Life's A Beach!

The weather is amazing today! It feels like Spring has come to Ontario. We went on a long walk around the neighbourhood tonight, talking to neighbours with Oatis. I am still longing for the Beach, in Florida or at Lake Erie. I love the yellow green colours of spring and I can hardly wait to visit the cottage with our new dog and all the new buds bursting from the trees. And the robins will be back.


Close up of my Beach Symbols, made completely with painted Peltex with embroidery and beads.
Port Dover, on Lake Erie, has 2 transplanted palm trees on the beach. Who knew!



At the Beach, a mixed media piece on painted peltex.

I ordered lots of lutradur to further experiment with my symbols class that I took with Susan Sorrell. I also ordered Lesley Riley's book on Lutradur to further experiment with this unique material. Shoppellon delivered to Canada within a week with a very reasonable shipping rate. Thanks to Susan for the tip.
In other news, in the popular Ning forum: www.fibrearts/mixedmedia.com , Susan has set up new regional groups. Arlee started the Canadian Fibre Artists Group and we are having some good discussions. I am also participating in a Group called Barenaked Postcards and we are swapping one on one. I think Susan is going to open it up to the whole group until we have about 20 participants.



This is my Beach Symbols piece completed. I used raffia as a border with shells and vintage bead embellishment. I was motivated to finish to meet the deadline for the Cloth Paper Scissors Challenge. I've got my fingers crossed that it may be suitable for the magazine. Back to working on my Heart project for my show. Until next time, keep stitching friends!

Dog Tired, Show Time

'Fibre Art from the Heart' is the name I chose for my first gallery show at the Greenwood Quiltery Gallery in Guelph, Ontario. The show runs from April 3rd to April 30th. I will be in attendance on the 4th from 2pm. to 4 pm. I was inspired by the work and words of Lesley Riley for the title of my show. Above is pictured one of the blocks from my auction quilt, Intuitive Hearts. I have started a smaller version especially for the show, I am now working on the embellishments using embroidery and beads. I also hope to finish a couple of felted pieces for the show.
I had a very enjoyable evening last night with the executive of the Oakville Stitchery Guild. I am the Program coordinator for the group and will be that and vice president next year. I treasure the people I work with at the Guild. I am constantly inspired to create. We will have Susan Strachan Johnson as our guest speaker on March 23rd. I first met Susan at the Elora School of Art when we were both beginning fibre artists. We were taking a week long class with Penny Berens who is an exceptional teacher. Susan has found her style in fibre art and her work is intriguing. Go to www.rooster@quican.com
to see Susan's art work.



Here is sleeping Oatie, when he is at his best! I am dog tired, getting up at 4 am. to let him out and then he wants to play for about two hours! Today I got to sleep mid morning to catch up on some needed zzzzz's. Oatie has learned so much in only 11 days, like going up and down stairs, going outside most times, and coming when called. He seems to be very smart and trainable, he is certainly training the whole family.




Here he is sitting on his daddy's lap. I now know why puppies are so cute. Would we run after them if they weren't? Until next week, happy stitching!

Postcard Workshop and a Forever Home for Puppy

Happiness is a Warm Puppy!
Hi all, this is my son Matt with our new puppy on pickup day. Oatis is giving Matthew a welcome kiss. All is going well on the homefront. Oatis is going outside for his business and had his first visit to the vet today. He seems to have adapted to sleeping in his doggy crate as well. All in two days.
The day before I was teaching a workshop to some gals from the Yorkshire Rose Quilt Guild in Toronto. We were making fibre postcards in the morning and learning the basics of using the embellisher machine in the afternoon. Below are some wonderful works of art by the ladies. ( Mary Lou, Sandi, Karen, Coral, Karen. Carol, Deb and Katie)



Carol's impressionist type collage was amazing.




Karen has a keen eye for colour and using her fabric as design. The embroidery and beading was very effective!





I just loved this postcard by Karen about the dog beach.




Here are most of the gals admiring each other's work. I had a wonderful time sharing what I know about fibre art. I felt like I made eight new friends. Lunch was delicious and a very nice treat at a workshop. Thank you to Deb for arranging this workshop for me.




Finally, I am all consumed with this new little being in our home. He is still little at 6.9 pounds. He is a very warm little body when he sits on your lap. I am going to enjoy him as much as I can while he is a puppy. Besides he is just too cute. Until next week, love your pets!

A Busy but Creative Life

Its been crazy for me lately. Self doubt can breed procrastination and sometimes panic! The postcard samples above are for a workshop I am teaching on Saturday for the Yorkshire Rose Quilt Guild. I want to be at my best but fear of the unknown is sometimes overwhelming. I have two days to get ready, that should be enough time!



I haven't had any time to work on my class with Susan Sorrell, but here is my Symbol piece almost finished, made completely with painted Peltex 70. Very hard on the fingers when doing all the embroidery. These are all beach symbols a memory of my time at Madeira Beach.




My group, the Material Girls had a great time using Shiva Paint sticks on fabric. I really liked the foamy stamps the best, they were so easy to work with. Stencils were fun too. I can see these pieces in a small art quilt or postcard.





Finally, a published author! This is from Fibre and Stitch issue 7, if you wish to purchase. http://www.fibreandstitch.com/ It is very special to see your name beside 'guest author'. Maybe more articles are in my future!




These are my February 4 x 4 Crazy Quilt swaps for Cloth, Paper Studios. I love to stitch small projects.





This is my grand niece, Maddie, at her baby shower. She did not like dressing up, but was very comfy in her sleeper with Piglet. I completed a red sampler with lots of machine quilting and a bit of embroidery. It looked very chic when I washed it and the batt shrunk up a bit.



All of this in one week. Not quite, I also attended two guild meetings. The Oakville Quilting Guild had a guest speaker, Anita Zobens presenting her knowledge of threads and at the Oakville Stitchery Guild we had a wearable art show and slides. It is so encouraging to be around so many enthusiastic stitchers and artists. I did turn down a couple of art related jobs, just couldn't fit them in. It's no wonder I have sleep apnea. If you are using a CPAP machine I would like to hear from you. I lasted half way through my first night. Well, I will try not to forget to blog next Tuesday night. If you need entertainment in your life, go see Slumdog Millionaire! Until next time, keep stitching!

Trades from Friends and Baby Madelyn

This is my grand niece, Madelyn Sarah, who was born in Newfoundland about 11 weeks ago. We finally got to meet this last Sunday! She is so cuddly she just melts into your shoulder. She smells so baby sweet!



This is some random stitching I did while on holiday onto some hand painted fabrics. No idea yet of a project to put them into!




These are my trades from the Cyber Fyber ATC exchange. The first on the left is from Robbie Payne, the middle is from Doreen Gray and the one on the right is from Kate North. They are a great addition to my collection.




These are my 4 x4 crazy quilt swaps from Cloth Paper Studio. The top left CQ is from Rachel Murphree. The top right is one I made. The bottom left is from Liz Kettle. Liz is part of the dynamic duo Goddess Within Designs with Debbie Bates. I have met both ladies in my fibre art travels. The bottom right CQ is from Linda Moyes. They are all so unique! I am participating in the next swap which is a heart theme CQ 4 x4. It is so nice to get surprises in the mail.
Happy news for me, my article Easy Manipulated Landscapes is now published in Fibre and Stitch and it looks great. I was thrilled to receive a cheque in the mail as well! I thought I was doing it for the the satisfaction of being published! My friend, Carol Weibe also has an article published in the same issue. On a sad note, Fibre and Stitch has only one more issue before closing down. :( My Exquisite Corpse round robin is ready for the mail. So sorry, I can not put a photo of it here. It is a secret until next August.
We are counting down the days until Oatie comes to his forever home. Hubby and I watched alot of the Dog Whisperer on holiday to get our doggie fix! I enjoyed the 10 Chihuahuas from hell! He made them all into balanced follow the pack leader dogs.



Lastly, a photo of Maddie and her great aunt Donna, me! I tend to like photos that really only reveal my smile and my new highlighted do. Until next week friends! Thanks for reading my fibrejournal!

New Puppy!

This is the new puppy we chose today!!!! I just have to finalize the deal and pick up is March 1st! I think his name will be Otis or Otie! I'd like to spell it Oatie, like the cereal! I just couldn't wait to blog tomorrow! But I will have other news in my fibrejournal for tomorrow!



Another very cute photo!




That's all of him! I asked hubby to chose from two puppies that looked like twins! It will really be his dog like Oskar was. BTW, Oatie is a black and silver miniature schnauzer from Sandra Gambles pups in Niagara Falls. Until tomorrow, happy doggie dreams!

At Home and Its Snowing!

Where does the time go? That is my profound statement for this week. On Marie Z's blog she suggested playing this game. Grab the book closest to you. Right now. Go to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post your sentence on your blog. My closest book was the Artist's Way. Really! Try it, it may be exactly what you need to read, mine was.
I am home to the cold and snow. The drive north was uneventful, all the roads were clear and dry. We decided to head home the second day and save the hotel money which I spent at the Duty Free shop. Today we got 5 inches of snow so it was a good decision.
Above is another embellished archway piece, the embroidery is in progress.



While at Madeira Beach, I also worked collaging in my sketchbook, mementos of what I did on our vacation. I paint and stamp the pages ahead of time.
My visit to the Dali Museum .



My visit to the local boutique area called John's Pass.

For this week's personal symbols class, I started on my Matisse like collage. Here are the Beach symbols arranged on my painted peltex. The symbols are also painted peltex.

This is an outdoor shot of the Painted peltex. I mixed primary colours to get other colours. I was not able to make black with these paints, therefore a blue background.

Sketches of my Beach symbols in my sketch book.

Matisse inspired piece with some stitching, simple embroidery stitches. I've learned that it isn't easy to get the needle through all that painted peltex. I should have listened to Sue about putting the glue on the back. Ouch!!!!

In other news, I am a new member of the Round Robin Group called The Exquisite Corpse. I really can't say anything about the topic of our intended work but it is exciting! You can see other completed EC's on the blog. Each artist covers up their work except for 2" for the next person to see. Our leader is Arlee Barr from Calgary. My friend Anne Marie is also a member.

Sadly, I am not getting my puppy this month. The mom had her pups prematurely( all boys ) and they were not healthy enough to survive. Our breeder is trying to find another puppy for us. If she finds one it will be meant to be. I believe in destiny, if it is meant to happen, it will. I am also looking on line at other breeders for a little Schnauzer puppy! I am not meant to be DOGLESS!

Where does my time go? This is worth contemplating and considering on how to make better use of my time! One of my goals is to get more organized so I have more space to do my art. I definitely will NOT contribute more time to housework, it is always there and gives little satisfaction. Tomorrow after lunch with my good friend, it will be time for making art. Until next week, happy stitching friends!