Friday, November 30, 2012

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:


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

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.