freshly wordless

Slow Sunday Stitching ~ January 26, 2014

Sunday Cyclamen

i have been slow stitching my string tulips onto their vine today. all but two of these are appliqued down, with those two being basted in place and ready for applique.
i do wonder about adding leaves?
this is very much a figure it out as i go kind of primitive quilt experience.
i do wish i had the energy to stage and take a better photo but you get the idea.

i'm joining up with Kathy of Kathy's Quilts for the slow sunday stitching event.   

Kathy has written a thoughtful post about how we, as creative's value our hands. she writes:  "They are instruments of our creativity, to work with our tools, fabric, threads, and beads, and turn them into something we love."

do you appreciate your hands and all that they do?

when you see something that has been created by hand do you think about the hands that made it? your mother's hands, your father's, a child's . . .

 

sometimes when i see artwork or hand made things i think about how interesting it would be to have a tag attached to the work itself including a photo of those particular creative hands.

how often might i be surprised by them? they might be older, younger or even crippled by arthritis . . . they would surely tell a broader story for us as the viewer of the handwork itself.

a story i would enjoy knowing.

 

our hands are an amazing gift~!!~

and you gotta love those thumbs too~!

 

;-)

art journal every day ~ january 24, 2014

the "up, up, and away" page is now finished. it
s not very big but it makes me happy.

work is still ongoing with the "somewhere" page. i've had a very bad cold this week and simply didn't feel like working on it.

the journal52 prompt for this week is "you make me smile".

i began to make a list of things that make me smile on an old piece of ledger paper thinking that it would be a good activity to take my mind off of the sniffles, aches, coughs, etc . . .

then i found a piece of scrap booking paper to tape it onto. tape seemed easier than glue today and i have a nice selection of pretty tapes from which to choose.
i tore (easier than scissors) the list so it was a size i felt good about, and then tore the prompt out.  
as i was taping i realized that i should date my page (something that i frequently forget to do) and taped on a small piece of extra ledger paper at the bottom.

i then had a chicken soup break. i highly recommend this if you have a cold too.

once properly fortified i added some doodles, trying to blend the background with the foreground as i went along. i used the printed design on the background (scrap book) paper as inspiration for my doodles.
i wrote in the date.



then i got out my water color pencils and added some color, accents and a few more doodles.

and believe it or not i have actually completed this one. 


linking up with both the Art Journal Every Day forum at Balzer Designs and the Journal52 workshop.







this page is all about the gifts in my life so rather than post a gift list i'll let you study the page if you choose. i would, however, like to add that i am grateful for chicken soup. and heating pads. and kleenex. and mentholatum. and kleenex. and a comfy love worn quilt. oh, and kleenex.

art journal every day ~ january 17, 2014

the prompt this week for Journal52 is "Somewhere, A Simple Place".
on tuesday i located a sheet of paper that i had already begun to background onto and did some more coloring, scribbling, stenciling, etc.
i was thinking of going "somewhere" into an imaginary garden . . .

then on wednesday i searched around for a quote that might work for the page. i found a couple i liked and looked through some old ephemera for ideas. so just an art journal brainstorm going on that day.

thursday morning i found a calendar page from a 2013 World Wildlife calendar that got me thinking in a whole new direction. i cut the page down to 8 and a half inches by 11 inches and decided to make it my base . . . clipped some more aquatic type images and called it good for the day.
a big clip art storm that day~!

friday morning i got out the glue stick and started creating a "border" on my page as suggested by Chelle at Journal52. she offered two suggestions this week as well as the prompt and i hope to use the other one as this page progresses.
this Journal52 thing is shaping up to be a really worthwhile use of my art journaling time~! if you have wanted to art journal but didn't know how or when to start you should consider jumping in. she's not requiring that you spend a lot of money on supplies and the workshop itself is free.

this is where the "Up, Up, & Away" (last weeks Journal52 prompt) theme was carrying me on monday . . .

i am now realizing that my umbrella has gotten caught up in the wind. the weather was crazy windy for a few days last week and not just in my imagination/art.

i also now realize that the 'protection' my umbrella was giving me is 'gone with the wind'.

maybe i don't need it after all . . . weehheeee . . .

 

on tuesday, it became windier still . . .

on friday a.m. i had a few minutes to add a water color pencil vine to the "up, up, and away" page on a small piece of hand made paper that i stitched onto the bottom

this page is also not quite finished.

 

i had fun art journaling this week although i realize that my pages are taking a bit too long to finish. oh well, it will all "art"out in the long run i suppose.

 

today i am linking up with both the Art Journal Every Day forum at Balzer Designs and the Journal52 workshop.





 

 

 

 

recent gifts include:

• making my own beef broth 
• feeling the warmth of a morning cup of coffee in my hands
• sunshine. blue skies. sunshine. and oh~! some sunshine
•  anticipating a quick weekend visit from the wonderful daughter
• smelling the garlicky pasta sauce simmering on the stove

shadows on a wordless wednesday ~ january 15, 2014

jubilant slow sunday stitching

i turn 50 this year. this is a bigger deal than i thought it would be and i have very mixed feelings. i guess i have all year to work through those though and one of the things i realized is that i have never made a quilt just for me, myself and i.
it's high time i fixed that and so i will be working on my jubilee quilt (a quilt celebrating my 50th year). i plan on selfishly excluding as many other projects from this year as possible so as not to "steal" time/energy from this milestone project.

i will be using my string pieced tulips and i think that 50 is just about the right amount to include. they're actually quite large and so i won't be setting them into blocks. when thinking about this project previously i kicked around a variety of ideas but i've decided to set them into rows and create a tulip 'vine' with them. lots of scratching around with a pencil, calculator and graph paper has resulted in a rough plan and so i have a big green hand dyed vine and three tulips beginning to grow . . . this is largely a slow stitching kind of project and will take quite a while.

speaking of slow stitching, i was unable to work on my art journal/Journal52 prompt yesterday so this a.m. picked it back up again. it's looking like this might be a fiber page . . .

lots of slow stitching planned for today between the art journal page and the jubilee applique.
i'm joining up with Kathy of Kathy's Quilts for the slow sunday stitching event. it's been a while and i'm happy to be returning to see what everyone is up to within that forum.



recent gifts include:

• being able to help when needed
• noticing the colors of an early morning sunrise: swirly peaches/purples and intense blues
• hearing the coo of the doves as they crowd around the winter feeder
• enjoying a day out with other quilt minded ladies and a yummy pot luck lunch

art journal every day ~ friday 10, 2014

on tuesday i was thinking about and tapping into the possibilities of:

not clipping my own wings.

then i began my art journaling . . . 

 

• using a masking off paper for my base (this paper can be found in the hardware store and is called red rosin paper ~ it comes on big rolls and is economical for art journaling purposes)
• a white paper doily that i did some stamping off  (cleaning the stamp) onto
• cheap markers found while cleaning the office
• dyelusions spray ink (purple and white)
• punchinella ribbon as a stencil

wednesday i didn't feel like a had a lot of extra time so opted to simply add some running stitches around the outer part of my paper doily in a cotton mid weight orange thread.

 thursday i created another hand carved stamp. ever since i did my first one (pear) i have been wanting to make more and after reading this post on Julie's blog (Balzer Designs) i became even more inspired/motivated.

in fact, i was so inspired that i made another one.
the umbrella is going to be used within an art journal workshop/challenge that i have joined called Journal52. This is a free year long art journal workshop hosted by Chelle.       
the first week's prompt is "up, up, and away". 
i discovered this wonderful opportunity when recently reading fellow free spirited artist Dawn's post at Girl Unwinding.
maybe you will become inspired by this workshop as well.
 
so the following a.m. i happened to do some reading about aspirations/setting goals and realized that i need to give some thought to having aspirations without attachments. i need to remember that i can have hopes/dreams/aspirations without being so attached to them that i ruin my life trying to attain them.
"it's about the journey", my muses whisper to me again and again.

i feel that this subject has some relevance to the up, up, and away prompt and my first mental image was a floating balloon and then an open umbrella . . .  i went with the umbrella.
i imagine i chose it because an umbrella is used when one needs protection from the elements . . .
maybe i lack faith as i float "up, up, and away" . . .

i guess brainstorming isn't about logic.

i stamped the umbrella image onto some unbleached muslin. 

friday i snipped out the negative spaces within the stamped umbrella (on fabric) and then laid it onto a yellow subtly printed fabric and embroidered it.

i'm not sure where i'm going with it from here . . .




i know that i've "jumped tracks" with my art journaling this week. first working on my " . . . not clipping my own wings" page and then leaping into the Journal52 workshop/challenge.
perhaps i'll come back around to the first piece as i work through the year . . .
art journaling is like that. it's exploration and creativity . . . not necessarily working continuously on any one piece of art. it turns out that it too is all about the journey, not the destination.

today i am linking up with both the Art Journal Every Day forum at Balzer Designs and the Journal52 workshop.

recent gifts include:

• a sweetly quiet holiday spent with my wonderful husband and daughter
• time to think about what is important to me in my life
• whispering muses

wordless wednesday ~ january 8, 2014