Look what Val sent me – a lovely piece of paper that she embellished with scrim and lace and painted, silk cocoons, silk rods and a beautiful card. Thanks Val! This was a swap where I sent her a UFO of mine that she liked (plus some silk and wool that I dyed). I think I got the better end of the deal!

Here’s a close up of the paper.

And another.

Here’s a padfolio that I made for a donation for a group I belong to. It will be in a silent auction. The free tutorial for this is at Fibre and Stitch.

Here’s the back.

And the inside.

On to February TIFC. I decided that what I remembered was the 60’s in general and I wanted to do something to represent that. So I drew “tie dye” in my workbook.

And then I found this photo on the web with overlapping circles in a variety of colors. So I thought that I could do that with peace signs on sheers. That way they could overlap, with varying amounts of stitch but you could still be able to see through to the tie dye base. Perhaps a bit cliche but I don’t think the peace signs will be too evident once I’ve got them all on there.

So today, I tie dyed a piece of habatoi silk. The reason I used silk is because I only have acid dyes which don’t work on cotton. I did two pieces but the other piece was a flop with too much white. But I’ll use that for something else I’m sure.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon stamping sheers with a gradation of sizes of peace signs in different colors.

Then 5 different ones done with monoprinting and a paper mask for the peace sign. These will be on the top of all the other layered sheers. So now on to arranging the sheers, sewing them on, deciding if I’ll burn some back or not. Very different sort of piece for me and nothing I would have considered without the challenge. I’m interested to see how it will come out. Next week, I’m off to Richmond, VA and Philadelphia, PA. It’s a buying trip for the store. I’m going to hopefully get together with Vicki while I’m in Richmond. So I probably won’t be posting next week.

I used this random sequence generator to draw names for my one year of blogging drawing. The numbers drawn were 7, 6 and 4. So the commenters who won a piece of my work are:

Purple Missus – 7
Sequana – 6
Guzziesue – 4

Congratulations and send me your snail mail addresses. I’ve got an idea for what I’m going to do but haven’t started yet. You’ll be receiving something soon.

Here’s what I did this weekend. (Missed out on the Super Bowl) I finished the back of “Passion and Grace”.

This is the back – I made a sleeve for hanging and a label with the explanation of what the piece means.

Here’s a closeup of the label – a little fuzzy – sorry.

I dyed some wool roving and also some silk.

Here’s a closeup of the silk. The wool on the right is supposed to be “ecru”. I thought it would be more tan but it seems quite grey to me.

I made some paper cloth with Spectra bleeding tissue I had left over from a class last year. I added some Dye-na-flow paint as well. This is after it dried.

Here’s the back side which I liked better than the front side.

Then I used it to make a cover for my workbook – covered up that awful “sketch” word.

Here’s the back. I was going to add more embellishments but then decided they might just get in the way and I liked it plain.

Then I started on the February TIF challenge. What am I old enough to remember? So I came up with a list including tie dye, bell bottoms, hula hoops, peace symbols, hippies, flower power, 3 channels on the TV with NO remote, lip synching “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in second grade while I pretended to play the guitar, Troll dolls, watching Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans on TV, penny loafers, the moon landing and as you’ve guessed by now, generally the sixties.

I used to draw those “brain” drawings on all my notebooks. I would spend hours doing them. So I’m going to do a piece based on the sixties. I want to try some painting techniques this time around. I also started a padfolio that I’m donating to an auction for a local group I’m involved with. Photos of the padfolio soon. So that was a weekend’s worth of work. Tried to post this yesterday with no luck so here it is a day late.

I was going to post a bunch of photos but blogger is not cooperating. So I’ll try tomorrow. Thanks so much for all your kind comments about Passion and Grace. I did finish the backing but photos will have to wait I guess. Don’t forget to comment on my One Year of Blogging post so you can be included in the drawing for a piece of my work. More later…