Recent Adventures

Goodness, I have been very lax in my blogging!! I haven't even been taking pictures either and am still trying to decide what we should do about the broken camera thing. Doug wants compact, I want zoom. Fortunately nowadays you can get both (more or less) pretty reasonably.

I've been to Fiber on a Whim for Patti Medaris Culea's Stargazer Tome class for the last two months. Haven't gotten a whole lot done on my tome but have lots of inspiring ideas in my mind...lol..there are lots of things in my mind i tell ya...lots!! So far I have gotten the back and front covers cut out and at least one side fused.
















I've started on the doll faces and gotten their basic dress ironed down. Faces are being a challenge but they have been fun to experiment on.











The fusible webbing was really cool and I've experimented with both the white and the black Misty-fuse, mixing them with the bits and pieces of threads and fibers and topping it off with the angelina fibers...
















have I told you how much I love the angelina fibers?!?!? Rachael, BettyAnn and I bought different colors to swap with each other since a little bit goes a loooong way.

I've also finished the needle lace for the front of the lame dress...and yes I fused the back of the lame to keep it from raveling...The needle lace was not as easy as I had hoped and I didn't like how my first try on the super solvy turned out so I bought Superior 4x water soluble stabilizer (didn't have the super solvy where I went). The experience was a little challenging especially since I didn't hoop the Superior and it needed it...however tenacity won out and I just threaded it to death...it's large....and thick...I like it though even though it is far different than the pattern shows.















I also had to deal with the metallic thread challenge and finally put the thread in the bobbin and the poly in the top and stitched it upside down...another reason it was so thick...I didn't want this one to pull apart!!! The noticible difference I found in the two different products (other than the Superior would have done better in a hoop) was that the Solvy was very sticky and gooey when you ran it under the water...the Superior just disappeared with no sticky or gooey at all. I kinda liked that better...it was gone virtually immediately where the Solvy took a little coaxing. The ability to use the Solvy without a hoop made it much more convenient however. I'll use both products in the future.

Our adventures have also included trips to Nicolas Kniel's Ribbon Store where he has the most deliciousest of ribbons













there. He also teaches classes but I bought his book instead.....










can't take anymore out of town classes for now...





We also went to DiBona Studios which is closing to allow more time for teaching and shows. We were shown some how-tos and given some freebies in addition to the things we bought...I got some vellum and picture sheets along with some paper clay and scrap book doodahs...am also going to try my hand at the crystals which was demoed for us and is way cool.