Store Opened on Etsy

New year, time to clean out the studio to make room for new pieces. Today I opened my Etsy shop to sell off a few items. I currently have quilts up, but in the next few days and weeks I will be adding jewelry, more quilts and 3d assemblage pieces. Here is a peak at the items up for sale so far.

So head over to the Etsy shop and keep an eye out for new items to be added weekly. THANKS.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5232719

Happy New Year! 2009

I spent most of New Years Eve working on the quilt tops I started the day before. I now have 4 tops ready for quilting and details. They are not finished by any means and can still change alot before the final pieces are done. I have a few more quilts in my head and I think I will be staying up again this evening getting them out of my head and on to the fabric. One of my New Years resolutions, or goals, will be to do more ART. I found that last year, I spent so much time worring that my work had to be show quality that I managed to artistically paralize myself. Not able to make much of anything for fear that it wouldn't be good enough. This year I will just work. Some will turn out to be pieces worthy of showing, some will be crap. But at least I will be working and hopefully my good pieces will out number the crap. Here are the four pieces I was working on last night, you can see the progression from the night before.

How do you work?

I was just wondering how everyone approches thier work. I usually have some idea of what I want to do, I might even sketch out a rough copy of what it might look like, but in the end, I play. I find that if I plan out my work, it gets very stiff, very boring and doesn't have the impact that I wanted. I have also found that when I have my scraps of fabric all over the floor, the kids some time see something that I didn't. "Hey mom, why dont you add some yellow", " Mom, I dont like the black, change it to orange". Somestimes they are right. Sometimes my "adult" view, gets in my way. There also has been some discussion on one of the board I belong to, that one should remove their favorite fabric from the piece. More then once I have planned a quilt around an image or piece of fabric just to remove that piece in the end. So tonight, Im heading down to the living room to work (the studio is COLD). Here are a few of the things im putting together tonight. Feel free to let me know how you approch your work...

Tis the season...

Well it's less then a week until Christmas. The kids are wound up. I'm stressed out. I haven't started any of my Holiday gifts. I have a few more days, right? I did manage to get my tree up, and decided to put up my holiday glass village. I do love to get out the ornaments each year. The kids get all excited as they unwrap each one. My kids are given an ornament each year. They are expecially excited unwrapping the ones that are theirs. Other ornaments are old, from my grandmother's tree, my mother-in-laws tree or ones we picked up during my summer tag sale Saturdays.

This year I decided to put up my holiday village. I collected these little stained glass houses years ago and used to sell them to support my habit of buying them. They are made by a variety of makers, Forma Vitrum and Creative Craftsmen are the two that I have the most of. Well, time to get off the computer and get some sewing done. I have lots gifts to make and several art quilts just begging to get made. The kids and I have 2 weeks off, hopefully I will be able to get some sewing in. Happy Holidays to all.

My Little Wall

I arrived at the location for the Open Studios right on time. We were each given a "wall". An 8ft by 4ft space. I crammed everything into it that I could. I would like to add another table to my area, and some signs saying who I am. It doesnt look too bad. There weren't very many artist setting up today. There were two painters, and the woman next to me does printing on paper. Interesting stuff. The newspaper photographers were hovering around the few of us that were setting up. I'm really hopeing that I wasnt making weird faces or cursing too much as I attempted to use my husbands power drill to screw in wood screws.

Still working on the Mary Quilt

Im still plugging along on the Mary quilt. I added alot of beads and things to around the face, i now want to do some crazy quilt like stiching on the background. Meanwhile, I am still going to put it up for the Open Studios.

These beads are just under Mary's dress. I might add more dangling beads to other parts, but not in black, in the pastel colors. Funny thing i noticed today while packing up this quilt and one of my first quilts (i like to bring it when i go places, i thought i would cover my fold up chair with it.) the colors and fabric patterns in my first quilt are almost the same fabrics that are in the Mary quilt. So 20 years later my fabric choices have run full circle. Hopefully my taste in clothing wont go back to the 1980's too!

Last minute work

Well, being the Queen of the last minute, I am working hard to finish up all my pieces for the Open Studios. I have two days right?! plenty of time! I have to set up most of the work today and was feeling very good about it, untill I recieved a message with a list of all the things I should bring. Now I am nervous. I just want to survive the show and maybe get a few good job head nods.

Here is one of the pieces that i will be displaying. I made it a year or so back, but it has never been seen. I have a morbid fasination with cemetaries. Always have.

And for a change of pace, here is Rainbow Swamp. Another older piece, but never shown. I did have to rebind this piece, i had tried something new with a binding years ago and it has always looked terrible. i finally got around to fixing it.
This is the Wood Witch. You might remember the face from a few posts back. This is where she ended up. She is not as washed out in person. I actually added alot more paint and darkened her up from the last time she was shown on this blog.
This is a little piece I made for my husband's birthday. I features a stone he cut for me in the uppper left hand corner. The right side of the quilt is a close up look at the stone. Well, that is it for now, I have alote of packing to do and have to get to the site tonight to set up. Ill post photos of the set up when i get it together.