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…

It’s finally finished! The front at least – I am planning on making a backing but didn’t have time to get that done. I’ll finish it up tomorrow. But it is still January here in Montana, although the February challenge is already been posted (more on that later). You can see most of my processes on previous posts. I hand stitched the celtic knots and machine stitched the central copper motif to the felted background. I did use heat, black acrylic paint and cranberry alcohol ink on the copper.

This is a closeup of the central copper piece. But you can’t see much of the distressing somehow. It disappeared in the shine of the metal. It shows better above. The triple spiral stands for female power through transition and growth and the celtic knots stand for the never ending cycle of life.

This lower portion is meant to show the chaos of what life is really like with hanging threads and distorted knots. As you move up the piece, the chaos is made more orderly by the passionate woman who is determined to continue to strive towards perfection.

First off, I keep forgetting to say this – To all of you who have left comments here that I haven’t been able to personally respond to due to “noreplyblogger”, thanks so much! I really appreciate that people are taking a look at what I’m doing and I appreciate all the positive comments.

Now for the Woo Hoo! A little while ago Lynda, had made a comment on the Calendar Girls blog that she had some extra postcards of sunflowers and if someone wanted one, to let her know. I really enjoy her work and was expecting one or two postcards but I got six! And they are all wonderful. On the back of each, she explains her techniques and she does such wonderful experiments. Aren’t they all gorgeous? Thanks Lynda, I love them all.

And it really should have been Woo Hoo times two. Because I finally got all my celtic knots completed. Here are a couple of photos of the imperfect (not that the last set was perfect) knots. I left lots of threads hanging as I thought I would like that effect on the finished piece. I also heated my copper circle and did a few other techniques to tone down the bright, shiny copper penny look. I’ve got all the components now and just have to put the whole thing together. I’ve decided to not show any more developments until the piece is completed. Hopefully it will be done by the end of the month. Mainly hand stitching to go but I wanted to leave a bit of surprise for anyone that has been following the whole process. So coming soon…