Something About Nothing

Two years ago, my friend, Melanie Testa , sent out a call asking artists to make breast pockets .  I made a couple of fabric pockets and then asked my daughter's volleyball team to make paper pockets for Melly.   I delivered the pockets to Melly when I went to New York for my sister's wedding. In the October/November 2014 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine , another call was put out for Melly's Breast Pocket project in a reader challenge called: "Art from the Heart: The Breast Pocket Project." I created two pockets and I thought I would share.  I started with an image of two birds I found at The Graphics Fairy .  I printed the birds onto a piece of TAP , and then ironed them onto some silk organza.  I auditioned them on several fabrics from Lynn Krawczyk's new fabric line: Inked , as well as a number of my own hand dyed fabrics.  I decided I liked Lynn's red Inked fabric best.  I love the inspiring words on this piece and felt they were very ...

My friend, Julie B. Booth , wrote a book on printing fabric with everyday items you find at home and asked if I would be willing to do a review. I have to admit I wondered if there would be anything new to learn in Julie's book.  I am always on the look out for fun, new things to try.  New "What if's" and so I wondered, would this book be a rehash of so many things I have seen in the past?  Would I find a new technique I would be dying to try? I'm delighted to say I did learn something new.  I actually learned several new things that are making my little artist heart go pitter-patter!   Last year Julie taught me to do printing with cardboard tubes. I used her technique to make a polka-dot brayer stamp and created a scarf with dye and paint which she included in the Contributing Artists portion of her book: Now that the book is out and I have read the entire thing, I'm most excited to dive into Chapter 4: Wrap it Up, Wraps and Foils, an...

Last month I packed up some supplies and headed out. . .  . . .to my friend Timmy Burton's studio in beautiful Heber, Utah. Earlier in the summer I created some hand dyed fabrics and decided that this orange and yellow piece would be perfect for Susan's Sunflower piece.  This photo looks kind of green but you can see in the other two photos that it is very orange and yellow.  It reminds me of summer!   Timmy has a thermofax machine so I created a screen of a sunflower from a copyright free image I found online. I created a couple different shades of Jacquard brown textile paint to fill the fabric with lots of sunflowers. I wanted the look of a field of small sunflowers. I like how it turned out! I really love the fabric's the rest of the ladies have created for Susan this month. So much creativity in this group! Stop by The Printed Fabric Bee blog or Susan Purney Mark 's blog and leave a comment for a chance to win this month...

My friend, and co-founder of The Printed Fabric Bee,  wrote a wonderful article in the latest issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.   I was very excited to see some of the fabrics our members have created for the group themes.  I was also excited to see my own fabrics printed!!!  The Printed Fabric Bee has been a great learning experience for me and helped me to stretch my creativity to new heights.   Here is a link to the December 2014/ January 2015 issue:  Quilting Magazines Let me know what you think of the article once you read it!

I had a fabulous idea to create a beautiful card for my friend from a Gelli Print. I kept putting it off and putting it off and then Cloth Paper Scissors posted a card tutorial by  Tammy Northrup that I fell in love with!  Follow the link above to see what I had in mind. I thought that rather than flicking paint at a blank piece of card stock, I would start out by stamping some color with my 3"x5" Gelli Plate.  This was very pretty. I wanted the bottom to be a green or yellow so I brayered a bit of yellow at the bottom so that I could splatter green over the top for the grass and flowers.  This wasn't so pretty.  I had a hard time splattering until I found the right paint brush to get my splatters just right.  Once I did the method worked perfectly but I was tired and it was taking awhile to cover the yellow with the green.  Finally I decided it was time to start over. For my next attempt I laid down a mask.  The dog mask was...

My friend, Lynn Krawczyk , has designed a beautiful new fabric line called Inked  from Red Rooster Fabrics. I had the opportunity to play with the lovely new fabrics and make a few samples for Lynn to take to Quilt Market.  I had to wait until after Market to blog about them and I'm very excited to finally share what I created with her lovely fabrics! Ms. Chicken was made with a free pattern I found online  here . I also made two Faux Cathedral Window pincushions.   The very easy pattern is found here .  I love these pincushions because I feel like they are a fun way to show off a variety of fabrics!  I really like the hand printed look of Lynn's new line! I'm now plotting out a quilt top I think will look great with these fabrics.  

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to head up the canyon and spend time working in my friend Timmy's studio.  The day was perfect! I decided to use my time to work on my piece for The Printed Fabric Bee . October's Queen Bee was Jackie Lams of Studio Lams and her theme was Science. I decided to create some drawings of different things as they look at a cellular level.  I created a thermofax screen of blood cells, brain cells, onion skin cells and eucalyptus leaf cells. I tried them all out on paper before I moved to fabric. Once I decided which screens would work best,  I pulled out a piece of ice dyed fabric as my base. I really liked the look of the onion skin cells. They almost look like an old brick wall. The blood cells and eucalyptus leaf cells designs seemed too heavy  so I chose to use the brain cells in turquoise. I made a very large piece of fabric. I only needed a 12x12" and 6x6" piece. I'm sure I can figu...

Congratulations to Bethany Garner ! The winner of  Cecilia Swatton's new line of  Kaleidoscope Stencils  from Artistcellar! Bethany, check your email and send me your mailing address.

I was thrilled to be asked by Artistcellar to participate in  a blog hop promoting  Cecilia Swatton's new line of  Kaleidoscope Stencils .   I LOVE STENCILS! And I know you all do too, so someone is going to win a set of their own.   More details on that below.   Mister loves stencils too. Well honestly he loves anything he can get his paws into! He is such a good model. I started out playing with the stencils in my sketchbook. I tried a little painting, a little doodling, all just to see what kind of project I wanted to use them in. OH!   I just noticed a funny little white seal with fangs and a party hat there on the bottom right of the doodle above! OH, or maybe it is a seagull with a bow tie and party hat?  What do you think? Anyway, I decided that one of the projects I wanted to make was a birthday card for my sister-in-law.  I took a piece of sketchbook paper which I had added color to with my...