Lollipop, Lollipop... Oh Lolly... Lolly Lolly..

It starts with an idea...

I find that I love working with bright, bold colors

And usually end up with something fun and cheerful

  And this is my finished piece in my art studio

More Fabric Bowls!

Wow have my boys been keeping me busy this summer!  So I'm trying to keep up with them plus I've started writing another blog AND we are going on vacation in three days, yikes!  This post will be short and sweet, my fabric bowls are a huge hit at the art gallery so I challenged myself to make six more before we go on vacation, I knocked out four but didn't reach my goal of six.  So here they are:

I don't work with the color purple that much but I absolutely love how this bowl turned out:

(The purple bowl sold five minutes after I walked in the door with it!)



Thanks for looking and I'll be back in three weeks!

I've started another blog!

A few years ago I wrote about my art retreat.  It was my time to get away and just create.  I have always been fascinated with the Amish culture so on these art retreats I would go to Lancaster, PA.  Over the years my art retreat has turned into a mommy's getaway and I now like to mingle with the Amish more than focus on my art.  A few weeks ago I got back from my annual mommy getaway and every time I sat down to write about it here I realized something.  I have way too much to say for just one post so I have created another blog.  I will solely focus on Amish life and my experiences among the Plain people.  It is still "under construction" but it is called My Fascination With The Amish Culture: Exploring The Plain People.

    

Another Felt and Fabric Applique Piece

Under The Sea felt and fabric applique and embroidery is finally finished, hooray!!

To remind you, this was a photo of it almost completed but I still had to finish the embroidery inside the seaweed plus add more beads and shells:

I added little red pearls to the red fabric coral (and black beads to the fishes eyes).

See if you can find five real seashells:

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I also added more blue beads to the two blue waves at the top; and if you look closely I used green AND blue metallic thread for the seaweed embroidery.

This is now hanging in my studio space (and is for sale) at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA.  Under The Sea measures 20" X 24"

"Fixing Her Hair"

While on Pinterest I came across this absolutely beautiful watercolor of a ballerina.  I think what caught my eye was that it wasn't a normal ballerina pose.  The artist, Inslee Haynes, named it Tutu, Aerial View and I just fell in love!  This became my inspiration piece for my first art quilt. Please visit her blog The Sketch Book so you may learn more about this talented artist.

So the first thing I needed to do was to graph the image and enlarge it.

Next I traced the pattern and cut out the pieces:

From there I found fabric for the skirt and fused it onto a piece of light green flannel.  I thought about changing the colors to pinks but then decided that greens and blues (the original colors the artist used) were more interesting.

I then stitched green-with-gold-sparkle tulle into the center to make it look more like a tutu:

From there I decided that it now needed more blue so I cut strips of shimmery blue tulle and added them around the skirt:

It still needed more "bling" so I hand stitched blue and green beads onto the blue strips:

Her body was felt applique and her hair was "doll hair" found at my local craft store:

I picked my fabrics for my boarders:

And then quilted everything except her body and her tutu:

Fixing Her Hair is now hanging (and is for sale) at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA 

Quick Update

Well both of my boys are out of school now so life has gotten a little bit more hectic around here.  The day before they got out of school I finished another quilt.  I had pieced the top together about a year ago and tied it but didn't like the tied look so it sat folded up under my bed for a year.  I will do an entire post about it with lots of pictures later but the pictures for now are my space at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth.  The recently finished quilt is in my space on the quilt rack in blues and greens and purples.

In three days I will leave for my Mommy Getaway!! (In the past I've called it my Art Retreat)  I have always been fascinated with the Amish and the Amish lifestyle so for about six years now I've been "getting away" to Lancaster, PA.  Sometimes I stay at B&B's and other times I stay in hotels.  I look forward to this trip every year.  You can read about one of my past trips here:  http://kimagination1.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-art-retreat.html

I will be taking some of my hand sewing projects but I have created a jam packed list of things to do during the day so I may be to pooped at night to even think about sewing, we'll see. 

Doing a lot of hand sewing these days

I think the reason why I haven't posted in a while is because hand sewing takes awhile!  I am still in love with felt and fabric applique and this is what I am now doing most nights after my boys go to bed. 

I haven't worked on this project much more except for sewing blue beads into the water pattern and a few pearls into the rocks and shells at teh bottom.  As you can tell I still haven't finished the metallic green embroidery work in the the coral.

The reason why I haven't finished my underwater project is because I've been spending time In My Flower Garden.  Please don't be fooled, I don't have a green thumb... I've been creating a felt garden.  This was the the beginning stage:

I mount my finished pieces on stretched canvas (like I did with Gypsy Love) so that's what the white chalk outline is for.  This piece will eventually measure 8" X 10".

If you have been reading this blog for a while you know how much I love buttons and painting on them.  So after I cut out these designs I found 5 of my painted buttons that I thought went pretty well with the colors of felt I had chosen.  Then... let the hand sewing and embroidery (and bead work) begin!!

And this is my newest piece I finished a few days ago.  In My Flower Garden.

Close up of details:

And right now I would get back to my underwater felt applique but I found this adorable fabric the other day that I knew immediately what I was going to do with it.  First it involved making a 40" X 12" frame, buy felt to cover the frame then start appliqueing!
The cat laying on the branch on the left hand side caught my eye in the store.  Again if you see the white chalk lines, this is where the felt will be wrapped around the canvas.

I have also added 7 felt leaves to fill it in and to have fun doing bead work on them later.  Inspiration will be taken directly from the leaves in In My Flower Garden.  The two dark leaves are purple not black as they appear.

The only work I've done on this piece so far, besides sewing everything down, is to start sewing wooden beads onto the branch but I have lots more to go so stay tuned!

More fabric bowls!

Most people that know me know that I have ADD when it comes to my art stuff, one week I'll be sewing and then the next week I may be painting.  Other people can't keep up with me but this is how my mind works.  I have found something that is so easy and so addictive that (once again) I keep returning to it, it's making fabric bowls.  It does take time and is very tedious but I love the process of one coming together.  We had a huge art festival this weekend near my art gallery so I decided to make a few more of these fun bowls.  Six to be exact:

They are now all for sale at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA