Soul Journal Page 2

I really had fun with this one. We were to write about the things we need to protect and nourish our creative spirit - the things that shield us from outside criticism and our own inner critic. I followed Sarah's lead and used a picture of a suit of armor for mine - I found my picture here.

Soul Journaling Page 1

I started a new journal a couple of days ago, working along with Sarah Whitmire. Here is my first page. This was a lot of fun to do. I'm using a Moleskine Sketchbook that is about 5" X 8".

Silk Fusion Postcards

These are my postcards for the Silk Fusion swap in the Surface Design Yahoo Group. To create the background, I used soy silk and textile medium and followed these directions at Joggles. After I finished the background, I fused it to a batik with similar coloration and then fused that to a stiff interfacing (like Timtex). I put Razzle Dazzle thread in my bobbin and did bobbin work all over the piece, then cut it up into postcard sized pieces. I added some Bonash and foil, then stitched on the flower just in the center so the petals are loose (I made the flower from two pieces of batik that I fused together, stitched in the flower shape, and cut out just outside the stitching). I added a Swarovsky crystal to the center of each flower, fused a piece of muslin to the back, then satin stitched the edges with variegated thread.

Back Home

I've been home several days now, but I've been too busy to post until now. We've been doing a bit of remodeling to our house; we had all of our counter tops (except the one in our utility room) replaced on Wednesday. My DH took all of the old counters off before I came home. He also had to remove all of the sinks, and since our house is 19 years old, most of the shut off valves to the sinks leaked. This meant he couldn't just shut off the sinks; he had to shut off the water to the whole house. He was able to set up a temporary work-around so that they only dripped very slowly with a bucket under each to catch the water. This allowed us to turn on the water, shower or fill water pitchers or do a load of laundry, then shut the water off again. The plumber came yesterday, so I now have new counters, new sinks, and new faucets throughout the house. They look so good! I've been wanting to do this for more years than I can remember, but several years ago we had a new housing development go in to the north of us, and for quite awhile we thought we might move. During that time, we didn't want to spend any money remodeling our house. Now that we've decided to stay, I finally convinced my DH that this would be a good thing.

So, this is our new kitchen island.



And new kitchen counter with sink and built-in drain board.



These are our bathrooms, with new faucets, towel bars, towel rings, and toilet paper holders. We still need to put the mirrors back up; turns out when they were ready to install the back splashes, the mirrors were about a half inch too low - or else the back splashes were too high.







I'm still working on getting the house clean and back together, but it's getting there.

Arte y pico Award

I was so surprised to open my email today and see that Carol had awarded me the Arte y pico award! Thank you Carol!!

The rules for this award are:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributing to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winners and the one who has given the prize should to show the link to the "Arte y pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

So, here are my picks for 5 blogs that deserve this award:

1. Imagine, Create, Inspire by Fannie Narte
2. Ashton Publications by Darcy Ashton
3. Sue Bleiweiss by Sue Bleiweiss
4. StegArt by Terri Stegmiller
5. Dear Me! by Jessica Wesolek

There are many other blogs I read, so it was difficult to narrow down my list. But these are the five I settled on. Go take a peak!

Quilt Camp in the Pines Part 2

I arrived in Flagstaff on Sunday, and have been very busy ever since. I'm taking classes every day. Monday I took an appliqué class from the very talented Sharon Schamber, and on Tuesday I took another appliqué class from Sharon's daughter, Cristy Fincher. The two classes taught different techniques. I like to appliqué, and I've never done it exactly like either of these ways, so I learned a lot and really enjoyed both classes. Today and tomorrow I'm in a paper piecing class from Deb Karasik, and there are some curved seams in the project. I've never really liked sewing curved seams, but Deb taught me how to do them, and I was very pleased with my results. Then on Friday I'm back with Sharon Schamber in a class called painting with dyes. I'm really excited about that one! And on Saturday I'm taking a class from Martha Nordstrand on making a fabric landscapes. Not sure how much time I'll have to post again while I'm here.

From the Road

Fannie asked me if I was doing any shopping. I've been to 5 quilt shops in the past 3 days - one in Amarillo (R & R Quilt Shop), one in Santa Fe (Santa Fe Quilting), one in Corrales (Quilts Ole), and two in Albuquerque (Southwest Decoratives and Ann Silva's Bernina Sewing Center). And then Santa Fe has tons of other shops (including Overland Sheepskin, where I bought the most awesome coat):



And I bought a pendant and earrings from one of the Indian vendors at the square. So, yes, I think you could say I'm doing some shopping.

We head on to Flagstaff to Quilt Camp in the Pines tomorrow.

Quilt Camp in the Pines

I'm leaving in the morning for Quilt Camp in the Pines. It is a week-long quilting retreat in Flagstaff, Arizona. I've never been before, but the good friend I'm going with has been and she says it's wonderful. I'm really looking forward to it! I'm all packed and ready to go, except I still haven't decided whether or not I'll take my laptop. I don't know if there will be internet access - I kind of doubt it since we're staying in a college dorm. But then again, there are always places with WiFi, so maybe I will. Hmm . . .

More Woven Strips

These things are addictive - I've made 3 more. All of these are card size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").

Woven Strips

Someone in my journaling techniques class asked the question the other day, now that we have all these painted papers, what do we do with them? Good question! Sue Bleiweiss, the instructor, gave us lots of good ideas, including cutting them into strips and weaving them. She posted some pictures of some that she had done, and they were beautiful. So I had to do some as well - with my own twist to them. I decided to tear my strips instead of cutting them, and here are the results; this first one is journal-page size (9" X 6"). I used watercolor sprays on these and glued them to black cardstock. I always think that black makes colors pop - I use it in my quilts a lot too.



After tearing the strips for the journal page, I had some shorter strips left. I couldn't let them go to waste, so I made this next one, which is card-size (4 1/4" X 5 1/2").