Quilting Arts Magazine

And just in case you missed the image on my home page, here is the cover of the June/July issue of Quilting Arts magazine with my "Marbling on Wool" article. Lots of great stuff in this publication!

"Marbling on Wool" projects

I'm so thrilled and honored to have an article in the new June/July issue of Quilting Arts magazine! I had such a great time playing with the technique of "Marbling on Wool", and was so excited to be able to share my passion and discoveries with others. Not only are the possibilities limitless with the Tsukineko inks on wools, but there are so many types of projects this fun technique can be used for. The magazine showcased the steps for marbling so clearly from the photos I sent, they really made it easy for anyone to understand exactly what to do I think. I thought you might like to see some of the projects I made using the marbled wool too, so here are a few.

 This marbled background panel was the result of placing wool in the leftover shaving cream that still had some ink left but after the first wool fabric had been marbled, thus the blurred effect. The bird silhouette I cut out from black Woolfelt and fused on top of the marbled wool, which I layered over a larger black Woolfelt rectangle and sewed onto a tote bag.

 I added rectangles of marbled wool to this Woolfelt rotary cutter holder and also the cover for this photo book. I also used the same technique to add color to the sari silk tie and pearl cotton I used to embellish the photo album, which I also added a bit of stenciling to.

 This swirly technique is shown in the magazine, and this is exactly the piece I marbled with the ink pattern that is illustrated in the article. I then stitched it onto a chartreuse Woolfelt rectangle, which was hand-sewn to a denim tote bag.

I love this piece! I cut out 3" circles from all my experiments with marbling wool, and blind-stitched them onto a long black Woolfelt table runner. They reminded me of miniature china plates! I plan to hang this vertically on a narrow strip of wall in my hallway. I hope you enjoy experimenting with your marbled wool!

Carolina Fiber Festival 2017

I was thrilled to be invited to teach at this year's Carolina Fiber Festival! They had the show in a new venue this year, and I was so blessed to have a big sunny classroom that overlooked the entire show floor of wonderful fiber and yarn vendors. And my students were phenomenal! They made beautiful nuno-felted scarves of hand-dyed silk chiffon bases, hand-dyed merino wool fibers, novelty fibers and wool nepps. One daring student even tried her hand at cutting her scarf in a special way, the results were so striking! And our felted mini-bag class was so much fun too, nice and cozy, with beautiful results. All in all a wonderful, special weekend.

Silk chiffon scarves I hand-dyed for the class - before adding fibers and felting. The students get to choose their own scarves, fibers and other goodies to add for embellishment.

 So lovely, this student kept her artsy layout minimal, thus showcasing the beautiful colors of the hand-dyed silk chiffon underneath as well.

Beautiful creations! I love how this one turned out, a new technique Ileana tried - it worked!

Wool Beads Classes

I'm looking forward to sharing my love of wet-felting this weekend at NC Quilt Symposium! I ran across some images of some of my students from last fall, we had such a good time creating wool bead jewelry from wool fibers and beads. Most of these gals had never felted before, and they did a magnificent job! Some of these special girls I met through a friend who teaches them sewing, a small group of talented young ladies

 Lovely young ladies sharing their beautiful creations!

 Wool bead earrings and necklace set I designed for a beading magazine.

 Lots of color choices for our wool bead earrings class!

. Another ethnic group of wonderful ladies I met and taught through Sawtooth School of Visual Art. I was honored to share a skill with these beautiful moms that they could use in a fund-raiser to help them get health care. They made several wool bead necklaces, one of which they got to keep, and they also made some to sell to help them in taking care of themselves. It was a fun class; most didn't speak English, but we had an interpreter, and I got to dust off my Spanish speaking skills too! As a teacher, I always learn something from my students, and I definitely learned from both of these wonderful groups.

 Beautiful leader of the group and my interpretor, they were awesome!