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Friday 6 May 2011

5/5 ... A Very Good Day.

Yesterday was my birthday.  It started out with a 45 minute walk / run before any of my family was up.  I love that!  The morning was sunny with no wind.  I'm surprised how HIGH the sun is that early in the morning!  I didn't bring my camera, but on the way home 27 swans flew overhead!  Wow.  No kidding.  They must have been heading to the river.  I like spring birthdays.  I love thunderstorms, and the birds are everywhere!  The robins are so fat they can barely lift off.  For my birthday, I decided treat myself to some goodies.

I always wanted to try watercolors.

I might not use them regularly.  I really prefer working straight from my camera to stitch.  But I thought I'd give it a go after viewing this.  It's my other present to myself: an instructional DVD by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn.  I just stumbled across their work recently.  I like how they incorporate hand stitching.  You know I love hand stitching!

"In Action" fibre art techniques dvd

They swear by sketchbooks.  I have one book where I sketch out little ideas that I use so I don't forget them, but I'm still not sure if I would snap photos, then paint it, and then stitch it.  Their paintings look like art.  Oh well.  I've never had a mentor or teacher so I thought it wouldn't hurt to check this out.  One thing it DID make me want is an embellisher - not just for felting, but to blend landscape fibres.  I may have one lined up!  I'm crossing my fingers.  There seems to be a number of people who've bought them and never used them.

Have any of you bought one or tried one?  It's the Janome machine with 5 barbed needles.  Typically I stitch all the loose fibres down with free motion or grass stitches, but this seems very useful if you don't want stitch lines at all.  I may use it in skies or backgrounds.  There's just something about fibre skies that I haven't perfected for myself.  I try to chose the best medium for the subject, and so far it feels best to paint sky onto cloth.  I would love to hear your feedback.

Have a good day.

~Monika
5/5

11 comments:

felicity said...

Happy belated birthday - it sounds like you celebrated exactly as you wanted, which is perfect.

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

Happy birthday for yesterday Monika! Sounds like you did indeed have a very good day.

Anonymous said...

Happy Belated Birthday!!
Aren't early mornings in May the best? My favorite month of the year.
Joyce

Lynette said...

27 swans! Very cool. We don't get swans here in Florida (I've never seen one, anyway) - but I love the pelicans. One day while I was sewing, a strange flickering suddenly started up, akin to what it might look like if a UFO were landing in your neighborhood in the day time. Ran outside, and a HUGE flock of pelicans was crossing over. Their big bodies were blocking the sun as they passed it and made the light flicker through the windows. I had never seen such a thing. It was amazing. Glad you saw the swans!!

Margaret said...

Belated Happy Birthday, Monika! I agree...the light this time of year is lovely, though I would like a bit more warmth with it! LOL! Your post had me drooling. I have several of the Beaney/Littlejohn booklets -- VERY expnsive, but so inspirational. You might look up the Kemshalls at Design Matters...Linda is my tutor for my City & Guilds Creative Techniques: Quilting course...and she and her daughter Laura and their Canadian colleague, Catherine (from BC) have done wonderful book/DVD combinations (5 of them). Anyhoo, now I am inspired to do more painting in my sketchbooks! Have a great day, weekend and year ahead. :-)

Patti said...

Hi Monika!
I have a 12 needle Babylock. It's great and I love it but I don't do the intricate things you do so the 5 needle Janome will probably work great for you. ps they are also great for texturing fabrics like dupioni silks b/c the needle barbs pulls the little threads in the weave; makes neat patterns and textures...

Lee said...

Happy birthday, Monika! I'm glad it was good! : )

Becky said...

Happy birthday!! If you think a lot of people buy them but not use them, have you tried Craig's List (do they have that in Canada?), or eBay? There's also "Sew it's for sale" yahoo group. I've never heard of it before. You got me intrigued...

Flo @ Butterfly Quilting said...

Happy belayed birthday! Sounds like you had a great day!

elle said...

Happiness, Monika! Ah, a felting machine. I have some drool happening but I've barely broken Nina in so I'll be happy to play with her.

Karen said...

a very happy belated birthday!!!

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