Life Is Short

Posted on July 4, 2014 by ruthlane under intentions

I was reminded this week how short and unexpected life can be. One of my friends died on Monday. She was only 60 years old, very active and was in good health as far as anyone knew. It was a real shock to all of us. It made me realize how important it is to not take anything for granted. Then on the forum recently, one of our members started a thread about how she didn’t have enough time to do any needle felting due to obligations and life in general. This got me thinking about how important it is to follow your passion. Each of us has certain talents and passions and I think it’s important to create from that unique perspective. Only you can create your own particular vision and if you don’t do that, then it will be lost to the world.

Last year, I issued a challenge to create something every day and even if you only had 5 minutes during the day, to use that 5 minutes to follow your passion. It doesn’t really matter what that passion is or if you’re even that good at what you’re creating. It’s important to spend that few moments doing what you most like to do. All of us have obligations and many times life gets in the way but I’m sure if you turned off the TV, the computer and all the other electronic gadgets in your life, you would find that you have more time than you think. I was following this practice last year, but somehow, I have gotten back into bad habits and I haven’t been as successful with creating every day this year. I don’t know about you, but when I’m not in the studio for a while, I get grumpy and discouraged. For those of you with a family and children, many times you feel overwhelmed and unable to take any time for yourself. Which do you think is better for your children, a grumpy, stressed out parent? Or one who is taking time to fulfill their dreams and passions?

So I am writing this post to rededicate myself to following my dreams, spending less time with electronics, more time with family and friends and creating art every day even if only for five minutes. I am grateful for all that I have in my life. Even when I am really busy I need to remember that life is unpredictable and that every day is a blessing. Today, I am going to celebrate the 4th of July at the lake with my family and friends. We will be remembering our friend, celebrating her life and the good times that we all enjoyed. I hope that you are well and that you make the time to follow your passions. Thanks for stopping by!

Mariposa Lily

Posted on June 27, 2014 by ruthlane under Sketching

I had planned on posting quite a few photos of Montana wildflowers but my internet connection isn’t working well. But I managed to upload 2 photos. My sister has been visiting and she wanted to find as many different Montana wildflowers and take photos of them. So we have been searching all week for different wildflowers. I haven’t created much this week but I did manage one sketch.

This is a Mariposa Lily. They are scattered throughout the woods and I actually see many of these each morning when I walk the dogs.

I hadn’t really looked at these flowers closely before and it was fun to do a sketch and then add some water color pencils. I always see things in much more detail when I’m sketching and it’s nice to slow down and look closely. Have a great weekend!

Zippered Felt Pouches

Posted on June 20, 2014 by ruthlane under machine stitching

My surface design group did some clamp dyed felt last week that I wrote about on the Felting and Fiber Studio recently. I decided to make some zippered pouches out of the felt. The only problem was that I have never sewn in a zipper before. I do a lot of sewing but it’s mainly free motion embroidery instead of sewing clothing or functional items. Luckily, there are tons of videos on YouTube that show how to make a zippered pouch.

So I bought a bunch of 7-9″ zippers and started sewing. This first one would work well for a make up bag as it’s about 7-8″ long.

Here’s the other side of the bag.

And the bags are fully lined. I used some of my screen printed fabric for lining.

I am planning on making a bunch of these and selling them at the store.

Then I made a smaller coin purse size.

Here’s the other side of this one.

And the lining is more of my screen printed and then over dyed fabric. These don’t take too long to put together and I think the zippers look OK so more to come!

Final Mixed Media Painting

Posted on June 13, 2014 by ruthlane under mixed media

I finally finished the last mixed media painting. I changed course a bit in the middle as I was planning on adding orange lichen to this piece. But I just couldn’t get it to look like I wanted. I had a few left over leaves from Ice Flowers and liked how they looked.

And I liked how they looked. So I made more as well as machine stitched cord and then glued it all down.

I really like how it brings out the look of bark.

I glued the “bark” down to a painted wooden canvas.

And the leaves are all three-dimensional. I think it would look a bit better if the leaves had more variety of green. But it works. Hope you have a good weekend and thanks for stopping by 🙂

Making Stencils

Posted on June 6, 2014 by ruthlane under surface design

I decided I needed a few different stencils to use with paper fabric lamination. I remembered that I had made a couple of voided shape designs in my Level 2 Stitch class that would be easy to convert to a stencil.