Wisteria Lane...

Yesterday, my friend Heather and I took a road trip down to the Niagara wine region.  Among other things, we visited a fabulous shop in Jordan Village called Stitch. To quote them, they are "a sanctuary for knitters, quilters and needle artists".  We found some wonderful treasures to use in our fibre art!

Just a few doors down, there is a lovely bed and breakfast with the most beautiful side arbour, covered in wisteria!  As you can see from these images, there is the most glorious covering of purple blossoms.

After spending more than we should have at Stitch, we enjoyed a delicious lunch outside on the patio of Zooma Zooma, a great little restaurant in the village.


It was a perfect day, spent with a wonderful friend.

Both images have a layer of Kim Klassen's 'teatime' texture (from her mini May set) added at a soft light blend mode of 50%.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday.

ATC Booklet

This month's theme for Lisa Fulmer's ATC swap is June Bugs so I decided to play around with an idea I got from Jane Davila and make a little ATC booklet.  I don't usually take this much time to make one ATC but it was fun.  In fact, it's really like making 8 ATCs in one!

I used copyright free images of bugs from the Internet, information from Wikipedia (printed on TAP), Inktense pencils, stamps, stitch and acrylic paint.

Black and White

I finished the beading and hand stitching on my 'stamp-painted' black and white fabric while on a short road trip with my husband.  I like to have some sort of hand work ready for in the truck so that I've got something to do now that I'm not driving.  I ended up doing a back stitch along many of the lines in the stamped design so that they would stand out better in the piece. The dots along the narrow borders are colonial knots and the other dots within the stamped design are beads.

Finally Framed

I found this cute red frame and decided it was just the thing for the painted and embroidered Aida cloth piece I did a while back.

I like how the red picks up some of the red embroidery in the piece and best of all, the frame was on sale for 50% off.  You've got to love a bargain like that!

Another Felt Piece

I've been playing around with another piece of a wet felted background.  I decided to make it a bit more sculptural and then I added a lot of hand embroidery and beading to it.  I think it's done for now....

GOE Challenge

My fibre art group, GOE (Group of Eight) poses various challenges to the members each year.  Our current challenge requires us to use a particular piece of fabric and create something that represents the theme "Spring has Sprung".  The challenge fabric was about 6 inches square.

challenge fabric

My inspiration was a video I watched on making wool felted Easter eggs.  Below are some photos of my finished egg from various angles.  The beaded quadrants were quilted with a double sewing machine needle, using a green thread and a peach coloured thread.  All of the beading and embroidery were done after the egg was assembled and stuffed.

I've included the link for those of you who would like to make one yourself. www.joggles.com/woolfelteastereggs-video.htm

Top view: 4 quadrants and cord for hanging.

Beaded side view.

Cross stitched seam.

Feather stitch with Colonial knots.

Thou shalt not covet...unless...

My friend Heather gave me a wonderful piece of silk that she had used to soak up some bits of left over dye.  Truth be told, I coveted it when she was showing me a bunch of fabric she had dyed.  It has beautiful colours and shapes that just spoke to me!  I've decided to start by outlining the shapes I see with pearl cotton and embroidery floss. When I finish doing that, I'll have to decide what to do next.  Suggestions are welcome!

An Alphabet Journal

I got a copy of the book Alphabetica by Lynne Perrella as a Christmas gift, and I was inspired to create my own version of a fibre alphabet book.