Before the holidays, someone was telling me about a delicious treat that was easy to make: take two Ritz crackers and make a peanut butter sandwich with them, then dip and coat in chocolate. I have been making them and I think they are now our new favorite.
From this…
…to this…
Try them…you WILL like them!
I love curry powder…actually I love lemon curry powder the best. It has a little lighter taste than regular curry. I buy it at the Green Earth health food store when I get to Edwardsville. I don’t know where else to buy it, but you can get it in the bulk section there. I don’t use it in a lot of things, but when I want it, I like having it on hand. I was filling a small spice jar with it the other day and decided the color was so yummy I had to take a photo.
Now, compare that with this piece of cloth dyed with Curry dye. Are they close to the same color? It’s yummy too. There is also Amethyst on this cloth. I bought the Curry dye powder this year and now it’s at the top of my favorite list.
I am going to have to do something awesome with this piece of cotton. As for the lemon curry powder (the stuff you can eat), try it in your chicken salad the next time you make it, along with dried cranberries or fresh grapes and slivered almonds. It makes a delicious salad.
I have signed up for two journaling projects starting the first of the year. What was I thinking? And will I even be able to do either one? Oh well.
One of them is called the Sketchbook Challenge and there is an icon in my sidebar that will take you right to where you need to sign up. The other one is free classes offered by Strathmore. They have new visual journals this year with all different kinds of papers in them, including watercolor. It sounded interesting, so I signed up back in November sometime. I bought some new art supplies on Saturday when I was shopping in Evansville, but couldn’t get the watercolor visual journal. So I ordered it online. Dick Blick is totally out of them and Jerry’s Artarama have them on backorder! There are over 1000 people signed up for the Strathmore journaling classes, so I guess everyone has pretty well beat me to the 9″ x 12″ watercolor 140 lb. paper visual journal. Evansville Dick Blick did not stock them.
I bought some oil pastels after reading reviews about Sennelier being about the best the reviewers had ever tried. A couple of triple liner markers (these are very cool and come in very cool colors) to add to my current collection, and some Pentel artist markers as well as a graphite pencil. We’ll see what happens! I think it will be great fun if I just give myself permission to do it.
I dig pottery pieces. The potters I know make very artistic work. They play with colors and patterns and textures. I usually buy small bowls that are experimental work and soap dishes. The soap dishes are so much more though; they can be used for spoon rests too. Here are a couple I just bought. These are by Tom Wintczak from Bee Tree Pottery in Indiana.
The back is pretty cool too.
And the back…
I love Tom’s work!
And for an update on potato chip scarves…here is a new one I just finished in Sensations Angel Hair yarn. It is 22% wool, 50% acrylic, and 28% nylon. It is soft and a bit fuzzy, fun and warm to wear.
Here are some more bags I have stitched up. However, according to comments on the previous post, the boxed bottoms have won….so these will be getting pleats momentarily.
Ok, I need some help. I was thinking about making the bags a little different than I usually do….but then I couldn’t resist making some with a boxed bottom. You tell me which you like best.
Is it this way?
Or this way?
They are pretty cute sitting up….
I love what I do. I love my work. Looking at inventory after the past weekend, I decided I needed to dye a few more scarves and make a few more small bags. I am almost out of the ArtFul cloth zippered bags. And so this a.m. finds me printing cloth. I have 11 ready to stitch!
Killing time waiting for them to dry (actually, I’m taking a break), I was looking at my favorite pages on Facebook and came across something everyone might be interested in. Linda Matthews has gathered 250 free handbag and tote pattern links from across the web all on one page. There are so many cute bags on there! Now I want to make some just for fun. I have added the link permanently to my sidebar under her name, but here it is too. Free patterns for purses and bags.
I am starting some new work. Put colors together and piece. Hmmm…not really satisfied with the salmon-ey orange color with the blue….I’m using my handy dandy 3-in-1 Color Wheel Tool. I also sell these now, so contact me if you need one.
I decided to paint it using either Setacolor or Dye-Na-Flow paints. I had forgotten how nice, fluid-y, and pigmented Dye-Na_Flow paints are. It was the perfect paint for this project. I might have used a different color though. Now I have cheddar as the color for my art. Well, I’ll be doing some other things to it that will tone it down a bit. Hopefully.
Select Collections is an annual event hosted by the Evansville Museum Shop. It is a unique shopping experience with selected vendors. Here’s a few photos.
The entrance to the gallery. The black and white printed pillows are mine.
My booth….and a short view down the hallway.
Julia’s wonderful dolls. She also had some raku pins and some wrist bags.
Julia arranging things.
I haven’t blogged here since November 4th…how can this be? I guess I’ve just been busy.
First I was out of town for several days vending at a quilt show in Columbia, MO. I just want to give a great big thank you to the girls of the Boonslick Quilt guild….they did a great job…their show was awesome…and they were so helpful to the vendors. And believe me I needed help. Having never been to Columbia, I was lost as a goose trying to get around and find my hotel room. The problem lay with the fact that I misread the map. I was beginning to think I was going crazy.
Here’s my booth set up.
I was very pleased with my sales. I had a wonderful Mexican meal and margarita on Saturday night with some of the vendors, made new friends, then drove half way home and stayed the night with my friend Vicki. We had a wonderful visit together (hope it was for her too) and then I came home on Monday. It was a great weekend. It was just a very fulfilling weekend. Maybe I need to get out more?
Then the race was on to get ready for Select Collections. I still had plenty of sewing to do since I was making table runners and table napkins from hand printed cloth. I also finished two new pieces of art. Here’s one. I need to photograph them both now that they are finished. This is Fragments #5b. That’s right, 5b. And there’s a #5a and #5c, but that will have to wait. The reason for the odd numbering is because all three are from the same piece of cloth and actually FIT together, although one would never have to purchase them that way. They measure approximately 17″x 14″.
On the second day of Select Collections I had to leave to go home for the holiday celebrations with families. We were gone til Monday. On the actual Thanksgiving we helped out at our church and my husband had a long weekend off work. The most I got done is some cleaning and laundry. The following week (this week) I made a trip back to Evansville to do some shopping and pick up all of my work from Select Collections. I am now settling in and doing some ART!!! Yeh! About. Time.
Of course this coming weekend is Christmas in Harmony. Find me and other artisans at the lovely Granary on Granary Street.
Art Journal---A Creative Journey 