Teaching At Chestnut Creek School of the Arts

Recently I've become involved in our local art school, The Chestnut Creek School of the Art in Galax, VA.  In fact I'm up for a spot of their Board of Directors in July.  I taught a basic fabric bookmaking class at the school in April which was very successful.  In response to several people who want to take the class but couldn't, I've scheduled a repeat of the class for Sat., June 8.  We'll be making a quilted fabric book cover with free motion canvas leaves, abstract flower, a stamped twill tape accent and buttons.  We had such a great time in the class I can't wait to teach new students.  This is the new class sample I created in the April class.  I've added clay/ceramic charms top the spine that my friend, Sara, graciously gave me.  Since then I've learned to make buttons and charms over at Old Town Pottery (an extension of CCSA), they should be fired and glazed to use in the class. 

If you live in the area and are interested go here for more information and to register.

Website or Blog? That is the question.

Buffering, buffering, buffering.  Now I think I remember one of the reasons I haven't posted since November of last year.  I have been trying to upload photos of some new journals, but blogger keeps buffering and it's pretty frustrating.
The other main reason for no posts is that I've been thinking that a website would be more beneficial for showcasing and selling my work.  However, I don't find any of the platforms user-friendly enough for me to spend the amount of time required to create a good site.  I can't afford expensive site designs nor can I justify spending hundreds of dollars for a person to design a site for me.  So as my website falters for lack of effort on my part, my blog has suffered as well.
Part of the issue for me is that as my business grows I'm unsure of the direction in which I want it to continue to grow.  Thus some of the hesitation on creating a website.
If I can get the photo uploader to cooperate here I may just continue to blog and revamp this site rather than reinventing the so-called wheel on a website.
On the positive side of things my reputation as an artist and therefore my business has been growing here in VA.  I'm really pleased with my progress and I'm enjoying being busy.  In the past few months I have gotten more involved in Chestnut Creek School of the Arts here in downtown Galax and feel this is an incredibly comfortable fit for me!  I just wrapped up an 8 week program teaching young students from the local elementary school the process of bookmaking and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I have volunteered to coordinate the summer program and have been invited to be a member of the board of directors.  New shop owners are asking for my work and it has been selling well in the local galleries.  Whew!  It's been an extremely busy and successful year.
And it's STILL buffering.... argh......... so I will try on a subsequent post to show photos of my work.

I would really appreciate any input, insight, encouragement  that you can offer.  Thanks in advance!

Penney

Guess what? More journals.......

I've been attempting to increase my inventory at home in between working at the Gallery and becoming familiar with how my new website works.  I volunteered to cover two days in a row at the Gallery for fellow artists so I got a LOT of hand work finished the past two days.  I've also been beading some new bracelets that I think will be fun.  Just trying to find the best price on seed beads and working with inexpensive ones right now.  

The first set of journals I created are what I'm calling my Foil Tape series.  They are random sizes as I use up pieces of chipboard saved from the backs of pads and such.  I try not to throw out anything usable and find uses for what I can.   What I have so far:

 Close-up of the embossing:

 The second set (only partially shown here as I have a couple in the galleries) is my Circle Flowers series.  Again using small pieces that I can't bear to part with  and lots of free motion stitching backed with canvas.

 The twill tape sayings are not ones I have normally stamped, but were pre-printed and in my stash of ribbons:

 And my original Winged Heart series.  This one is fun and I'm pondering teaching this and/or sending one in for publication.  The idea came to me one morning as I woke up (isn't that the best time for idea generation?) and it actually came out the way I envisioned which is rare.  Again, using up scraps for the hearts.  The two days at the Gallery were good for embroidering French knots on the wings and seed beads on the hearts.

 One of the Winged Hearts with beaded tail:

 Close-up of the details: beads, French knots, machine stitching:

Busy with New Journals

Since my last post several months ago I have been VERY busy creating and selling at various venues.  I've done some weekend sales locally and continue to sell at 2 galleries and an art school here in the SW VA area.  One of my sales was in central NY at a quilt guild show.  In looking at how some of those same sales went last year I certainly have sold more this year!  I have one weekend sale left which is next month so I have some room to breathe, I actually created a journal for myself.  I had been given, by my mother, a large quantity of crazy quilt fabrics and in among the pieces was the beginnings of a blue crazy quilt that she had started so I decided to make it a little bit bigger and use it for a cover.  I practiced embroidery on it and had fun finishing it.  The best thing was that I finally figured out the elusive bullion knot which is basically a french knot done horizontally.  I have been attempting this stitch on and off for several years and for some reason figured it out!  The bumble bee body is black and white bullions:

 I also inherited, from my sister, a large bag of fulled wool sweaters and made several more tri-fold journals with lots of hand embroidery as well:

 My satin/velvet rosette journals are pretty popular so I grabbed some satin from the previously mentioned gift of fabric and worked on some pink journals:

 Quite a few people comment on the aluminum tape journal that I have for sale so I decided to make a few more.  Here's one:

 I recently purchased some colorful coordinating fabric at the local fabric store for some needle books.  I love the colors:

 Since I rarely throw scraps away I used the smaller pieces from this fabric to create free motion flower journal covers.  The larger one has flowers:

 The smaller one has circles:

I've also been making bracelets with wire weaving using Parawire.  They are going much more smoothly now after much practice.

One of the other reasons I have not posted lately is that I have been working on replacing this blog with a website on which I can sell my journals (and possibly jewelry).  At every sale I have people ask if I have a website so I'm jumping in and creating one.  I'm moving slowly on this project but hope to have it up and running by the first of the year! Stay tuned.

Bead Soup Blog Party Reveal #2

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!  Today is the day I get to reveal what I received in my bead soup from the fabulous MaryLou Holvenstot and what I made.  The day I received this lovely wrapped package (in fabric for my journals........ thank you, MaryLou!):

 I was scheduled to work at the gallery so I took the unopened box with me and oohed and aahed for a while.  The soup mix was in blues and greens and oxidized copper (yum!):

 It took about two minutes to find the design I wanted to use with this soup.  I made the necklace that day while sitting at the gallery!  I love it!  This necklace is from Denise Peck's Wire Style 2 book and the design is "Fallen to Earth" by Cindy Wimmer. I used a beautiful blue and green clay button as the focal and did the wire wrapping from my parawire and some oxidized copper wire.  The completed necklace:

 The focal and wrapped bail:

 The beads and wrapped connectors:

 The S link clasp (I didn't follow all the rules for BSBP as the clasp I was sent was in silver, so I made my own........ sorry!):

And with some of the leftover beads I made a bracelet similar to one I saw in the Fire Mountain Gem catalog.  I've worn this several times since making it and received several compliments.  I plan to wear the set today at my sale over in Galax at the Chestnut Creek School of the Arts.

A big shout out to Lori over at Pretty Things for organizing this huge event!  

Now use this link for Reveal #2 and hop around the other participants' blogs:

 http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/2012/06/participants-of-6th-bead-soup-blog.html

Wire Wrapping Jewelry

I'm participating in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party this summer and got my wire and tools out the other day to work on some wire wrapping.  I really love two books I purchased back in AZ this spring:  Wire Style 2 by Denise Peck and Weave, Wrap, and Coil by Jodi Bombadier.  I'm slowly working my way through the weaving book and have done a couple of items from the Peck book.  I decided to buy Parawire and really love using it.  I have another order ready to place so I can use several other gauges to replace my copper wire.  I'm hoping that I will be able to use one of these techniques on my bead soup.  Here are two wrapped rings:

 I don't have a bracelet mandrel so I did the best I could shaping this woven bracelet by hand.  It turned out okay and I'm sure the next one will be even better.  The front:

 The weaving on the band.  

I really enjoy working with wire and hope to get back to it as soon as I finish rearranging my studio. Uck......

Journals and Flowers

Since I have been tending my vegetable garden and flower gardens in between (among other things) making journals up in my studio I decided I would show you, literally, journals between photos of my flowers.  After I uploaded the photos I realized that the flower colors matched the journal covers that I had chosen, this was NOT planned so it must be the colors I'm in tune with right now.  I have been stealing  getting rhizomes, bulbs, and plants from many people lately (no, I'm not afraid to ask people to give me some when they thin their gardens... what's the worst they could do?  Spit on me, tell me no? exactly) so it's nice to see them bloom the next year.  Last fall I brought back some lilies from my sister's house and they are gorgeous right now!  I am anxious for my gardens to be full of plants, but for now I enjoy the single blooms when they occur.  Here is the purple lily that just bloomed this morning:

This is  one of the small quilt squares I had done a while back and posted.  I made several in different color schemes.  I knew they would be worked into books some day and they certainly were.  This is the Purple and Green Gratitude book:

 This pink lily has already fallen off (it only lasted a couple of days) but was beautiful while it lasted.  It is also one from my sister's yard:

A second flower quilt cover, this one in pink and yellow and is tagged Remember

I have been working hard at saving my hollyhock plants this summer.  They were planted from seed last summer and this year they are blooming.  They have yellow, light pink, and darker pink blossoms and have grown over 7 feet tall already!  This is the very first flower:

I adapted an idea I saw on Pinterest to make little notebooks using index cards, fabric, and my Bind-it-all machine.  I made a several from 3X5 cards first and here is the brightly colored Crown Notes book:

Lastly, here are 3 of the many orange day lilies I have planted in several gardens.  These are in the front near the hollyhocks (and in between are mammoth sunflowers that will be awesome when they bloom later this summer!).  The plants are not as tall as the hollyhocks, but are still as tall as me.  I got lots of lilies from the plants this year.