Junk Jar Dolls

This was the last of my mixed media frenzy while cleaning out the studio. These teacup junk jar dolls are made of old bottles filled with little bits of joy like cracker jack prizes, small toys, marbles, buttons, beads, snippets of cloth, jewelry parts and ETC! Then they are colored with alcohol inks and you can pretty much tell the rest. Old doll heads (from dolls worn out with love), vintage silver spoons for arms and lots of other fun accoutrements.

The Ice Man Cometh

The weather in these parts has been bizarre lately. Right now we are producing icicles like nobody's business. Wicked.

Make It U

I'll be teaching a mini class and also doing a virtual studio at Make It U in Chicago this April. I'll post soon what we'll be making. If you haven't been to the International Quilt Show--it's a visual kaleidoscope of inspiration.

Been Sketching Again

For the first time ever I tried Arches 100% cotton watercolor paper. OMG. Why did no one ever explain to me how wonderful this stuff is? I used one of those handy 40% off Michaels coupons so it felt more affordable. But wow--this is marvy. I don't think I can go back. I paired that with some new M. Graham watercolors and I was in heaven creating some thread sketched atc's. I have found that I may need to order some additional colors because my yellow is too opaque and combined with the blue I don't have the range of greens I need. There is so much to know!

Mono Printing Fabric

I've made a couple first try monoprinted fabric efforts. This is my favorite so far and I intent to turn it into a quilt of some sort. We shall see!

Bead Queen Status

What image pops into your head when someone says "I'm sending you some beads?" It's well known that I am as stingy as they come, so I was really excited to think that a few tubes of sparkly wonderment were coming my way. I was blown away when this bonanza arrived! The dear, sweet, and spectacularly generous Ms. Lisa has bestowed the bead queen blessing upon me. Just look at this! I have been beading like a mad fool ever since they arrived and were passed around to "ooh's" and "aah's." Here's a photo of the entire stash, a closeup of some of the pretties and finally, what I've been doing with them. Much heartfelt thanks go out to you Lisa. You are a gem!

Studio to Dye For

I'm soooooo cleaning out my studio in preparation for becoming intensely involved in dyeing fabrics. This is something that has interested me for a long time and there is so much to know. This is a little kit of fun things I put together for an ebay auction (forgive my constant commercialism lately--I'm trying to move stuff to make way for new experiments). It looks like it could practically be an art quilt by itself if someone would just sew it down! While I was working on another project, I had some pieces of fabric soaked in Bubble Jet Set, so I printed them out with text/alphabets, numbers etc. Afterwards I quickly overdyed this one. The rest will wait until I know what color scheme I want to use them for, but they are uber easy to do! Bubble Jet is my best friend!

Needle Felted ATC's

Here are some needle felted atc's I have been working on. The base is made from felted recycled thrift shop sweaters and then I hand needle felted wool roving and soy silk with angelina on top. Finished with some seed beads and hand stitching. They are backed with muslin.