Bracelets

I’ve seen so many fabric/fiber bracelets and it was about time I made one. And you always need Christmas and birthday gifts, don’t you?

This one went to a friend in Anchorage. I thought she needed a little sunshine in her life.

The beaded circle was a ring I picked up at a bead store in Anchorage. I knew it’d work somewhere!

All of the bracelets have small squares of silk that I got years ago from the Thai Silks in Los Altos. It was a huge bag of samples; I’ve had more fun with them…

DIY Postcard Swap

My first postcard swap! I joined iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap 2011 this year, and I am finally getting around to posting about it.

I sent my postcards at the last minute of course, even though they were finished, labeled and ready to mail by April 2. One of these days I will be better about getting things done early…

Anyway-my postcards are pretty simple. I collected and pressed flowers from several trips up the Haul Road (Dalton and Elliott Highways, near Fairbanks, Alaska) in 2008. The pressed flowers are laid on the Peltex, with organza over the top. Iron carefully; if the iron is too hot, it will “cook” the flowers. White cotton sheeting is ironed onto the back, and then I machine stitch around the edge of the postcard to prevent excessive raveling.

I love going up the Haul Road; there is so much to see, and tons of places to stop and hike and take photos. And collect flowers of course! I haven’t been up there for a couple of years, so I am ready for a road trip. I think this will be the year I do the Tolovana trail…

Here are the postcards I’ve received:

from Karyn in Walla Walla, Washington:

 

from Patricia in Cleveland, Texas (with a polar bear stamp on the front-too perfect!):

from Robin in Altadena, California:
front:

and inside was this:
 
and the address side of the postcard:

from Sam in Hampton, New Hampshire (she put an awesome Carmen Miranda stamp on the front!):

from Tina in Silver Spring, Maryland, with a good suggestion-”Find your sense of wonder”:

from Maudy in Voorschoten, the Netherlands’ with another great suggestion-”It’s all about the journey!”:

from Kimber in Albany, Oregon, with wonderful colors!:

And these are the postcards I sent:

Sent to Debbie Igram in Orange, California

Sent to Pia Wellmann in Berlin, Germany

Sent to Lynn Garbett in Chasetown, Staffordshire, England

Sent to Julie Kosolofski in Tamshui, Taipei County, Taiwant

Sent to Margaret Walters in Castlereagh, New South Wales, Australia

Sent to David Frank in Waite Park, Minnesota

Sent to Meaghan Vallee in Chateauguay, PC Canada

Sent to Monika Knapp in Diofa, Hungary

Sent to Tequitia Andrews in Petersburg, Virginia

Sent to Yvonne Andersson in Sodertalje, Sweden

New mittens & a hat

Regrettably, I am one of those people that lose or destroy mittens and hats on a regular basis. I always need another set, no matter how many I already have. I lose a mitten, rip a hat, throw frisbees for the dog and a mitten is wet & yucky, put gas in the car and get fuel on one mitten; one way or another, I need multiple mittens and hats.

New mittens

I had all these scraps of bright-colored, slinky fabric that were too small to do much with but they were so fun I couldn’t resist picking them up at the transfer station. So I decided to try a bit of a “what if”. I used the polar fleece as the ground fabric, laying the first piece face up. The next fabric is laid face down on top of the first, with a very quick sloppy straight stitch to attach the two fabrics onto the polar fleece. Flip the second piece over, then lay a third on top of it, face down, and do another quick sloppy straight stitch. Continue until the mitten top is covered with fashion fabrics. Then I embroidered with easy stitches and colorful threads. No beads or other findings; these mittens will probably not have a long life.

I wanted to see how a “flip and sew” method would work for crazy quilting. The main problem was that the soft slippery fashion fabrics I used were difficult to keep flat. I didn’t really care about the addition of a little texture, and mostly I could embroider any bubbles away. Lots and lots of pinning helped too.

Anyway, they’re bright, colorful, and warm! They’re entirely handsewn; I will probably never make another pair of mittens with the sewing machine. It was quick and easy to make them by hand, and no more frustrating twisting & turning with the machine.

And pretty soon, I’ll be having a hat to match!

Tanana Valley State Fair, 2010

iPad case

iPad case, inside

Trio of black quilts

Hearts to Sleep By

Irish hat

Green flowered hat, left side

Green flowered hat, right side

select image to enlarge, or check out my Flickr site

iPad case – made from an old daybook. I removed the insides and covered it with some fabric I’d previously used as curtains. The velcro strap keeps it closed, and there are two small pockets inside to keep the iPad from sliding out.

Trio of black quilts – each tiny quilt is made from silk samples purchased many years ago; I got a whole bag for $8.00. Little experiments in embroidery and beading.

Hearts to Sleep By – made from scraps left over from a big quilt. I wanted to play around with embellishing by machine.

Irish hat – I did all the embroidery while I traveled through Ireland in March 2008. All the buttons and embellishments were purchased on my trip, although the seed beads came from my stash at home.

Green flowered hat – I found this really fun flower fabric and couldn’t resist cutting out individual flowers. They are edged with a very tight buttonhole stitch, completely done by hand. I found both the ribbon that makes the flower stems and leaves, and the lining fabric, at Value Village. Serendipity!

The iPad

Well,I am going to try to get back to blogging. I think a few people have missed me? Maybe?
I bought an iPad a couple of months ago, and am shocked at how much fun I’m having with it, and how useful it is. Lists of all kinds, games, books, photos, iPod… and I have barely scratched the surface. I brought it on a trip to the Aleutians, and marked some of my photo locations. Driving through Anchorage was a breeze, thanks to the map (and my AT&T G3 account).
I need to put some photo albums on it (I got “in trouble” for not having any Ireland photos to show off!), and get the back-and-forth to/from Flickr thing figured out. And as you can see, I am blogging from the iPad finally, which was one of the reasons I bought the darned thing.
And reading books… it’s wonderful! I don’t have to try and keep the book flat while I eat dinner; dripping onto a library book is a thing of the past. I can even get it to read out loud to me, I think!
I stopped at the bookstore last night, to check out a couple of books I was interested in getting. Flipped through a bunch of cool books… and realized I do not want any more hardcopy books. Shocking! Partly because my bedroom floor is one giant pile of books and magazines, but partly because it is so much more awesome to have them on the iPad!
So, I am in the process of scanning the very first crazy quilt book I bought, Dorothy Bond’s Crazy Quilt Stitches. I’m planning to scan several books so I can have them with me when I’m teaching, just hanging out, or working away from home. No more trying to stuff books into my needlework bag or my purse or dragging a heavy bag of books!
I would love to find out more about the process, and the pitfalls, of turning out-of-print, hard-to-find, books into electronic documents. I haven’t seen any electronic embroidery books yet, nor any crafty books for that matter, and I would love to have some on my iPad.
And apps! ooh, me loves them apps! Judith Baker Montano has one for embroidery stitches out, but I am not impressed. It looks very thrown together and I don’t find it very useful. Maybe because it’s very basic stitches, and none are new to me. So I’ll be investigating apps too.
So if you’re thinking of getting an iPad, I highly recommend it!

Cheerio!

Toodie of Babbelot

I just visited the funniest blog! Toodie of Babbelot has a great sense of humor and a very upbeat style. She featured my overall dress, and left a comment on my blog, which is how I found her. She is a wood artist – she burns designs on pieces of wood, and they are fantastic. She also makes boxes: check out this box!

Toodie’s other blog is the Rural WoodShop, and you can see more of her work there. If you like quality work, you’ll enjoy going through this blog.

Turkish delight

I was a little surprised to see some of my photos on a Turkish blog; she does have a link back to this blog, so hey, it’s all good! She seems to be impressed with the embroidery basket I rebuilt a couple of years ago. I would have loved to leave a comment, but couldn’t figure out how to do that. Darn, I guess I need to take Turkish lessons

I tried to translate the Sporadic Packrat into Turkish, but the best I could come up with is tek tük kolektör.

Anyway, I just thought it’d be fun to send people her way, and she’ll figure out that I saw her blog. So please visit 10marifet.org!

Tanana Valley Fair, 2009

Well, I was surprised to round up seven things to enter in this year’s Tanana Valley State Fair, and even more surprised to get two class champions, three firsts, three seconds, and a third. I also won the Bob Hage award for the most unusual piece of needlework in the Needlework Division.

There are larger images on my Flickr site, if you’re interested…

The Dinosaur’s Garden

Blue Fish Reef

Photo box

Embroidered pillow.

Black lace hat

Needlelace hat.

Bra bag, left side

Bra bag, right side

Dinosaur’s Garden

Flowers were drawn freehand and colored with wax crayons, then embellished with simple embroidery. The grass is a silk hanky, separated into a single layer, covered with netting, and embroidered. The green felt at the bottom is stitched onto the quilt, covering the edges of the silk hanky. The tiny dinosaur at the bottom right corner is a commercial applique, as is the dragonfly. The butterfly-gosh, I can’t remember what it really was; a pin maybe? This was just a fun little experiment with crayons on fabric. Made in 2007. Class champion and first place in the art quilt division.

Blue Fish Reef

The block print in upper right corner was made in a print making class at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1992 or 1993. It’s my own design, and I’ve used several variations of it in different quilts. The kelp bed in the lower lefthand corner as well as the print fish, are embellished with ribbons that are folded, embroidered, and beaded, with some buttons attached. The small fish and the star fish are entirely hand embroidered. Made in 1998. Third place in the quilt division.

Photo box

I found this field box in a pile of junk at work, and kept it for a couple of years before figuring out what to do with it. I think it was originally used for taking field notes; data sheets were stored in the box and it was a good surface for taking notes and filling out data sheets. I liked the rough weathered finish, so I didn’t do any re-finishing of the wood but just washed the dust and cobwebs off. I used the peeling bark off birch trees in my yard to cover the sliding cover, gluing them down with a lot of diluted acrylic gel. There are two small clothes pins, painted a flesh color, to hold a mounted photo. Made in 2009. Second place in the reduce/reuse/recycle division.

Embroidered pillow

The pillow cover was constructed several years ago by machine. The folded fabric flowers are based on designs found in Fabled Flowers by Kumiko Sudo. The design and placement of the flowers and leaves is my own plan. The flowers are embellished with chain stitches and french knots; the leaves are embellished with feather stitches, and cotton and metallic threads. The stems are feather stitches in three shades of green cotton embroidery thread, or chain stitch and back stitch. Made in 2003. Class champion, first, and winner of the Bob Hage award in the needlework division.

Black lace hat

This hat was an experiment to see if I could make a full-brimmed hat that was stylish and comfortable to wear. It was a challenge to make the brim stiff enough so that it didn’t flop into my eyes! I used a discarded skirt, and a bolero vest I found at the transfer station. It’s based on a baseball cap, and I drew the brim pattern to fit the cap pattern I’ve used on many, many hats. The seams on the crown are covered in ribbon and embroidered with black feather stitches. The lace drooping off the edge of the brim was the hem of the skirt. I purposely left flowers off, as I couldn’t decide which ones to use! Any color that compliments the outfit worn with the hat will work. All the stitching was done by hand. 2009. First in the sewing division.

Needlelace hat

I’ve written about this hat earlier; it was entered in a competition in England two years ago, but didn’t garner any awards then. I made it in 2007. This year it placed second in the needlework division.

Bra bag

I found this black lace bra along my road while walking the dog; it must have escaped from someone’s laundry basket. And who’d want it back? But it was too pretty to just throw away. I added some Chinese style black on black fabric to the top, lined it with white cotton fabric, and embroidered small leaves and flowers on it. I also added a couple of silk flowers. The drawstring handle fits over my wrist, dangling alongside my leg. All the stitching was done by hand. Made in 2009. Second in the sewing division.

New bag

New bag from scraps

I’ve been wanting to try a bag pattern from Bag Boutique by Amy Barickman, so I gathered up some scraps, added a lining fabric and a zipper to come up with this. I don’t really like the end product… the shape anyway. I do like the way the design turned out. The pattern was easy to use, with clear directions (I even kinda read them!), so I will be making another bag from Amy’s book one of these days.

new bag detail

Road trip!

Denali from the Parks Highway, heading north

I escaped Fairbanks this past weekend, to visit a friend in Anchorage. Fabric shopping, Title Wave (used/new bookstore), the Anchorage museum, dinner and some tasting at a wine bar, snowshoeing/walking, entertaining baby, walking Gizmo. It was a wonderful break from real life.

I was totally surprised to enjoy the drive back and forth. About an eight hour trip, interrupted by potty breaks and dog walking, and constant scenes of Alaska’s winter beauty, the Parks Highway was in considerably better condition than the last time I drove it. The Subaru Legacy was a pleasure to drive; I was hardly tired when I arrived in Anchorage.

Test fabrics for the tee shirt quilt I’ll be making for the friend I visited:

for the tee quilt

test fabrics for the tee quilt

and fabrics for future projects. A few other odds ‘n ends for gifts too, that of course I won’t be showing

A cap?

Possible child-oriented wallhangings, or maybe a pair of baby overalls?

Kid fabrics

Laurel Burch is one of my favorite artists.

Laurel Burch fabrics

And some wool for applique; so easy to embroider!

wool for applique

Couldn’t get out of Title Wave without a few books!

the books...