It's all in the packaging!

A friend, who knows how wooly my head has become lately, sent me this spoof ad...

Farm Country

I went to the farm to take pix of the sheep. I wanted to meet them. But, they were no where to be found, and the owner didn't seem to be either. Huge, friendly Newfoundland greeted me with a sniff and a tail wag. The ten cows were out in their pasture. But the hen and chicks made the trip worth it!

Nothing in the way of quiltiness today... wool has taken over my life, at least until the September quilt show. Here is a pic of what I have processed from the fleece. A teeny, tiny mole hill extracted from the mountain?

  You start with a mountain of wool, right off the sheep...

There is more than a little 'processing' to do to remove the VM (wooly people talk for Vegetable Matter), the BM, the P, the grass, hay, burrs...Okanogan County women are not wusses. We go at it glove-less!

But, ah... the reward for doing all that processing-you get this!

Gift of the morning...

I was out on the deck this morning and this is what I saw. This fawn is still at the speckled, spotted age.  And though we need to move on from this time and this place into a new stage of life...I will miss these morning gifts.

First Sale!

I am readying my Fantasy Fish wall hanging for shipping. The thrill and big smile of my first sale off the fiberartfromtheheart.com website! Okay, so it was purchased by a very nice, very supportive relative, but not a blood relative, so that is pretty cool anyway! (Thank you, Garth!) And he doesn't know it yet, but as the first person to buy my art on the web, his shipping costs will include a couple dozen homemade cookies...

Mostly dyeing...

Storm's a brewin' out there this morning! Dark clouds are rolling in, lightening is beginning to show off, and rain is imminent.  That made me scurry out to my newest place to hang wool to dry and snatch it into the house to finish drying. Now the thunder is threatening to shake the house down, so I best get this computer shut down! Have a safe day, everyone!

My newest hang out!

Latest ice parfait batch. Yum!

Art From The Heart- the website!

     My husband is a computer genius! Just thought I would get that right out there, first thing. He is also above and beyond supportive of all the artsy, wooly, weird or wonderful things I create, or try to create.
     So, he has been working and working and working on a website to feature my art. He built it from the HTML up! It was a pretty steep re-learning curve for him, as the last time he wrote code was 7 years ago. As we all know the computer world info grows 'old' in the length of time it took to type this sentence!
     But today was launch the web site day. If you have a chance, check it out. He has slide shows set to music, galleries of my art, and a Zen shopping cart (whatever that is!) I think what he did for me is beautiful. I hope you enjoy a peek...
http://fiberartfromtheheart.com/
Update:
There are a couple of error pages/links. Rick will get them fixed tomorrow!

Sarah and Shekinah Glory

     During my break from the very fun, very silly worm migration quilt, I was drawn to this piece that has been 'waiting in the wings' for about a week...
     Remember all those faces I see in the ice-dyed fabrics? This one really spoke to me (not literally!) and I had gathered several Serendipity dyed embroidery flosses to go with this fabric-rather the photo on canvas of the original fabric. I laid the floss down on thin lines of glue, using a toothpick to tuck in ends.
     I have a story teller's heart and my mind's eye sees the biblical Sarah in the foreground with Mt. Sinai in the background (blue hill) over which the Shekinah Glory of God in a cloud...

Rogue Q-ing progresses...

I have the AC on full blast, music on full blast, and creating full blast! :?} I have one flower pretty much done, the other two lined out.  Meanwhile the lower portion of the quilt just begged for something or someone to fill in the blank spaces, so I free cut ant/worms (the pieces can be adjusted to whichever I decide).

Working title: After the Rain-Migration

Design walls are great, but I find more 'oopses' when I take a photo! That top worm can not crawl on the ground AND across the stem of the flower simultaneously! He can crawl behind it, or below it, or beyond it...
Time for a snack & back rest break.

Rogue Quilting

Tonight I felt like quilting-and free style quilting at that! So, I had a stack of pre-cut hand dyed 6" squares. I did use a ruler to cut 3, 2 1/2, 2 and 1 1/2 inch strips, sewing those together without worrying about whom sat next to whom. I used a square to cut those strip sets into 6" squares. Picked out a pretty piece for the center background and started tossing things on the design wall, which just happens to have my background black satin still up from the last photo session. When I got what I had up, I then free-style rotary or scissor cut flower, stem and leaf shapes and slapped those puppies on there.
So, here are the three choices;
1. total chaos,
2. slightly more sane, or
3. safe as your mother's lap.

Which one floats your boat?

chaos

slightly sane

safe, but still BRIGHT!

Scorching weather and www.

I became a regular 'pioneer woman' last night when the power went out for about 5 hours...lit the kerosene lamp and spun yarn by the yard by lamplight. But, my oh my, did we miss the AC!!! Brought back memories of childhood, of laying on the top bunk bed inches from the ceiling, feeling the trickle, drip, drip, prickle of sweat soaking my Buster Brown T and undies. Do not miss 'the good ol' days... and it may just be a coincidence, but the top page views on my blog yesterday and today have been ice dyeing and snowmen! :?}

Every morning I check my blog stats to see where in the world has been to visit. I am still amazed and thrilled how the world is so huge physically and so small thanks to the www. A few of my newer visitors are from India, Thailand, Ghana and Italy. Thanks for stopping by! 

Have a wonderful day. I will be trying not to melt...

Tickets from Scotland

When our dream trip to the UK was still seemingly full steam ahead, my beloved husband booked tickets to a re-enactment performance with kilts and bagpipes, castle and fireworks. The tickets arrived today, so very depressing. No refunds, no re-sell. :?{

So, I needed to do something happy, and chose to manufacture some lambs for this weekend's Farmer's Market in Twisp, WA.  Nothing says 'be happy' like a lamb cuteness!

Quilting Blog? Really?

     I started this blog to share my love of quilting, show off my quilts and some quilty-arty pieces, then my hand-dyeing of cotton needed to be seen-and then I dyed wool. Hmmm...      Next I got a drum carder and Rick started his spinning wheel restoration part of this addiction. Then he bought me a niddy noddy, so I had to try and learn to spin on a borrowed drop spindle. Now I have actually made wool into something resembling yarn, and enough of it, to try out the niddy noddy! I watched a tutorial, for the second time, and followed her movements as we went along. It works! I made my first skein of wool yarn. Paint me pink and call me piggy! This is so much fun!!!
And every day at the Weber's is almost better than Christmas! FedEx, UPS and/or USPS brings boxes from all over the world bearing wooly gifts in the form of spinning wheel parts and pieces. Today's offerings came to us from Estonia and Wallace, ID.

Estonia first;

Translation, anyone?

Unfortunately lacquered...

Hand carved! Hand carved spindles! And hand carved lumpy center part!

Hand forged metal, as in anvil! Too cool!

The Box from Wallace, Idaho was pretty intriguing!

How much do you think I could get for the stamps?

Mismatched, abused, cobbled and beautiful!

Hurry, Spinmeister Weber! I want to see this child's wheel* restored!

*Further research on this wheel. The design suggests it originated in Norway. The small size doesn't necessarily indicate a child's wheel but more likely a boudoir wheel, especially with the rosemaling fanciness.

This, that, and ongoing framing

This

Flowers from my garden, just because they are pretty...

 And a 'still life' of my niddy noddy and drop spindle with wool that almost looks like yarn. Practice, practice, practice...

That

 Mini Floral ala Gilda Baron style,

and my venerable Still Life With Words that got a huge 'umph' up in visual strength with a hefty black wood frame.

Tomorrow I pick up more frames for more works. When those are completed, inventoried and photographed I 'get' to finish inventorying my hand dyed fabrics. I counted all my woolies today. Book keeping is not an artist's favorite chore. I will be so glad to be finished and my 'manager', also known as Dear Husband, will cease and desist asking me for an accurate, up-to-date inventory so he may complete my art website. I just want to be creating! :?}

Framing/finishing continues...

Adrift was in this frame before, but I added 3 more coats of glossy color!

Wild Roses - old frame...

New velour mat, creamy frame, feminine!

Reflection IV in new oak frame.