ATCs from Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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