Dog Days of Summer

Dog Days!?  Hmmm.  Doesn't that mean to relax?  Hopefully that will come in August.  So far July has been a whirlwind of activities!  I had a great time at Handmade House last Thursday afternoon, set up out on the sidewalk for a meet & greet.  The weather was perfect.  Thank you so much to the folks there - it's been incredible.

Between their Showcase Gallery and the work I've had in the SK Craft Council Boutique, things have been just hopping on Broadway!  I'm a little in shock at how much work has just flown out of there.  My goodness.  Thank you!!  But - my goodness!  The show ends later this week at HH, but I may have a few smaller things or hand stitched art remaining there as part of the regular shop items.  I haven't decided what yet.  My bigger feature pieces and Prairie Postcards will remain at the SCC boutique year-round.

So here's the fun stuff!  I went to the Battleford's Handcraft Festival over the weekend, but not as a vendor.  I went as a demonstrator.  It was super fun.  Again, the weather was perfect.  I took my ten year old with me because he knows how to run a machine.  At the demo site, I have threadpainting and hand embroidery set up with lots of samples and some work in progress.  For the most part, I had lots of conversation with the people who came by to see what we were up to.  Lots of the local stitchers and quilt guild came by.  My Highschool Home-Ec teacher from 25 years ago came out to say hello.  That was so very wonderful and certainly the highlight of my day!  She thought all this was pretty amazing and told me she would have to go tell my Highschool Art teacher all about my work. ; )

Alex Dillabough Centre, Battleford SK

My son though - he was the star of the show.  It was SO cool.  I had him set up with a pile of charm squares - 5" fabrics in bright solid colours.  We used cardstock for stabilizer.  When people approached him, he asked them to pick a colour of thread & fabric, and tell him what to draw.  He made two dozen thread-sketches on Saturdayafternoon - on the spot for people to keep!  He did it all 'freehand', drawn with thread on the sewing machine.  He blew them away!  

waiting for her Butterfly

He had children lined up waiting for on-the-spot sketches.  He had some adults make requests too.  He made a CAT bulldozer, a horse, a heart for someone's 40th anniversary, he made his name in script, drew dragonflies, butterflies, minecraft characters, swords, shamrocks... whatever the people requested.  We made a lot of samples and strung them up like a bunting banner.  It was very pretty.

One woman asked him, "So how long have you been doing this?"  He thought a moment and then replied, "well... since yesterday."  And she nearly fell over backwards!  lol  It was very cute.  ; )

* * * Later this week, I will be driving 4 hours south to be part of the Dog River Days Farmers' Market.  It's coming up fast!!  The folks down in Rouleau are so excited.  The Corner Gas movie is done being filmed now and the town is about to hold a three day celebration.  It's a very, VERY small place that has just been transformed back into the set of a popular TV series that ran for 6 years.  Some of the cast members will be there for the events and I am so excited to take part!

see more about Dog River Days on Facebook or google them.

While I'm down there, I'll be teaching a Creative Quilted Postcards challenge class in White City with some of the members of the Regina Stitch guild.  It is hosted at one of the member's homes.  I'm excited to meet them!

But wait - there's more...  The Saskatoon Exhibition is coming to town.  My boy and I will be doing more public demonstrations there at Prairieland Park.  We are booked for the evening of Friday, August 8th from 7 to 10.  I think I'll dust off my Prairie Dress and put it on display in the SK Arts Showcase, so please stop by and take a peek!  There's always lots of amazing things to see if you can't handle the rides.  : )

Enjoy your week!

The Children Rock It!

I had the BEST time ever teaching kids on Monday at Creative House.  It was the first time I had taught children how to free motion stitch.  I was nervous.  I mean really...  This could be a disaster.  Needles would smash, machines would get jammed... imagine the chaos!  It's challenging enough helping seasoned adult sewists to learn how to free motion sew. 

Boy was I wrong.  

Boy did I underestimate them.  

Speaking of 'boys' I had three boys signed up for "Doodle with your Sewing Machine".  They were all being pulled from school to come to this Monday morning class that I had expected homeschoolers to snap up.  In the end, one boy couldn't come so his sister took his place.  The kids ranged in age from 9 to 12.

My expectations: It will take an hour or more to talk, show examples, guide them through converting the machines to free motion sewing, and do a demo for them before they can began stitching.

In reality: it took them 5 minutes to learn to convert their machines.  They spent the next hour and a half sewing and sewing and sewing some really cool pictures.  NO ONE BROKE A SINGLE NEEDLE.  No machine jammed.  No one had tension issues.  I did no instruction beforehand about coordinating speed of foot & hands... they just went right to it!  It blew my mind.  I went around and gave them tips as they sewed, adjusted some speed settings, and taught them how to pull up the bobbin thread & snip tails.  They were fearless.  It was awesome.

he jumped right in... endless ideas and no fear

I asked them, "do you know how long it takes for adults to get to this point!?  You took five minutes."  One boy shrugged and replied, "Ah... it's evolution."  Well then.  Maybe the little dude has a point.

whipped through pages - they didn't want to stop sewing : )

I showed them some Youtube videos of  'P. Nosa Sewing', which they loved very much.  He's a free motion doodle artist who tours and has a solar powered sewing machine that is also hooked up to a bicycle for power on cloudy days.  You should google that.

the snowman and his train of thought : )

The biggest difference I saw between adults and children was SO clear.  When the kids had trouble, they would stop and say, "what did I forget to do?" or "what did I do wrong?".  Then they would repair the situation, and restart.  When grownups hit a snag, they tend to throw their hands in the air and say, "something is wrong with this machine!"  : )  I think we could learn a lot from the children.

THANKS KIDS!  YOU ROCKED IT.

Flourishing Now

Yikes!  How many times have I shown you this one?  I keep thinking I'm done Purple Prairie, but the truth is that I have not felt satisfied until now.  Furthermore, I don't think I'll call it Purple Prairie now.  It's all about the birds and the blossoms.  I knew this piece had some Aaaah, but it lacked some Ooooh!  So I added some deeper indigos, some orange, and a lot more vertical grasses done by hand.  What a difference.  I feel it has more depth and more zing.  Can you tell the difference?  I can.

So... any name suggestions?  It's a bit of Summer, a bit of Bloom, and a bit of My Happy Place.  Hmmm.  Where's my thesaurus?

Before I forget, I also want to thank everyone who enjoyed the thread sketching tutorial over at 3 Creative Studios!  It's downloadable if you are interested, and it's free.  The link is in the left sidebar.  As you may know, anyone who loaded pictures of their thread sketching onto the 3CS flickr group before October 16th was entered into a draw for several fabulous prizes.  Michelle M. was the winner of one little postcards from me.  It's not the biggest prize, but perhaps the most personal one.  Congrats  Michelle!  By the way, I looked at her blog and she is just full of amazing work!  Go see for yourself, and please say hi to her:  Sweet Leaf Notebook

Look at Susan Now! : )

Remember my "Rosehips Under Glass" piece?  Well  just look at Susan now...

I love it!  I didn't learn this technique from anyone, and haven't seen it anywhere else.  So can I claim it as my own?  The art world moves so fast... This basically came out of 'necessity' as I was not willing to pay big bucks for special photo-fabric.  So I tried this out by chance.

I love this technique.  It ends up so 3-dimensional. 

So I'm in the process of making a whole series of these.  I have so many photos of flowers from my yard.  

They are stitch-sketched, and then I work the canvas with an orange peeler from Tupperware, and a cuticle stick.  lol  Don't worry - it's never been used on a cuticle before.  lol 

LOVE the 3-D effect, reminds me of copper tooling.

ps- I do highly suggest that if you do this on your own, please don't take other people's photos without permission.  Use your own, or find 'royalty free' ones.  Coming from a family of artists, that has been well ingrained in me.  : )  I was taught to only draw what you see, and to never copy another person's picture (drawing or photo).  The art snobs say, "that's not art.  That's copying".  You know... just do your own thing.  It's better for your creative soul anyhow.  

Now I'm off to make dozens of bags of popped corn for the guild tonight!  We are watching a Ricky Timms video.  I wonder if I'll be needing my 3-D glasses?  hehehe

xo

~Monika K.