Yipee! I finished the 40 flags for the Toward 2050 project I talked about in this post. The deadline for these flags is December, but I decided to get this deadline off my plate. Here are all 40. These were the first 20 I showed you earlier. I had thought I’d piece the next set but decided against it. Here they are. These were a couple of my favorites using fabric in my stash that I had previously dyed and printed. Of course, I love using my leaves. Here I show you how the flags are actually two flags. And here is what they will look like on one side once they are hung. So I only had to ..read more

Dave has been creating a lot of beautiful things with wood. Two of my favorites projects are the toilet paper holders. Here is the one for the small bath. Peeking inside. However, this post is about repurposed toilet paper holders. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a shot of them before I repurposed them but you’ll be able to recognize them. I’ve been thinking about garden art quite a bit these last several months. I started following The Empress of Dirt, specifically about her posts about garden art. Here is one on art flowers. I’m still not ready to drill plates, and the plates on my bird baths ..read more

Back in early 2011 I created the popular dyeing technique I called Ice Dyeing. It came about because at the time I was writing a column for the local paper on area artists and crafters. The artist I interviewed was talking about snow dyeing. Since we don’t get a lot of snow in this area, she used a snow cone maker machine. I loved her fabric and once it snowed I tried it and loved it, but that was the end of snow and I really didn’t want to buy a machine. Since she made the snow from ice cubes, I thought why not just use ice cubes, and forget about the machine. And that is when ice dyeing was ..read more

Every Spring Dharma Trading sells what they call muck dyes. They are made in limited quantities and can’t be reproduced. They are CHEAP! For these I paid between $4.50 and $6 for 8 oz. Usually these fiber reactive dyes run, depending on color, between $1.95 and $5.75 for 2 oz! The down side is if you fall in love with a color, what you bought is all you get! And they sell out fast.This year I ordered all six of the colors, and they are absolutely stunning! From left to right are Stonehenge, Sun of A Peach, Spanish Lavender, I’m Lichen This!, Himalayan Salt, and Be More Pacific! Love their cut ..read more

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. It’s been busy around here including lots of gardening and of course, the iris parade. This year only 35 showed up compared to last year’s 41. We added eight new irises from Breck’s, but only two bloomed. But that’s okay. it still was a nice showing. So here they are. If you are interested in the name, put your cursor over the picture ..read more

I have several art quilts that I have entered in shows that are sitting in the closet. I needed that space, but also thought it would be nice to be able to see them. They all have sleeves. I researched how to hang them and decided on this solution. I bought some dowels. They were a bit long so Dave cut them down for me. He added those screw eyes on the ends. So here is how they look on the pieces. Usually the sleeves are one piece, but this particular show required them to be two pieces. The screw eyes hang just out of the sleeve and behind the quilt. Then I hammered two nails that the screw ..read more

A friend of mine lost her husband awhile back. Rick loved wearing flannel shirts so I told her I’d be happy to make her family pillows with his shirts. It took her awhile, but recently she gave me his favorite shirt to make her a special pillow. Like other “precious” fabric, his favorite flannel shirt sat on my shelf for several weeks until I got up the courage to cut into it! I started by cutting off the sleeves. Now I could pretend that it was just a piece of fabric, not his favorite shirt! Since I was making this into a 16-inch pillow, I cut the shirt into a 17-inch square. I’ve cut both ..read more

Last summer I had so much fun printing with daisies. I finally got around to framing a piece which will hang in our newly renovated bathroom. To see how I printed these daisies check out this tutorial. In that link you will see my YouTube video on how to print with daisies. After printing on white fabric, I add stabilizer, and then sew around before I cut them out and add to my project. Next I needed to find a fabric for the background. I have lots of my dyed fabric, so I decided on this one. I used variegated thread to sew straight lines. I added several of the daisies to the background pi ..read more

I really like making appliques or embellishments to add to my art, especially cards. In the past, I’ve made them from photos and clipart you can see here. I’ve also made them from rubber stamped images here. Of course, I’ve made them from leaf prints here. But not from stencils until now! I am making these to add to those 40 flags I’m making for Project 2050. I started by stenciling on fabric what I thought would make a good applique. I allow for plenty of space between images making the sewing easier. Once the fabric was dry, I ironed it to heat set the paint. Then I ironed on the Woven Fu ..read more

While we’re on vacation we love checking out the local art at art fairs and farmers’ markets. Today I wanted to share a couple of the places we enjoyed on our recent trip to Hawaii. What a surprise when I found out that we’d be in Kona during the Kona Art Crawl. Of course, this was no surprise to Dave; he had planned it that way!! We always try to catch art fairs when we travel, and this is one of our favorites. The last time we were here several years ago it was so hot. This day the weather was perfect. In addition to all of the art, you could hear music up and down the street. We enjoye ..read more