Author Archives: ruthlane

Daily Dose of Fiber- Day Two

Posted on by under Daily Dose of Fiber
I’m still working on my beaded book pages. I didn’t get much done today.

 I did finish the single bead edging on the fringe page. I will be adding a variety of fringe techniques to this basic edge. But I wanted to get the other two pages finished that I have left.

 Here is the page I started working on today. I have the design marked and the cabochon glued down. I’ve never done a beaded cabochon so I thought I’d give it a try.

This is the basic cabochon bead attachment. There are two rows of beads around the cabochon. You can enlarge the photo to see it better. Now I am working on adding the bugle bead row. It is hard to get the bugle beads aligned exactly. But with practice I am getting slightly better at it. I’m off to stitch a few more beads down. Have a good evening and thanks for stopping by.

Daily Dose of Fiber – Day One

Posted on by under Daily Dose of Fiber
I’m working today but when I get a few spare moments and no one is in need of me at the store, I do a little stitching. Today I worked on a beaded book that is a homework assignment for my stitch class. I was not particularly excited about beading before I started this book. Every time I have tried to add beads to my work, I don’t like them and usually end up taking them off. This book has been different though, it’s been fun and I actually like the results. I think this is because the book is so small. The pages are 4″x 4″ and therefore the beads aren’t lost on the page. It takes a lot of seed beads to fill up large spaces and even the 4″x 4″ seems big with seed beads.

Here’s the page before I started working today. It’s in a tray to keep the beads contained. I am using Silamide thread which I really like. I tried a cheap thread from JoAnn’s and it was awful compared to the Silamide.

Here’s my tub of beading stuff that I have been taking to work each day. There are some finished pages in the bag that I’ll show you later.

This is the second book page I have done with examples of fringe. The top row is long bugle beads, the second row is “spiral” fringe and the third row which I did today is branched fringe that has been stitched down to the page. I have already done regular branched fringe and I wanted to try out this other method.

The fun thing about this one (it really isn’t fringe) is that you can make it stand up off the page to give extra texture.

I then added a row of looped fringe below that. I think the looped fringe would look better longer but I didn’t have much room left on the page. I started the edging for this page but didn’t get very far. I suddenly got swamped with shoppers down from the ski slopes. Luckily the boss is a nice woman and lets me do what I want. I’ll probably work on this page further at home tonight. I’ll show you the results tomorrow.

What did you do today that is creative? I’d love to hear what you’re working on. If you want more information about A Daily Dose of Fiber check out my post over at The Felting and Fiber Studio.

Building a New Year

Posted on by under word for the year
Happy New Year! I am excited about my plans for 2013. Each year for the past three years, I have chosen a word for the year as explained on Christine Kane’s website. Here is a link if you would like to check out her worksheet for picking a word for the year. This year I picked the word “Build”. This word actually came to me because I want to concentrate on felting a yurt this year. Build seemed the natural choice. Then I looked up the word and found other meanings I hadn’t considered but work well with my intentions.

To build means the following:

As a noun: the physical structure or form – body, constitution or habit

As a verb:

  1. to initiate or found – base, begin, establish
  2. to increase or accelerate – amplify, augment, boost, develop, expand, improve, strengthen
  3. to help or enhance – advance, aid or assist
  4. plan on – aim, anticipate, intend
  5. recommend or praise – acclaim, advocate, applaud, support
It always amazes me when I do look up a word how many different meanings a word can have. All these definitions will work for me this year. One of the first things I have planned for this year is “A Daily Dose of Fiber”. I have explained what that means in a post today on The Felting and Fiber Studio blog. I’d love for you to join in the fun so do go take a look at the post. I will be blogging my progress with being creative every day here. This will really be a stretch as I do creative things related to fiber art nearly every day but I rarely post more than once a week. I want to change that habit so we’ll see how it goes. I’m sure the posts will be relatively short but I promise lots of photos!
Here are my goals/intentions for 2013:
  1. Build a yurt/ger.
  2. Be creative every day.
  3. Build a body of artwork.
  4. Continue to develop the new fiber arts organization “Tangled – A Fiber Arts Collective”.
  5. Build on what I learned in my Level 2 Stitch Class.
  6. Develop further classes and teaching opportunities.
  7. Build a video tutorial library.
  8. Take Level 1 Color Studies class from Gail Harker.
Since number one on the list is going to be a monster project, I’m not sure how much of this list will get done. But I have found that the busier I am, the more I get completed. If you have any plans for travel to Montana, do drop in as I’d love some assistance in yurt building. 
What are your plans for 2013? I’d love to hear what you’d like to accomplish in the new year. Do consider joining the Daily Dose of Fiber challenge over at The Felting and Fiber Studio, joining our forum and having a creative 2013.

Playing with Shapes

Posted on by under level 2 stitch class

 One of my homework assignments for stitch class is to design with geometric shapes for an applique piece. So I picked out a couple of shapes, cut them out in paper and played with moving the shapes around.

 Here’s one with a black background. This one reminded me of a skull. Not what I had in mind.

 So I tried on a white background. Dull.

I liked this arrangement slightly better.

Taking it off the angle.

 Add a bit more.

 More layers to add more detail.

Move the little black shapes higher?

Adding more of the medium tear drop shapes.

This one isn’t bad. But still kind of dull.

How about adding a few more circles?

Do a little switcharoo?

Move the smaller elements down?

Another switcharoo?

Change out the top element?

It needed something else at the top now.

Let’s start again.

 Hmmm… not much better.

Perhaps I’ll add horns??

 And now a new head?

This is silly.

Maybe add a wreath to the top?

Now we have a silly cyclops.

Add a few circles to make it look less like a figure?

Or just add legs?

Turn the legs the other way?

 Sort of clown like.

 Not much better.

 Hmmm… this is getting nowhere.

Turn the top teardrops over?

 This kind of looks vaguely peacock like.

 What if I put the bigger element on top? I kind of like this one. But I have a hard time with symmetrical designs. Perhaps I should try something asymmetrical?

Now that’s completely different. But do I want to start all over at this point? I don’t think so. Which one do you like? Why? This was a fun exercise and it goes much faster if you don’t stop to take a photo of every single example.

The Holiday Season

Posted on by under gifts
Sorry it’s been a while since I posted last. I was off to my stitch class, then I had company and it’s the holiday season. It’s getting busy at the store (that’s a good thing) but it gives me less time to do those few extra things at work that I usually do. At least I have all my Christmas shopping done except for my hubbie. He won’t tell me what he wants. Somehow, I’ve run out of ideas. Anyone have any good ideas for a techie sort of guy who loves gadgets and the newest technology? He usually just buys everything for himself so he already has it all making it difficult to find a good gift.

 I have been getting goodies in the mail. This beautiful notebook cover with address book inside is from Zed. Now that I look at the photo, I think it’s upside down but you get the idea. She’s used a bunch of felt scraps and stitched them together. The closure is great.

 Here’s the back of the notebook. Sorry about the distracting bit in the upper right corner. I don’t have a editing program for photos at work.

 Here’s a photo of the inside. It’s perfect – Thanks Zed.

This is a photo of a scarf that I silk painted when our local surface design group met in November. Louise has a steamer so she volunteered to steam our work so it would be wash safe. This scarf is a wool and silk blend and it came out better than expected. 
This was a small silk handkerchief sized piece that I put into a embroidery hoop to paint. I was just playing with colors to see how the paint worked wet on wet and on dry fabric. I think I will add some stitching to this piece. 

 This is a felted card from Ann. Isn’t it a wonderful winter scene?

Ann also sent this gorgeous silk that I’m sure she dyed. It’s purple and gold and I love it. I want to rush home and nuno felt a scarf with it. But I’m not sure that is going to happen any time soon. Thanks Ann!
I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends and I really appreciate their gifts and friendship. It’s amazing the number of fiber friends I have online from all over the world. Isn’t it great that the Internet can bring us all together and that we can share our passion for fiber with others from around the world? If I don’t get time to post again, I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season. Thanks for reading my ramblings and leaving comments. I appreciate all of them.