Feathered Visitor

Well, we had a very exciting morning here at home...The weather has been so nice the last couple of days that we have been opening our windows and this morning a little visitor came in through one of them.












Imagine his/her dismay when once inside it was being barked at by Wilbur and try as hard as it may it could not get the great big window to let it get back outside to the trees it could see in the front of the house.





Poor little bird, who was only about 4 inches long and looked like a baby wren, flew from the large encased window over the doorway to the chandelier hanging in the foyer.







Douglas fetched the ladder, the cat and dogs were enclosed in seperate rooms and I climbed the ladder to try and capture the little lost wren. It flitted through the curtains and the model boat, landing on the curtain rod, grasping the window sill and getting nowhere.












It finally flew down the hall, scaring Michael as he hit the deck and landed in the computer room. Douglas shut the door and helped locate the frightened critter who was trying to get out the shut windows there. When I went to open the window the poor thing flew under the computer desk and hung onto the wires between the wall and desk.














I finally shooed it back to the window where it finally flew out and into the huge magnolia at the next door neighbors. Hopefully it is none the worse for wear after its little adventure and it will have quite the tale to tell its little feathered friends tonite!!

Playday at Margarets

Yesterday we hung out at Margaret's and had a playday making faces for our tomes. Rachael T., BettyAnn, Sandie, MaryAnn, Carolyn, Margaret, Ille & myself...

Some of the pictures I took didn't make it to the download...don't ask and I won't lie....

None of us had started (I haven't taken anything out of the original package) and some of us didn't know how to do faces so....















Margaret patiently read the face making instructions to us.

Look at all this stuff!! What a table full, we could open the Mickael's branch west with all this paraphanalia!!









here are Sandie's faces....














Carolyn working hard on her faces...















Rachael (who is a wonderfully cheerful photo subject) is pleased with her face while Betty Ann diligently works hard on hers...















Carolyn is quite tickled with her face as MaryAnn works on hers....


















BettyAnn's faces...















my faces....














Margaret demonstrated using the fusible web with bits and pieces of leftover threads, angelfibers, and tulle...this picture no where near does justice to the finished product....















we even had show and tell....

Rachael shows BettyAnn & Sandie one of her knitted wool purses, she just whips those babies out in no time and they are definetly one of a kind and quite unique....


















one of Sandie's books..she is quite clever also and we are planning to get her to teach us how to do the book stuff she does...
















this is Jazz, she is Margarets puppygirl and loves to fetch and play ball...unfortunately for her, we were mostly too busy on our faces to play with her (except at lunchtime)



















....Further adventures to be announced.....

Can't Forget the Pups!!

And here we are yet again because mom has been creating art and totally ignoring us in that sewing room of hers with the gate where we can't get in to help her....boohoo...we'll just nap on her bed instead....and wait......for her to come play with us...................it may be a loooooonnnngggg time........

Valentine Project Update

Been working on the valentine picture for Doug...was getting real frustrated waiting for the gesso to dry i might add...I've included the original pictures that I was using...at least the ones of Doug and myself...



















these are the really cool tyvek leaves that I painted in Lumiere halo blue-gold, pearlescent emerald, pearl turquoise and halo violet-gold and then heated with the iron. They are truly too fun for words to do!! They were attached with beeswax to the tree. My mixed media collage on the other hand has been a war with the devil!!













Gesso didn't want to dry so I took the dryer to it...cardstock started to curl (yet again) but that mostly got worked out...beeswax was really interesting to work with and I really liked it. I guess my project was still too big 8-1/2 x 5-1/2"...it was more manageable this time and does look better (to me anyway)...

the tree still came out too dark, so I painted it halo violet-gold to lighten it up...I've used the halo blue-gold, pearlescent emerald and pearl turquoise in the background too. I also mixed some utee with green angel hair, pink scrim and polysparkle and kaleidoscope transparent embossing powders in the background.











The LOVE stamp didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but I had heated up the beeswax as much as I could stand too and decided to leave it this way instead...I also used red paint on the tree for the 'kim loves doug'.
















Both pictures of Doug and myself were coated in Diamond Glaze last night and left to dry. I really love how they turned out...very glossy and cool. They really stand out against the natural beeswax over the rest of the picture. I may add a note to the front too...we'll see...

I coated the back with the beeswax as well. It was fun and I went in an entirely different direction with the picture than I had originally planned but I think I like it better this way...I just wish the stupid deer would have come out better...at least one of them anyway!!

A Case of the February Doldrums

I guess with all the damp, wet, cold, uckyiness (yes uckyiness is a word - ask any small child) of the winter months, I am having a case of the doldrums.

January seemed to start off so well, continuing the productivity of the Christmas rush when I went with the quilters to Hickory Knob. I was so thrilled with the projects I was able to finish up on and those that were ready for new stages too.

Since getting home I've finished another top and gotten quilts pinned, new ones started and have dabbled in new areas too like the collage project for Doug.

Maybe the issue isn't that I'm not getting anything done...it's that I'm not getting anything finished. That's not entirely true but it sure is feeling that way. I did finish beading the pin I made for Gloria while I was at Judy Twitty's workshop on Monday.

Hopefully I will be able to blog some pics of finished projects soon...in the meantime I will continue to move forward, one stitch at a time.....

Valentine Project for Doug

I wanted to create something special for hubby Doug for Valentine's Day. I was off to a wonderful start when the idea for a special picture came into my mind 2 weeks early!! That's where my troubles began.....

Project is to be for a mixed media collage using pictures taken when we lived 'way up north' (in maryland) and drove down parts of skyline drive in virginia/w.virginia....the pics were of our skinnier days (especially mine). I started out making copies and blowing up some of the pictures...the idea was to take Doug off of the rock he had been sitting on and place him in the branches of an enlarged tree by an enlarged deer...okay so far...


well when I printed the pics I used the better quality (heavier ink) and that began part of the problem...it was dark...



I placed dryer sheets on top of cardstock and glued them down (my hope was for texture under the picture), the pictures were then placed on top and coated with medium and embossing powders (i love glittery stuff) in butterscotch, enchanted gold, polysparkle and kaleidoscope transparent....let me add that the butterscotch is a solid, and dark, and not see through and should be used on lettering and i didn't like it at all for this particular project (it just made things darker).


(pic at the beginning of heating with utee and embossing powder mixed)



I had sprayed some Adirondack lettuce color wash on the picture to hopefully brighten it some...besides I just love the lettuce color.


I didn't have clear/transparent UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) so I used the interference blue (the only alternatives at Michael's were brown and black). Well after all the heating and reheating to help thin it out (this was my first try remember) these are the results I got. The cardstock also warped with the heating of the embossing gun and won't go flat (guess I should have gessoed it first). Mostly it was a learning process and I'm glad I tried it after all.







(the whole 8-1/2 x 11 pic)











It didn't turn out as well as I hoped and this will be saved to cut up and reuse at a later date and time for another project instead.


It wasn't a total loss as I really do love the protection the UTEE seems to offer. I also learned more about the embossing powders and which ones are better for which projects...




(doug up a tree...gee i make myself laugh)






so it wasn't a total loss....of course now I'm only 3 days away from Valentine's Day and making a mad scramble to start over again and differently on the project...oh and I might as well add...it's going to be smaller...that was another thing...I didn't like how big the original turned out either....



(me in my skinny days)





oh well, hopefully it will be dry and done before he gets home on Tuesday...**grin**

My Judy Twitty Class Project

So far here is my progress on my Judy Twitty project:














It is going to be an amulet bag for friend Jolene Eakle (Jolene is making me a 'gotta have it' bag).








The class was way lots o fun!! Mostly because of taking it with my friends!!

What a Busy Week....

This week has been incredibly busy (as opposed to recent weeks where it's just been way busy).....Started off on Monday taking a Beyond the Basics Crazy Quilting class with Judy Twitty in N.Augusta, SC.

After class there was just enough time to rush home, fix supper and run back out the door for the monthly guild meeting where I gave a demonstration on adapting digital photos to applique designs.

Tuesday came way too early. Margaret, Rachael T., BettyAnn and I headed to Atlanta to Fiber on a Whim for their block of the month by Patti Maderis Culea called A Stargaze Stitchery Tome; "A techniques journal". We were doing really well until we went the wrong way on 285, we realized our error and got turned around quickly, making it to the class right on time. What a full class it was!! We were given demonstrations on putting the front and back cover together with some tips and tricks the girls used. We were shown how to draw faces and given the opportunity to practice too. Demos were also given on making machine lace on water soluble stabilizer and my new favorite was the demo in tyvek....it made my eyes light up beads do!!! They had squares cut out and painted with lumiere (my favorites) paints. We cut them into leaf shapes, put them between parchment paper and hit them for 1-2 seconds with an iron....fun!! Some shrank and curled into fried leaves (a little long under the iron) and some curled up gently...we also learned how to make beads out of the leftover pieces too.

After we shopped at Fiber on a Whim we headed back down the street to a bead shop, embroidery shop and to the coolest ribbon store called Nicholas Kniel Embellishments for You and Your Home. He has the coolest assortment of hand dyed ribbons, feathers, antique buttons, and the most amazing ribbon flowers!! He teaches classes in the ribbon flowers and has even written a book which I would dearly love to get....alas he was all out....fortunately I'll be back in Atlanta next month for block 2 of stitchery tome.