on my design wall

today. I spent the weekend arranging and rearranging the blocks. They may or may not stay in this arrangement since before I start sewing them together I plan to embellish them.

I'll start with this one.

My erosion bundle is still there but you can barely see it since it's covered with snow. It's across from the birdfeeder, hanging from a hook on the woodshed.

mirthful inchie

The word for this week's Every Inchie Monday challenge is mirthful. This fiber inchie is made from mottled yellow cotton fabric, a bit of lace, a rose cut out from another piece of fabric, and an overlay of fine slightly sparkly netting. It's embellished with beads and a bird charm.


"The kiss of sun for pardon. The song of the birds for mirth. One is nearer God's Heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth." ~ Dorothy Frances Gurney

collection of hearts

from last year. It looks like there may be a couple of candidates for transforming into focals for necklaces.

quietly remembering

It is steadily snowing. At first it was lightly and sparingly sprinkling outside but it is now coming down harder.  This is a heavy snow and our street has not yet been plowed.

But inside I have plenty of beads and wire and fabric and thread. Twenty-six years ago it was snowing, too.

frozen

The name Frozen Pond so aptly suggested by Corrine still holds.

I'm reconsidering my original intent to make 25 blocks. Currently there are 6 blocks, not counting a seventh that has mysteriously disappeared. Now I'm thinking of other possibilities such as 8 blocks placed in rows of two by four, creating a longish cloth. Or maybe  a square of a total of 9 blocks, 3 by 3. Still creating them and playing with the possibilities.

In the meantime

it's still frozen outside

on the outside, looking in

on the inside, looking out

maudlin monday

Not really. But the word for this week's Every Inchie Monday challenge is maudlin. This has been the most difficult one to conceptualize so far.


From http://wordsmith.org/words/maudlin.html

"After Mary Magdalene, a Biblical character who was a follower of Jesus. In medieval art she was depicted as a penitent weeping for her sins (she washed the feet of Jesus with her tears) and her name became synonymous with tearful sentimentality.

The name Magdalene means "of Magdala" in Greek and is derived after a town on the Sea of Galilee. The name Magdala, in turn, means tower in Aramaic. So here we have a word coined after a person, who was named after a place, which was named after a thing."


This inchie features Titian's painting of Mary Magdalene and a photo of a sign for a place called Maudlin, which I believe is in England. The images were digitally altered, printed out onto paper, and mounted on a paint chip.

an unintentional addition

may become a permanent one. Loosely intended to be a modern version of a crazy quilt, each improvisational square was created using a stitch and flip foundation piecing technique. I used the brightest colors in my stash and then embellished the top with beads. A doily ended up on top of it when I was moving some projects around, and I'm considering incorporating it.

inside the studio and out

trio of dolls looking out over the room

 inside: some views inside my "studio"

flour sack, doilies and crocheted goods

miniature perfume bottles purchased as a collection, keys, tins

outside: a recent sunset as seen from my kitchen door

something from last year

While gathering fabrics for the contents for this year's  Erosion Bundle project I came across a little quilt I had made from some of last year's bundle materials. It was with the leftover materials and was totally forgotten. I thought about adding it to this year's bundle, which is why it's photographed the way it is, but changed my mind.

caring

is the word for this week's Every Inchie Monday challenge.

This fiber inchie features a heart created by cutting the shape from the top muslin layer to expose the red velvet middle layer. It is further embellished with white and clear beads. Sides of the inchie were deliberately fringed.

Erosion Bundle Project 2011

In addition to Every Inchie Monday, Kris Henderson is again hosting the Erosion Bundle Project. The idea is to create an artistic bundle from one's choice of materials and then "hang, bury, submerge, or just place" it outside in the elements as a collaboration with Mother Nature.

The contents of my bundle include cloth and paper doilies,

bits and pieces of a variety of papers,

and an assortment of fabrics . . . cotton, silk, vintage and new, and a couple of pieces that were leftover from last year's project . . . they get to have a second time around.

Other additions include . . .


some dried poinsettia leaves,








rose petals and a marigold head,

some rusty things,

pinecones, a pod and cinnamon stick,

some frozen berries

defrosted,

and fresh cranberries.

The fabrics were rolled around the rusty things and bundled together with a sprinkling of leaves and berries with the other items tucked among them.

Everything was wrapped in a vintage napkin and then encased in a mesh bag that formerly contained limes. It's hanging from a hook on the side of our woodshed in the backyard.

the game of love

I've long made quilts and small fiber pieces and years ago I made heart brooches from vintage fabrics. For a while I added ribbons to them, making necklaces for my daughters.

Lately I've been enjoying making necklaces. Recently I was inspired by some work by Nina Bagley that has inspired me to combine both the fiber work and necklace making.

After making the fiber heart and starting to assemble the necklace, I realized many of the additions were game pieces, including several Industrial Chic  and scrapbook components, hence, the name for the necklace, "the game of love."

journal mining

While I'm a few steps closer to what I'm intending to do with this,

mostly I've been busy taking care of Mollie who has been sick.

Dalla tries to help.

In the meantime I've been going through years and years of old journals, notebooks, really. Some are bound but most are collections of half-sheets of paper punched with a single hole-punch and held together with a ring. At various times some of them have been in 3-ring binders and organized according to subject matter.

Some are notes taken at meetings from when I was a librarian.

Some are to do lists and range from as far back as when my children were small.

Many of them are small collections of quotes and these are what I've been mining.    

"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

powerful

The word for this week's Every Inchie Monday is powerful. This inchie represents "the power of gold" and is comprised of slivers of gold fabrics, paper, gold threads and beads and mesh, all attached to a red paint sample chip.

heart in progress

front

back

This is a small fiber heart work in progress. Intended to be a part of a larger piece, we'll see how it goes.

winter wonderland

This fiber holiday greeting card is a lovely surprise I received yesterday from my friend Nina Lise. 

We've also had a little snow here, just enough to make it festive.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

needle pulling thread

Recently I received this winning from a drawing held by Dale Anne Potter. A Needle Pulling Thread is a Canadian publication featuring needle arts. Her article "Wrapping Up Memories" (featured on the cover) looks like a great project and she even included a CD tin. I'm looking forward to trying this out! Thanks, Dale Anne!

eclectic inchie

Eclectic is the word for this week's Every Inchie Monday. Challenging is the word for how difficult it is (for me, anyway)to photograph something so small.