Quilted Cat Portraits

My friend, Marianne, has two wonderful cats. I wanted to create a quilted cat portrait of them for her birthday. They like to sleep on her bed. The background pieced fabric represents her bedspread.

They also spend a lot of time outdoors in her beautiful garden. The second sheer layer of fabric represents their enjoyment of her garden.

Obsidian thinks she's the Queen, regal and knowing.

Frankie hunts, sleeps and eats. He spends more time outdoors exploring and overseeing the estate.

Here' the composition that I created to feature them both together. Played with their photos in Photo Shop and gray scaled it to get a better idea of the values.
Since Obsidian is sleek and black, she's made of ultra suede. Frankie is furry and thus felted onto Lutradur. I machine stitched their expressions, eyes, whiskers, outlines, attached a quilt binding and sleeve for hanging. This is the second pet portrait I've made. Go Here to see the other one.

Cornell Farms Inspiration

This week, our sketch group visited Cornell Farms. The wind blew, it was cold to the bone and my motivation to draw didn't materialize. Out came the camera. The bicycle inspired me to get my bike out, clean it, put air in the tires. Now it's ready to ride this fore casted, warm weather weekend.

A time to plant pots and sinks

Spruce up the flamingos and enjoy the bright colors blooming...

Inside, I finished another felted bag with a kumihimo cord. The wool fibers warm cold hands and make me feel good.

Color My World- Stencils, Fibers, Paints

Yesterday, I was reminded how much I like color- bright, vibrant colors. A group of us helped a friend sew curtains and drapes for her historic home. The downstairs bedroom's warm marigold yellow and terra-cotta made me feel alive and full of energy- the colors of Mexico and India.

Earlier in the week, I completed a stenciled journal page too large to fit on my scanner. I appears in two parts here. I read another way to write haiku- one word, two words, a sentence, two words, one word.

sing, dawn joy, music comes on early morning breeze, different birdsong, listen

Sunday, I felted with Darlene and Sue and love the fiber colors.

Our Tuesday sketch group went to Monticello Antique Market. It poured down rain outside, but inside the watercolors caught my eye.

How is your world colored?

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.

Sunrise, Sunset

The Portland Art Collective held their spring retreat at Menucha last weekend. The Columbia River Gorge is one of my favorite places. Walking the new labyrinth in the rose garden offered time for contemplation and meditation. Mostly, we hung out, made art and got our creativity flowing with shared inspiration and mini-demos. We reconnected with one another in a gorgeous setting. I feel blessed with this wonderful group of art friends.

We played and worked from sunrise to sunset.

We made paste papers
felted coasters on a new product called art felt paper- available in Silverton, OR at the Purl District
and drew Rorschach bugs on Braille magazine paper

What fun!

New Beginings

2008 promises to be another very good year. One of my goals is to begin teaching art, sharing my interests and skills. My felted mermaid amulet bag workshop will be at Art & Soul in Portland in October. The bag is wet-felted and has a kumihimo finger woven cord with bead and charm embellishments. I feel so fortunate to have this opportunity.

I updated by book list. Right now I can't put down Molly Gloss's The Hearts of the Horses. She captures the Eastern Oregon landscape and the struggles of farmers and ranchers during WWI with characters you feel that you know.

I also added two blog links of artist friends from the Portland Artist Group- Jo Reimer and Alesia Zorn. Jo, a mixed media artist, plans to post her daily creations and Alesia shares her calligraphic art.

My travel adventures for the new year include two trips to Port Townsend, WA for Play- a journal retreat and ArtFest with Teesha & Tracy Moore; an artful journey to France with Mari Keis and Dayle Doroshow. My dreams include trips to New Mexico and Mexico.

Each dawn brings a new day full of possibility and new ventures.

Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival

Sheep, llamas & alpacas filled the stables at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds in Canby. Vendors sold anything to do with processing wool and making fibers- spinning wheels, roving for felting, yarn for knitting all hand-dyed in incredible colors. I'm definitely a city girl and the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival proved to be fun for all ages with spinning contests, an antique hand-cranked sock knitting machine demo (it looked like a meat grinder) and lamb cook-offs.

I took beginning feltmaking and locker hooking classes from Una Walker. I love the feel of wool in my hands and will enjoy making more handfelted accessories.

I imagine my grandmothers did locker hooking. Its neat to see the revival of these old crafts.