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

 

 

  Twas the night before Christmas . . .

a rare quiet day.

creating my own magic.

 

wishing all of my blog readers their very own

 magical christmas holiday

bursting forth with laughter, love and beauty.

art journal every day ~ december 6, 2013

i had decided to share some of the background work that i've been doing within my art journal pages today and then as a last minute (much needed) diversion i took my background image into photoshop and created a digital art journal page with it.


the top shot is of the backgrounded page and is a piece of cardboard from a cereal box that has been painted with a white acrylic paint.
i added:

• a piece of calendar page
• a white paper doily
• dylusions spray inks
• a stamped image/sepia & light green ink
• lots of glue 

i'll keep adding to the page but for now . . .  

this is the digital art page. i added several layers of my own photos and textures. i played around with the colors, opacities and just generally had a good time immersing myself in the process.
it turned out a bit dark but i think i still like it. at any rate, it felt good to create without any other purpose in mind.


i am linking up with  Art Journal Every Day at Balzer Designs . 
the very talented Malita Bloomer of Artful Fancies by Malita Bloomer is guest posting today and i can hardly wait to see the pages that other art journalers have posted.
feel free to link over and see some of the mixed media eye candy for yourself.


i do have some stitched goodies to share but they will have to wait until another day.


recent gifts include:

• good friends happily sharing their smiles and time
• warm wooly socks on my feet
• the generosity and kindness of other bloggers
• surprise packages in the mail
• long chats with my mom and daughter over the thanksgiving holiday
• the (always reliable) comfort of creating

art journaling friday - november 22, 2013

 my art journaling habit has really been suffering. i've been putting all of my extra time and energy into prepping for my quilt guild's christmas bazaar and until this a.m. have really been unable to focus on much else. it's interesting how much i miss it and how much less creative i feel in general when i'm not art journaling.  i hope to be putting myself back on track with this habit now that many of my other obligations have been fulfilled.

 

this is the second page of my two page fall themed spread. i was originally going to add more to it but it's been so long since i looked at it that i've forgotten just what i had in mind . . . so after adding the tag to my little sack (created from a tea bag~!) of self harvested hollyhock seeds i decided that i was going to call it good enough for now. i may do more on it later.

 

i continue using lightweight cardboard for the pages as i find that it holds up well to all of the wet media and glue and, best of all, is free.
some of the supplies/techniques that i have used for this page are:

• a used tea bag
• self harvested hollyhock seeds
• a piece of red perle cotton thread
• acrylic paint
• dyelusions ink spray
• a beat up re-used tiny price tag
• newspaper
• found hollyhock image (from a seed catalog) 
• bee and tiny leaf stamp & stamp ink
• collected leafy stems from my favorite tree within the garden
• stencil created from a box of Barilla pasta
• bits of twine
• micron pens
• lots of glue

tiny double sided tag art
side 1

tiny double sided tag art
side 2

 



 

 

LOVE this extra bit of texture that i accidentally achieved on this part of the page~!

 

 

 

 

i think i'll be prepping pages with backgrounds for the next little while as it's a fairly mindless art journaling activity to do while getting through the holidays.

 

 

 

i'll be linking up with Art Journal Every Day at Balzer Designs today. 
in addition there are many other art journalers linking up with her and sharing their own art journaling.

Julie is sharing her newly carved number stamps today. seeing them makes me want to carve a stamp or two of my own again.

inspiration abounds~!~

 

recent gifts include:

• a beautifully extended fall season
• that satisfying feeling i get when i can cross long term goals off of a list
• using up more of my scrap fabrics while achieving those goals
• anticipating a thanksgiving holiday with both my daughter and my mother :D  here within our home