Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival

I made a new class sample little purse for my Art & Soul Retreat workshop this Thursday evening. It's a wet-felted bag with a crocheted flap and kumihimo braid. Saturday, I headed
to the Clackamas County Fairgrounds for one of my favorite local events.
The Flock and Fiber Festival fills all senses from the sheep to wool products to tasty lamb kabobs.
The yummy colors of the wool roving, locks and yarn make great eye-candy and feel heavenly soft.
Here's a close-up of more dyed locks. With free admission, it's one of the best deals around the area with spinning competitions, felting demonstrations and live music.

I'll be at Art & Soul and will post again next week. I look forward to seeing friends from all over the US and creating art.

Felted Flowers

I've been making free form felted flower pins to sell at our Portland Art Collective Show in December. The pins can be worn or decorate hats, bags or whatever else you want to embellish. I love the bright colors of wool roving and yarns. This weekend is the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds in Canby. I plan to do a little shopping in preparation to my Art & Soul Retreat workshop coming up Thursday, October 2nd (see side bar). There is still room for one more participant. Come join the fun.

Felting Machine Fun

A couple of weeks ago, I played with a felting machine that someone lent to my mother. I felted fabric to a 9x12" piece of craft felt, added wool roving, yarn, and some stitching. The idea came from an article by Pokey Bolton in the July/August Cloth, Paper,Scissors Magazine.
I cut-up the felted fabric to make ATCs for my upcoming workshop at Art & Soul.
My husband found a felting machine for me on Ebay and it arrived yesterday. Now I can't stop playing. Check out the wedding book cover Glenny made with the felting machine.

Sketching at Hughes Water Gardens

This week, we sketched at Hughes Water Gardens on Stafford Road. With the waterlilies in full bloom, the ponds and container gardens captured our hearts. We plan another visit.

The tropical Victorian waterlilies only bloom at a constant temperature of 75 degrees F. The large round container-looking pods can hold a baby or small child- magical, a rare sight.
It feels like summer with warm days, sunshine, time to slow down and enjoy the water gardens.

V-W Book

In France, Dalye Doroshow taught us how to make V-W books. The book covers are made with heavy card stock, covered with paper made with computer-generated layers in Photo Shop.
Each unit is made with a V or valley folded index card and a W with two valley folds and a mountain fold in the middle. I stamped a background on the V page and added one of my soul collage images. Then, I wrote a journal entry about my soul collage image on the W page and cut a diamond shape out for a window. The W page is then glued to the V page and five V-W units are glued together back to back.
Looking from the top, the V-W units show up better- three in front and two in back.
You can also make this little book with postcards. It's a great memento of a recent trip.

Portland Art Collective Blog & Nature Gathered

The Portland Art Collective started a new blog to promote their "Open Doors" Art Show and Sale December 5th and 6th, 2008 at the Multnomah Arts Center in Portland, Oregon. Members will be posting photos of their artwork. Subscribe to the blog and feel the enthusiasm for this new venture that we are undertaking. I feel very fortunate to be apart of this creative group of artists.

In August, the theme for our "Nature Gathered" project was entomology . I wanted my 8x8 to reflect the look of fossil images in contrast to crawling bugs. I used plaster of paris and party store plastic bugs to create the fossil insects.