Fairy Jar a la Suzi Blu!

I have signed up for a Suzi Blu drawing class online- The Goddess & The Poet, but haven't been able to start yet. I'm guessing this is because the lovely Suzi Blu has been at CHA... hopefully soon though, I have all my supplies and am chomping at the bit to get started!

Anyway, in the meantime, I have been watching numerous YouTube Suzi videos and I find her so inspiring!

My friend Mona's birthday is this coming weekend and I wanted to make her something to keep in her studio- then I saw the Captured Fairy Jar by Suzi and said "AHA!!!" lol

I didn't have the same supplies exactly, but as I have a good imagination and a lofty supply of cool and interesting things in my studio, I didn't have any trouble substituting.

And here is what I came up with! The front of the jar says "BELIEVE" and the tag I wrote on the back says: "Believe- not only in the magic of the world around you, but in your own Beauty- your own Talent- your own Strength" Something I think we should all do!

I painted the sky inside the jar and stuck on stars, I added glitter, flowers, and a fairy like Suzi, but instead of moss at the bottom of the jar I have glass marbles and funky yarn. I tied many layers of tulle and organza to the top (to keep the fairy in) and used lots of ribbons to tie it shut and hang the metal tags from. The tags say: believe, create, inspire, dream, and savor. There are some teeny tiny bells and also a couple of heart charms.

I hope Mona looks at this jar often and remembers that she is valued as a friend and is an inspiration to me.

It was fun to make and I am on a roll!

Silk scarves

I hand-dyed a bunch of silk scarves for donation to the Brockville Women's Network, an organization I used to belong to. Every year, they hold a Christmas auction to raise money for scholarships that they give out to women who are going back to school. It is a wonderful organization and I do miss it.

Anyway, after taking the class at Wild Heather, I decided to try my hand with it at home. I got a bunch of blanks, some Dy-Na-Flow paints, some brushes, silk salt, and off I went!

I didn't do any of the Shibori style, but I did vary the techniques I learned a bit; some of the painting was done on damp scarves, some on dry, some I used salt on and some I didn't, some are vivid and some are more sheer. In the interest of helping them dry a bit faster, I dried some of them with a hair dryer while they were pinned to the plastic on my table and when they floated back down, they picked up some beads of paint, which was pretty cool, if unexpected. I also found spraying water on the paint made an interesting pattern.

As a trial, I also added fringes to a couple, using fancy yarns, and on just one, using Solvy and threads along with some knobby wool, I did some free motion stitching to attach the wool, and liked the result of that too.

Here are some photos of the scarves. I will definitely do some more of these, they are a LOT of fun to make!

Book signing and shameless name-dropping!

Last night was the bash at Wild Heather Quilts and Mixed Media Supplies for the book signing! What a fun night it was!

The book is called "Fabric Embellishing- The basics & beyond" and is a MUST HAVE for anyone interested in learning a whole whack of techniques for adding style and personality to their work. The authors are listed as such: Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas, Lauren Vlcek. It's published by Landauer Books. (Please ignore my poor photography!) The book was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors- and they say if you are interested in embellishing, this book is a must have! I can attest to that.

It's so great to see friends get published! It's so cool to actually KNOW a couple of the authors! Of course, I know Heather Thomas because she owns the Wild Heather shop where I could spend ALL of my free time and money-and I have taken the best classes with her- she is a fabulous teacher and a lot of fun! I know Liz from the days that Mona and I were going down to Monument for the ATC group before Heather moved the shop to Englewood. Liz is also a lot of fun.

Since getting into quilting and art, it has been my great fortune to be surrounded by well-known designers and teachers. First, back in Ontario, Canada where I moved from: Nellie Holmes, Christine Baker, and Jean Boyd, who can be found at: http://www.uppercanadaquiltworks.com/- the front page of that site has links to each of their sites; and now Heather Thomas (http://www.wildheatherdesigns.com/ - the store will be closing soon, but it is my understanding that the online store will stay up) and Liz Kettle (http://www.textileevolution.com/). I am a very lucky girl!