Hello,

It has been a very busy two weeks for me.  I not only traveled to Ottawa for four days I took a felting workshop, spent a day with Ethel  making silk paper and a day painting sky with Nancy.     The world around here is starting to show its fall colors as well and the days have all been wonderfully comfortable.   I spent the end of the first week doing a felting workshop.  We played at all the techniques we knew with each one of the participants demonstrating her expertise in different areas.    Victoria taught us about nano felting as she has been doing a bit of this with her niece.  All of us come with a different design approach,  so they all came out  very unique.   Cherri really  liked this method of creating felt and she ended up doing at least three pieces in this style.  I was told she is making a vest for her granddaughter with some of it. One of the gals did not do wet felting but started with wool that had been felted in the washing machine and needle felted little pins with this technique.   By doing this method she had lots of control and created very detailed work.    She was making pins and added beads and manipulated the felt as she worked to create various textures in her pieces.   I really liked the way she manipulated little wisps of wool to add nice details like the soft line of green in the leaves of the red and gray green pin. The second day we did wet felted Jelly Rolls.   Mostly we created flat disk like units – but Cherri also created some plant like forms with her green felted units.               After lunch I tried making felted beads and had a good time with that  too.    I have no goal for their use and they  may rattle around the studio for  a long time before they find a home-   But I sure enjoyed the process. One can also do three dementional felting using the dry method.     This mushroom is a great example of that.     I did a little seasonal piece using a wool base and dry felted roving into the surface were I wanted the different colors to remain.   It was a fun time and I enjoyed it very much.      I can certainly add this technique to my work.

 

Then I went on my travels to Canada.   I love to travel and feel it is very invigorating.  Travel can open ones eyes to look at ordinary thing and pay attention to the every day.  I was especially taken by the wonderful    gingerbread work on this house.     I might have noticed it at home, but I probably would not have taken the time to look carefully at it or take a photo.  The fact that it would not appear in my life again if I did not act then helped to sharpen my vision. We  went to Ottawa with the intention  of visiting the museums and did that.  We  visited all three of the major ones there.  Our fiat stop was the museum of First Peoples.     It is a wonderful mix of history and the current lives of the Native Americans of  Canada.   By building these mock up of Traditional Northwest Tribal  buildings the museum presented the totem poles in their normal settings.  Inside the houses were displays of artwork again showing historic works and contempary ones as well.     I found the whole day very exciting and I am sure I will soon create a work using this influence.

 

 

The next day we went to the National Art Gallery of Canada.  Again it was inspiring.  I have always liked the work of the Canadian seven and it was great to see the work live.

Then on Friday we visited the Museum of Natural History.  The building is beautiful although it looks like it was built in the early part of the last century with its stain glass and carved wood.     Some of the displays show this same old flavor but most are very current.  There are lots of interactive displays and each sections also had a play area for smaller children.

I spent yesterday working with Nancy painting a sky for her quilt. It was a beautiful day to paint out doors.

We had a good base to work on top of from the first attempt two weeks before.    We agreed it needs one more day to get the finial effect she wants for this portion of her quilt.

 

 

Progress Report:  Harmony  

This work displays the Japanise Character that stands for Harmony.  That is where  I got the title.   The two orange  silks are from Japan and I felt that this was a good way to celebrate that fact.   I looked at many renditions of this character before I settled on this form.   The black of the shape is all chain stitched in embroidery thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sand Stone Church

I purchased Valerie Goodwin’s book “Art Quilt Maps”  in the spring even before I took my second class with her this summer.   I thought I should try to follow her instructions on how to build this type of map quilt and this project is the result.     This work is based on childhood memories of a Sand Stone Church that was in the pasture next to the one my grandparents owned.   My brother and I often played in the church and in the cemetery that was just up the hill from the old building.     The church it’s self had no roof and the local natural stand stone was curmbeling away in some places so we felt safer in the cemetery- espiceally under the big old oak that stood in the corner.  The branches were low and we could easily climb quite high in that tree.    The second close up is an areal view of the gravel rural road that ran in front of  my grandparents  house and the farm yard around the house, plus the garage and barns.

Smoky Twilight     I am enjoying using  the many tints and shades of gray I have for this work.  It is in the very early stages of assembly, but I think it is starting work.

 

 

 

 

Chrysanthemum   I am to the free motion stitching/quilting  part of this project.    This work got away from me as far as size is concerned and grew quite a bit from my original plan, but  that does happen from time to time.    Again I am using some of Ginny’s silk in this project( the red  show here)

Enjoy the colors of fall and keep your eyes open to the possibilities for ideas all around .

Hugs

Carol