Purple Fan

Block for Sendai

2011-06-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my block for Sendai. It is one I had started a long time ago and never finished. I removed some of the beads and replaced them with French knots, since all the beads had to be double stitched on. Here it is, along with some closeups.

People don't seem to use the bullion-tipped lazy daisy stitch much, but I really like it.

Here is a closeup of the fan. I was so proud of myself because I didn't have any sequins the right size (small) and the right color for the upper part of the fan. So I made my own by punching them out of (ironed) angelina fiber. I used a one eighth inch hole punch. When my hole punch started getting dull, I just punched a bunch of holes in some 600 grade sandpaper and it sharpened right up. But too much pride is not good for anyone and I was not really happy with the crooked-ness of the fan, but it's getting down to the wire, timewise, so I don't have time to fix it.

These turquoise ribbon flowers are a stitch I made up, called the Redderson Ruffle. Directions for working this stitch are here.

I saw these "seed pods" on another CQ block a long time ago and fell in love with them. They are fun to scatter around and I needed to bring some more yellow/gold up into that area. Unfortunately the seam above the dashed line will not make it into the block because of size restraints.

I feel so blessed to be able to participate in this CQ block for Japan. It is sent with many well wishes and prayers for those in Japan...

Happy Stitching!

Art Nouveau Jewelry book

2011-05-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

Isn't this the most beautiful lotus? After I got the Fashioning Fashion book, I started looking for other museum exhibition books and I stumbled across this one. It is divided into sections of gorgeous pictures of flora, fauna and the human figure. I love Art Nouveau and jewelry/anything in that style, so I've seen lots of books on it. This book has pictures of jewelry I've never laid eyes on and the pieces are breath-taking! All the pieces are from a private collection. This book definitely serves as an inspiration.

A promenade through French Blogs

2011-05-08T00:12:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I happened upon a French embroidery blog and that began a week-long surfing expedition through blogs it linked to, and blogs they linked to, etc.

I can't tell you all the blogs I visited, but I started out at Facile Cecile's blog here. Her blog title actually means "It's easy with Cecile." She is a teacher and designs projects that a group of women work on together. (I don't speak French and Google Translate isn't the best, so I'm apologizing in advance, if I don't quite get it all right...)

One interesting thing about this group of French embroiderers is that they like to embroider much more on patterned fabric. They refer to surface embroidery as "traditional embroidery" as opposed to Ribbon Embroidery or Cross Stitch, which is also very popular. I kept wondering what SAL stood for, since I assumed it was an acronym of French words - imagine my surprise to find it meant "stitch-along"! It was a "Duh" moment for me....

These are both by Cecile.

When they attach a motif, like a "silkie", they embroider all around it, differently than I've seen. Sometimes the motif is not square or rectangular, it's very irregular. I saw it over and over, wide branches and flowers, blending the motif into the background fabric.

One of the projects was a design of poppy pods, where each pod was broken up into 3 or 4 vertical areas, and then each area was embroidered differently, say one area with beads, one with stem stitch, one with bullions, etc. They seem to have very interesting and beautiful ribbons....

There is often quite a mix of all different fibers in one project...on patterned fabric again. You'll see chenille wound with floss as stems, for instance...and lots of layering of ribbons.

There is a lot of embellishing of patterned ribbon...

I saw some ribbon embroidered flowers, where some of the ribbon looked like strips of tulle. I couldn't tell if it was cut by the stitcher; or if it was bought, but it was often space-dyed. Does anyone know anything about this? Check out the pictures below...

I'd like to experiment with a more loose style like this...

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Spring Garden Show

2011-05-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to the 22nd annual Spring Garden Show held at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. The show is set up on all 3 floors of the huge mall there and different companies set up displays. And I don't just mean displays of flowers - they bring in dirt, stones, benches, flowers, plants, water, etc. One of the displays included beautiful flowers and plants, a bench strewn with gorgeous embroidered pillows, with a stream going by! Here is one of the larger displays (click for a better view).

I could have taken a million pictures of all the wonderful flowers there...I really like irises, so here are a few of the more unique ones...

I was blown away by the beauty of these epiphylums- the flowers are huge, six to seven inches across. Don't the petals look just like ribbon?

Check out the shading on these petals...

I don't have tons of room left in my garden - things keep multiplying - I should join a garden club and trade with others...I just bought an iris fan and also these epidendrums (a type of orchid)

It was great fun, but I could have spent about 5 more hours there!
Happy spring,
Lin Moon

Fashioning Fashion Exhibit

2011-04-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to update my blog for awhile and couldn't really figure out how to get all the features I wanted(playing endlessly with the html), never imagining that all I had to do was update to the new editor and viola! it would all be there for me! If you'd like to follow my blog, please click on the right side to Follow Me....Thank you!

Last month my husband and I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the "Fashioning fashion" exhibit of European Dress from 1700-1915. To say it was fabulous would be an understatement! Check out the sparkles that would be on a man's jacket:

Clearly the men of that time were more comfortable with their masculinity!

This looks like a rather run-of-the-mill dress, doesn't it? Nothing too fancy.

But check out the trim that embellishes the bottom of it! (And might get dirty - argh!)

Some of the sleeve details were amazing. I love the lace and all the detail that went into the sleeve of this beautiful dress.

...and the layers and work that are apparent in this one...

What comes to mind when you think of today's lounging pajamas? I daresay it's nothing like this!

and look what one wears on one's feet while lounging!

There were some simply wonderful dresses...

and a close-up of the fabulous embroidery on its stomacher

How about this one with its long train...and a detail shot of the train

This dress is all embroidered

Here's a close-up of the embroidery

Here are a couple of close-ups of a gold embroidered stomacher

Isn't the metallic lace along the bottom just beautiful?
Here's a picture of the embroidery on one robe

After seeing all this wonderful embroidery and embellishment and wondering how good my pictures really were, I decided I wanted to get the book. We went around asking and they had sold the last copy just moments before - I couldn't believe it! But luckily Amazon still had a few copies, so my husband ordered one for me the moment we got home (yes, he spoils me...) The book is fabulous too!

You can get the book here.

Hope you enjoyed the eye candy...
~Lin Moon

Bird Postcards

2011-04-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Does your embellishing ever overflow into other, non-stitching areas? Mine sure does. Sometimes I feel like I just want to embellish everything! I work at Borders and one of my co-workers asked me if I'd seen the new bird postcards we'd gotten in. When I saw them and the great tin they came in, I just had to have them!

I was at JoAnn's to get some picture frames for the postcards and saw this great lacy scrapbooking paper. It is gorgeous and comes in different colors other than white, too.
In one of our bathrooms, the walls are pink and everything else is white; it has a botanical shower curtain that I love. (Even though the shower curtain is dry-clean only - go figure!) I got out some of my CQ embellishments: some beads, some glass flowers, pearls and little ribbon roses. I had so much fun embellishing the bird postcards and hanging them up on the pink walls!

I stand in front of them everynight while I brush my teeth...(is that tmi?)
Well, whadya think?

New Book by Sally Mavor

2011-04-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Sally Mavor's new book: Pocketful of Posies? It is sooooo wonderful - she is so creative with her needle and felt.

Check out this fabulous tree...

Look at the piece she used to represent the foot board of the bed...

These trees are so magical...

I just couldn't get over her wonderful waves...

I have all these fancy fabrics, beads and buttons and just look what she can do with felt! I just love this book!

Craft Room Organization

2011-03-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

My time hasn't been my own lately, so I haven't been able to do much stitching. When I finally decided I could sneak into my sewing room, I found it pretty messy. What is it about the beginning of the year that always sends me scurrying around cleaning up and organizing?
I wish I could call the room where I usually work my "studio", but it's a small spare bedroom and it's always been called my sewing room. (Then I'd have to call myself an "artist" and wonder why my output is so low...) My room is never TOTALLY organized - I never know what to do with some project ideas, patterns, drawings, etc. But I do have a handle on fabrics, ribbons, beads, buttons, etc. Since I like to do CQ, that means loads of tiny little beads and flowers. I really like the clear plastic boxes with lots of compartments, like these. I have my beads used for embellishment sorted into different boxes by color. Even within these boxes, I still have small containers sometimes. The smaller boxes on the left side in the photo above hold mostly sequins. I recently found the perfect box for all those small embellishments at a scrap-booking store. I never thought to look there! Also in the top picture, you see my favorite organizing tool, my label-maker. I just love this little baby!
For my seed beads and E beads, I have a few different drawers in one of these:
You can see they're all labeled, with my favorite label-maker! One drawer is for full tubes, the way they come when I buy them,
and then stored in smaller containers (from Fire Mountain Gems), put in baggies by color. Every color bead in a big tube is also in a small tube, so my big tubes are my backup supply. If I need some yellow or gold beads, I just grab the baggy like this one You can see each small baggie has a strip of paper on the top of it to let me know what color beads are in that bag.
I store some of my threads in 3 of these drawer units, stacked up. More of my threads are stored on the back of the door, in a shoe rack that I got from Target. These include regular floss (the workhorse), my silk buttonhole twist, the silks, the rayon, metallics, etc. Then there are the ribbons. My sister gave me a couple of these storage bins - they have a shelf inside that sits near the top. I keep the narrow ribbons on rolls, if possible and the rest I just roll up and tie with some cheap lace or hem lace. I always have a zip lock baggie of the shorter pieces; I use the veggie bags, so there are holes in them to "breathe". For "special" buttons, I put a layer of felt or batting in the bottom of the drawer and then set the buttons on top of this. One time I saved a clear plastic divider that came in a box of candy and put buttons in this. Other buttons, that I have a lot of, I'll keep in a jewelry box, like this one that was my Grandmother's and has those handy drawers. I really like to see what I have; I use a couple of these sets of drawers - I don't know what they are called - to store small things. I'm not very creative when it comes to storing my CQ fabrics. I keep them in Xerox paper boxes - sorted by color, what else? Since some of them are silk, I don't want to put them in plastic, since I think silk needs to breathe. My room is small, but it's wall to wall, using every spare inch in the room. Lastly you can see my messy work table, complete with lace covering to conceal - what else - more boxes!There's a window over this table, so the light is good, and I have my all-important mood modifier - the stereo. I do have a lot of trouble keeping the table and the ironing board from filling with odds and ends, and then I find myself working on the floor. Not always the best way to work...but then sometimes the big fluffy fellow comes in to visit me and then he steals my chair, so where else is there but the floor? (Love those blue eyes of his) One of the best things about organizing is to discover you might actually have an empty drawer somewhere. The possibilities! How exciting! Oh well, it's the little things in life....
Happy Organizing,
Lin Moon

friendship dinner decorations

2011-03-02T20:36:00.000-08:00

We recently had a friendship dinner at our church and I was in charge of the decorations for the tables. I chose "the gift of friendship" as our theme and wrapped presents for each table. I thought the presents came out really well - Here are some pix:

I punched some scrapbook paper for this one.

This is the punch I used; it is a Martha Stewart and it is so easy to use! No extra work lining it up all carefully - I love it!

It was a lot of fun layering all those ribbons and gathering up the crepe paper and all!
~Lin Moon

Fabulous embroidery

2011-02-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

Isn't this just fabulous embroidery? This is a close-up of the embroidery on a cap from the late 1800s. Did you know you can go to The Costume Institute and look at old textiles, dresses, purses and hats? I had no idea you could see such museum quality textiles online, and with such detail! (Note: I fixed the link)

Once you go to the website, you can put words in the search box like: embroidery, stomachers(they are usually heavily embellished), reticules(purses) or just "French". Most items can be enlarged, then you can zoom two or sometimes even three times to see a particular part of the item up close. Sometimes so close that you can see each stitch! More often close enough to see each bead or sequin (some of the stitching is just so fine)

Check it out; but you'd better make a cuppa, you'll want to see it all...

Enjoy....

~Lin Moon

New Books

2011-02-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

I got a couple of new books for my birthday/Christmas that I really like. the first one is "Confetti Naturescapes" by Noriko Endo. I wonder if any of you have ever seen her quilts - they are so wonderful. I saw one of them in a magazine and then saw it up close at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach last year. It was amazing! She uses a rotary cutter to cut toothpick-sized slivers of different fabrics(the confetti) and arranges them in a nature scene, covers it with tulle and then machine quilts it. Her quilts look so different up close than they do from far away. The quilt on the cover of the book won Best of Show at Quilt National in 2007.

The second book,"Ribbon Embroidery: Crazy Technique" isn't really a need-to-have book, but it's full of beautiful pix of silk ribbon embroidery. I got it from Piecemakers in Costa Mesa. When I googled the isbn, it is a Turkish book. My copy is from Turkey, but it's in English.

I'm also trying to teach myself needle tatting - there are some beautiful edgings that wouldn't take long to make five or six inches of, to be used in a crazy quilt block. But it's not as easy as I thought, it's hard to tell the front from the back when you don't have great eyesight, and sometimes you need to know just where you are - imagine that! If any of you needle tatters out there have any hints, I'd appreciate it....

Happy Stitchiing,
Lin Moon

Small CQ pillow

2010-12-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with the usual Christmas busyness, but wanted to make a special gift for a very good friend of mine. She really wanted the CQ stocking that I made for our Boutique, but my sister bid highter for it. This is just a small six inch pillow - you can hang it on a doorknob, or even the tree. Without a cutoff date, I didn't have to rush so much and think this is actually nicer than the stocking.

This is my favorite seam - I can't remember where I saw this interesting weaving on the herringbone stitch, but I just love it! I really like the pearls, too, even though they are dyed sort of an "unnatural" color.

This was really a fun seam to do, and so different.

I had fun with sequins and velour flowers on this chevron seam.
I like mixing silk ribbon and organdy ribbon.

As I was finishing up the seams on this, I regretted stitching in these leaf veins - it seemed I would never finish it before Christmas!

Isn't this just such a sweet angel charm?

Happy Stitching, everyone!
~Lin Moon

CQ Christmas Stocking

2010-11-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

Well, long time no blog. I have been busy since summer helping my Dad go to his many Doctor's appointments and being with him when his wife has to be gone. He's only now stabilized and will be having some surgery soon, so let's hope that all goes well too.

Our church boutique came and went and I only made 5 items! This is amazing, as one year my goal was to make 100 ornaments for the tree. But spending so much time with my Dad, waiting at Doctor's appointments did not leave me much time to stitch, then I got the cold that seems to be going around....

I did manage to make a CQ Christmas stocking. It's not my best work, as it was a work in sort of a rush, but I'm pleased to at least be back to SOME stitching.
Happy CQing!
Lin Moon

More LB Quilts

2010-09-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

"Lily", below, was made by Christine Milton. I loved the different shape of this one.

Clear stones give the illusion of water drops.

Mary DeRay made this quilt, called "Last Rose of Summer". Aren't the colors just fabulous?

This quilt lists over 20 people as its makers! It is called "Laurentian Foothills inspired by Anne Savage's Saint-Sauveur." It turns out this was a group challenge, wherein a painting was divided into squares and a different artist completed each square. Some squares looked needle-felted.

"Oh, For Henna's Sake" is by Michelle Reasoner. Although the picture below is not very good(my apologies), you can get a general idea of the quilt and the detail shot shows the wonderful paisleys all over the place. It was quite wonderful!

This is "Kara's Flower Garden" by Lois Akins, machine quilted by Leslie Sparks. Black really makes the colors pop (and they'd pop even more if my picture were sharper!)

This quilt is called "Jelly Fish Pink" by Sonia Callahan. I just love all the great colors!

Roberta Deluz made the quilt below, entitled "It Came From Beneath the Sea". The clouds are 3D and fluffy.

Here is a detail of the Octopus' suckers - very interestingly done!

This one is called "Hibiscus in Dappled Light" and was made by Marianne R. Williamson. The colors are fabulous and check out the stitching on the flower petals.

Check out the great machine work on the border!

This is called "Evening Dandies - Lions that is!" by Leigh Layton. It looks like your typical bunch of flowers, but if you look closely, you see lion's faces in each flower. Very clever and unique.

Well there are still more quilts to show, but that's all for now...

Long Beach Quilt Festival

2010-08-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I hope you all will excuse my long absence from blogging - my father has been in the intensive care unit for days and the hospital for weeks. My brother and sister flew out here from far away, fearing the worst... The doctors actually performed surgery for a broken hip on an 86 year old man with lung cancer, limited breathing and limited kidney function. Now he is in rehab and we have all sighed a collective sigh of relief.

Before all this happened, I attended the Long Beach Quilt Show. It was wonderful! I took lots of pictures and visited many vendors. There were not as many vendors as in the past, but I chalked that up to the current economic conditions... Here are a few pix of the quilts I really liked.

This one is called "Derevnya Russian Fairytale Village 3" by Natalya Aikens of New York. It appeared to be made on blocks of non-woven interfacing, layered and pieced together. It was very unique.

The following 2 detail shots are from a quilt called "Come fly in my Garden" by Phyllis Green of California. My shot of the whole quilt came out too blurry, but this was a lovely piece of work. So many of the quilts now have shiny metallic threads and I don't know how to make sure the photos aren't just full of glare...

This one is "Birch Tree Sunlight" by Pam Berry of California. She let the rays of the sun float freely at their ends.

This quilt is called "Best of Show" by Donna Watter of California. I thought it confusing to call a quilt by this name, since some actual winners are called this, but then I suppose a peacock would be that proud....
I love the 3D effect of the pom-poms and also the shell shapes...

This one is called "Bell aka Fairy Lantern" by Robin West of California. Below is a detail shot.

This one is called Ahuimanu Stream and is by Elizabeth Schowalter of Hawaii. The close-ups show the vast variety of fabrics used in the flowers.

It was a great show and I will put more pix in my next post!
~LinMoon

Undersea Wonder Bra done

2010-06-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well I've finished the Undersea Wonder bra. Here are some pictures. The "seaweed" on the left side is really some "fuzzy" foliage taken off a silk flower stem. It made me realize, tho, that if you had something plastic that you wanted to paint and the paint wouldn't stick to it, you could flock it first, then paint it, since the flocking is what would absorb the paint.

Oh, and at the bottom is a picture of the charm pin I made ages ago, that inspired the "Think Pink" bra. I really had a lot of fun making these bras - it sort of solves the problem for me of what to do with what I make. I hate to spend a lot of time on something, then have it sit in a closet or a drawer - I can't display everything I make - there's just not enough horizontal space!

New Bra - Think Pink!

2010-06-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I got sidetracked and ended up making a bra I didn't even plan to do....

I haven't yet finished my "Under the Sea" bra - the mermaid's hair is done and she looks pretty good, but I need to add some other stuff to that side of the bra. In the meantime, I came upon a brooch I made a long time ago - it was a heart and I had glued pearl buttons, brass charms and filled in all the spaces with small pearls. It turned out really pretty (IMHO), but way too heavy to wear, so it just sits in a drawer. I'll try to take a pic of it.... Anyway, I thought why not make a pink version, but on a bra? You can see the results below. It was really fun to get out all my pink stuff - some things I bought never knowing what I would use them for, since they are really too big for CQ. You can certainly work a lot faster when you glue things, than when you stitch them on! But I really do love doing embroidery, so I can't see this becoming a way of life....

This one will be going to North Carolina for display and will be auctioned off for Breast Cancer Research at my church's event later.
Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Raised Cup Stitch

2010-05-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

SharonB's TAST stitch for the week is the Raised Cup Stitch. This is one of my all-time favorite stitches, since it makes a flower and I love flowers. I think it's easiest to do this stitch with a fiber that doesn't split easily, like velour or silk ribbon. Click here for my detailed RAISED CUP STITCH TUTORIAL, in case you have trouble with this stitch - it is well worth learning!

Below are some examples of flowers I have made. Do you see the blue flower made of ombre picot-edged ribbon? Just to the right of it is a cream colored raised cup flower made using velour thread. I put a pink french knot in the center. Just to the left of the same blue flower is a pink raised cup flower.

On this last one, after making the flower out of velour, I went back with 3 strands of cotton floss and did a buttonhole stitch around the outer edges.

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

The Other Side

2010-05-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the other side of the bra - the beginnings of a mermaid (you were right, Freda!)
I divided silk buttonhole thread into 3 strands, ironed it straight and used that to embroider her features. Then I wrapped her face around a specially shaped piece of cardboard that was padded with felt. Her neck and body are just an applique of cotton fabric, over a piece of felt. Her arm has cardboard in it, which is making the embroidery of her hair a little tricky. I haven't yet decided about her tail. I had made a tail out of some shimmery fabric, which I may have to use if I run out of time, but I'd really like to give her tail some scales, so we'll have to see how that goes. I've been really busy because I took on a temporary job working for the US Census. That has been quite an experience - some people are very nice, some are very paranoid about the government!

And, the other thing keeping me out of the sewing room is the garden. It seems to be daylily and amaryllis season in my yard!

And at the end is the angel watching over it all....

Time for Another Bra

2010-04-30T13:23:00.001-07:00

Well, it's time for another bra! This time the bra is for my church, which is doing a "Bras for a Cause" exhibit in North Carolina in June. The bras will earn money that will go to breast cancer research.

This time I started out with a different bra - I think it was a cheaper one, because when I tried to dye it using Dy-Na-Flow, like I did before, it didn't take. It was so strange, I would go to bed and the bra would be awash in wonderful color, then the next morning, there would be a blue-green spot of color in the center and the rest of the bra would be white again. Polyester doesn't take dye well, so I think this bra has a higher percentage of polyester. Sooo, I ended up painting the bra with Lumiere paints and loved the way it came out! You can see in the picture, all the great blues, greens and turquoises. Also, that gold in there is great.

I started on the right side, with the undersea embroidery and beads, pearls, shells, charms - it's so much fun! I'm not quite finished with this side; I want to add a jellyfish at the top.

Some closeups of the sea...It's amazing, when I'm doing CQ or jewelry, I don't like the misshaped beads or the stone beads. Then, when doing something like this, those beads are so valuable. That just fuels my desire to never get rid of anything....

I'm not quite ready to divulge my plans for the left side of the bra - you'll just have to be surprised!

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Quilting Arts Books

2010-04-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at a couple of books on Quilting Arts, pictured above. Quilting Art by Spike Gillespie features the works and ideas of 20 contemporary quilters. Although all the artists are contemporary, the range of work shown in this book is quite extensive. In addition to the many quilts shown, there are 3D sculptures, as well as my favorite (by Mary Beth Bellah), a quilt that lays on ground, then curves upward to be vertical(!) called "Rising Water", featured at Quilt National in 2007.

When you read this book, you feel like you're visiting each artist; you hear how they got started, how they think, see how they work.... Each artist's section includes a feature entitled "Advice From ". Many of them advise the artist to "do it your own way". One piece of advice I found surprising was rather than pursuing new techniques, instead you should work on yourself and deepen your ability to express yourself through your art. I tend to get excited when I hear about a new technique, and I think this artist has a good point.

The Quilting Arts Book, edited by Pokey Boulton contains sections on many different techniques, each discussed by a different fabric artist. The first few chapters are by Linda & Laura Kemshall and talk about where they get their ideas (their most frequently asked question.) The following chapters include information on reverse applique', fusing, eco-friendly quilting, foiling, beading, wax pastels, paintstiks, discharge dying, and many other techniques. Although there are other books that include this type of information with a similar format, I really like the fact that a different artist discusses each method and suggests ways to try it out. It makes the technique seem more personal, like getting advice from the artist herself.

I love what Lyric Kinard says about being artistic. She questions why so many people think artists are simply born creative; instead of considering creativity something we can all learn and develop, step by step, similar to the way a young child learns to read simple books, and develops her ability, so she can go on to enjoy something as advanced as Shakespeare. (She says it much better, but I hesitate to quote the book, since it is copyrighted...)

I found these books both a joy to read...

~Lin Moon

Guardian Angel Art Bra Done

2010-03-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well I've finished embellishing/decorating my Art Bra. I used silk ribbon, braid, yarn, beads, sequins, and organdy ribbon. I dyed the fabrics and many of the embellishments using Jacquard's Dye-na-flow. It's so easy - just paint it on! I bought a couple of exciter packs and was disappointed that JoAnn's no longer seems to carry them - but they are so good to try out the different dyes/paints in small quantities. In the case of fabric or ribbon, I washed it, then heat set it by ironing. If it was some embellishment that would be flattened or ruined by washing/ironing, I just shot it with some steam from my iron to set it. I have to say, this was one of the funnest(is that a word?) parts of the project - to be able to make whatever color I wanted. I looked for this color of pink fabric at my local JoAnn's, but could only find pale pale pink or hot hot pink. So, back to home to dye some! Besides I have boxes of fabric and really try hard not to buy any more.

Here's the angel, with her archway of mother-of-pearl stars in the sky....She was really fun to make also. The ribbon encircling her dress was pale turquoise with white stitching, so I dyed it to match the dress. The gold edging on the top of her dress is the edging on some woven ribbon that I cut off. Her breasts are, guess what, pom poms! They were just the right size and I made a little "bra" cover for them so she wouldn't have bumpy boobs! It was a good idea to use something lightweight like parachute silk for her dress, since she's rather small and I could make it look compact while still being able to manipulate it the way I wanted. That was one thing with some of the other paints by Jacquard - I painted some ribbons, etc. with Lumiere, but it changes the hand of the fabric, so the ribbon was then too stiff to gather, etc.

And here are the two put together...I almost think the bra is fine without the angel, but after all she WAS my inspiration, so...

All in all, this was a very satisfying project to work on - very few limitatations, very open-ended, I loved it!

Happy creating,
Lin Moon

Half of Bra Front Done

2010-03-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm almost done with the front of my Art Bra. Ironically, most of this won't show because it will be covered up by the guardian angel, but I am still having lots of fun!

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Art Bra Angel done

2010-03-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Well I've finished the guardian angel for my Art Bra. The cups of the bra are almost all done, then I just have to cover the sides of the bra and the straps, then finish the inside cups and cover up my stitching mess!

The inspiration for this Art Bra comes from an old song by Mario Lanza my mother used to play. I just love this song, although it's not the usual genre for me. But while making this bra, I kept thinking and hoping that the women suffering from breast cancer know that there are tons of women like me who would love to be their guardian angels, wiping their tears, shooing away the bears. Women who wish them hope, health, comfort, happiness, and healing and who send prayers their way constantly.

Guardian angels around my bed
Joining me in my prayers
They hush the shadows when they dance about
They shoo away the bears
Guardian angels to comfort me
If I wake in the night
They gather all my dreams
Their halos are my light

They dry my tears
If I should weep
They tuck me in
They rouse me from my sleep

Guardian angels around my bed
Standing by till I rise
There's one with shining wings that holds my hand
And shows me Paradise

Art Bra started

2010-03-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

Well, since the angel and her wings are done, I've started working on the actual bra. It has 3 color areas on each cup and I am adding lots of texture to each area and then trying to blend it in with the next color. It is really fun to use beads, sequins, yarns, ribbons, trims and embroidery! These 3 colors are the colors I used in her wings. There's lots more to do, but it is really fun!

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

angel done

2010-03-04T11:21:00.000-08:00

Well I finished my angel's head/hair - it took me hours! I painted sequins, then rejected them. I settled on a flower bead, then changed my mind. I made ribbon rosettes, then chucked them. I tried this bead, that bead, this color, that color - I changed my mind a million times! This is a really small face, so it was hard to use small enough items to stay in scale. I hope I didn't overdo it with all the decorations near her face. I was going for a sort of Art Nouveau look, and so many of my ideas didn't pan out.

I didn't really have a plan for her hair, except that I wanted a bun, and I didn't really leave long enough strands to work with, so I had to work around that. To make her bun, I wrapped a pipe cleaner into a donut shape, then wound it with floss to match her hair in case any showed through later. Then I pulled her pony tail through the donut and pulled the strands of her pony tail down over the donut. I added some parts of earring findings (bead caps) to her bun, after coloring them with an 18K gold pen. I wound 2 strands of floss around a doll needle and ironed it to make her tendrils.

Well, now it's time to work on the bra that she will grace; I painted it with some dyes and have been waiting for it to dry. Gotta get this in a mail in a few weeks, so time is running out...but I am soooo enjoying myself working on this - it's all I think about!

Happy Stitching,
Lynne

Art Bra for WtWW

2010-02-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

Here is my angel for the Art Bra I am working on. I haven't yet figured out what I'm doing with her hair, so it's flying a little loose...She's kind of a flat doll, since she'll go on the center of the bra. I had a great time making her dress - I dyed some parachute silk with Dye-Na-Flow and wrapped it sort of free-formed over her. Her face is embroidered, with a little chalk for added color. I also dyed the ribbon under her bodice, etc. to match the dress. She will have wings, of course and a halo.

The latest issue of CQMagOnline contains a Call for ArtBra Submissions. This is a "Can't Lose" proposition. There won't be any rejection letters. If your bra is one of the best, it might make it into the calendar. But even if it doesn't, your bra will be auctioned off and the money goes to support Breast Cancer research. There's no downside! It seems like a wonderful way to support this research and at the same time to be creative. Join me and make an Art Bra!
Happy creating,
~Lin Moon

angel wings

2010-02-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try designing an art bra, featuring an angel in the center. I'm not quite finished with the angel, but here are her wings. I started out with white wool-felt wings and felted on some beige roving, then proceeded with random stitches of different textures of pinks, turquoises, purples and gold. I love mixing these textures and colors - such fun!

I forgot to include these gorgeous pictures of the saucer magnolias that were all abloom at UCLA when I went the the Fowler Museum (see previous post).

Aren't they wonderful?

Nick Cave exhibit

2010-02-18T14:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to the UCLA Fowler museum to see an exhibit by Nick Cave. It was soooo interesting! He is an artist with a background in dance and makes "costumes" out of fabric, sequins, buttons, sweaters, doilies, crochet - it is wild! He has a suit made of thousands of buttons; the "face" is an abacus. He has 10 people working for him, helping him craft his wonderful creations. You can go to this site and take a Photo Tour...or Watch this video. You will be WOWed.

~Lin Moon

Inspired by a color

2010-02-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

A friend gave me this blouse. I just loved the color and the velvet trim around the neck and sleeves. It was kind of plain so I pressed some iron-on interfacing around the neck and embroidered it with silk thread and beads and added the pink flower.

Then I decided to make a bracelet to go with it.

I got these great beads at the Pasadena Bead and Design show recently and made the earrings.

Then, I decided to make a small scarf to go with it! I just love wearing every single piece. It's so fun to be inspired by a color like this!
Happy stitching,
~Lin Moon

Trip to the Getty

2010-01-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

When my daughter was home from college for the holidays, we took a trip to the Getty Museum. It was very interesting and inspiring. Here are a few pix:
This is a chair that was partially embroidered and mostly embellished with ribbon that twists and turns. The interesting thing to me was all the little pleats in the ribbon as it went around the turns - those pleats were made into part of the design...

Wouldn't you love to go to bed to THIS every night?

I wanted to see how the center of this "flower" was made. I don't know exactly what it was made of, but each "petal" just seems to be bent in the proper shape to form this flower - I've never seen anything like that...

Christmas Ornaments

2009-10-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well it's that time again and I am making Christmas ornaments for our church Boutique. I am having foot surgery next week and have been using mostly felt for my ornaments so I can work on them with my foot propped up. I used stiff white felt for the cut-out snowflake and it's a lot easier to cut than regular felt. I also used the stiff felt for the back of the round ornaments, with a little circle of fleece inside - this seems to give them a little puffiness and helps to keep their shape. The snowflakes are my design, but feel free to copy them if you like.... Do you recognize this house ornament? It's not my design - I saw something very similar to it on a blog or somewhere and can't find it again. I'd like to give credit where credit is due and wanted to ask the person who designed it if I can make a bunch for our Boutique, but don't know whose it is....but it's very cute!

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Earring Crazy

2009-09-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

It all started with a trip to the Pasadena Bead and Design Show. I bought some flower earrings and just fell in love with the vintage lucite flower beads they were made from. That began my quest.... I have been having such fun playing with flowers and beads! Luckily our church Boutique is coming up and they can sell the earrings there. But I will have to keep one or two pair, I must admit. Here are some pix of the earrings I have made....

Embroidery with Nails

2009-08-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

This embroidery is for SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009. This month's challenge was to incorporate something you don't usually use in your embroidery. So I chose to use small nails. First I stamped my blue cotton background with various leaf stamps in different shades of blue and turquoise. I used stamps with maidenhair fern and ginkgo leaves. Then I arranged the nails in this swirl pattern. I just love curves - my favorite CQ seam treatments are the ones that curve, twist and twine. I stitched over the nails using ribbon floss, then added the sequins and beads. This was really fun!

Even More LB Quilt Pix

2009-07-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Gita Maria booth was on my list to visit. They had a lot fewer buttons and jewelry and a lot more shawl pins. Maybe that's because their new thing is shawl kits made with lots of gorgeous fibers, water-soluble stabilizer and machine embroidery. Here's a picture of the shawl they had on display. Some of the fibers in it were wide organza ribbons with patches of gold thread woven in - it was fabulous! (P.S., since some of the pictures get so big when you click on them, you might want to hit "control -" (that's minus) to get them to a better size)

This picture was taken at the igolochkoy booth. I talked a little with the woman at the booth and she told me they make their own needles! She said she likes to support the artists that use her special needles, so buys their work to support them and to show at her booth, so others could see the possiblities. This piece was wonderful!

This is Susan Fletcher King's entry for the Journal Quilt Project II.

I stopped at Mary Jo Hiney's booth and had a very nice conversation with her. She displayed this quilt in her booth; it is featured in her book called "Quiltagami". I really like the bottom of it, with the shapes and the beads hanging down. It was quite special.

This quilt is called "Midnight in the Garden of Hearts and Flowers" and was made by Judith Roush Knorr.

Diane Ricks made "Pacific Ocean Underwater Wonders". It is quite beautiful. Check out the stitching on the gold fish and the wonderful texture at the bottom of the quilt.

This one is called "Praise Ye Now Our Gardens Green" and was made by Sonia Grasvik.

I apologize for the fuzziness of some of the close-ups; as I kept visiting vendors my bag got heavier and heavier and it was hard to hold the camera still! (Such a terrible problem to have!) I had such fun there!
Enjoy,
~Lin Moon

More LB International Quilt Show PIx

2009-07-27T22:07:00.001-07:00

There were so many great quilts at the Long Beach International Quilt Show! Of course photos were not allowed for lots of them. There was one very interesting quilt made by a woman from South Africa. It had a lot of squares in it and there was a large piece across the middle and down the center that was needlepoint. I don't remember the stitch name, but it was all small squares where each one is defined by a set of maybe 6 diagonal stitches. And the interesting thing was, the needlepoint was not blocked, so it was a little wavy, and that actually added to the piece. It was very interesting to add canvas to a quilt. I did see quite a few quilts with Angelina and felting in them...

This is "Sonoma Coastline" by Jan Carter, with a few detail shots of the base of the piece. I loved all the texture in it.

This is "Spring in Japan" by Akiko Kawata. It was hard to get a good view of this quilt, but it was beautiful.

THis quilt is called "The Pond" and was made by Marylee Drake. I love the 3D petals of the flower and the wings of the dragonfly.

"The Thread of Life" is shown here, by Jean Overmeyer.

This is "With the Passing Days" by Marie-Jose' Michel. I really liked the design of this quilt. She used fabric printed with irises for the irises, fabric printed with wisteria for the wisteria, etc. I enjoyed the effects she created with the non-printed fabrics more, like the cascading leaves and cherry blossoms. It's interesting how some quilts are better seen up close and some better from a distance.

Looking at all the quilts really gave me a lot to think about. Sometimes my immediate reaction was WOW! and then I tried to stand back and figure out what made it a WOW quilt.
Enjoy,
~Lin Moon

Long Beach Quilt Show 2009

2009-07-27T16:12:00.001-07:00

I spent all day Saturday at the Long Beach Quilt Show. I didn't sign up for any classes this year; I wanted to have plenty of time to see all the quilts on exhibit and visit all the vendors. I'm so glad the show is in Long Beach and not just in Houston; I've been looking forward to going for months. Here are some pictures from the show. Enjoy! Since some of the pictures get so big when you click on them, you might want to hit "control - " (that's minus) multiple times to get them to a better size.
This is an Antique CQ quilt from Cindy's Antique Quilts (in OK). It was in excellent shape. She was asking around $3200 if anyone is interested. The bird embroidery was wonderful. It has these cool motifs made of small hexagons placed in a circle and then embroidered over. It was beautiful!

This one is called Evening and is by Deborah Sylvester. It is made up of hundreds of tiny little pieces, used like paint to form the quilt.

This last one is called "Ginkgo" and is by Marianne Haeni. The detail shows an inset of what looks like machine-made lace, with a piece of fabric inset into that, with a gingko leaf on it. I thought this inset was a very interesting idea.

More pictures will come in another post - hope you enjoyed the eye candy!

Book Review Art and Embroidery of Jane Hall

2009-06-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Have any of you seen this book? It is called "The Art & Embroidery of Jane Hall". This is a great book for inspiration - it's not your usual embroidery book. Jane Hall also uses paint, paper, cut silk, wire, etc. to achieve her effects. When she shows a piece, it may consist of 3 or 4 vertical planes, placed one in front of another to evoke a particular effect.

This book transforms you to a different world. It is a richly textured portrayal of a reverence for nature. It's one of the few embroidery books that is enjoyable to read, as well as peruse for pictures. Jane Hall can find solace in a single snowdrop; she is awed by the wonder of nature and it shows. Her work is layers upon layers of shimmering silks, chiffons, organza and ribbons.

She spends 2-3 months minimum on each of her pieces; the care she takes is evident. No detail is left unstudied, nor its influence on the mood of the completed piece. Even her chapter on materials is mouth-wateringly inspiring. Her fabric/thread design swatches are gorgeous! Although her creatures are more inspired by imagination than reality, sometimes you have to look twice to see which is which. Each of her pieces is shown in full and then in several detail shots, with descriptions of her working methods. In particular, she describes her methods for achieving depth from afar to up close.

There is a mood to her descriptions – awe, wonder, delight in nature and veneration.
It’s hard to believe anyone could improve upon nature, but Jane Hall’s work does.

More playing with needleweaving

2009-06-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

I love texture and decided to get out some of my yarns to do some needlewoven bars (long ones!) for this landscape. My felting pad came in really handy; once I felted the background. I pinned the end of my loooong loop(s) down into the pad to prepare for the needle weaving. Ironically, I didn't use a needle for the weaving, since my yarn lengths were a yard long or more. At first I kept running out of yarn before finishing weaving the loop, but eventually I just doubled the yarn, like you would use a double thread in a needle, but without the needle. Then you have a loop at the end of your weaving yarn and if you run out, you can just loop another long length of yarn onto it, avoiding a knot, and keep on weaving.
So I had a bunch of bars coming out of the left side and some coming out of the right side. I hid the end of one bar under the curve of another. It was fun to intertwine (weave!) the bars to resemble hills, the ground, etc....

Happy Needleweaving,
~Lin Moon

Playing with needleweaving

2009-06-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

I've been playing more with needle-weaving as part of SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009 and I have so many ideas floating around in my head! Not enough time to try them all, but anyway, I thought the idea of a hand was a good one. It was hard to get good proportions - even though I used a picture as a guide (basted to the back), the fingers came out longer and fatter than I planned, but still, you can tell it's a hand. I didn't want to spend hours weaving the palm of the hand, so I used a thicker and lighter shade of blue for the weft portion of the palm.

I didn't secure the thumb and 2 of the fingers down, so that I could try making a peace sign. Peace out, man..... yes I was a hippie in the 70s....

Happy Needleweaving,
~Lin Moon

Sun with Cloud Mask

2009-05-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

Here is my needle-woven sun, complete with a cloud mask for those not so happy moods. The sun's face is felted, then padded before I sewed it down. I combined 3 or 4 threads and treated them as one to needle-weave the rays of the sun. Then I couched down some chenille to cover the edge of the felt sun. I added beads and wound some wire around a pencil for some extra rays.

Here is a close-up of one of the rays. At first I mixed yellows with some gold metallic fibers, but didn't like the way it looked, so I just stuck with different shades and textures of yellow fibers.

This shows how I created the felted cloud. I drew the cloud on a piece of paper, cut it out and set it aside. I pinned down the paper with the cloud cut-out to some grey felt on my felting pad. Then I placed 2 cut-outs of the eyes in the proper place and pinned them down. I used a single needle to felt wool roving around the outside curves of the cloud, around the eyes and in the middle. I was careful to pull the roving away from the paper eye areas so I would end up with the eye openings in the cloud. I know you can order cookie-cutter type forms for needle-felting, but they are really not necessary. With just a piece of paper, you can create any shape you want.

This was so much fun!

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Fabulous Embroidered Jacket

2009-05-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

There is a fabulous all embroidered denim jacket on flickr - check it out here. Jacket

This must have taken ages to do!

Happy Stitching,

~Lin Moon

Book Review

2009-04-28T20:05:00.001-07:00

Recently I bought this book "M. Joan Lintault: Connecting Quilts, Art & Textiles". She makes very interesting quilts and the thing I like most about most of them is that they have holes in them! She's made a quilt that has a latticework background, filled in near the edges with flowers and butterflies. Sometimes her quilts have sewing machine lace between the main images. Her machine lace is beautiful and sometimes has a very fluid, water-like quality. Her quilts are not usually square and are the kind you want to stare at for a long time, to see every detail. She never uses commercially printed fabric, instead she dyes it, stitches it, then paints it, achieving a fabulous depth of color and texture. This book is a wonder to wander through, with lots of great pictures, inspiration and thoughtful prose.

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Assisi panther

2009-04-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this piece for SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009. In Assisi, the main motif is left unembroidered, but is surrounded by embroidery. I really like black, so decided upon this panther for my main motif. I had some challenges with stitching over the felted portions, like underneath the panther's body. The felted area stood up higher than the panther, yet needed to look like it was underneath/behind it. I had fun doing the fern on the right in the trellis stitch, and wished I had tried it sooner (as in last month's Stitch Explorer). I took the panther from a tapestry I have showing a tiger(see below).
This was really fun - I think I could improve on it, but will call it finished for now.....

Thanks Sharon, for another wonderful challenge idea.
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Raised Cup Stitch

2009-03-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

In SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009, the featured stitch for March 15 was the trellis stitch. Although this post is about the Raised Cup Stitch, not the trellis stitch, the directions are similar - only the beginning differs. This is one of my favorite stitches, and I wanted to share it with you.
My stitch diagrams were originally for use with silk ribbon, since that is one of my favorite ways to do this stitch. In the photos, I am using a chenille fiber. It's good to use a fiber that is not easily split. For each step, first I show the drawn diagram, then the photo(s) of the actual stitching.

1) You begin by making 3 straight stitches to form a triangle. In the photo above, the black dot represents A in the stitch diagram above.

2) In the photo above, I have changed to yellow thread to make it easier to see. But normally you bring your same thread up at one corner of the triangle, and switch to a tapestry needle. All future stitching is done without piercing the fabric, until the flower is complete. Slide your needle under one of the straight stitches and bring the thread over, then under the needle. Pull tight to form a knot. This knot should be snugged down near the corner of the triangle where you first brought your needle up (A in the diagram).

3) Slide your needle once again under the same backstitch and bring your thread over and under the needle. Pull the needle through and form a knot close to the other end of this backstitch. Now the first side of your triangle has two knots on it, with a bar connecting them.

4) Slide your needle under the next backstitch and form a knot. This knot will be very close to the previous knot, making the bar between them very short. In the stitch diagram, you can see a black needle placed there to make sure that there will be a bar (however small). Slide your needle under this backstitch again and make a second knot. Now there are four knots and 3 bars connecting them: a long, a short and a long. See the stitch diagram below.

5) Now form two knots on the last backstitch, being careful to have a bar, however small, when you go around the corner. Now you have six knots and five bars, three long and two short.

6) Now slide your needle under the bar you formed on the first backstitch and make a knot. I switched to grey thread to help you see, but you would continue around as shown in the diagram above.

7) In the photo above, I have continued around, forming 2 knots on the long bars and only one knot on the short bars. I have gone almost all the way around with the grey. Once you are happy with the flower, you can end your thread by weaving it vertically in and out of your stitching and piercing the fabric near your triangle of backstitches.

The following photos show how the flower comes out when finished. A bead in the center is a nice touch.

Kiwi Done for Fertile Earth class

2009-02-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

I finished lesson one of the Fertile Earth class. This was inspired by a kiwi (see below). The background was supposed to be stamped, but my stamping didn't really work out well for my kiwi, so it was back to the wood-burning tool to cut some "leaves" and swirls and those made up my background. I used Misty Fuse to adhere the cuttings to the background fabric and meant to put some tulle on top of it before plopping the kiwi on, but forgot the tulle. This isn't a mistake I want to make again. All the lint, threads and everything else then sticks to the Misty Fuse. I was constantly picking these off - they made it look dirty. Anyway, this was fun and now we are on to week 2. The inspiration? Flowers! Oh, how will I ever choose just one flower to be inspired by?

Happy Creating,
~Lin Moon

Fertile Earth Class

2009-02-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

I'm taking Susan Sorrell's Fertile Earth class at joggles. You can see the picture for the class here. This is the first week and we are doing a piece inspired by a fruit or vegetable. My inspiration was this picture of a kiwi. You can see that I changed the colors a bit! I started out with some lavender fabric, which I cut out in an oval shape using a wood-burning tool like Allison Aller explained in the current issue of CQMagOnline. I layered some tulle over it, then a darker purple, then some white satin and tulle in the center. At first it looks pretty blah, but once I added some embroidery, I just couldn't stop. Purple is my favorite color, so it's hard not to just do everything in purple! This has kick-started me into doing something creative and is just what I needed, plus it's really fun!

Happy stitching,
~Lin Moon

Leaf for Tree Project

2009-02-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a leaf I've been working on for the Tree Project. I just haven't been able to get motivated to be creative lately, so I started this since it's a small project and you can pretty much do whatever you want. The due date is March 15, so there's still time if you'd like to get involved.

Also, I've signed up for Susan Sorrell's Fertile Earth online class on joggles.com. This is another effort to kick start my bag-o'bones to "get creative!". We're just on the first week, but so far it's fun and I'll post a pic or two soon.
Happy creating,
Lin Moon

Road to California

2009-01-19T22:11:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was my birthday and to celebrate, I went to the Road to California Quilt Show '09 with my older daughter. It was a great show with lots of quilts on display, tons of vendors, plenty of places to sit and rest and it was wonderful! It was so big that I didn't get to visit all the vendors or see all the quilts, but I had a nice conversation with Helen Gibb, and also with Barbara Willis. Her dolls were absolutely amazing! She goes to France and England to buy wonderful trims, buttons and laces. You can see pix of her dolls on her website here.

I took some pictures of some of the quilts on display. Of course, the pictures just can't do them justice. This first one is, of course, inspired by Klimt's "The Kiss" and is called "The Kiss Dressed in 9 Patches" and is by Joyce Hughes. It got an Honorable Mention. It was so beautiful! This is a favorite painting of mine, so to see it stitched was glorious! If you've never looked at this artwork, it is so interesting - all the motifs on the man's clothes are square or rectangular, with lots of corners. All the motifs on the woman's clothing are circles, rounds and curves.

Here is a closeup of the bottom of the quilt, with all the flowers

This quilt is called "Rhapsody at First Light" and is done by Bonnie Keller. This is the center medallion of the quilt. It is surrounded by lots of interesting details.

Here is a close-up of one of the corners. You can see a bird, and then there are many "hidden" creatures all over the outer border, like this trapunto mouse.

This is a small quilt, and all the cherries are 3D. Their stems are seed beads (on wire?), protruding out of the quilt. This was cute and clever. It was done by Elaine Emmons.

There were some purses there also. This one is super encrusted with beads, buttons, etc. and is called "Hippie Chic" by Susan Gannon O'Connell.

Here is a closeup.

There were not a lot of crazy quilts there, but this one is by Charlotte Noll and is called "My Crazy Life".

This quilt is called "Fairy People on Parade" and is by Janis Hooker. I really liked the different styles of the people here. I'm not a big fan of cutesy and know how hard it is to avoid when you can't draw well (since I can't), so I liked the whimsy of it.

This one was cool....

OK, the picture quality here is not too good, but I really loved this quilt. It was very small, about the size of an 81/2" by 11" piece of paper. But it was so beautiful and very dimensional. It was by Nicole McHale and was called "Garden Walkway". The grain of the wood is done by machine embroidery. The plants get very 3D in the lower left corner. I apologize for the poor quality of the picture - this small quilt was breath-taking.

Here is a closeup of the grasses at the top - they seemed to be done with untwisted thread, maybe silk?

All in all, it was a great show. The only thing was, it ended at 6 and at around 5 we realized there was another whole room we hadn't even seen yet! Also, my husband did NOT get laid off from his job(YAY!), so after being on pins and needles for 3 months, I was able to rescue my poor husband from his problem of "Oh, no, honey, I don't have anthing for your birthday." by saying "Oh, you poor thing, I guess I'll just have to buy stuff at the quilt show!" It couldn't have worked out better...

Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Cutest pincushion

2009-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Isn't this the cutest pincushion you've ever seen?!?!!!! I just love it. My sister gave it to me for Christmas.

My daughter gave me a box she painted - here are some pix of the top and the sides. She's only 16, and did a great job!

I am sort of grasping about, wondering what project to start working on. This is typically the time of year I have the most time, but I feel frozen in time wondering if my husband is going to get laid off, whether to start trying to get the house ready to sell, to look for a better paying job, what to do, what to do.... I've been toying with the idea of a joggles online class, working on a quilt for the quilt contest, etc, but just can't get focused on anything....

Hope you're more creative than I've been lately,
~LinMoon

Happy New Year

2009-01-03T22:01:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you all had a good holiday. Although we still don't know about my husband's getting laid off, we had a very nice Christmas. It was small, but with lots of family and love and laughter.

Four of us gals used to get together for coffee every Thursday night years ago. One moved up north and the other moved to NZ a few years back. They were both in town at Christmas and the "coffee club" came together once more! Our kids were younger when we used to meet regularly and it was always hard for all 4 of us to be available to celebrate birthdays, etc, so it was amazing that we were all 4 available on a day's notice to get together! It was very fun and I made my friends a couple more matryoshka ornaments. (I think I spell that "m word" different every time!)

More Matryoshka

2008-12-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, the Matryoshka machine is still spinning. This first one is for a friend named Sakura, which means cherry blossom. How perfect is that? I usually don't like using plastic beads and don't even know where I got these, but I just HAD to use them. The middle one is my favorite - I just love the combination of these two fabrics. I am having such fun with these! And the last one is for a friend whose favorite color is this green. I'm so enjoying picking out the flower beads and the other embellishments!
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Matryoshka Ornaments

2008-12-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Well, the Making of Matryoshkas has begun. These will be the "giveaway" gifts for my close friends at Christmas. The first one is for my good friend whose favorite color is pink. (So many people like pink! Did you know there's a list for pink-loving Christmas crafters?) I drew the face on paper using a combination of pen and chalk, scanned it in and printed it onto fabric you can put into your printer. I like the soft effect of the chalk on the hair and cheeks. I'm trying to make one in everyone's favorite color. But I think one of my girlfriend's favorite colors is orange, and I really don't like orange, so I have no orange fabric...hmmm we'll have to see what I can do about that.... It's really fun to mix and match fabrics and I so enjoy the embellishing with flowers and beads!

Happy Christmas Crafting,
Hugs,
Lin Moon

Christmas invite

2008-11-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

I've been busy working on our Boutique and my Christmas party. Our Boutique made almost $4800, which will ALL go to charity - which is just great! I was treasurer, so I was running around with different envelopes for the different areas: bake sale, cinnamon buns, taco boats, candy booth, Grandma's Attic and the Boutique itself. Phew! It was fun, but I'm glad that's over. So now we move into the holidays!

Since my husband may get laid off, I wanted to make my Christmas party invitations as cheaply as possible. (I considered not having a party because of that, but if he DOES get laid off, the party may be one of the funnest times I have this season, so I decided to go ahead with it) I had almost everything I needed in my stash, so that was good. I used parchment envelopes that I had saved (for someday) for the angel wings, which curved in a nice way once they were embossed with the swirly design. The angel is a Victorian lady that I printed onto sticker labels - I seem to use those every year. They are so handy, just one whole sheet of paper that's sticky on the back and I just printed 8 or so angel busts on it, then cut them out and glittered her bodice. I glittered the edges of her wings and used velour paper for the ribbon below her. The NOEL was written in metallic gold (doesn't show up too well in the picture) I cut two of the leaves out of some organdy ribbon and two of them out of olive green velour paper - I thought the card needed something up above and a little touch of the maroon also. I usually do some rubber stamping, but not this year....

I almost wish they (Xerox) would just tell us now whether my husband will still have a job or not - the waiting is torture! Oh, well, I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!
Hugs,
~Lin Moon

June TIF

2008-10-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's hardly June, but this idea has been percolating in my mind for quite awhile. This is my "Stash Story"! In case you can't tell, this is a Magpie, the bird that likes and collects shiny things. She's ready to adorn her nest with some purple! My stash has lots of "shiny things" in it. I guess I'm just a magpie at heart. Sometimes I feel like I must be a 5 year old girl, who likes pink & purple, glitter and shine, although I must say, I draw the line at princesses.

The bird is needle felted - I've never felted anything 3D before - it is challenging to keep the shape you want... The "nest" is made of felt with batting inside, stitched randomly with metallic threads. This is the most fun. I really like making things for which there is no pattern, just blending colors as I go...freeform and all.

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Ornaments

2008-10-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not up to my usual millions of ornaments I make for our Christmas Boutique, but here are pix of a few: snowmen, raggedy anne and more bird ornaments.

Well, I haven't posted for awhile - if I had, the post title would have been "too sad to stitch". My Dad has been in and out of the hospital, first with pneumonia, then with a stroke. His wife called me one night at 10:30 because they were at the emergency room, so I went there and stayed 'til the wee hours. It's so hard to get any information at the hospital. And, it turns out he never got around to writing a will or making a medical power of attorney, so if he had been unable to speak after the stroke, no one would have been able to get any info from him. He's kind of a stubborn man, you can't tell him anything. They wanted him to wear pressurized knee socks to prevent another stroke and he flat out refused the first 5 people who told him to wear them. I really miss my daughter who's away at college and feel so sad when I get home from work and she's not there to talk to. My husband's company is laying off 3000 people and we won't find out if he's one of them until they announce it December 16. I love Christmas, but I'm not sure how it will feel this year.... I'm sure there are lots of people worse off than I, but sometimes it is just overwhelming. If you've read this far, I thank you and ask for a small prayer that my husband may be one of the lucky ones.
~LinMoon

Babushkas and Matryoshkas

2008-09-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since I have blogged; I've been getting my daughter ready to move to college and we got her settled there yesterday. It seems all I've done lately is shop shop and shop - sheets, towels, bedspread, computer cables, lamps, storage, etc. etc. etc.- everything you need to live away.

I know not all of you are into Christmas yet, but I have been having fun making ornaments. I discovered this book: Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle, which I really like.

It's by Tone Finnanger and full of mostly red, white and pink projects. I really fell in love with these Russian dolls in the book.

And if you want to see some more wonderful cloth babushkas, check out Ravenhill Designs' site here. They are so cute!
I have a couple of the wooden nesting dolls myself, see the picture below. A friend brought me back the blue one from Russia; I think the other one is from a catalog.

The book also has some cute birds, but then I've already made bird ornaments.

I have lots of cottons that I haven't sewn with for awhile, so I am looking forward to mixing and matching them for some fun babushkas!
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Bird Ornaments

2008-08-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

This bird was not made or designed by me!

I found this picture on Flickr - isn't it cute? It belongs to Karen (aka Mrs. Kwitty). I saw this and asked Mrs. Kwitty if I could copy it to make ornaments for our Church Boutique. Check out her wonderful etsy site here where there are plenty of wonderful shabby/chic type items. She graciously said I could copy it, even though she sells it on her etsy - now that's generous! Thanks again, Karen.

Our Boutique is the Women's main fundraiser of the year and all the monies we make go to charity. We sell coffee and cinnamon buns in the morning and taco boats around noon. We have a bake sale, opportunity drawing, Grandma's attic and a candy booth. Our whole church comes together to put this on and it's lots of work and lots of fun.

So here are a few of my versions of her bird - they are really fun to make. I can't decide if I like the bow under the beak or on the back of the head....(any opinions?)

Washington DC

2008-08-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well,
I've been away from the computer for awhile - vacationing to Washington, DC and doing crafts at Vacation Bible School. While in DC, I went to Smithsonian's Renwick Museum. This is a picture of a quilt there, made by Jane Burch Cochran. Isn't it wild? - buttons sewn everywhere! Click to enlarge and you can see some of the detail. (I tried to take a detail pic of it, but it came out blurry.)

I saw this quilt in a shop there - it had so many different fabrics in it! (Sorry about the lamp hanging in the way) It was so beautiful.

The Peacock Room was fabulous:

I just loved the patterns on this door.

Everything at the Renwick was so special, even the beautiful lace curtains at the windows.

This was at another museum - can you imagine having such opulence at your windows at home?

Arte y Pico Award

2008-08-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

Wow,
I go on vacation and come home to this wonderful surprise! Violette Severin of the blog Hand Quilting, has nominated me for the Arte y Pico award. Thank you so much Violette! I feel so special!

The rules for the Arte y Pico Award are:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.

4. The award winner and one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte de Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.

6. Choose 5 other people for this award.

Well, since I've been on vacation for awhile, it may be that some of the blogs I most admire have already been chosen, but we'll see.....

Check out
Sara Lechner's The Fabric of Meditation. Her artwork is so magical, original, unique and inspiring!

Emmy and her Cramzy blog. Emmy really knows how to play - and create wonderful things in the process. There's a real freshness to her creations.

Marty of Textiles in Time. I don't know how she keeps working on that large project of hers - it really takes patience and dedication. But when she's done, it will be just fabulous. I have to hand it to her for such delayed gratification and such lovely stitching.

Lauri of Don't Call Me Crafty. I like the attitude she expresses in the name of her blog. How she manages to get ANYTHING done with 5 kids is beyond me, but not only does she get things done, she wins ribbons and shares great pictures with us of her colorful work.

N. Rene West's Fembellish Journal. Although she hasn't updated her blog lately because of caring for her mother's health, she has shared how to do everything! If you read older entries and follow along with some of her projects, she is very generous with instructions and step by step pix on how to do some of the fabulous and wonderful things she has made.

Happy Stitching, everyone!
~Lin Moon

May TIF done

2008-07-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know it's July, but I've finally gotten back to the May TIF, now that all the June graduation hoopla is over. The theme for May was "how you see yourself (as an artist)". Here I am on a needle - I feel like stitching is a wild ride; I fly with excitement, there are ups and downs and it's a magical journey. The wings are made from ribbon with burned edges. That was a challenge! It's hard to get the flame just close enough to seal the edge, but not so close that it melts the ribbon and changes its shape. I'm paranoid about fire, so I did it with the candle sitting in my kitchen sink. I really enjoyed felting the background, although I added some gold Angelina and I'm not sure I'd do that again. The Angelina had a lot of fly-away ends that got in the way of the embroidering. I'm pretty pleased with this, even though it's way late.
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Magical Transformation

2008-07-03T19:51:00.001-07:00

Can you believe that THIS

can change to THIS?

A close-up....

Now that all the graduation hoopla is over with, this is what I've been working on. This is for Belle Armoire Magazine's "Petite Couture" challenge. It was to do haute couture on a small scale. There was an article about how freeing it is to make a dress that just gets sewn onto the doll body or mannequin, without having to worry about fasteners or getting it on the doll. My inspiration for this couture is Alphonse Mucha's Reverie. I altered Barbie's face, so it wasn't so perky and unnatural. Then I covered her head, arms and top torso with a cotton knit and gave her some hair. I really enjoyed making the costume, sewing on beads, sequins and ruffles. That's a giant hat hanging from her neck. I made my own version of the Reverie design for the inside of her hat and colored it with colored pencils. Then I scanned it into my computer and printed it out onto special fabric for use with your inkjet printer. I'd love to see it in their magazine, but if not, well OK.....

I've been tagged!

2008-06-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

JoWynn has tagged me to do a meme. There are five questions.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was sitting by the side of the road leading to the elementary school, crying. I had been pulled over by a cop for speeding (he told me he had trouble keeping up with me to pull me over). I was racing to the elementary school for some picnic-on-the-lawn-with-your-child sort of thing and I was running late. My house was up for sale with an open house looming that weekend. The open house was in a few days and the painter failed to show up to finish the job he had started the week before. I was tired, spread thin and totally stressed out. We had already made an offer (along with 5 other people) on a new house and needed to sell ours quickly to get in. The officer asked me why was I crying, he wasn't going to hurt me? I told him between sobs about my stressed out housing situation and the no-show painter. Meanwhile, every other parent that was going to the school drove by me & saw me in this embarrassing situation. This cop talked to me for 20-30 minutes. Where was my house, he asked. How old were my kids? What were their names? Where was the new house? Where was I going in such a hurry? blah blah blah from him and sob sob sob from me. Finally, when he saw my Driver's License, he mentioned that we had the same birthday. And, after all that, he didn't give me a ticket! Then I had to go to the picnic and pretend everything was OK, because I didn't want to tell my daughter what a bad example I was setting and tell her I got pulled over for speeding! Not my best day! We DID get the house, and have lived happily ever after... ha ha.

Five things on my To Do list today:
1. Finish reading "I Feel Bad About My Neck" by Nora Ephron - too funny!
2. Stitch!!!
3. Baby my baby (cat - see below)
4. Go out to dinner (yay! no cooking!)
5. Baby the plants out back that need extra care - the Angel's Trumpet has its first bloom!

Snacks that I enjoy
Dark Dark Dark Chocolate!
Kettle Corn (sweet popcorn)
Cereal - like Kashi's Lean Crunch - I could eat 3 bowls a day of that stuff!

Things I would do if I were a billionaire...
Hmmm, strangely enough this is a hard one. I've known people who have had a lot of money and this kind of screwed up their priorities. Instead of putting themselves into things(like raising kids, or dealing with a problem), they just sort of throw money at them. I would like to travel to go take classes in things having to do with embroidery (the Lesage in France!) I would like to make some improvements to my house - I love to have people over and would like a better kitchen. This may sound weird, but I think I would go to therapy with my husband, not because we have some great huge problem, but we used to know a therapist who was really wonderful at ways to work on relationships - keeping them fresh, trying new ways to be close, discovering new things about you & your spouse, etc. And because I just went to a meeting at our church to decide to what charities to donate our funds for this year, I couldn't ignore some of the wonderful programs to help others, especially women and children. I think having lots of money would change my attitude more than my life. I would just feel more hopeful sometimes, like when I find termites in the window ledge, or I'm bummed at discovering one of the millions of things that can go wrong with your home. I'm sure I would buy more "stuff" for stitching, but I will do that anyway....

Now for the list of places I've lived.
I was born in Del Rio, Texas. Too young to acquire much of an accent. Completely obscured by a 10 gallon hat.

Moved to Japan! (I wish I had been born there - I always joke that I would have looked different if I had) I had a nanny there who loved me so much (as a 2 year old) that she often took me home with her on her time off. My mom bought a lot of furniture in Japan, so an Asian living room is very "homey" to me.

Grew up in Columbus Ohio, where I thought that a 30 thousand dollar house would take my parents one year to pay off, since my step-father made 30 thousand dollars a year!

Now living in Southern California, where I was blessed to meet my husband.

Now it's my turn to tag a few a few of my favorite bloggers...how about

Marty52

Nellie

Lauri

Pat Winter

Sara

Stepping Stones Quilt

2008-06-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a quilt I made some time ago that hangs in my living room on a stick of bamboo. I really had a good time picking out all the Asian fabrics for this. It is one of only two sane quilts I've ever made - My background is not quilting, it is embroidery. This quilt is a Kitty Pippin design. The directions called for paper piecing, which I didn't do. I thought paper piecing was for accuracy, but since none of these pieces even touched each other, I didn't think accuracy was an issue. I ended up cutting out the shapes in cardboard, gathering the fabric around the cardboard and pressing. Once I removed the cardboard and pressed again, I had the stepping stone shapes. Like most people, when you don't know the rules, you make them up!

I haven't had time to finish May's TIF or start June's - I'm getting ready for my daughter's graduation and a steady stream of relatives arriving soon. It's funny how when you start looking at your home through the eyes of another, you notice all the things you put up with and never fixed...that blind that doesn't quite work, that spot on the carpet, etc. My daughter is valedictorian (yay!) and so this graduation is a big deal. Her picture was in the paper and life's been busy busy busy. So I don't quite know when I'll fit in some stitching. Hope life's not so busy for the rest of you .....
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Designing

2008-05-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

A button for you to enjoy!

Well, my progress on the May TIF has been impacted by teenagers! Last night was Academic Awards, tonight was the High School Band's spring concert and tomorrow night is the senior prom. So I have been making alterations to "the dress" for prom, instead of doing embroidery.

I don't do reality well. (Wouldn't that be a great thing to say to someone when they're busy pointing out your flaws?....Well, yes, officer, I was speeding a little, but you see, I don't do reality well.)

Anyway, when I was thinking about the May TIF and its design, I realized I just don't do realistic that well. Since some representation of "me" was going to be part of the design, I didn't really want to put a real image of me there. And when I've worked on other designs, I've felt the same way. As some of you know, I work part-time at Borders Books. Most of my time there is spent in the Children's section. Every Wednesday night I do Storytime, where I read 5 or 6 books to a small group of kids. Children's books have such whimsy, such silliness, and can evoke such a mood. I want my designs to do the same. I'm certainly no impressionist. Maybe it's the fairy tales I gobbled up in my childhood, but I find I want mermaids, fairies, a man in the moon, animal kings, mysterious things...

I was looking at a how-to book on drawing, and it struck me that I don't want to know how to draw something I'm looking at, I want to know how to draw what's in my head. Of course, that's somewhat nebulous at times....I've tried to think of making a design that represents some momentous thing in my life and it's so difficult. One thing is that momentous things are not always pleasant - a death in the family, menopause, abuse, loss - will I really want to look at a design that reminds me of these things? I like my finished product to be pleasing to look at.... is that a shortcoming? I think it's easier for me to think of representing a moment in time, and probably a fantasy moment, at that.

How do YOU design? I'm curious about the thought process that people go through to come up with a design. Do you have thoughts to share?

Keep on stitchin',
~Lin Moon

Work on May TIF

2008-05-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my May TIF. I needle felted the background and have been working on the face and bodice. I traced the design onto woven iron-on interfacing and ironed that onto the back. I always like to have the design on the back so that I never have to worry about covering up lines on the front, and so I can make changes as I go, if I want. It's challenging to embroider on felt - there are so many fuzzies! Purple is my favorite color, so of course the dress is purple. Still have to embroider the arms & shoes and the needle I'm riding on! I'm hoping to have the skirt be made of fabric, tacked down in places to be sort of 3D. I started on the needle, but the silver thread I used seems to expand - the needle is twice as thick on the front as it is drawn on the back. I guess I will try another thread. I padded the sleeve that is closest to the viewer, but the purple is so dark I'm not sure you can tell. I'm really having fun with this!
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

May TIF beginnings

2008-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

I've been fooling around with various ideas for the May Take it Further Challenge - in a nutshell, how you see yourself. Here I am on a needle - I feel like stitching is a wild ride; I fly with excitement, there are ups and downs and it's a magical journey. Haven't quite figured out what kind of background I'd like to have, have to work on that a little more.
Hmmm, I've been spending lots of time out in the garden - my journey will just HAVE to include flowers!
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Roving Info

2008-05-08T23:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't have a very big back yard and the climbing rose has taken over!

I recently began playing with needle felting. I was fortunate enough to buy needles, a pad, and a few colors of roving at a quilting and craft show. But when it came time to get more supplies and I went searching the Internet, I came upon many terms I did not understand, so as promised, here is my attempt at an explanation of terms. I’m sure there is much more I don’t know, but these are the terms I came across most often….

Roving
Roving is wool that has been sheared from the sheep, washed and carded into long lengths. It’s not just unspun fiber. Since there are many different types of sheep, there are many types of wool roving. Wool from a single sheep can vary, as well. A young sheep will have softer wool than an older sheep. Roving doesn’t have to be wool; there is roving made from corn, silk, bamboo and alpaca. Other fibers include cashmere, camel, angora (rabbit or goat), llama, yak, and mohair (goat). Roving can be spun into yarn, woven or used for needle felting, among other uses. Roving can be sold by the ounce, the pound, grams or a bump. (One ounce is about 28 grams. A bump of carded roving can vary in its weight.) Prices range quite a bit, depending on the fleece type, how it is processed, whether it is mixed with other fibers, whether and how it is dyed and how fine the fiber is.

Raw fleece may have vegetable matter (vm) in it, as well as dirt, grass and insects, which is why the first step in processing wool is cleaning it. Roving may have a small amount of vm in it, but once it’s been cleaned, you shouldn’t encounter much in your fiber. Wool is combed with paddles that look like square ping-pong paddles – they are flat with small bristles sticking out of them. The fibers in roving lie in random directions. Wool and other fibers that have been cleaned and carded can be found for sale in the form of roving, top, batt, and locks. Some roving is comprised of mixed fibers, such as a silk/merino blend or merino/tencel blend. (Tencel is made from the cellulose in wood pulp and is very soft) You can also find roving that has some synthetic sparkle mixed in. (Or make your own by adding Angelina fibers!)

Top is the same as roving except that it has uniform-length fibers and they have been combed to be parallel to each other. Top is of the highest quality.

Batts are like flat roving; the fibers lie in random directions but the shape of a batt is more like a piece of quilt batting. You can easily tear the batt into strips so it is like roving. Sometimes batts are called stuffing wool, and can be used for the inner core of 3D needle felting projects

Locks are soft and curly, and are shorn from different breeds of sheep.

About some fibers:

Merino is very soft, extra fine wool. It is so fine and soft, you could use it to make baby clothes or underwear.

Colonial wool roving comes from Corriedale sheep and makes an excellent felting wool. It is not as fine as Merino and not as coarse as Romney. It wouldn’t be recommended for baby clothes, but makes a fine vest or jacket.

Romney is more coarse than a fine fiber such as Merino. A coarser fiber is less likely to show holes (from needle felting), but is more rustic in appearance. This fiber is used more for rugs, or bags, than for wearables.

Alpaca: Alpaca fiber is stronger than wool. Alpaca is soft and hypoallergenic.

Felting

2008-04-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a pic of my latest needle felting (by hand). This is only the third project I've done and I'm really happy with it. I finally got some wool roving in lots of colors and shades, which makes it really fun! (My very first try was with just 6 basic colors and it was so simple it looked like a 5 year could have done it) I really like wispy-ness and blending the fibers. Also, once I did the flowers, they were shaded, but really flat, so I added more fiber to give them more dimension, which was a good idea.

I looked around on the net to check prices for wool roving. I figured I'd make backgrounds for embroidery or make postcards, at least at first, so I wanted lots of colors without breaking the bank and then having a lot to store (you do have to be careful about wool and bugs). So I ordered a bag of Penny Candy from Decadent Fibers. I got more than 35 little balls of roving. I especially like the ones that are shaded (see pic below), because then it's like you get 2 or 3 colors, all in the same little ball. I didn't really plan this design out that much, I just knew I wanted three flowers.

So if you'd like to try it, do! It's great fun.
Happy needling,
~Lin Moon

SRE Landscape

2008-04-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Well, this is what I've been working on. It is for Quilting Arts' "Go Green" challenge, to make a five inch quilted square using as many recycled materials as possible. Since I've made mostly crazy quilted squares, my knowledge about quilting is very limited. I know that you're supposed have about the same amount of quilting overall. My "batting" is the sleeve from a wool sweater that's been felted in the washer, which was kind of thick and hard to quilt through, but this was really a fun project!

Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

April TIF

2008-04-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my April TIF. I was just playing around with my new needle felting stuff and various yarns and some angelina. So, weirdly enough, the rose is the back of the felting. I think a felting machine is needed to successfully felt yarns from the front, but I liked the subtle shadings and fluffiness from the back. Since this was my first try, I didn't have very many colors of wool roving - certainly not several shades of a particular color, so I augmented it with yarn, etc. I really like the wispy quality of the leaf more so than the rose. Since I'm new to this felting stuff, I am compiling a Fact Sheet about the terms used in felting, etc. Look for it in the future. (FYI: Did you know that if you work with uncleaned fleece, you should have a tetanus shot?)

This month's TIF was about change. I had first intended to use the yesterday-today-and tomorrow as my motif of choice, but I like the rose as a metaphor for change. It seems that life is very much full of layers: layers of meaning, layers of inhibition, layers of learning, layers of comfort and layers of dependency. As you peel away the layers, sometimes the core is soft and sweet, like a rose. Sometimes the true you comes out as fears, inexperience and insecurities are peeled away. And sometimes when the petals are gone, it's time to regrow. (Or, you're just left with rose hips and it's time to diet! - sorry, I can never resist injecting a little humor...)

The next picture is a teaser - I am working on something I can't yet share...

And the last picture is my yesterday, today and tomorrow plant. When I open the patio door, the sweet fragrance of it is just so wonderful...and I love the purple - it's worth the extra care it needs....
Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

News and Notes

2008-04-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pix of the irises in my front yard. I just love spring - it's such a harbinger of hope. Buds preparing to burst into bloom, bulbs poking out of the dirt, so much to look forward to in the garden.

Quilting Arts magazine is one of my favorite magazines. I am sooo thrilled whenever it arrives in my mailbox. Did you know the editor of Quilting Arts has a blog? Maybe I'm the last one to know this, but it was news to me! Check it out here. There's even news there that isn't yet on their website.

I stumbled upon this collection of wonderful, quirky and whimsical felt creations. I love it when someone creates this type of thing that escapes being called "cute", but instead is arty. Check it out here.

Happy Stitching, and gardening too,
~Lin Moon

March TIF

2008-03-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my March TIF (noticing the little things), SharonB's Take it Further Challenge. I started out dying the fabric with the thought of stitching unfurling ferns on it, but when I walked away to let the dye dry and came back a few hours later, it looked like the center of a flower, so that's what it became!

And in the spirit of noticing the little things, here is a monarch butterfly still in its cocoon, soon to come out.

And now it's out, drying its folded wings (for several hours) before flying away. I planted some butterfly weed, just for this purpose. Orange isn't my favorite color, but I planted it so I could watch the striped caterpillars munching on it, their cocoons forming and the butterflies emerging. It is so fascinating to watch.

This guy always has this big ball of something with him.

ATCs from Europe

2008-03-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter and Happy Spring everyone!
Just thought I'd share a few photos of some flowers in my garden and some thoughts.

I've been sick for the last week or so, so haven't felt up to doing much of anything. However, I did muster the energy to sit in front of the computer when I couldn't sleep and watch a slide show of ATCs from Europe. I found this slide show so interesting, especially some of the captions on the ATCs. One that really made me think went something like..."just in the nick of time, I regained consciousness" or "angels tread here". One showed a woman in some angst because she couldn't think of something to make for dinner. (That I can relate to!) That is such an ordinary and everyday thing - it would never occur to me to make a piece of art (however small) about this. But this is life and what I know, so I shouldn't discount it...

It got me to thinking about inspirations, and ideas for creativity. Sometimes I get all wrapped up in the idea that a piece has to evoke some deep emotion or be symbolically important. So I give up because I can't think of anything important enough and inspiring enough that I will also enjoy the look of and enjoy creating. But with these ATCs, you could see how you could make 10 different ones, all with a one-word inspiration, like "red". "Red" could bring up thoughts of communism, roses, anger, an apple, pain, a sunset, tons of things! And that's a whole lot simpler an inspiration than something as general as, say "love". So I just need to keep it simple.....

You can look at the ATCs from Europe here and see what you think.

Quilt Craft Sewing show

2008-03-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to the Quilt, Craft and Sewing show in Pomona. I got to meet June (Grandma Ziki) and her friend Ingrid! It was so nice to meet other stitchers you only know online!

The show was fun, although I wish I had had more time to see it all that day. There were a couple of things I really wanted to get that were available there. One of them was a set up for felting(by hand). You can see it in the picture below.

I got a pad, a "felter" with 8 needles, some single needles and a selection of wool roving in several colors. I have seen all kinds of prices for wool roving, but felt this was a good deal, as each "knot" was $2.50 and if you bought 6, you got one free. Of course, once I decided to store them in a plastic box, I read that wool can degenerate if stored this way, and that it should be stored in a paper bag or cardboard box. So I brought it home and played. I got out a piece of white felt and tried felting different yarns, the roving, Angelina fibers, ribbon, etc. The best things to felt were the most fibrous items. After I played for awhile, I took a look at the back and actually liked it better than the front, so then I started felting things to appear on the back. The back is subtle and fuzzy and to me it looks like it might be a rose. We'll see what develops....
The Back

The Front

It's always exciting to try something new - I want to make some interesting backgrounds for hand embroidery.
Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Susan's Cyber Fyber ATC

2008-03-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

Whoops, I forgot to include a picture in my last post of the ATC I received in the mail from Susan Lenz. Here it is - I just love it! It has so many layers; I can see knitted portions, lace portions, netting, etc.
~Lin Moon

ATC for Cyber Fyber

2008-03-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

Here is my ATC for Susan Lenz's Cyber Fiber exhibition. I used some satiny fabric and dyed it using Dynaflo and Lumiere. I wanted a serene-looking face - I'm not sure it came out with that effect. I added a small "tassel" at the bottom that goes off to the left instead of hanging straight down - it gives it a sense of movement. I hope the asymmetetry of it doesn't make everyone want to "fix" it so it hangs down straight. This was fun and I wanted to work with some colors other than the pastels I like so much. Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

More Jewelry from Fabric

2008-03-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more of the fabric jewelry items I have made. The fan pin is wrapped with some eyelash yarn; the base of the fan is white leather painted with lumiere. When I go to make something that includes a few beads, I definitely have to choose the beads during the day time. I have a lot of different shades of pale green beads - some more like jade, some more turquoise, some more of a spring green. I'm wondering if I got one of those Ott lights that are supposed to be just like daylight, if I'd be able to choose beads with confidence at night. Anybody want to weigh in on this?

The ribbon bracelet "matches" the bird ribbon pin I blogged about a couple of posts ago. I just love this kind of ribbon with a woven pattern - I wanted to make a necklace, earrings, the whole nine yards with this beautiful stuff. The stores local to me don't sell too much of this, so it's harder to find nowadays...

Happy Stitching, everyone,
~Lin Moon

Fabric Postcard

2008-02-28T08:37:00.001-08:00

Here is a fabric postcard (my first, can you believe it?) I made to trade with Susan Lenz of Cyber Fyber. I still have to finish it around the edges. I layered thread snippets under tulle, then added small stitches across each color area with several colors and textures of thread. The flowers are made of rice paper. I colored the rice paper with Sharpie markers, ironed it, and cut it into small circles. The circles were about the size you would get with a hole punch, but I didn't want such regular shapes. I poked a hole in each circle and folded/scrunched it around the needle, then stitched it down with one stitch.

This is Susan's postcard, which I have received in the mail. Isn't it wonderful? I think there are a few ATCs left to trade on the Cyber Fyber site, if you'd like to have one of her ATCs and get yours exhibited.

What's this? When I had finished all the embroidery on my postcard except for the paper flowers, I wanted to make sure I would like the way the flowers were distributed along the greenery. I scanned a copy of my embroidery and stuck it inside a ziplock bag, then drew the flowers with the magenta Sharpie onto the plastic bag to see where I wanted them to go. When I was happy with the arrangement, I outlined the postcard edges onto the plastic, cut it away from the bag and placed it over my embroidery to guide me on my flower placement. I really like this method.

More Fabric Jewelry

2008-02-26T22:54:00.001-08:00

This is one of my pins - I think the bird is a Susan Clarke button that I glued onto a pearl button. I really like how it came out, with the twisted beads at the base.

The flower pin was inspired by the trim around the face - it is made of space-dyed strips of netting. The petals were made with snippets of threads over Angelina. Then I added some eyelash-type red yarn. It was fun!

Fabric Jewelry

2008-02-21T23:02:00.000-08:00

Well, the answer came back and none of my jewelry ideas were accepted for the Lark book. Oh, well, I really had fun with this and it has sparked more ideas, so we'll see how that goes. Pictured is an earring made from Angelina fibers. It needs a little more finessing to improve its finished look, I think. It's folded and I wanted to do some free style stitching on it, but ran out of time, so just embellished it with a ribbon flower. The shape is sort of like a lantern.

Here is a gathered ribbon bracelet I made. I used some great ceramic cherub buttons and did a little SRE on the gathers. I really like how it came out.

Since I work at Borders, I am constantly looking at new books in the craft area. So many books are now talking about heating, distorting, burning and melting, of various man-made materials, like lutrador, or polyester interfacing.... I've looked at these books, but often the pictures of the finished product is just ....interesting.... not arresting, not gorgeous. Am I strange in wanting something that's beautiful when I'm done with it? Obviously, CQ is quite beautiful when done and we spend countless hours on the creative stitch treatments. Also, how does this type of art express something in the artist when it's so unpredictable? I know this is the way of the future and I am a dissenting voice, but these are some of my thoughts....

~Lin Moon

February Busyness

2008-02-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

The saucer magnolia is a-blooming! All of a sudden it's covered with flowers. I guess it's time to trade the needle for the trowel, at least temporarily. I'm way behind on my weeding/gardening. Lately I've been busily working on fabric jewelry for a new Lark book that's coming out. I mean, I've sent in proposals for the book - don't know if any of my proposals will make it into the book, but....

It's funny how if there's a competition or call for entries, sometimes the premise or idea just leaves you cold and other times it just sparks a waterfall of ideas. Well, I love fabric and I love jewelry, so this idea just sparked a million more! Even if none of my ideas makes it into the book, I have had so much fun! And it's great to use that special fabric of which you only have the smallest scrap left. The deadline is past, so now I just wait to hear....

Sometimes when I look around my sewing room, it seems like such excess for me to have so much stuff! But wouldn't you know it, when I was working on fabric jewelry ideas, I didn't have exactly the right size of ribbon, or the right color of rat-tail, etc. So off I went to JoAnn's to buy more stuff. We used to have so many more places to buy fabric around here - there was a huge two-story fabric store that went out of business after there weren't enough people left in the family to run it - I used to teach ribbon embroidery there. Then there was TreadleArt, which had all kinds of quilting fabric, buttons, etc. that was so much fun to peruse. Fabric is probably the one thing I have too much off, but fabric stores sell so much more than just fabric. When I was a teenager and lived in Ohio, you could go to the big department stores in downtown Columbus and they had a notions department and fabric departments. Of course, my total favorite was a store called Lazarus, which had a cafe. Their specialty was hot apple pie with cinnamon ice cream - it was so delicious!
Well on that note, I will close. Will post pix when I can...

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

Books Books Books

2008-02-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

There are lots of new and upcoming books to look forward to! Did you know some books are already planned to be released in 2011? We're talking 3 years away! I was Googling about and came up with these:

(But of course, don't forget to check out Pat Winter's new CQ book on her blog.)

Crazy Quilts: History - Techniques - Embroidery Motifs by Cindy Brick & Nancy Kirk, Feb 2008

Floral Interpretations for Silk Ribbon by Helen Dafter, March 2008

Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts!: Woolly Embroidery: Crewelwork, Stumpwork, Canvas work and More, April 2008

Stumpwork Seasons by Kay & Michael Dennis, April 2008

M. Joan Lintault: Connecting Quilt, Arts & Textiles, April 2008

Crazy Quilting - The Complete Guide by J Marsha Michler, April 2008

Textiles of South-east Asia by Angela Thompson, April 2008

Masters:Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists, May 2008

Felted Bags, Boots & Other Things by Cendrine Armani, May 2008

Contemporary Quilt Art: An Introduction & Guide by Kathleen Lenkowsky, May 2008

Helen M. Steven's Embroidered Gardens, June 2008

Wild Women: Stitched Art Brooches by Sarah Lawrence, August 2008

Felt, Fabric & Fiber Jewelry by Sherri Haab, August 2008

Happy Booking,
Lin Moon

Organization

2008-01-24T21:46:00.000-08:00

Another button to share....
I was over at a friend's house and her husband has his own business. It's a T-shirt business with lots of different orders for colors, sizes, embroidery and different team names, etc. He has what I think is a great way to organize his orders. One wall is mirrored doors. He put up suction cups, with a clip on each one. Each clip holds a large plastic bag, big enough to hold regular 8 1/2 by 11 papers. The papers for each order hang in one of these bags.

My "sewing room" is a bedroom, and it's not very big. But it DOES have mirrored closet doors. I like to enter contests and competitions - it seems the deadlines and the ideas really motivate me to do some of my best work. I don't always have lots of time, so the deadlines are really important to have posted somewhere. Well, I borrowed his idea - I print the guidelines for whatever it is I'm entering, put them in a bag, write the deadline date in big red letters and tape it to the glass door. With just a glance I can see when something's due and if I need to include the thread or beads I used (for future reference), I can just toss those in the bag too. For some reason, if it's laying flat somewhere in that room, it just gets covered up with fabric, threads, beads or drawings - imagine that! Just thought I'd pass this along...

I'm currently working on some proposals to submit to a book and also want to do something for the pincushion competition, so there's not a lot to show so far....
Happy stitching,
Lin Moon

Books!

2008-01-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, I work part-time at Borders Books. It gives me a great chance to check out all the new books that come in, especially in the stitchery/jewelry section. I got a couple of new books, one for Christmas and one for my birthday(today! yay!). The first one is a book full of fabulous pictures, that I like to peruse when I need inspiration. It can spark ideas for beading, floral, nature, design, you name it! It is just full of large, gorgeous, detailed pictures of incredible jewelry. The second photo is of the back cover.

Then there's the doll book! I didn't even realize this book existed, except that I saw someone's blog mention it. It is full of dolls of all kinds! (duh) The thing I really like about it is that some pages have a detail shot of the doll along with the whole picture. Also, it's not just avant garde dolls, but also traditional and cloth dolls. Very inspiring!
Happy reading,
Lin Moon

Musings

2008-01-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share a pic of one of the Asian buttons I have...
I was at work the other night (Borders) and looked at a Canadian magazine: Needle Pulling Thread. I had never seen it before. There was an article about creativity - the author surmising that you recharge your creativity when you're not doing anything purposely creative, but just daydreaming. I thought this was an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's true. When I go looking around on the net at the various pix of the things people have created, I become very inspired. But then I suppose you could say the same thing about laying under a tree looking up at the clouds, I don't know...

I've been giving SharonB's TIF challenge some thought, also. When thinking about a person I admire, my first thought was my mother. Although she's been gone for about 15 years, I still remember so many things about her that I admired. She had what I always called "moxy". When she was a teenager, if she had a giant pimple on the end of her nose, she didn't care - she just wanted to go out and have fun. (I tended to want to go hide in a closet until it disappeared. If it took a month, well, ok...) But it's one of the things I really liked about her. Every time she visited, she would always try to tell me what to do, like how to drive, how I should wait on my husband (shudder), etc. I could just say, "Mom, I've been driving for 10 years now, I think I know how to do it by now." and she would just say OK, without any underlying guilt-making attitude, without getting her feelings hurt, etc. She always said what she thought, so that communication really went on, not just everyone hiding their feelings. That's one thing my friends say they like about me - that I am open and honest. The only thing is, that I feel I'm definitely lacking in diplomacy - it's hard to balance both.
Anyway, I've started stitching something for TIF, but it's just too small and is driving me crazy, so I'm going to restart on a larger scale so I can actually have some fun with it. Pix next time.
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Quilting Arts Door Challenge

2008-01-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas, I got back my piece I entered in Quilting Arts "Doorway to Imagination" challenge. With the busy holidays, I had forgotten all about it. I thought I'd share some pics now. I tried to think of how I would represent the doorway to my room where I do all my creating. I really enjoyed doing the beaded window, thinking of all the sparkle and glimmer that I like to put into my creations. There were certain rules - the door I chose to represent had a window and lines down the front of it. I wasn't crazy about those lines, wanting the door to have more of a crazy quilt effect, so I did the lines in clear beads and sequins. I loved the idea of the stars coming out of the doorway and really liked putting those in on either side. Sort of like the ideas flowing out of there, when they're flowing that is, and not being stubborn! The whole piece has sort of a pink tinge, since I dyed some cheesecloth and put it under the satin for a little texture and color. The picture seems extra pink, though. Is anyone else out there doing a challenge? I'm interested in the Pincushion Challenge by Piecework magazine...

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (twelve)

2007-12-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

This elf was my girlfriend's design and is very cute. The body and legs are candy-cane pipe cleaners; he has a felt hat and some ribbon suspenders. The pants are cotton fabric - she just cut each one to fit and they are glued in the back. A little dot of white fabric paint at the base of the suspenders looks like buttons. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas everyone!

~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (eleven)

2007-12-21T18:00:00.001-08:00

Here's a Christmas gingerbread man. Some puffy fabric paint for frosting, buttons, a red felt backing and a bow does it! Enjoy!
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (ten)

2007-12-20T01:22:00.001-08:00

I think these were made right before our church boutique, since there's no sewing on them at all; I think I was running out of time. The three different colors/sizes of scottie dogs were glued together, with the ribbon hanger sandwiched between layers. A dot of fabric paint makes the eye and some cute ribbon for the bow.
I've been following the conversation about slow cloth on SharonB's inaminuteago. These would definitely not fall into the slow cloth category. But that's what happens when you have to make 100 ornaments that are simple enough that non-stitchers can help make...
Happy Ornamenting,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (nine)

2007-12-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

This is another relatively easy one. Each piece of wire begins at the endpoint of one of the six sections, goes down toward the center to form the left side of that section, goes thru the clear bead in the center, then goes back out to form the right side of the next section. The wire loops around the clear bead at the end of each section and then is wrapped around a knitting needle to make it curly. This one was made a few years ago, so I hope I got the directions generally correct.

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (eight)

2007-12-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

This mitten is cute and easy. The stem is stitched using floss and silk ribbon embroidery makes up the leaves and berries. I sewed the cuff on by machine, then buttonhole-stitched the whole thing together, and added a ribbon hanger. Viola! Another cute ornament.

Happy Ornamenting,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (seven)

2007-12-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

This one is super-easy. I put a loop in one end of the wire, wrapped it around a cone shape and then added beads and a star for the top. The colors really make it. I did this as a kid's craft at church and some of the kids made red, white and blue trees, some made all red and white striped, etc. I really liked the gold and white.
Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

Christmas Goodies

2007-12-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that I always have a Christmas party for my women friends every year. I like to give out my version of a "goody bag", which is something I have made for everyone. This year it is doll head ornaments, with hats! The hats were really fun to make, mixing the trims, buttons and feathers.
I started out thinking I'd embroider the faces, but then ended up using stretch cotton for the faces, so that didn't end up happening.... It's funny how your original idea for something morphs and changes into something totally different!

~Lin Moon

New Challenge from SharonB!

2007-12-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

There's a new challenge to look forward to! SharonB, of "Take A Stitch Tuesday" fame, has a new one for us for 2008. It's open-ended with just the right amount of structure and sounds fun! Check out her blog, inaminuteago.

Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (six)

2007-12-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

It's ornament number six - Santa's Coat! This is made from sparkly(sp?) red felt. I sewed the side seams on the machine and finished off the sleeves with buttonhole stitch. Black felt was used for the belt and some shiny gold fabric was interfaced to make it stiffer, then cut out for the belt buckle. I sewed the back sequin on at the top and basted the fur trim on at the bottom of the coat. (You have to be careful when cutting the trim that you just cut the backing, not the fur.) I bent some red wire into a hanger shape and hot glued the coat front to the back at the bottom of the ornament. Viola! A cute ornament! I wished I had put some sort of bead on the hanger, to decorate it at the top.
Happy Ornamenting...
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (five)

2007-12-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

I like this angel because it's a great showcase for gorgeous lace. Her body is just a tag, painted gold and then covered with lace. Her head is a wooden disk, painted with acrylics. (I probably have made her face a little more creative if I'd only been making one for myself or a friend, instead of 12 for a boutique) The wings are cardboard, painted gold. Pearly beads were strung on gold wire and then wrapped randomly around her wings. A small charm was glued under her chin. I once saw an angel in a magazine whose wings were made of strong wire. Beads on thin wire were then wrapped around the wings similar to these. But because the wings were empty inside, they came out looking very airy and ephemeral.

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (four)

2007-12-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

Here is another ornament that I made for our Boutique. It started with a piece of cardboard, covered with Christmas fabric. A felt door, window and chimney were added, along with rick rack and other trim (all glued). The back was covered with felt for a clean finish. The fun thing about the house ornaments we made is that we put a sticker on the back of each one that said things like, "2 bedroom, 2 bath. Remodeled kitchen." or "3 bedroom, 2 bath. All new copper pipes." For some reason, this really cracked me up.

12 Days of Ornaments(three)

2007-12-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of heart ornaments. They are made from felt, and I think the red felt is the stiffened kind. I really like the candy cane striped curly-queues(sp?). I had lots of those ceramic buttons (Mill Hill, I think) and wanted to use them in some way. There's no sewing on this one. I had to come up with some ornaments others could help make, and most of those "others" don't sew. The white dots are fabric paint - very easy!

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (two)

2007-12-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

Another ornament(#2):
This is a simple wreath made from a cardboard base. I glued a donut shaped piece of white felt to the front, in case it showed through the fiber. The fiber is called "no wire chenille" and is from the Craft section of Michael's. Once the chenille fiber is wrapped around and a hanging loop is added, it's time to add the beads. I used white bead thread, so the thread would sink into the chenille and not show too much. In this case, I really liked the reversible ribbon I had for the bow, so I used bead colors that would coordinate with the ribbon. The beads are strung on the thread and the thread is wrapped around the wreath. The beads are "floater"; they can slide on the thread. Then the bow is added.

The chenille fiber comes in all sorts of colors, so you can do more traditional Christmas colors. You can get some really pretty effects using all gold and white, or all blue and silver. Hope you enoy it....

Happy Ornamenting...

~Lin Moon