Gradient Give-away c/o Vicki Welsh : )

Last night, I headed off to Judy McCrosky's Studio on 9th for a little postcard makers' get together.  There were seven women.  The challenge we were given was to use a beautiful 1/2yrd cut of hand dyed gradient fabric sent to us by the fabulous Vicki Welsh @ www.vickiwelsh.etsy.com 

What fun!  The fabric colorway was called, "coleus" - and my apologies.  I did not snap a photo of it before we cut it all up.  It was so beautiful as a piece of fabric that it was hard to cut it up!  It rand from deep green at one end, to yellow ochre to peach to deep raspberry at the other end.  I had in my mind that I would snip out autumn leaves.  Plans changed for my cards when Judy pulled out her pretty bird stencils and paints!  I have never stenciled before, and I really enjoyed it.

With the Coleus gradient, I brought along black and white fabric.  The black really makes the deep colors pop don't you think?

There is sample of using opposite ends of the gradient against each other in a checkerboard mini-quilt.  Again - dramatic black!

The peach & yellows make really pretty backdrops for sky.

The next two florals were cut & fused on.  Not all of us finished our cards, but they are good examples of how lovely hand dyes can be when you need petals.

I'm really interested in seeing how those last four cards end up once all the machine work is done on them.  (I hope you ladies will send me a photo!)

The last one and the next one also utilized a stencil - they turned out very beautiful without the inclusion of black fabric.

So there you go - here's my third card.  It's kind of whimsical.  It's not finished either.

Thank you to Judy for the use of her space.  Thanks to the women who attended for helping out with the challenge.  To all of you and to all the readers - Vicki Welsh is generously offering a FIFTEEN percent discount at her Etsy shop (click to link) until the end of Sept, 2013 when you use the code:  MONIKA15.  Make sure you type it all in capital letters.  Shipping to Canada is pricey - so order together with a friend if you need to.  : )  This discount code is good for anyone who wants it!  * * * Vicki, that is really cool  - thank you! * * *

I bought this black to white gradient for myself.  My plan is to reproduce a black and white photo into fibre art.  Here you go - every shade of grey is here for me!  That was easy!

black to white with all the greys (folded in the pack from her shop)

Okay!  So the title of this post is "Gradient Give-away".  You know what that means.  Free Fabric.  !


Vicki Welsh is offering either two half-yard cuts of any of her gradients or one full yard of the gradient of your choice to ONE LUCKY WINNER.  * Only one. * Here's how to be included in the draw:

- leave a comment in the comment box here at the end of my blogpost  Make sure an email contact is included
- Vicki will be peeking in to your responses, so in your comment please let her know what projects you think her hand-dyed fabrics would be great for!
- one entry per person please.

Have a great weekend!  The winner will be announced Tuesday morning, so entry cut off will be Monday midnight.

& Vicki W!

Finished it Friday

It's Friday.  I finished all those postcards up!

It's a new batch from the same series.  These are numbered #73 to #91.  Two are being framed for a commission.  Since I can't just make two...  I made a pile.  I really had fun with these.  Some a repeats (like the cloud gazing one) and some are really different (watch for the bison!!).

this is one of my favorites

You can find them all here below (click to link to the Etsy shop).

this one is sold...

They can be displayed as mini art quilts.  Usually that's what people do with them because people are too chicken to throw them in a mail box.  (We postcard swappers do it all the time, worldwide!)

I got this gorgeous one piece wood mounted rubber stamp to make these backings.  I LOVE IT.  I don't recall where I got it.  I found it on Etsy after hours of scouring the internet.  I thought it was perfect.  It even looks like prairie lilies on it!  How fitting.  Unfortunately, they would not ship to Canada.  :(((  So... I enlisted one of my American postcard-swapping buddies (Becky @ Solar Threads) and had it shipped to her.  Then she shipped it to me.  Oh the drama.  It made me feel like an undercover agent or international spy.  lol  But I got it!

Whew.

Have a great weekend.  I will be back in a few days...

2013 Prairie Postcards

In 2011, I made a 'prairie postcard' landscape scene for each season.  In 2012, I made 45 more prairie scenes which I titled, 'Wish You Were Here'.  Last week I was inspired to create nearly 30 more!

4x6" art-to-mail (and/or frame)

So here they are, #46 to 72 which is my official 2013 set.  They are my 'underdone' pieces of art (underdone as opposed to overdone).  I like these.

I like that I can make a hundred different landscapes based one straight line and each time I end up with 100 different scenes that are highly recognizable even in their minimalism.

some pretty rayons for some pretty prairie sky coming up...

Enjoy your week as we head on into summer solstice!  Linking to The Needle & Thread Network.

Postcards

This morning, I taught my Creative Quilted Postcards Workshop.  I've taught this one a dozen times now, and it never ceases to amaze me how creative it can be.  It's always fun to dare the women in the room to put a stamp on the darn thing and mail it!  The typical reaction is, "Ha!  Yeah right," while clenching their new little gem close to their heart.  Really!  You can trust the mail.  Stick a stamp on the back, mail it 'naked' (no envelope), and it will arrive.  Look how many times I've done it!

4x6" postcards mailed to me, which means I have mailed away just as many...

And here's more...

I have even more than that.  I keep them in a shoe box and tote them around for show & tell.  A few personal ones are up on my wall, and a couple more are framed in a shadow box.  NEVER ONCE has a postcard ever gone missing or arrive destroyed - at least not in any swap I've been part of.

So mail them!  I dare ya!  : )  Here are the cards that the women made this morning at Creative House.  It was a small group and we had a great time.  I picked the theme of autumn and away they went.  Each card is unique, and super-creative.  Aren't they pretty!!??

Creative Quilted Postcards Workshop - Autumn 2012 group

Thanks again ladies!  : )  I hope you make lots more.  This gets me excited for fall.  Off to stitch...  I have some postcards to make for a swap I signed up in.  If you love to make postcards, try it out!  There's a link to Postcard Cottage on my sidebar if you are interested.

Tag! You're it.

At Postcard Cottage, I signed up for the "Tag! You're it" swap.  I love the swaps.  You make three and you get three.  Working with themes on a time limit is such a fantastic way to spur your creativity.  I spent a half hour in the laundry room with scissors, removing tags from my family's clothing.  It became more and more interesting as I found tags I had never seen before.  There's always the ones that say "keep away from fire" (!?) and there's the ones that have the strangest synthetic names in the materials.  lol

a bucket of tags

My first idea was to make a patchwork quilt card.  I love all the interesting text.  It reminds me of graffiti.

recycled tags become art to mail!

I like the lime green stitching in this one.  I even stuck a tag on the back of it.  : )

I made a third card and decided to free motion quilt it.  The thickness of the tag layers made it a huge disaster.  So... it's garbage.  (Note to self not to try that again!)  I had a cool idea to make a card that would be one giant tag.  I planned that it would be white, and that I would embroider the washing care symbols onto it like in the top right corner of card #1.

That certainly would have been a great card!  Four cleaning symbols on one white card?  But I didn't.  I fused white fabric onto the next surface and got a totally different idea, and I think it's so funny!  It's like the hem of a big white nightgown, but with the teeniest tag on the bottom.  lol

Hehehe.  I love this one best.  : )  It makes me smile.  Unfortunately, it seems that the swap didn't fill, so I have an extra card with no home.  Tag! You're it!  If you would like to swap directly with me 1 for 1, shoot me an email and we'll arrange to swap addresses.  : )

April Showers Bring...

Postcards!  : )  Here are my 'May Flowers' postcards for an upcoming swap I'm in.  I decorated some denim I was given with some free motion stitching.  I like 'em!  They were very fun to make.

Don't you dig that swooshy photo?  : )  Hope it doesn't cause motion sickness.  lol  Have a great weekend everyone.

Finishing, Framing, and Friends

I feel so stress-free at this moment!  I have enough pieces framed for the Craft Council jurying on Sunday - even without finished the Tipi & Rosehips!  Awesome.

Wolf Willow & Prairie Lilies #2  (commission / sold)

I am happy that I finally feel that this process is easier than my first couple of times framing my own work.  Oh it was SUCH a learning curve.  I really wasn't expecting it to feel easier.  That's a good thing.

My Sweet Prairie, 2012 (sold)

It's a very nit-picky process.  People tend to look reeeeally closely at my work so it's important to clean the glass so it is completely dust & fibre free.  I swear I hold my breath the whole time.  It's pretty tense.  ; )  So now for the rest of the week, I am finishing a few dozen postcards.  They are all simple 4x6 inch prairie scenes in fabric with no fancy threadwork.  No two are alike which is pretty cool I think.  They are my 'art to mail'.  I have protector sleeves on the way for when I put them up for sale.  I have more stamps I LOVE coming in the mail eventually.  In the mean time, my job now is to trim up the loose threads and stamp all the backs for Sunday.

Fancy-schmancy.  : )

Linking to The Needle and Thread Network! ; )

p.s.  I must give a big warm THANK YOU and round of applause to all the fabulous people involved with TN&TN.  The Canadian WIP Wednesdays have been a real treat.  Feature Fridays is quickly creating some terrific connections.  And Rita (my new co-mod) has been such a great person to get to know.  She's in Ontario and I'm in Saskatchewan.  We've never met before.  We phone each other often now.  Can you believe her family immigrated to Canada on the same line of ships that my family did in the 1950's!?  She also has no middle name, just like me.  WHAT ARE THE ODDS?  What a small, small world.

Cheap Thrills & Some Fancy Schmancy

The right color.  Why is it so hard to find?  Painters have it better I think.  They have standard colors in any medium of paint.  They can also blend.  I swear, I have 20 shades of green thread and still feel I never have the right color.  The same goes for yellow.  I can pick a bright, strong yellow in several different brands, and no two will be the same.  I'm doing up another canola field, and can you believe I cannot find the right yellow!?

It shouldn't be so difficult.  Canola is yellow, yellow, yellow.  I ended up running out to the store again and purchased these.  I took them home, and the embroidery floss is perfect.  Not too dull.  Not too light.  Not too neon.  Not too warm.  Not too sparkly.  It's perfect.  That's the great thing about embroidery floss - there are a bazillion numbered shades of every color.  I have since completed about 1500 french knots with it.  I'm about half way done.

Great news!  A new Value Village opened near my house just days ago.  It's a few blocks away from where our quilt guild meets.  I went with Arwen & her tooth-fairy money to do some treasure hunting.  There wasn't a lot, but I did come home with bags of these for just a couple dollars.

The colors are fabulous - lots of naturals for landscapes.  Believe it or not, there are no two colors alike in that pile.  What a terrific lot!  I'm sure I'll use them in my winter-scapes.  And then I saw these for a dollar...

It's a bag of 4 packs of Candlewicking floss.  Nice!  Then I came home to search for hours on the internet for postcard stamps - like rubber stamps for inking the backs of the postcards.  I have a plain one, but I want fancy-schmancy.  What an ordeal.  Michael's doesn't carry them and didn't seem to care to order them for me.  They pretty much put all the scrapbooking places out of business.  So I looked on the internet.  I fill out all this info only to find they don't ship to Canada.  GAH!  I found some really pretty ones, but they won't arrive until after jurying.  Oh well.  I did speak to the last scrapbooking place in the city, and the woman I spoke with has one and will let me use it while I wait for my order to come in.  (THANK YOU!!)  Goodness me.  I have too many to put through my printer, so I want a pretty stamp that I can use.  (I'm not sure Staples makes them pretty enough, you know?)  Aren't these lovely?  These are what I'm waiting for.

Fancy-schmancy!  Unfortunately, it's a whopping $30 to express ship one sheet of acrylic stamps to my house.  I'll wait for it to arrive locally.  Then I have to buy the ink.  Goodness me.  I'll have to get all those scrap-bookers into sewing up their postcards in my classes so that I can make the bucks to buy the goods.  lol  Isn't that always the way?  : )

I Painted.

I signed up for a swap themed, 'I Believe in Fairies'.  They have to be mailed out this week.  For the Self-Portrait swap last month, I did hands because I didn't want to do faces.  For the 'Year of the Dragon' theme, I did dragon eggs instead.  So for this one, instead of making actual fairies, I thought it would be cool to make a fairy ring!  It's a ring of mushrooms, and if you see one, jumping in cause you to be whisked away to fairy land.  So here are my cards.  Instead of using oilbars or shiva sticks, I just took out the craft acrylics that I used on my daughter's walls.

I painted red caps in a circle, and put in some highlights and stems with white.

It dried nice & quick, and I took them over the my Horizon to free motion stitch them.  I had this variegated thread I bought a long time ago on clearance.  It runs red - orange - grey.  I do not know WHY I bought such an odd spool.  This is the first time I fell in love with it.  It was perfect for this project!

Jump!

Seriously - if you ask me, the best thing about sewing on this machine is that I can stop & start anywhere without having to pull the threads out and old the tails and then stitch and pull it all out to clip with scissors.  On a quilt I might have to pull up the bobbin thread, but with my art I just sew the spiral, and push the 'clip thread' button.   Done!  Plus with the stiff postcard stabilizer, I don't need to engage the needle plate.  I added some decorative stitches and even clipped some edges with scissors.  Check it out.

Borders add the finishing touches.  "I Believe in Fairies" swap at PostCard Cottage

I only needed to make three, but there is a very special little girl in my life who studies mushrooms as a hobby.  Her birthday is next week.  I was her dayhome mom for a couple of years and she holds a very special place in my heart.  I think she will LOVE this as a birthday card from me over an email anyday!  : )

~Monika

WIP Wednesday

I've been on the look out for dress forms / dress displays.  We've had lots of snow and I've gone for several walks in it.  I feel so infused and ready to continue on with my second wearable - A Winter Dress.  Or perhaps just an arctic corset.  We'll see how it transforms.  Nonetheless, Karen Ruane (Contemporary Embroidery) will be so proud of me that I'm finally picking up the slack.  I took her white-on-white embroidery cloth class last year online and fully expected to be done by now.  But without snow through November and December, it just wasn't working for me.  The timing must be right because a second dress form was just delivered to my doorstep.  It's time!

how else to say thank you to a sewist for passing on some of her gear to me?

I made up this postcard with a print from Fabricland.  I 'traced' it with variegated thread and popped it in the mailbox last night on my way home from guild.  We had a garage sale there last night, and can you believe I came home with a bolt of the most perfect color for an autumn prairie dress!!??  Oooh I'm committed now aren't I?  2 more dress forms or dress stands are needed to buy or barter for, so drop me an email if you can help out.  mysweetprairie@gmail.com

Last week I began an "Experimental Fibre - Advanced" class at university.  I've been having trouble writing about it since that first day.  I was expecting to be able to work on a project of my own using some techniques I've been wanted to try.  Instead, we are asked to bring in an incomplete project and work on finishing someone else's.  WHoa.  Many of my classmates like paint and felt, and I don't (can't stand the feel of working with wool).  Still, I want to put my heart and soul into this class.  What on earth would I offer!??  I'm not sure sewing machines and quilting are embraced in this arena.  But maybe that's just my own apprehension.  Then I had the perfect idea (or so I hope).  I worked all afternoon on Sunday stitching together a nest by hand.  I used cotton thread and flax fibre to create something I can resonate with.  It's texture, it's fibre, it's nature, it's full of intention...  : )  I think it will be a wonderful palette for someone else to add to.

I am so proud of this.  I am making more.  I have plans!  ; )

My hopes are that someone else in the class will thoroughly enjoy embellishing this sculpture in their own way, with their own story. I will need to work on a project on my own time using the skills I take from that class.  There certainly is a terrific range of skills that those women hold!  I'll keep you posted.

And finally - I have a pile of prairie.  There are a good ten weeks until the Gardenscape show, and I'm feeling really terrific about what is done so far.  I have 4 pieces ready for hand stitching.  : )  This one below is about half way done. 

My Sweet Prairie Canola field in progress (sideways)

There you go!  That's where I'm at right now.  Oh my!  I heart fibre art!  : )  I'm linking to The Needle & Thread Network and Esther's Blog too : )