Ready and Awaiting!

**Picture-heavy post**  These are all off to be framed today...  I've been working so hard on this Winnipeg show and I am gushing over some of these!  I hope you like them too.

that's right - I officially have a sketchbook.

The result:

High on the Banks, 2013 (6x6")

The details:

High on the Banks, 2013 (detail)

Personally, I love those plum colors!  Next, you guessed.  I must include a canola piece.  This one is BIG and it happens to be my very first piece that has an exclamation point in the title!  ; ) 

She's Blooming! 2013 (click photo to view larger)

The details:

lots of fine detail in this one... all hand stitched with thread.

This is done too.  I think I have a good shot of the sparkle.

Trees at the Turnaround, 2013

The details:

wind at the water...  wind in the young spring reeds...

You've seen this one but I took newer photos, so bear with me here...

Sunlit in Silverspring, 2013

The details down:

I'm gushing over this one.  Man I can not wait for spring!

The details up:

here's a terrific view of the grid-wire fencing I put in

I won't lie - I am entirely proud of myself.  This collection is absolutely my best work yet.  I really hope they put a huge shot of beauty and pretty into the restaurant where they will hang.  I hope people fall in love with some of them.  I hope it plucks at the heartstrings of prairie lovers in Manitoba.  : )))

Can you believe it?  I have eight more to complete in three weeks.  I don't know how I am going to do it, but I will.  I am working intensely for this next exhibit.  All these works will be for sale, but not until May.  See the ad below!

WINNIPEG ONLY - May 2013

That is the poster that the folks at McNally Robinson's in Manitoba made.  WOOO that's only a month away!  I am suddenly feeling the NERVES.  oh my.  I haven't felt it this bad since I had to speak & give a personal slide show to our Quilt guild a couple years ago.  THAT was terrifying (before hand, not during).  BREATHE.  I can do this.  I can. 

I have to say a big big thank you to my framer Donna @ Cindy Moleski's in Saskatoon
who is matting and framing this entire show (2 dozen pieces).  They look smashingly high class once she is done with them.  : )  For example, this next one...

Red Barn in Winter, 2013  Shipped with love to New York just this morning.  XO

Coincidentally, that is my first sale to the US.  THANK YOU C. !  TO celebrate, I put in a big order for more fibre art supplies.  I'm going to have a sweet summer (that is... if it ever arrives!).

Have a great week everyone! 
p.s.  Check your yards - I have daylilies poking up on the south side! 

Nice!

Nice!  That's how I feel.  Commissions always make me a bit nervous.  When it comes to the machine stitching, I worry that I'll mess it up.  Yesterday I completed the free motion sewing on this one and I couldn't be happier!

work in progress... flax and canola fields for 'B'

This is the point where I move to the hand embroidery.  Just a couple hundred French Knots, and I can finish & clean it up.  I'm aiming for a 'Finished-it-Friday' though I'm not sure I'll have it mounted, matted & framed until next week.  I wish you could see this in person.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  I need to set up the tripod.  I cannot for the life of me get a well focused shot of this.

In progress... linking to The Needle & Thread Network for WIP Wednesday.

Making Progress, Counting Down

Here's what I've been busy with - another 'pile of prairie' for the Spring Show & Sale at the end of the month.  (see the top of the blog for details).

That photo was taken a while ago.  Now to do more handstitching...

starting on the handstitching now

hand stitching to be added - just a few tiny white stars I think.

mini flax field remake - 4x6"

Two more Bloom pieces just finished!  4x6" and 3x9"

I feel better after making this post.  It looks like I've done so much more than I thought I had.  I've been slowly working on things throughout the blog give-away week, but never really felt I had made much progress.  I'm linking up to The Needle and Thread Network.  Please drop by to see more fabulous works by bloggers from across the country.  Thank you for stopping by my blog!

Work in Progress

Oh my - I had a little panic attack when I looked at the calendar.  I have been drifting off enjoying more of this.  It is so addicting!

Oh my head is spinning - I have so many plans of scenes I want to hook.  I went online looking for how to finish or bind them and found some great videos by Canadian Deanne Fitzpatrick.  WOW - there's some incredible creations out there!  She's in Amhurst, Nova Scotia.  You must look her up.

I did finish the sky on this and I'm really happy with it.  It has an interesting mood with the storm building up.  I'm not sure what to call it.   It's about 7x9 if that gives you some idea of how small those thousands of knots are.

I've also started running again now that the ice is gone.  Sweet!  Running inside sucks.  I put the treadmill up to the big sliding glass doors and open the window wide... but it's still not the same.  Running outside is like pure therapy. 

That's what I'm up to!  Have a great week everyone!  I'm linking this to

 The Needle & Thread Network.

March - In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lion.

March.  Oh March!  What a month you will be.

* Every Thursday night I have Experimental Fibre Art classes for a total of 18 hrs.

* March 11th is the day I get my work juried at the Saskatchewan Craft Council.  (gasp!)  That is in 10 days.

* March 18th is the day the embroidery guild puts up a double display at the Centre Galleries.  I plan to put the Spirea into that one.

* March 24 is a sneak-peek art show that Creative House has invited me to do.  I'll talk briefly about my work, and do a machine demo (they sell Janome). Nervous?  Yeah, a tad.  I'll post details on that later in the month. I know there will be refreshments and door prizes.  Oooh!  Exciting.

* March 29 is when I put my work up for sale at Gardenscape for 3 days & volunteer there (with traffic of 25,000+ people).

* April 4 (we'll count that as March too), I am doing a presentation for the Bridge City NeedleArts Guild.

WHEW!  After that - all my work goes to new homes, and I start fresh with a new body of work.  In the mean time, March is also the month where A Needle Pulling Thread comes out.  Wait until you see what they have done!  My head is spinning.

I want to let you know that I'll need to blog less for a while, but that never seems to happen!  I'll spend the summer off with the kids, and then get back into it with teaching in the fall.  Pretty exciting!  In the mean time, my husband is pushing me to do a book or video classes, but oh man.  Some day.  Some day!

In the mean time, I have been working on this:

Tipi and Rosehips, work in progress...

I'm so at peace with this.  You might think it looks like crap at this stage, but hold tight!  It's the back drop for the tipi and rosehips, with the dry grasses poking up out of the little bit of snow from last November.  I'm pretty sure I can get it done by the jurying session.  It's a sister landscape to this one.

At the Buffalo Jump, 2011

I just picked up the last of the double mats from the shelves at Michael's lastnight.  Talk about LUCKY.  What they had left was exactly what I needed to get ready for the jurying session.  These are all ready for framing.

Stitchin' away...  framing next week.  Thanks for stopping by!

Friday Finishes - The Canola Field!

Ever so slowly, and I mean really slowly, I have been working on this little piece.  I'm down with a cold, so it's stitch - sleep - stitch - sleep...  I've done a few canola fields so far, and this is my favorite.  I know.  I say that each time, but it's because I feel like I get better with each piece.  I certainly notice that each successive piece becomes easier to create and more enjoyable to make each time.  So here it is!

I have yet to finish the edge and mount it to frame, but the work is done and I just love it.  It's inspired by my first prairie photo ever...

2009

I snapped that picture from off the highway just south of Cochin.  I stood by the ditch, facing the Day's Beach market garden.  It was that first photo with the lush, lush ditch that inspired me to try to stitch out my first landscape.  You know... "nothing to look at" on the prairies.  Here's a whole bunch of nothing, I stitched in great detail ; )

By machine and by hand...

I think it even looks pretty cool sideways!  : ) Bear with me... still under the weather.  :(

I love sewing the prairies!  : )
 Linking to A Prairie Sunrise - For the love of color.

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 : )

Completions.

What a great week.  I mean really.  What a great week.  I thought I would show you two pieces I finished up just in time to show to the guild at Monday's presentation.  One is the canola fields again.  These are "glam shots", so I hope you find them interesting.

That one has a lot more french knots in it, and I think I did a great job making them larger in the foreground and teenee in the distance.  They are really tiny.  I love stitching these so much.  I would love to do a flax field this summer.  mmmmm...  ; )

Here is a close up of the sky in this piece.

click on photo to enlarge

I am so happy with how this one turned out.   It's framed, and off to to the new owner this week.  I kept it a little longer so that I could show Darlene on Wednesday's interview for the newspaper.

I also reworked The Oat Field into a teeny 3x3" piece.  It's really pretty, and still so full of detail.  It's a gift that have dropped off for someone very special.  It was a little secret I had been keeping.  I hope it makes her day every time she looks at it.  She sure made mine.

If I tip it to reflect the light this way, then the lighter oat heads shine.  Excuse the glare from the glass.  ;(  It's gone now and I don't have the greatest photo of it to show you. 

Now to the other commissions.  Mandy!  Jesica!  And K - here we go!  : )  I worked on Mandy's tree and am so pleased with the bark.  The particular color of the tree now really works great with all the rainbow colors in the whole wallhanging.  And I love the roughness of the bark.  I was about to throw in the towel on this one when suddenly it came alive!  (Isn't that how it always works?)  So, aside from some stray threads to be clipped, the bark of the tree is done.

It's perfect.  The tree just took over.  : )

All the best
~Monika

Works in Progress Wednesday

Yesterday, I wrote out what I'm going to say for Monday's presentation at the afternoon guild meeting.  (yay!).  Now to put a slide show together and gather some show and tell items.  p.s. Thanks everyone who offered moral support around public speaking.  ; )

Secondly, I learned my lesson.  See that pic?  There's Pretty Penny (the Janome)... skipping stitches.  There's Fiona (my Kenmore) trying to prove she can do it better.  Either way, I'm not happy.  And there's the phone book.  I called Andrea to ask advice.  "Why can I threadpaint / free motion stitch on canvas without any problems at all, and yet without resetting anything, I cannot free motion a quilt without skipping stitches!?"  She went through the checklist with me and suggest I use that built in convertible needle plate.  I never do, and never have.  So I tried.  B I N G O !  I can't even make it skip now!  Sheesh.  I guess that canvas is low and stable enough that there are no issues and the special needle plate isn't needed.  Dang high-end machines.  lol

It's all good.  I worked a while on this sky.  It's painted cloth with more layers on top.  The clouds are free motion stitched with white thread, and the sky is filled with horizontal waves of blue.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  This is for "K" who is having the Telephone Poles on Highway 7 redone as a larger wall hanging.  (I didn't ask if I could use their names, but they did give me permission to blog my progress.

I've also been reworking the Canola Fields for a woman named "J".  She called a little late after the show and the piece had been sold.  She sounded so disappointed.  So I offered to to this for her.  I have to say, I love hand stitching!  Right now I'm at approximately 600 french knots.  This piece is a little bigger, and I am guessing there will be nearly a thousand when I'm done.  (Yeah!!!!)  My hopes are that if it's actually done by the weekend, I can bring it to guild.  After the last exhibit, I have nothing left to show!

I spent all of Sunday reorganizing my stash and cleaning my room.

But wait, there's more!  I was on my way out the door to go biking with the kids when the phone rang.  It was "the lady from the newspaper".  She's interviewing me on Wednesday.  I'll tell you all about it after it happens.  Can I just say that I'm no longer too nervous about presenting to guild?  (gasp!).  She's coming to my house and is looking forward to seeing my work which she labeled, "exquisite"!!  : )  Wow.  Do I feel blessed.  Of course, I don't have much to show to her after it's all sold, so I got to work on this one which was ready to thread paint.  Oooh I love it!  I spent a couple hours on it so far.

It's a deep, deep field with light and shadows that I had done the background for last week.  It's done now with the exception of the edging, some hand stitched fence posts in the distance & embroidered flowers in the foreground.  !! 

~Monika