Sweet and Simple

My latest fabric creation is a sweet and simple cuff bracelet - 

The base is vintage mocha linen overlaid with a sweet ivory doily, a handmade (by me!) crocheted flower in chocolate brown and antique shell buttons. To clasp the bracelet simply wind the string around the button. This cuff is one-size-fits-all as it is fully adjustable. It is finished off with a layer of comfy felt between the linen and the soft muslin backing. This piece is a signed original and measures 7 3/4" by 3/4". You can find it in my shop on Etsy by clicking here.

Loot 'n Booty (aka. stuff I've gotten in the mail lately!)

I've been a fortunate girl, indeed, lately!! Just about every day a sweet little (or big) package seems to make its way to my doorstep. Here is a run-down of the "loot" and "booty" I've gotten:

My blogging friend Carol of Beads and Birds must know that I am a list-maker because she sent me a sweet Halloween gift of a pretty memo pad and a handmade card! She's a real sweetie! Be sure to check out her blog. She takes part in Robin Atkin's Bead Journal Project and one of her latest post talks about that project. 2011 will be Carol's third year as a participant.

I also received a very nice "thank you" from a CarawayCache customer. It seems that a cherished heirloom of her mother's had been stolen during a home burglary and I happened to have a necklace exactly like it for sale in my shop. I'm happy I was able to help her replace the one she lost. The card was so beautiful and the message so very heartfelt - it truly made my day.

I also got a wonderful package of loot from "Rings and Things". I was picked to receive a box of goodies as part of their "Blog Partner Program". Score!! I love stone stuff - beads, cabs, donuts - you name it and I got these great stone components to try out or give away or whatever. Aren't they beautiful??

The Crazy Lace and Picture Jasper are my favorite!

And, finally...
I have been writing a lot lately about my renewed love affair with fiber and fabrics. I was able to buy a whole lot of scraps and remnants of beautiful silks, brocades and velvets. These are small pieces - most are only a few inches square - but they are perfect for using in my fabric jewelry. They are all SO beautiful and I could never have dreamed I'd find such a variety! Here is just a small sampling. Stay tuned to see some of these lovely textiles in my forth-coming creations.

Morning Coffee Quotes

After the hard frost we had Thursday night, these were the only flowers left in our garden. If we were better at harvesting, these broccoli flowers would not be in a vase on our table!! :)

"Never take a person's dignity: it is worth everything to them, and nothing to you."
- Frank Barron

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
- Bertrand Russell

"To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government."
- Mark Twain

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
- Ben Stein

"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."
- Michael O'Brien

"If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."
- Doug Larson

"An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods."
- Ambrose Bierce

"If you walk with lame men you will soon limp yourself."
- Seaman McManus

"People ask me what I'd most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them: a paternity suit."
- George Burns

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are."
- John Pierpont Morgan

"One major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions."
- Edward R. Murrow

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self."
- Aristotle

"Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption."
- James Garfield

"It's not the load that breaks you down; it's the way you carry it."
- Lena Horne

"Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it."
- Benjamin Lichtenberg

"Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow--only today of its strength."
- C. H. Spurgeon

"If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong then nine times out of ten it will."
- Paul Harvey

"If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues."
- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

"Talk doesn't cook rice."
- Chinese Proverb

"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand."
- Leonardo da Vinci

"Example is the lesson that all men can read."
- Gilbert West

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Benjamin Franklin

From the Dark Side...

I finally finished my first foray into darkness. As you may know, I am fearful of the darkness, both real and imaginary. I decided this year would be the year to explore my dark side a little bit. Fabric and fiber have recently taken over my world - beadweaving is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment. My friend Paula has just recently taken over the management of an arts program in a near-by town and was looking for spooky art for a show. I decided it was time to put my fear of things go bump in the night to rest - at least a little.

What came of this is the first mostly fabric necklace which I am temporarily calling "Dark Dreams". I finished it at the ninth hour. My husband was going to deliver it to the gallery for me and he was leaving about 2 minutes ago (if you know what I mean). I was still stitching and also wanted to take some shots before it vanished out the door. My apologies for the quality of the pics - I count on natural light to take good photos and there was none. These have been digitally lightened and my camera doesn't like to focus in low light situations.

"Dark Dreams" is made entirely of fabrics, trims and little goodies from my stash. The ceramic face was, in a past life, part of a gaudy, silvery 80's Christmas ornament. Liberated from the horrid silver lamee and glitter, she became the heroine of this piece. Veiled in vintage black lace, she dreams of death, time and the unknown. The red and black background fabric is a pocket square for which my husband felt no affinity. Saved from the dust bin by the worst of pack-rats (me), it was added to the fabric stash. I burned the edge of the fabric and shredded the lace ruffle surrounding her face - I thought it made the piece a little more "spooky". To finish, it was edged in black lace ruffle and backed with a layer of felt and some cotton knit T-shirt fabric to make it comfy to wear. The nice thing about fabric crafts is that it's easy to sign your pieces. A small fabric tag was added with my name and the year. This is literally the first time I have signed a piece of jewelry!! It's not my "legal" signature - no one can read that - but it does let one know "who" made this necklace and "when". Here are a few more shots - when I get her back from the show I will take better ones. I hope you enjoy "Dark Dreams" :)

 

 

Cleaning out

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just have to get rid of stuff. That's on my agenda today. I'm loading up and taking stuff to various places for recycling or donation. Here's my pile!

LA CRUZ - Newest Fabric Cuff

Here is the latest fabric cuff, La Cruz, finished just minutes ago! Since this is one of the projects on my roster for My Private Art Retreat, this cuff was great fun to make and I'm really proud about how it turned out. I wanted this piece to have a southwestern feel to it and chose turquoise along with shades of brown and silver for the color palette. The centerpiece is a vintage pendant - not real turquoise but still pretty cool. Vintage ribbons - velvet, brocade and silk - were paired with a vintage doily and some pretty crocheted (by me!!) lace along the edge. Hanging from the mandala pendant is a small silver cross for which the piece is named - La Cruz.

Nicely finished with soft felt layered between vintage fabric, this cuff closes with a ribbon and button. It is fully adjustable (one size fits all) - to clasp the bracelet simply wrap the ribbon tie around the vintage button. It will stay comfortably and securely.

The full length of the the cuff is 7 3/4" and it is 2 1/2" wide including the crocheted lace trim. You can find La Cruz for sale on Etsy.

My Private Art Retreat - Day 3

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." Twyla Tharp

I thought this was an appropriate quote for my little art retreat experience! Even though, on day three, I found it completely necessary to leave the house... dang.

So, here's what happened - I started the day by catching up on some of my favorite blogs and drinking a cup of my very favorite tea in the whole world - genmaicha. Next came the scheduling and set-up of the projects for the day:

1. Crack out the Makin's Clay and make some polymer faces using the Sculpey mold

2. Make some resin cabs using the Easy Cast kit.

3. Make some crochet lace for my latest fabric cuff project.

4. Try out the two sewing machine-esque thingys to see if they work of if they are junk.

Since I had not stepped foot out of the house for a while, a walk was in order. I checked out the garage sale listings, found two sales that were pretty close to each other and not too far a distance from me and had a wonderful morning walk. Wow! It was so beautiful out - sunny, cool, crisp - a perfect fall morning. I didn't find anything at the sales except one very tasty cupcake for 25 cents (SO worth it!).

Once back home, I started by getting out my new size C crochet hook and made some pretty edging to use on the fabric cuff. It's a little more wavy than expected but I was happy with the result nonetheless.

Next, it was on to the polymer clay faces! While unwrapping the clay from the plastic packaging, I noticed that some of the colors were more pliable than others. The beige and the brown had become a bit dry and were hard to work with but the other colors were very nice. This clay is really soft and pliable and pushed into the molds very nicely.

I still decided to use the dried out stuff too - as you can see from the photos, the beige faces are a bit rough around the edges but they reminded me of those great ruins you see in movies like "Indiana Jones" - great Buddha-like faces overgrown with vines, cracked from age and erosion.

Here's the complete collection - now I just have to wait for them to dry and they'll be ready for some higher purpose!

Next, I was hoping to tackle my first try at resin but was discouraged after reading the directions. When I read the part about curing and that it needed to be 70 degrees to cure properly, I knew this would have to wait until some nice warm late fall day (if we have any more of those!) or until next spring. Our house temp was 65 and the outside temp was cooler still. Refusing to crank up the furnace this early in the season just to cure 2 or 3 cabs, resin, I'm sorry to say, will have to wait.  :-(

Next came the sewing gadget trials and they both failed miserably. The electric one didn't work at all and the manual one was so cumbersome that it would just be easier to hand sew so there really is no point to the darned thing. Therefore, a decision just had to be made!! Do I need a sewing machine? I had, after all, sold my last one at a garage sale because there just isn't room to sew in this house. But, that was a full-sized sewing machine with fancy stitches and stuff which I never really used. I quite enjoy just sewing in a straight line - maybe a zig zag here and there would be nice every once in a while - but I could live quite happily with a simple little straight stitch sewing machine (so there.). After some quick online research, I decided that a new sewing machine thingy was most decidedly in my future. Besides, all of the "Harry Potter" flicks had been watched so a trip to the library was in order. And, since it's on the way, I'll most likely stop at my favorite resale store. And since I was going out anyway, I might as well go shopping for a new sewing machine! Yep, you can say it... go ahead... I'm weak!

So, off I went to the resale store where I got some very cool stuff! I bought this old jewelry box...

 

... these fantastic old spools...

 

 

... some crochet books....

...and a size J crochet hook to round out my collection - I now have all hooks size C - K. Anything is possible with those!!

At the library, I found this great book, Mary Jane's Stitching Room, by Mary Jane Butters:

This book has lots of great photos and ideas for projects - mostly I just like the photos. As I was flipping through the pages I found myself intrigued by tatting - maybe that will be on the schedule of retreat events sometime? Maybe for My Private Art Retreat #2 - in the spring - so I can finally crack out that resin!!

 

And, after much running around town, here is the new sewing machine! Still in the box - I'll give it a trial run on day 4 or 5. It's tiny!! I'm pretty sure it's a chain stitch machine but that will be just fine for the type of projects I want to make with it.

Finally, I was home! I watched the first two installments of Back to the Future and worked on my fabric cuff for the evening. Here's the latest:

I'm not sure what will be on the agenda for day 4. Saturday is the best day for garage sales. My husband, who has been at a Russian 7-string Guitar Festival for the past 3 days, will be playing in an evening concert and I will be attending that. A large part of my day will be spent on the road as the concert location is 1 1/2 hours drive from Dubuque. After that, a friend of ours is having a CD release party so we will be drinking beer and listening to too loud music into the wee hours. Phew! It's going to be a busy day! :) I like those.