Something About Nothing

I won a lovely prize from Carol Sloan via the Fiber 5K to Fight Cancer . These six beautiful thermofaxes and some beautifully rusted fabrics! I can't wait to play with these! Thanks so much Virginia and Carol!

I've been working but from the looks of my blog it seems more like I've been hiding!  I'm here, working hard on some new pieces for shows and working on submissions for other shows.  My word for the year is ENTER.  I may have written a little about it in the past.  I want to really concentrate on entering my work into some quilt shows this year.  However after zentangling my planner cover I thought that along with the word Enter I should also adopt the phrase Enjoy Every Moment.  So here I am entering and enjoying the year.  Here is a sneak peek at a piece I've been doing: I'd share another sneak peek but I can't find my camera card!!! I've also opened a shop on Spoonflower.  The fabric isn't for sale quite yet but it will be soon!  The fabrics are based upon my hand dyes and my free form piecing.  I'll let you know when you can buy some.  In the meanwhile go over to Spoonflower and order yourself a free swatch TODAY! ...

I mentioned Jill Berry's call to artfully map out 2014 a few weeks ago and now it's time for the big reveal!  I played with various ideas and finally decided that I wanted to do a topographic map because I have been fascinated by topographical maps since my days in my high school geology class - in case you aren't familiar, topographically maps show contour lines to show relief.  Here is a topo map of the Escalante River in Utah. You can see the river in blue. The brown lines are the contour lines showing the mountains and valleys.  The numbers on the lines show the altitude that line represents.  Areas where the lines are close together represent a very steep area and if the lines are on top of each other it's a cliff! I decided that I would represent my 2014 as a journey along mountains and valleys such as these: I started the year with enthusiasm: I didn't put the experiences in any order just examples of experiences I believe I will have this ye...

I purchased a weekly planner like this one ^ a few months ago and as soon as I received my Sharpie White Markers for Christmas I knew I needed to use one to decorate my very plain planner and so I did. . . Now that's more like it!

Mark your calendar for January 15, 2014 and join me as I run the Fiber 5K to Fight Cancer. OK, I won't actually be jogging around a race course, although I'm sure there would be people willing spend money to see that!  Hahaha Not really, but I will be joining the fun as Fiberart For A Cause's virtual race kicks off with a goal of donating $5000 directly to the American Cancer Society. I have donated this ice dyed and surface designed fat quarter to the cause: This fat quarter is being added to 9 other fat quarters  from my fellow designers of The Printed Fabric Bee.  It will be a Bee-u-tiful prize!   (sorry about the bad pun!) There are LOTS of other fantastic prizes from many g enerous prize sponsors for drawings at the 1K ($1000) mark, 2K ($2000) mark, etc., plus a Grand Prize drawing when we cross the Finish Line. According to Race Director, Virginia Spiegel, "Fiberart For A Cause likes to have fun while raising money to fight cancer, ...

After the holidays my studio was looking pretty messy. Leftover pieces of vinyl from the Christmas Ornament project were everywhere.  Bits from other projects had been shoved this way and that and then my Christmas gifts had been piled on top of all that.  Time, once again, for some organizing and cleaning. Thanks to a great sale at the local craft store, and a generous gift from my Mother-in-law, I was able to purchase some lovely drawers and find homes for my stuff.  There is now even a spot for my dress dummy.  I still need to come up with a name for her.  All of the drawers came unassembled and I spent almost an entire season of Torchwood putting them together! I think it was worth the time! I also added the extender into the table and turned my stash shelves to the side to make more room for the extra table space. Mister approves of the new wide open spaces. Although he also approved of the messes. He likes making himself at home any...

It is month two in The Printed Fabric Bee,  and this month's Queen is Julie B. Booth. Julie's theme of choice is "Blue Spirals."  She also mentioned that she like Mola's and Ethnic prints,  so I decided to try something Mola-ish. I started out by designing a stencil with my  Silhouette electronic cutter that I could print out in two parts. Using Jacquard Textile Paint , I printed the red/orange swirls and stars. Oops I smudged a little.  Next white swirls inside the red/orange swirls. After heat setting all the swirls and stars, I over-dyed the piece. I hated to do it because I really liked it as is,  but my vision for this piece included a blue background. I used a mix of Navy blue and Bright blue in a Procion MX Dye .  .  I printed an 8"x 18" piece for Julie AND and 6" square to be included in this months giveaway! Visit our Facebook page  or Julie's blog to enter in the giv...