The Red House Christmas

The Red House is ready for Christmas! Claire and William have been busy clearing the snow from the pond so the neighborhood kids can come and skate.

Inside everyone is busy as well.

Merry Christmas from the Red House!

Craft Party

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending Noelle's craft party (scroll down to Aug. 12 to see a picture of Noelle). It was amazing! So much energy, great projects, friendly folk and lots of homemade goodies to eat.
Noelle had her home set up with different projects, all the materials and instructions, set up in different rooms. The living room was for pine cone gnomes. They were so cute. I hope to make more this weekend.
This cute little wool wreath was one of two wool projects set up in the den. The wool is from felted wool sweaters. Very easy project. If there is one thing I have in my stash, it is wool. I'll probably make a few more these too.

The basement had the glitter projects. Noelle said she learned from past experience that glitter needs to stay in the basement, it's too hard to clean out of the dining room rug. I love my little diorama, but it was one of the simple ones. If I get invited back next year I will take my camera. There was so much amazing work being created and I wish I had more photos to share.

MAKING THINGS

This book is so near and dear to my heart because it speaks about my passion, the creative spirit in each and every one of us.

You don't have to be an artist to be creative. You simply have to recognize the talents and skills that are special to you and share them as best you can with the rest of the world.


One of my favorite pages is called "Making Potential". It says, " I love watching a new home being built. The wood frame is filled with potential. How will the space be finished, what purpose will it fill, and most important, how will people fill within it? We, too, are buildings constantly under construction. How will we be finished? What purpose will we fill? How will we fill within ourselves?

Yesterday I told you I'll be teaching at "make it sew" in Broomfeld, CO, this coming February.
Here is another project we'll be doing.

Using animal patterns from my "WOW! Wool On Wool" book we will be stitching cards suitable for any occasion. It's a chance to play with the fancy stitches on your sewing machine and stitch on paper instead of fabric. It is so much fun!

Welcome! Always a happy greeting. I created this quilted hanging as a project for "make it sew" a quilt shop in Broomfield, CO. I'll be teaching there Feb. 4, 5 and 6, 2010! The design is inspired by Polish paper cut banners.

This drawing is also inspired by the Polish folk art of paper cutting.

Check this out!

I am delighted to be a part of the August 2009 issue of Somerset Digital Studio. As usual, in the article I am talking about my favorite subjects; drawing and embroidery and the joy of combining them digitally. Best of all is the company I get to keep in this issue, wonderful artists all. Thanks Somerset.

Open at last!

My Etsy store is finally open!

Here is a detail of the first print I have made available.

Footlights

I was antiquing in Crown Point, IN over the weekend. This Christmas flex fence is one of only two treasures I found after a whole day of poking around. Tina deserves a medal for enduring it all. In my last post I talked about stages. Here at home, next to my studio I am creating my own version of a 'Home Theater'. The Red House is front and center on stage. Butcher paper is standing in for scenery and curtains. My new Christmas Flex Fence will be the audience side of the footlights. The footlights will probably be small votive candles.

So here it is, just starting to take shape.

Stage settings

A stage is meant to frame a scene. Here a drawn frame acts as a stage.



This is a very early piece of stagecraft created for the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Wearable Art Show way back in 1985! It is a theater wrap, a wrap to wear to the theater or to wear to stage your productions. It comes complete with it's own Punch and Judy set of rod puppets.
Here the stage theme is front and center for a quilt I created for 'Quilt Pink' a breast cancer fund raiser sponsored by American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.

And the inspiration continues, now incorporating embroidery, drawing, and crepe paper.

Embroidery Inspiration

The pigtail wires on the lower right side of the red frame move the car, mom and kids back and forth through the drive thru. I love being able to use an everyday contemporary image, the drive-thru with a traditional art, embroidery.

This was great fun to create. The clown characters dance and sway in the center ring.

A New Doll

A new cloth doll I just finished. The doll face, body and costume are all stitched in the hoop, even the cutting lines are stitched out. When the machine embroidery is finished, cut out the individual pieces and stitch them together the same way you would for any cloth doll.

The Red House on Amazon

"The Red House" is my newest book. I self published using Lulu.com. It is the story of life in a doll's house filled with characters from favorite fairy tales. I'm happy to announce it is now available through Amazon.com.

Ladies Day

Late last week the clouds cleared long enough for Sharon (that's her smiling at lunch) and I to hit the road for a ladies day. We went to Stream Cliff Herb Farm in Commiskey, In. Sharon had been once before but it was my first time. It was delightful. We started with a delicious lunch in their tea room. Then we wandered the gardens.I have ponds on the brain at the moment, so I only took a pictures of some of the water features at the farm. I just filled in my small pond a few weeks ago. I need to relocate it, probably to the back yard instead of by the front door. That's why I was so interested in what I saw at Stream Cliff.I would love to go back. Maybe next time I can take my daughter, daughter in law, or my mom if I can get her to come visit.

Claire's new pattern

If you've read "The Red House" you've met Claire. Claire loves to make things and this is one of her new designs. She started out thinking it might be for a new set of dishes but decided it would make a great background for her paper art instead.

It was digitized with Janome's Digitizer Pro v3. Aren't the corners beautiful! That is the Florentine effect. The embroidery was stitched with Coats & Clark 40 wt. trilobal ployester. What rich colors!

Can't wait to see how Claire uses it.

Mother's Day

After my last birthday I told my family "That was the best birthday ever". Last Christmas I told them " That was the best Christmas". Now I can say the same for this past Mother's Day.

I requested a picnic in Bloomington, where our son Charles and his wife Tessa live. We started the afternoon with yummy appetizers our daughter Jane made. Then we took a long walk around the IU campus. After a quick stop back at the house we walked to a public park for a delicious picnic dinner created by Tessa. Back to the house for dessert and coffee, then we headed back to Indy.

The best Mother's day ever.

Great shoes!

Aren't these shoes beautiful! They are not really embroidered, but then I'm not sure how they were made. They were in a showcase in the Ethnographic Museum of Prague. They look like great fun to wear.

A Stitched Wreath

The images I enjoy embroidering are rarely stitched directly on the finished product. Often I'm not even sure what the finished product might be; a story illustration, part of a quilt, or through the wonders of digital toys maybe a brand new work. That is what happened to the design above. I digitized it in my Janome software and stitched out two different color versions. I thought I might use it for a Christmas card last year but Christmas came and went too quickly. So I started playing.
This is an illustration from "The Red House". I selected individual pieces of the drawing while in Photoshop, then combined them with the embroidered wreath.
Here is the result. I love adding drop shadows to everything. It is an easy way to add lots of depth to an image.

The man on my heart.

Here is the first stitch out of the design. I tried to follow the colors of the Photoshop version but wasn't very happy with it.



Here is the second stitch out. A few color changes made a big difference.

Trying a blog on for size

I'm digitizing a new embroidery today. First it was a drawing.
Then I colored the drawing in Photoshop. That's the image you see here.