Art is the Answer

 I'm still working on my final journal for my Letter Love 101 class.  Joanne wanted us to do a page with this particular quote, and I decided that since it summed up the class so well I'd put it on the back cover.

Because I love using recycled book pages to achieve that extra layer of text and texture, I wrote the quote on a piece of such paper which I had first painted using watercolours.

I'm especially excited about the flower petals on this piece. Months ago I had used round stickers (cut from a sheet of address labels, using a circle punch ) as masks on fabric when I was doing some surface design.  I loved the random colour that ended up on the paper circles so I stuck them to a piece of freezer paper to keep them for "some future project".  We'll, that day had come! I added a bit of sketching with a Pitt pen to draw in the leaves and stems.

This wonderful quote came from Pippa, one of my Letter Love classmates (and a new follower of my blog).  Thanks Pippa.  I love it.

Take a look at the second line of text on this page.    I had made a mistake so I covered it with another piece of that painted, recycled book and rewrote the words.  When an eraser won't work, figure something else out. There's always a way to 'fix' a problem!  And, because I can't let anything go, the grid lines on this page are the tiny bits of torn off paper left because I had wanted torn edges on the page in yesterday's post.

Thanks for your visit today.

Machine Lace Bowl

I was looking for a distraction this morning so I decided to use some scraps of thread and organza to create a machine lace bowl.  I used an embroidery hoop to hold the 2 layers of water solvable plastic.  You can use Solvy (brand name) but I tried using a dissolvable laundry bag that they use in hospitals.  I picked one up last year in the vendors market of a quilt show and decided it was time to try it.  It worked great and is just a fraction of the price.  Now I need to find a hospital supply source so I can get more!

Anyway, I sandwiched the snippets of thread, eyelash yarn and organza between the 2 layers and then heavily machine stitched to catch all the bits and create the lacy look.  I trimmed away the extra pieces of solvable plastic from around the outer edges, being careful not to cut the ragged edges of the 'lace' and then I submerged the piece in cool water to dissolve the plastic.  The wet piece was then draped over a bowl and left to dry.

It's a nice decorative piece, but I'm thinking that I may look around for some inexpensive class bowls so that the next one I do is lined with glass so it could actually but used as a candy dish or something similar.  The trick is to find the size and shape of clear glass bowl so that you can still see the lace.  Another thought might be to look for a coloured glass that would still be transparent but had a complimentary colour to highlight the lace.

ATCs for this months swaps...

I decided to use some of the ideas from a recycling workshop I attended Saturday for my ATCs this month.  The background is shredded paper with organza layered over it and then stitched.  The centre of the flowers are mylar yogurt cup lids, cut into little circles.

April Showers...

Today we woke up to snow on the ground and high winds.  At times when I looked outside I saw blizzard like conditions.  Not exactly what I was expecting for the middle of April.  So, I decided to head into the studio and make some flowers bloom.

I was inspired by Donna Funnell's Fabric Collage (see my last post) and by the latest issue of Quilting Arts in which Jeanelle McCall did an article on some fun flowers.  I used Donna's collage background idea and her great black and white whimsical flower stems and then used Jeanelle's idea for fun flowers with black machine embroidery to make them pop.