"Art Tarts" Mask Class

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to enlist the help of the awesome "Art Tarts" art quilt group on Concord, NC for  a special project - fun accessories for my upcoming fashion show! I had seen images of beautiful Venetian masks, very elaborate creations, and I guess they do a parade every year in Venice complete with costumes and masks celebrating their history. As my upcoming fashion show for the PA National Quilt extravaganza at the Oaks is pretty close to Halloween (Sept. 14), I thought it would be fun to include some whimsical masks in our lineup of accessories. But - I knew I would never have time to make them all, I'm showing 20+ ensembles at this show as well as teaching and vending. I immediately thought of the "Art Tarts" art quilt group. I've known this great group of gals for years, and they are not only nice but super-talented, artistic, and fun! So I contacted them and we did a little "bartering", and they agreed to give me a hand, woo-hoo! Here are the results and I couldn't be more pleased. I hope the audience in PA enjoys seeing these funky creations as much as we had making them!

 Carolyn checking her trim out for size and color, love that green!

 Barbara choosing her embellishments from my "embellishment buffet" of goodies I brought.

 Pat chose the perfect ensemble to coordinate with her artsy mask, lots of color!

 Beautiful! The mask at top is perfect for "City Lights", inspired by 1920's Chaplin movies.

 Gorgeous!

 Love these!

 The beautiful white collection for the prairie aprons, and some gorgeous gold ones.

Love! 

Some of the fabulous Art Tarts group! (Not all, some had to leave early.) And they have other talents too - here are a few of the beautiful nuno-felted scarves from our class last month, wow! They did an awesome job. Huge thanks to this talented group of gals for all their artsy help!

Silk Scarf Dyeing at Sawtooth!

We've had some incredible art coming out of our recent silk scarf-dyeing classes at Sawtooth School of Visual Art lately, and I am so very proud of all my students! They continue to raise the bar of stretching their artistic talents in experimenting with color and pattern, and we have such a good time too. Here are just a few of the beautiful scarves that have been created in the last few weeks, enjoy!

 Beautiful scarves drying gently in the breeze.

 My youngest student in this class named this the "scarf ball", I like it!

 I love the pretty pastels in this young girl's scarf!

 Above and below, the stunning results from the "scarf ball"!

Beautiful oceanic blues and greens, and her patterns resembled jellyfish!

 Gorgeous one-color dyeing with beautiful patterns!

 This one was just incredible! And used up lots of bits and bobs of dyes.

 Love these cool hues of soft teal, lavender and rose.

 Gorgeous one-colored richly colored scarves.

 Above and below, a husband's stunning creation, celebrating anniversary with his wife!

 This work of art reminded me of a an eco-dyed dragon face!

 Beautiful soft blues like a cool indigo.

 Gorgeous pumpkin shades for fall.

According to the artist, channeling the Grateful Dead!

This lovely lady was going for soft autumn pastels, I think she achieved it beautifully!

Marbling & stenciling on wool

We had an awesome group of wool-lovers for our Friday evening class last weekend! Most people who love wool are familiar with folk-art and primitive designs, and working their magic with beautiful stitchery and hand-dyed threads. But we tried something a little different this time - marbling and stenciling on wool with water-based inks! The technique is similar to surface design on cotton fabric, but the wool adds a softness to the finished look. We also dyed pearl cotton with the same inks as well as sari silk ribbon, so each student had not only several artsy pieces of wool to use in their projects, but perfectly matching embellishments as well! And to add a special touch, we stenciled some of the marbled sections with the same inks. The girls had a good time playing with color, and got to stretch their creative skills outside of their comfort zone a bit, they really made some beautiful pieces! Here are just a few. This is the same technique I used in my "Marbling on Wool" article in the June/July 2017 issue of Quilting Arts magazine, we did add the stenciling.

 A beautifully marbled and stenciled piece, and the blue Woolfelt background will be the perfect touch!

 The red just pops on the wool here, and this artist added just the right amount of black to punch it up!

 Love this citrus-y shade of lime green, beautiful marbling also.

 This piece has such happy colors and is a great size to make a nice big project!

 Love these colorful little mini-works of art!

 These complementary colors are some of my favorites, and they played so interesting together here!

Gorgeous piece of work with the stenciled flowers, and the mulberry Woolfelt background adds the perfect enhancement!

Nuno-felting in Washington!

We had such a great time nuno-felting scarves last weekend! We had a beautiful venue, a wonderful farm in the country with lots of nature and sunshine all around. The girls chose their base, a hand-dyed silk chiffon scarf, and then cherry-picked their own embellishments to felt: hand-dyed merino wool fibers, sparkly Angelina fibers, lustrous bamboo, textural curly mohair, funky wool nepps. As they added their own personal touch, each scarf turned out unique and absolutely gorgeous! Here are a few pics from our class, they really don't do these works of art justice.

 Debby's sweet husband prepared this awesome lunch for us: veggies from their garden, fried chicken with a delicious sweet/savory sauce, homemade bread, and Kathy made 2 cakes for dessert - yum!

 Happy group taking a break from their artistic designs, this was such a nice classroom!

Beautiful finished scarves drying in the breeze on the garden gate. What a great time we had, I'm looking forward to going back and getting creative with these gals again this fall!

Felted Mini-bags

I was browsing through some older posts on Facebook, and I ran across these pictures of some of my students' amazing wet-felted works of art! The class was the Wet-felted Mini-bag, and students learned how to felt using a resist as well as how to apply different embellishments such as silk fibers, bamboo, Angelina fibers, wool nepps, curly mohair, and metallic mesh. They created beautiful small shoulder bags, just the right size for a quick trip to the store or walking around the quilt show! We had a great time felting too; here are just a few of the gorgeous bags they made that day.

 This first bag was actually created by a student at Carolina Fiber Festival this year, she felted a fireweed design on her purse front to represent her company, Fireweed Designs. In this image the wool fibers are still wet, but the design was just breathtaking even then.

 This was an abstract representation of a branch with blossoms 'n berries, just beautiful.

 I love how these pink posies pop on this citrus-y shade of chartreuse, lovely!

 This was a gorgeous painterly design this artist created from a photograph, I love the added dimension of the lines she added to the edges of the flower!

 Beautiful pansies created by this artist, and the wool nepps added just the right touch!

These were my inspiration pieces for the students with 2 handle options; a felted ropey strap with felted leaves, or a purchased silky cording.

Wet-felted Flower Class at Sawtooth

We had a fantastic time wet-felting wooly flowers at the Sawtooth School of Visual Art last weekend! The students had never felted before, and they did an amazing job creating these gorgeous works of art. Here are a few pics of the lovely wooly blossoms they created.

 I love the silk and wool accents this awesome artist showcased in her beautiful flower brooch!

Gorgeous colors and wool beads used in these gorgeous beauties, and their stitching was awesome!