A pink kitty quilt and the real kitty....

It never fails...I start to work on a quilt and Thomas, the orange monster is right there rolling on it, sleeping on it, sitting on it..just being a pest and he does it Every time. I always lay blocks on the floor to look at the placement and he comes from nowhere, and plop....so much for that....I am making this kitty quilt for my little grand daughter who is six the end of this month. Olivia informed me that she outgrew her "little kid quilt"....She loves pink and cats and I saw this fabric by Lorelei and I knew it would be perfect...Now if I can just get the cat off it! haha........

Birds, postcard and an atc.......

Judy Spencer sent me the most wonderful little birdie! With beads even! I have to show it off and I am going to make her one in return. I have to make it up as I go, so it will be interesting. I also am not that great with beading. Not like her anyway. She also sent me some fabric paper that she had made in Artist Trading Card size...It is stiff, but cool and I still was able to make an atc with it and sew thru it. I am posting a picture of the card. It is the tanager card that says bird. She sent me that too, printed on a piece of vellum...It is funny how everyone who makes these little pieces of art, looks for stuff everywhere to put on them. I think she copied the picture from a newspaper...I love it and it was fun to use. I also made a postcard all in pink for a trade with Annelie in Sweden, who also loves pink. It didn't photograph very well, the color is off, but you get the idea. I call it pink petals. She makes beautiful postcards and I don't have one from her yet...Anyway, that is it for now! Enjoy.....

flowers!

There are new flowers popping up in my garden almost daily so I took a couple pictures. Someone who lived here before me planted a lot of perennials and it has been fun seeing what pops up....One kind of plant was in one spot of the front yard and it looked like lettuce....I wasn't sure what it was, but left it...Then more little lettuces popped up all around and then the big pods came out...They reminded me of "the little shop of Horrors" plant.....(feed me, Seymour!) It turns out that it is some kind of Oriental poppy and it is purple...i haven't been able to find it in any of the garden books.....I was calling it the mystery plant. Now it is the mystery poppy......I am posting a picture of the flower and the foliage and then a red rhododendron....If you have seen a poppy like this with lettuce looking leaves, just for my own curiosity, Leave a comment!

charms, sisters and fish

I had kind of a lazy weekend. I watched most of season four of the Sopranos on dvd and when I got Soprano'ed out, I made a few things.

I made more fabric charms, I think the grand total is like 65 now. These little buggers are time consuming...I wont post a photo, but they are more of the green ones. I ended up signing up for two swaps and then the quilting arts submission. That is why I have made so many. What the heck I am going to do with them I don't yet know!

I also worked on an altered book for Saundra in my "Color me Silly" altered book group. Her theme is sisters so I painted a spread with watercolors, acrylics and details in a roller ball pen. I have already shown it to Saundra and she wanted to know if it was my sister and I....nope.....I saw a picture in a book and tried to make it look like the girls in the picture...It really doesn't, but I like how it turned out anyway. I actually did a layout that isn't purple or pink too! I am not much of a blue person but I have been trying to think outside of my own color box a little more.....

Then I made three "something beginning with F'" postcards for a swap.....F is for fish in this case....I tired to make them really secure because all three of these are going out of the USA...One to Lithuania.....I like to just send them as is and not put them in envelopes. That way they get the postmark, which I think is cool........

Well, I finished the bird quilt.....

I took a picture of it after hanging it on a branch on our old shed. I have added a lot of free motion quilting and some fibers...Short post tonight, I am going to go make some postcards!

I like making art quilts!

I started another one for the fun of it using stuff from a fabric and embellishment swap. I was trying to really challenge myself by making something from Autumn colors....then it turned into a tree with green, so I had to add a bird and a nest and then flowers and lo and behold....here comes the green and pink and purple again! I do really like it so far and have had fun with it. I have some big chunky antique looking gold beads that I am going to hang from the bottom and I am going to hang it from a cool piece of driftwood I found the other day at the beach. It is about 13"x 15" I would guess. I have all kinds of things on it so far, including paints and ink. I wanted to hurry and finish it tonight, but I made myself step back and take my time.

I also made a couple of atc's tonight. The mother Goose one I love! I have the book that it shows in the background. It was my grandmas and I CHERISH it! It is signed by her mom and she got it for Christmas when she was seven. I am a huge fairy tale fan. I just love them, still! Of course I love books anyway! I made mother goose for the "mothers" lottery on "Fabric atc's one to one...." I thought of Mother goose right away...I wonder how the whole goose thing came about?mmmmm. The other atc is hand drawn and painted with a roller ball marker, a pencil and watercolors and acrylic....I am really enjoying the painting thing. I cant seem to use one thing to do it though. I have to play and mix. When I was a kid, I always wanted a chemistry set...My cousin, who had everything would never let me play with his. All that mixing stuff. I like that! This atc is called, "what do you see?" ....It is a child, I am not sure if it is a boy or a girl but I am thinking boy. I also did a blind contour drawing of me standing in the mirror. This is a scary thing let me tell you! Blind contours are where you don't look at the picture while you draw! Mine is like a Picasso gone bad or on crack! I actually like it in a funny way but I am not going to scare anyone by posting it! haha.....Well, guess I better go fold laundry and get ready for bed...night all!

Meet Betty and two painted atc's.....

I finally finished all 38 of Mr. Jonny Mystery boy! Man, am I sick of his mug, arted up or not...haha...now on to Miss Betty 'Class of 1938......(her biography:)

Betty was a quiet girl and well liked by everyone. She excelled in Home EC and made all her own clothes. She was voted "Most color coordinated Senior of 1938."

After high school she married a local boy a few years older and settled down to raise a nice Catholic family. Her husband Bob, was always proud of his wife's domestic skills. "She could make any house a home." he was fond of saying. He ran the local hardware store and she had babies. Soon they had seven children and decided twin beds were the best form of birth control and allowed by the Catholic Church.

Sadly, Bob had an accident at work and Betty became widowed...Feeling brave, she decided to open a small decorating business with her insurance money. It was a huge success. With her eye for color and her bold ideas, she became much sought after in her own town and the city too.

Betty still lives in Gardner surrounded by friends, family and her sewing machine...Look her up some time if you are there, she loves the company.

the other two photos are painted atc's that I did tonight just for something to do....I needed to get out of 1938 and Gardner for a while..not that it isn't a nice place to be. Have a great weekend everyone!!!!!!

Flowers for dad!

I told dad I would post pictures of some of the new plants that are starting to go crazy. They call Whidbey Island and the San Juans the bananna belt....Maybe that is why things grow like this, even in pots. The dirt is black as all get out too....It makes it fun to plant things. The pictures I am showing are a hosta, the clematis and the oriental poppy, and these things have tripled in size just since my dad was here.....enjoy the pretty flowers!

Charms for Quilting Arts.......

Hopefully, they will be published! If I just see a piece of one of mine, I will be pretty excited! Fiber art traders' is doing a Plus size inchie trade and apparently the owner of the group contacted someone at "Quilting Arts" and they want to feature a big number of them all together..We will see what happens! I really tried to make them unique and all kind of different. The green ones actually turned out the most beautiful I think...I used a drk green velvet as an accent and it is really pretty. I am sending them in tomorrow...

I got a couple new books that are pretty cool Saturday....Bernie Berlin's atc book and Romantic Home Sewing.....I love them both. The atc book is the bomb! I wasn't sure I would like it since I have been making them a while, but it is really out there...So many techniques. I saw the "magazine cards" on Evie Z's site and fell in love with them. I emailed her and asked her how she did it and she told me about this book. I cant wait to make some of these cards!.The sewing book has the some of the sweetest projects...Mostly I will probably just do a lot of drooling over the pictures and not so much sewing...I have a zillion things going and not enough time....DARN IT! Anyway, they are both books I would recommend...

Tomorrow I am going to get outside and take some pictures of some of my flowers...My dad loves to garden and he keeps asking how they are doing...Some things are just going crazy! I have clematis that are as big as dinner plates...no lie....

Finished "under my wing"

I bound it up, put on some green and pink paint, added some gold leaf and an eyelet with ribbon...She is officially done! Now back to the yearbook project....I have 31 of Mr Jonny done and one of the girl done......

a fabric and paper art quilt in the works.....

Once again I am in the middle of trying something from my current issue of "Cloth Paper scissors". The fabric paper art quilt thing. I have been having so much fun with it even though i really don't follow directions down to the letter. I am still in "use what I have" mode, so if I don't have it, i substitute....I used matte modpodge instead of diluted glue and I didn't have muslin so I used this canvasy fabric stuff...I also added that texture magic by delta and I just love it...I did it after all the layering of papers....Anyway, the front part is done and drying but here is a peek...It is called, "under my wing". I am going to quilt it and bind it tomorrow or maybe even later tonight. I am getting more adventurous with painting but I still don't claim to be a painter...I just have fun and use pencils and watercolors and some acrylics and if I don't like it, I paint over it with white and start all over! I think i am going to have to add some gold leafing too...remember I am Melinda the lover of shinies.....(think magpie). Oh yeah, I added a chiffon flower charm too. Just love those things..Tomorrow I need to focus again on what I need to do and not just play and wander..Although I prefer playing and wandering and I am really good at it. Try this stuff, it is a lot of fun!

Charms and grandmas

Finished one of my charm swaps today! I love the little pillow ones and the burnt organza flowers. I am going to make a bracelet for Olivia, my granddaughter, she will just love it.

One of our favorite things to do is to go to garage sales and look for jewelry. I gave her a big jewelry box and her goal is to fill it up with beautiful things. I remember when I was little one of my grandmas had a dresser drawer just filled with costume jewelry. One of my biggest thrills was being able to open that drawer and admire all her treasures. I still have a few pieces and I hold them in my hand and I am five or six again, wanting to play dress up...She was very feminine and loved perfumes and powder and the whole bit. I was so blessed (and I say this all the time) to have WONDERFUL grandmothers who taught me how to be one...It is the time we spend and our own little traditions that I hope get passed on. When I lost my last grandma, this last October it was really hard. She was a kick in the pants and we had so much fun together even in her last few years. Last Easter she told me that I was the storyteller of the family now and to pass our stories on..It is a big legacy and a big job since we all our such a bunch of characters going way back! I am the oldest female now at 45 and it is lonely here sometimes. I don't want to let our family traditions fall by the wayside and my dad isn't able to do it on his own. Isn't it funny how talking about jewelry brings all this up? I have so much of them in me that it is amazing and it takes so little to feel them around me. Like I said, I have been blessed.

Charms and atc's......

Today, I have been making fabric charms...I have a ton of them to do, since I signed up for several swaps on several groups.. I should be a pro at the end, but we will see..They are time consuming little buggers! I can make an atc super fast so I thought these would go fast too! WRONG! I am showing a picture of a group of red ones...For the swap on "Fabric atc's 1 to 1" I am making several kinds and sizes...they can be from 1" to 1.5"s. I also made some white and gold and some stuffed little word pillow ones like in the new issue of "Cloth Paper Scissors"..Man, I love that magazine! I used to buy about every quilting and scrap booking magazine I could find and hoard them....I was always going to make this project or that one! I think I have made two from this pile of magazines...Now I just buy "Quilting arts and "CPS"......I just adore them and I re look at them all the time. Tonight I am going to look through them for the article on using tyvek...I finally just figured out which mailer the post office uses that actually is tyvek....I thought I would play around with that..

The atc's are for trades....The sisters' one is for a group member using some of the stuff that she sent me...Her stuff was so fun, it was super easy to make! The other one is for a lottery. I lost my 56 year old best friend and mom five years ago to breast cancer so it is a tribute to her...I sure miss her and I hate mothers day now....Isn't that sad? The lottery theme 'cause it is in May has a "mother" theme. I am going to make one more for it...I actually am getting all caught up, so I guess it is time to go sign up for more stuff so I can whine and moan! haha....

Just a quick little post.....

I worked on various projects all day and got one good picture, so here it is....This is for "Arts in the mail". It is a May challenge, mixed media, using stuff you normally wouldnt. I just went thru my wastebasket and had all kinds of fun....It has newspaper, cotton balls, (unused), two holly leaves from the yard and numerous bits of thread....It actually is pretty cool looking. Happy weekend everyone! Oh yeah, and a burnt out fuse tied with red ribbon! haha.......

My dad is visiting!!!

We spent quality time together today weeding the front garden bed I keep going on and on about...even after spraying, it still has been a real chore...It was fun sitting out there and having someone do it with me though...The perennials are really starting to grow so it is easier to see if I am pulling out weeds or flowers. I decided I officially hate dandelions and no longer think of them as "wishes" ..

Last night I worked on a couple of cabinet cards...The birthday one went out in the mail today for a friend...I love the woman's crabby face. It makes me laugh..Maybe she ate too much cake! The wacky wedding one I did a while back and I thought I lost it...I found it in a bin of scrapbook paper. I like this one and am going to keep it. The atc is for a trade and she asked for something about a bird or a bird, so I drew a feather and eggs on white fabric, free motioned the details and then water colored it in...the colors are off in the picture...the eggs are speckled with brown.

My hands are all blistered tonight so I will probably be painting more yearbook pictures! I have just had the best day...I love when my family visits........

An altered book on WINGS....

This is for my "color me silly" group, and the book is for Sondra Caserio. Her theme is wings and she altered a book on birds. I actually had a real hard time with this one. Not that I don't love birds, I just felt stumped and then I saw this piece of fabric in my local quilting store! AWWW, sweet inspiration. It is the batik with the big flower on the left side. It just looked like it needed butterflies so that is how it started. I tried to draw and paint and sew them but they were so small that I couldn't get details.......It is titled, "flutter bye, Oh butterfly, an ode to family.....and it isn't purple! OR PINK!!!!!! I am glad it is done! I really like it, and wasn't sure if I would.....now to pass it on and wait for the next one!

forgot to post ELVIS!!!!!!

The last pictures were horrid so I am retaking them...sometimes it just goes that way! Here they are retaken....these are for the "arts in the mail group" and I am WAY happier with these pictures!!! I tried to use really bright and fun fabrics.....I got an Eggplant and an exposed edges and a echinacea postcard so far. I wanted to do something unusual back....these are shaker postcards...the card is encased in vinyl and then little bits shake around inside...I like to make them and learned from Helen Bailey...thanks Helen!

Elvis, cooper and a mobster....

I got quite a bit done this evening....Feeling a sense of accomplishment here! Yay! First of all the mobster.....this is one of my people for the vintage yearbook swap. I showed you the before and after portrait and now I have him matted too and his biography...On the original mat he was written in as mystery boy, so I kind of ran with that...He is from the class of 1938, from Gardner, Mass. Here is a bit about him to tie in with his new life because he was tired of being a mystery...His name is Jonny Carbone and he came to Gardner from Italy in 1937 to further his education and learn about American business. His uncle sponsored him and enrolled him in school. He was very quiet because of his heavy accent and so was named in his yearbook, "Most mysterious boy of '38"...After high school, with his uncles help, he opened a laundry, within a few years he had a chain of them, making his family very proud....At his drycleaners, they were cleaning more than just shirts however. He married a bride by proxy from Italy and had two children. In the 70's after a falling out with the uncle, he sent his wife and kids back to Italy with him soon to follow. The dry cleaners were sold and Jonny disappeared...some say back to Italy, others are certain that he is fish food at the bottom of a large body of water.....how is that for a portrait speaking to me? I have to make 38 total of these and 38 of a girl portrait......I just paint while I watch tv...now that I have it figured out, I am enjoying the process.

I am also posting two of my Elvis postcards that I talked about last night. While I was taking pictures, Cooper my yellow lab came in and jumped on the twin bed I keep in there...he looked so pathetic and cute, I held my arm out and took a picture of us...This once again is brave of me because I have been sick and have no make up on but oh well, this is my life! This is my 130 lb dog that thinks he is a chijauja...haha , I have no idea how to spell this but you get my drift.

I also made a "Fire and a Water" atc for the four elements challenge...I really like doing this freeform kind of stuff...I free motioned in the flames on the fire, but it is a little bit hard to see...

The four elements atc challenge...

I haven't posted in a few days and have not done any art projects either until today....I had a four day migraine that knocked me right out...Today was the first day that I have been up...I am playing catch up for several things that are coming due...I am still working on the vintage yearbook project, twelve down, sixty something to go! haha....I just read that they changed the due date from June to August, thank gosh!

I also layed down paper and painted a bit in the altered book from my "Color me silly" group. Then I made two atc's for the four elements challenge...air and earth. I will post their pictures and two E' postcards that are drying right now....I decided to do E' is for Elvis....A friend in another group gave me these Elvis trading cards that are perfect....I will take pictures tomorrow...Off to bed for some much needed sleep!

More quilting and a finished doll.......

I have really been trying to get a few quilts put together. For a while, all I was doing were cards and postcards and things for groups. I have the big purple and green one all pieced together and I just have to go buy some backing and batting.....I started putting this sampler (pictured) together last night...I have two more blocks that I am going to put in opposite corners at the end. the fabric is one of the borders I am going to add and it will have three more fabrics that I haven't picked yet. Right now , it is just shy of a twin......the block with all the little triangles in the picture was the hardest block I have ever done....it took me two hours to do it right! I hated that block for a while....

I also finished the black and white doll for Sanna....She said she wanted over the top and I think it is. I used old curled up fishing line I found in the basement for hair....she almost looks like a voodoo doll! Yikes! The hardest thing on these dolls is the seam allowance for the feet....You have to get it just right or you cant do anything with them.....Remember, the face was painted by her so I built the doll around it...This my thank you for the faces she sent me...I am now going to work on the painting of the yearbook project....(the one that never ends! haha) Melinda

A floral altered book...

This is for Peggy, a member of the Fabric atc's one to one group. This book is all flowers and so pretty and such a great subject for this time of year.
She asked me to do my birth month flower. Well, here it is I am "glad" to say...
Another pink and purple layout without even meaning to! It just seems to happen. I love how she cut the heart shape from a regular book. I have no idea how it was done but it is really cool. Hope she likes her layout!