My sewing machine: Only a few days ago I realized I haven't been at my sewing machine since early June. Even though I have some pants hemming to do for Cat, I'm really looking forward to getting back to it, getting back to working with fibres, fabrics, buttons. Journal quilts have been on hold. Today I chose to work on one for June. This is what I have planned so far, oh, and the binding and the other fibres. You'll have to wait until it's done. I forgot to mention that the orange button will be for the August quilt. YES! orange is the colour for August.

On the red fabric I used some dishwasher soap with a bit of bleach in it. I needed to experiment with the stamps. Initially I had far too much soap. Later I didn't get so much of the whitening effect, but it got darker instead. Not certain what happened. I then used black dye based ink to do some stamping. I just have to determine now if there are any possibilities for setting the ink? Hmmm, any ideas? I'm wondering if I can press it. The fabric is for Christmas projects so I've some time to sort it out. I also need to determine some time soon if I can use spray varnish on rice paper. I love to use rice paper and I've got quite a lot of it.
Angels be with you.

playing: with paper, stickers, fibers, embroidery, old buttons. The fabric is some I found for works in progress - postcards, mini-quilts. Maybe I'll have some done tomorrow, or can at least show them.

Layers - a journal quilt made with fabric of cling wrap. I saw this technique on the blog of faerydi. As I knew I had some fuschia coloured cling wrap in the basement, someplace, for a number of years, I decided to give this a try. Basically you layer fabric and thread bits on top of a piece of cling wrap and put another layer of the wrap again. You iron this together, of course with parchment paper on top and bottom, and then you add as many layers as you like. There are real fabric layers because I turned it into a kind of quilt. I just used flannel between the top and bottom. The binding, if you can call it that , is quite rough. That's the way I wanted it. Besides, I didn't have lots of time to study up and practice as I wanted to finish this to get it into Inspire me Thursday. I hope I'm not too late.

Having Fun: I added some words to the white on blue.


As heard on the radio - "remember, it's your backbone, not your wishbone".


Do you know what the fibers are? I was trying to figure out what I could do for fibers for my journal quilt and remembered this, which I'd seen in a Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine.

Stage 1 of my first quilt journal. I plan to do much embellishment yet. I am apprehensive about the actual quilting. Hopefully I can show you more accomplished tomorrow night. I also have to do some e-mails and introducing of myself to the group so you may have to wait until Monday. I should say that I may not actually use this one for the group as I intend to do more of these this month.

The fabric is that which I coloured myself, except the deep blue on the bottom. I'm pleased with the moon. I'm not sure if I'll do anything further with it.

Art - new year; old year AND tagged:
I'll start by explaining that I've been tagged by Suze. It's a book tag. You are supposed to pick up a book that's close by. Turn to page 123, go down five sentences and then look at the next 3 sentences. Oh yes, and be sure to say the name of the book and its authour.

Well, I put a bit of a twist to it. I had signed up for the quilt journal group, an off shoot of the CPS group. Each month I, and many others, are to create a quilt journal of, I think, 8 x 11 inches. Since I signed for the group things have changed a bit for me but I have decided I would still like to try to do this. With all of my art I've been having much difficulty trying to choose from many possibilities, ideas, what I would like to do or perhaps focus on. I am hoping this will give me some direction. Maybe I shall try to focus more on using fibers. We'll see. I'm not even sure if I'm still part of the webring I had joined last fall.

But back to being tagged - I have a binder with a number of Cloth Paper Scissors and Quilting Arts magazines. I decided to use this binder as my book. I didn't have the challenge directions in front of me and I accidentally went to page 213 in my binder. On looking back I found that page 123 does not have the required number of sentences, so I'll just stick with page 213, or I guess it was actually 212, after having added together the pages from the first magazine in the binder to the second magazine. So I found myself in a Quilting Arts magazine, Fall 2006, Issue 23 .

"I'm pretty sure they didn't use a MacBookPro, with dual Intel processors, nor did they use Adobe Illustrator, because, well, all they had were pencils back then. And maybe some nice technical pens. And a compass."

In these particular "Ramblings" by Robbi Joy Eklow she is discussing how she loves Art Deco. A particular piece inspiring her was finished in 1929. Robbi writes about the minimal tools used to develop the piece initially.

I started to think too, about the tools which I use and how technology has changed what we are able to do. I appreciate how there are still needs for hands, hand stitching, painting, sketching, moving the mouse of the computer. Though technology has greatly enhanced what an artist is capable of, there must still be the planning, the creative eye, the dreams, sometimes visions, beliefs and imagination in order to develop art.

I'm rambling. The top piece, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, is the newer one completed, anyway I think it is completed, just yesterday. I started it at the farm. I had some purchased pieces in the letters, bird and cut outs. I did the main background with wax crayons and then did some scratching of the swirls with a nail file. Later I pulled out the gel pens and started to go over the swirls and add more words. The fabric was at home. It is quite modern - meshy and metallic. So this piece was started with some pretty basic tools and then added to with more modern pieces.

The second piece I did last summer. I was playing with tape transfers. The size of the taped piece is 7 x 8 inches. It is of a cat we used to have named Doby. He had a wonderful face. I miss him still. I am quite pleased with how the transfer turned out. I'm not sure if I should play with it or just leave as is.

I want to say more about the particular magazine I chose for the tagging. As I had pulled it out of the binder to do this post it was sitting available for me to look at otherwise. Coincidence, luck, I'm not sure. On the cover I find "The Art of Journal Quilting". Leaps of joy. I discover information about how journal quilts actually started. I find yet more examples of journal quilts and I discover that I've made a good choice in joining this group. The authour speaks of play, of not worrying so much about perfection, and of going beyond the fear. These are things which I have been trying to deal with the past few years and I think I've been doing well. But this may be an extra little nudge to remind me to keep working in that direction.

If you are reading this and want to be tagged please feel free to accept. I will personally tag Fran, Darcy, and Terri.