This is my blue postcard. It really doesn’t look very blue here but the camera seemed to turn it very purple. Read purple as navy blue. I stenciled the nautilus on painted fusible interfacing and then stitched. I added the sea weed with the needle felting machine. The nautilus looked kind of lonely by itself. I don’t usually use a lot of blue but that was the theme.

Here’s a closer look.

Here is my completed final Take It Further project. I sewed the pomegranates on to the wool that I had dyed last week. That was after a bit of free motion work on the wool. It’s now a notebook cover for my upcoming Experimental Free Motion Embroidery class.

Here’s another angle. As you can see, I decided not to add any words and just let the pomegranates speak for themselves. The pomegranate is a symbol of abundance and generosity. The theme for December was generosity.

Here’s a few details.

Another…

And the last one. In this one, you can see that I did get quite a range of colors with the dyeing process and that the cover is not solid black with a few white bits.

I also started work on felted project that was supposed to work for the Felting Forum challenge for January and also be an exchange postcard. The piece turned out to big for a postcard and I can’t bear to cut it down in size. So I guess I’ll have to make a separate postcard. The piece called “Blue Moon” is drying and then I have to add some paint. So more later this weekend hopefully.

Although I haven’t had much time to blog or do any fiber work, I did get a few things done. Here is a needle felted pumpkin pin cushion that I made over the Christmas holiday. I also showed the grandchildren how to needle felt and they both made dogs. Unfortunately, I didn’t get photos of their creations. They had a great time though. After we got home, we have been dealing with tons of snow. It seems like we are shoveling and plowing every spare minute of the day. The snow even crushed one of our “garage tents” where we store the boat. Quite the disaster. I am trying to get organized for my machine embroidery course at the end of the month. I got some of the supplies but I’m having trouble finding 30 weight rayon machine embroidery thread and 100% cotton. I guess I’ll have to check out the quilt shops and see what they have. I did get a little further with my December TIF project.

My sister Margaret sent me a whole load of paint and ink supplies that she is no longer using. She included an old wool white blanket. So I used it to begin making a cover for my notebook for my class. I dyed it with jet black acid dye in a low immersion technique. It needs to be cut down now so it fits. I wanted to give myself room in case it shrank but it didn’t. Then I’ll sew on the pomegranates and sew the edges.

Here’s a close up of the dyeing process. You can’t really see all the color changes in the photos as it was getting dark here. Note to self – get it together and make a light box for taking photos some time in the near future (as in now!)

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. It’s quite inspiring to read every one’s goals and words that they have chosen for 2009. I don’t usually do resolutions or the such but I’m going to be trying to enter more of my work into competitions etc. Also, to concentrate on developing my own style and completing more projects. In this light, I will be doing less challenges and exchanges. I really enjoyed doing TIF but it seemed to take a lot of my time which is limited. So that’s the plan for 2009.

but it isn’t a vessel used in the last supper, it’s my last Christmas present finally completed. I did this one in a circle shape using two layers of painted cotton batting with a piece of canvas sandwiched in between. I had the cotton batting left over from a project I did last Christmas (still have some left for another project).

I like how this one turned out and hope my friend likes it. It’s much more “arty” than the 11 square bowls I made.

I probably won’t blog again until after Christmas. I want to wish anyone that reads my blog a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year. Thanks for stopping by and I appreciate every one’s comments. I should mention that I won a blog award from Kim. Thanks so much Kim, I really appreciate it but I don’t think I’ll pass it along to anyone, if you’re in my list of favorite blogs, consider yourself awarded!