The Very Busy Month Of June

As you can see I haven’t blogged for some time.  June was a really busy time for me.  I was creating two brand new classes…and then trying them out on my “guinea pigs”!  Postcard Panache was the first class. I had the actual idea for this class last summer, but like anything else, if there is no demand for something, my ideas may remain just that…ideas.  But in March this year, two ladies from Louisville put a demand on me for this class, so I worked hard to get samples made and get it prepared so they could have a full day of learning.  These two ladies came to my house for the day and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.  Now I just have to get it up on my Lectures/Workshops page.  There is always something to do!

Postcard Panache is a class geared to teaching people how to use all of the new artsy products that are  on the market.  I sell all these products at quilt shows, but demos are important because people don’t quite know what to do with Angelina fibers  and other items.  So, in postcard format, I showed these ladies a number of ways they could use bottled inks, Smooch Spritz, Angelina fibers and film, BoNash bonding powder, foiling glue, foil, stencils, etc.  They had quite a play day and were very complimentary, which makes me feel happy that they were so pleased.

The second class I created is a screen printing class.  I finally settled on a name for it no one else has used, at least not that I know of…Spontaneous Screen Printing.  Several gals from the St. Louis area and other friends of mine signed up and declared that they  had a great time and learned a great deal, so I feel I have done my job.  It is a lot of work creating and planning a brand new class, then packing everything for it.  At the same time I was planning a demo on Friday for the artisans center where the class would be taught the following day.  Due to the extreme messiness of using dye paints to demo I opted to do something totally different!  Which made me even more work…what was I thinking?  Again, it was a project that had been in the back of my mind for some time, so in a way, by demo-ing gelatin printing using paints, I got some “work” done for future artwork…AND I got a commission out of it too, which was very unexpected, but welcome.

New Product Time

I recently ordered some of Lesley Riley’s TAP Transfer Artist Paper.  I have been wanting to try this for some time.  It is wonderful and I love it.  It transfers beautifully.

Here is my first sample.  There will be more.  I used a little play on words…

This is a color transfer…I did not color it with pencils or anything.

I have some for sale…contact me if you are interested.  There are 5 sheets in the pack for $13, full instructions and a sheet of silicone release paper.

In other news, I have been cleaning up my workspace in the garage, cleaning out the fridge and trying to use up dyes before they get too old.  I dyed several yards of stuff and then discharged some designs on the black.  I found out there was lots of green in that black dye.  The big circle stamp is my new favorite thing to stamp with.

I discovered I could set the white balance on this camera according to the kind of light I am shooting in.  Holly Knott has a great tutorial on her blog about shooting your own work.  It is well worth reading, especially if you can’t take it to a photographer and need to photograph your own art.  Read it here.

I couldn’t resist ordering wool roving in my last order and have been playing at felting beads. Aren’t they cute?  Pretty easy and fun to make.

Tuesday is election day.  I will be working as a judge doing my civic duty and guarding the integrity of our elections.

Elizabethtown, Ky

I’m back from the Elizabethtown, KY quilt show and getting back in to my “other life”.  I want to lavish some praise on the Heart of Kentucky show guild…they do an awesome job.  Their quilts and their work are wonderful.  I am always struck by the quality of their work when I go to this annual show.  And these girls work their hearts out for this two day event, even having a quilter’s cafe to serve lunch. So, kudos to them and I hope it was a profitable event for them. I know I did very well on sales and I thank all of them for their support.

I decided to take some sets of Tsukineko inks with me for the first time.  Here is the sample I worked on at the show. The water is not totally finished and I have a couple of spots where I want to work on the shading.

Judy Coates Perez who is an award winning painter/quilter has done a tutorial on her blog using this same fish, so I basically just followed her instructions for the process.  In this tutorial she was trying out a new product. I have used the Fabrico ink markers for a while but had not tried the liquid inks before.  So I was getting acquainted with painting with the inks mixed with aloe vera gel.  I had a blast and learned a lot.  And I sold both sets of inks. There is a tutorial here at the Quilting Arts site for mixing the inks with aloe vera gel.

And here is the Merry Doodles stencil and the postcard size sample I made using it and Fabrico ink markers.

The Art of Melanie Testa

Ok, this will be an advertising post.  Melanie Testa is having a class in two weeks on Joggles.com and here is what it will be about.  Looks like fun!

Cyber Fyber Trade Complete

Here is the postcard from Susan Lenz. Mine has also arrived in South Carolina.  I believe she said this was from a quilt with letters that she cut up. There are threads, foil and hand stitching. The Cyber Fyber exhibit is in January 2009 and I think she still has cards to trade here.

I Always Learn Something…

…so I went to work yesterday making a postcard to trade with Susan Lenz.  Have you ever created something…and then, afterwards, you turned it a different way….and you like it better!?  That’s what happened here.  I created the postcard like this…

…but I like it much better like this…!

Since I am now a retailer of Fast2Fuse, I decided that I should try it out.  What great stuff…fusible on both sides…nice and stiff…great for postcards.

And one other thing…I like to use sheers for layering in my work.  I love using painted fusible web to add a bit of color with some transparency.  The other thing great about this is I put some loose threads on top of the postcard and the threads stick to the fusible web when heated.

Cyber Fyber Trade In The Works

Thanks to Patty Van Huis-Cox’s blog, I found my way over to another blog by Susan Lenz. Susan has a bunch of ATC’s and postcards that she is trading for.  After looking them over for a couple of days I plunged in and picked one here. My only problem now is….what will I send her?  She is going to be displaying these at a South Carolina gallery in January 2009.  Gotta get to work!

Soy wax design screened with inks on cotton.