Fiber and Pulp

Awake Again

Well, I'm back at the store today. I feel like I've woken up from a long, long dream. (sigh) I've been in bed for Friday and Saturday with some kind of nasty stomach something. :P Too much sleep and too little activity. :P

I finally managed to get the last of my fiberart postcards put up on the display. Thought any of you who were in my art2mail group (#30) might enjoy seeing your work -- the very top panel of this display are cards I bought at silent auction in Virgina last year; the rest are my receipts from group #30. :)

The display is much nicer to look at than this photo shows (dark as it is:). Very inspiring!

Woozy

MY cpap machine (for sleep apnea) stopped dead in its tracks (in mid-pump:) at 5 a.m. last Friday...and I have been trying to cope ever since. (sigh) Today I finally got a new machine (having slept in a chair for two nights in a row). :P

I have to teach a class tonight (Small Works: Scrap Sack) ... I hope my brain holds out! :)

I got two new fiber postcards in the mail this weekend:

From Carol

From Jeanne in NY:

Wacko Wednesday

I spent yesterday in bed (I think I was coming down with Skip's cold; luckily I seem to have slept most of it off). Today I worked hard at the store in the morning -- made the November work schedule, did bunches of phone calls....etc.

By early afternoon I had gotten tired of administration so I gave myself permission to sew for me all afternoon. I've been pondering the loss of my piecing and machine quilting skills recently -- too much time for the store, not enough for me. (shrug) So, I decided to practise curved piecing and machine quiltmaking.

I love fall leaves and there aren't any, yet, (other than the brown ones that are dying straight off the trees due to water deficites)...so, I free hand rotary cut, pieced, and quilted leaves. I think I got the dizzy-making swirl that falling leaves induces. (grin!)

Maybe I"ll actually work on my bead journal page at home tonight?

Autumn Leaves

Well, I got that table runner finished. I am very happy with how this turned out -- and it was _quick_, too. :)

Leaves!

Here is the little leafy table runner I've been working on this afternoon. I think it came out very fall-ish. ;)

It's interesting -- the yellow leaf print looked very bright against that butterscotch background when I chose the fabrics ... but now, the yellow leaves are not very strong. I guess I will outline them and put in veins with a stronger color so they don't go lost. :)

Tomorrow I will sandwich up, quilt and bind this -- will show you then.

My Rocks and Seaweed

I finished my first small wall hanging for the Mermaid's Realm b.o.m. effort today. Here is my 'take' on Rocks and Seaweed:

I think I am eventually going to put some fishies in the upper section. :) The seaweed strands are three dimensional...and the necklace twined on the bottom is made with real (fresh water) pearls. I had fun making this one! (One customer just asked me what the mermaid was doing when she lost her necklace.:)

I started working on a new small quilt (a table runner, really) for the fall window display. I'll show you that tomorrow.

Enabling

A couple of semesters ago, I took a class with Amy Selmanoff here at my store on surface design techniques (I took it for pure fun -- already had done most of the things she covered, but love the doing!:). One of the other students in the class, Heidi C., is also in my Hand Piecers United club at the store. Yesterday she brought in a small piece she just finished for her father-in-law that uses one of the samples from our class.

She combined fabric painting, beading, sashiko stitching and what I think of as finished border applications to make a small window hanging:

I think this piece really glows, even when it is not in front of the light. :)

I made a number of samples in that class, none of which I have used since. I love to make these things but I rarely actually use them. :)

Circles

What an oddly busy week this has been!! I've been busy, busy every day, all day...and yet, I cannot for the life of me recall what I've been doing. (grin) too many details, too little brain. :P

I chose the fabrics I want to use for my first mermaid-scape late this afternoon. I'm hoping to make it tomorrow (and maybe get a photo?:). I'm going to do mine as a series of small wall hangnings that I can put up on the stairwell of our house. That will encourage me to paint, eh? :)

My bead journal page is about half done ... and I got some knitting in on my new warmer for the store ... while I watched two Sherlock Holmes movies Wed and Thursday evenings. Both were classic Basil Rathbone movies -- SH Goes To Algiers and SH Saves the King. 1942 and '45, respectively. Like time travel into the past -- interesting what is, and is not, socially acceptable behaviour; what cruise ships were like then vs now ... fascinating. Good mysteries, too. :)

Hum de dum :)

I've been cruising along this week, too busy to care about posting. I made a list this morning, when I got to my desk at work, of all the phone calls I could recall that I needed to make today -- ran to 10 numbers!! Needless to say, I only got three of them made. :P The list is still there, though.

I spent most of last weekend finishing up (with the help of Robbyn and Alice) the new block of the month quilt, Mermaid's Realm. Have been tackling little details for that this week long (for ex., gotta go get color copies made of the photo tomorrow a.m.). I like the way the quilt turned out (you can see it on my associated blog for the store: http://www.seminolelinda.typepad.com/Seminole_Sampler_News).

I finally got serious about working on my September bead journal page -- I'm making a big sea turtle. Guess I gotta get October's started, too, eh? :) I'm at the point in this series where I need to actually map out what remains to be done. Each month, as I write another chapter of the story, the ending comes to me more clearly. :)

Thank God for beads, fabric, beloved family and friends! Give me the strength to deal with my home life, please? :)