rampen at the Joshua Creek Heritage Center. We are very lucky indeed to meet at this recently renovated home, studio and art gallery. This is the back of the Winter Garden where we have our meetings.



This is a view of the pool from the back of the Art Gallery. Notice the Out House!





This is Sybil at a recent meeting of the Milton Fine Art Society. Sybil was the guest speaker and she gave an inspiring talk about her art and writing.





This is the Mercy Fish Art Gallery. Sybil held an art show of her work in celebration of her 80Th birthday. It was an amazing show of many media from printmaking to painting to fibre art.




This is Sybil's century family home. I am in awe of this beautiful home and gallery. Thank you Sybil for inspiring me!

Grand National Postcard Challenge

I am one of the Terrific Twelve artists recognized for our outstanding postcards in the Grand National Quilt Show 2009. I was so happy to be recognized along with other artists such as Hilary Rice, Beverley A White and Rita Budd. I had a chance to meet Beverley, whose work I admire.



Here I am at the Artist's Reception at the Joseph Schneider Haus, beside my postcard titled 'Go Green' which I made rather quickly for my postcard workshop back in February. I loved this little piece of Art because of the Go Green theme that the Oakville Stitchery Guild has made their focus for this year.



This is after the presentation to the me as part of the 'Terrific Twelve'. I was given a postcard book of all the winners and a rose corsage!





This postcard is one made by fellow artist and friend, Anne Marie Desaulniers.





A postcard made by Hilary Rice. I met Hilary last June in Newfoundland at the Canadian Quilter's Conference.






This stunning rendition of the JS Haus is made by Jill Buckley of London, On





This is my favourite postcard, the dog's left ear is hanging free!





A postcard made by Roberta Whitmore, of London, On. Roberta was also a one of the Terrific Twelve.





A great winning postcard by Joanne Young of Kitchener!




This is my dear friend Leslie who accompanied me to the reception. She is standing in front of some blue themed postcards!
May is such an exciting month for quilting art events! The St. Jacob's Quilt and Fibre Art Festival is May 26th - 30th. JS Haus is having a meet the artists event on the 28th from 7 - 9 pm. I will be visiting the festival before going to the meet and greet! My friend Janet Rhind is having a solo show at the Silo Weavers during the festival. All is good in the Fibre Art world!

Ontario Network of Needleworkers

This week I was fortunate enough to go to the annual meeting of the Network of Needleworkers representing the Oakville Stitchery Guild. This year it was held in Peterborough in the Kawarthas. The Guild in Peterborough put on a very fine meeting in the Evinrude Center with very good food. The displays of work from 16 different guilds were awesome. I got so many ideas and was able to take many pictures to share with the guild. I took our guild project, St. Peter Patch and our Go Green Challenges for our display. Above is part of our display with a variety of projects all made from recycled materials.




This is a fibre art piece made by Jan Vinnai and a doll made by Sherry Del Rizzo.




A unique fibre book made by Heather Van Reisen and a beautiful wallhanging by Val Garnett

A photo of our whole display of Go Green Challenges.

A close up of a St. Peter block made with paper, stitch witchery, watercolour crayons and fabric made by Sybil Rampen. Sybil held the Mycon workshop at Joshua Creek Studio for our members. My job was to complete the project. I backed each block with peltex, black fabric and quilting cotton. Also, I added embroidery to each block.

Another block made by Sandra Spagnuolo during our Guild At Work Day.

The whole Guild project hanging at ONN. I added cotton strapping and ribbon between each block to create a gridded wall hanging. We are planning to enter our Guild's St. Peter Patch into the Guilded Threads Show in September at the World of Threads in Oakville.

Above is a photo of my small fibre art piece called Black Dog, Blue Chair. It recently sold on the last day of my show. Last of all, my name on the street in front of the Greenwood Quiltery Gallery in Guelph.

Tomorrow I am off to the Grand National Postcard Reception at the Joseph Schneider Haus in Kitchener. More exciting news on that next week.