Busy busy busy

I have too many projects in process, and not enough time to do them all. Last night I had a free evening and spent too much of it spinning my wheels trying to decide what to do.

This is a test piece from the Alabama Stitch book. I love the look of everything in that book and have been dying to try something. So there go some old t-shirts and some fabric paint I've had forever. I love doing a simple running stitch, its so satisfying for such minimal effort. I've brought it to work so I have a simple lunchtime project to do. It was hard to stop last night! I painted another piece last night so I would have the next one ready to go.

Also in progress, this mini quilt. There's no urgency with this one. Its entirely sewn by hand, and I started it back in January or something. Its a nice sofa project. I'm enjoying having a nice slow entirely hand sewn quilt. The thought that anyone ever finished a full size quilt in this pattern amazes me!

Next, I need to make another one of these. This quilt was for Michelle's preschool class teachers as an appreciation gift. (There's a story there for another time.) I made it in about 4 days and it was very well received. I've decided to make another one for the upcoming fundraising auction. This time I have a whole 2 weeks to get it done! The photos all got printed last night, the worst part as far I'm concerned, so I should be on track.

Also in progress: a large quilt that is intended to match our red sofas, collecting materials and ideas for an upcoming Michael deMeng workshop, another mini quilt that is pieced but assembled yet, another paper mache flower where the petals are done but it needs to be put together and then painted, and a whole list of other ideas!

It's really too bad I have to go to work so much. I have so many other things to do!

Resin paper book

My "big" class at Art and Soul was a day+ with Susan Lenart Kazner. We spent the evening making resin papers, and then the next day binding them into a book.

Making resin papers was awesome. Depending on the paper used, you get varying levels of transparency. I used a bunch of tissue paper that I collected, as well as a vintage book pages and some other scraps. I also tried using some paper cutouts I had done. I was having a great time. I just want to make pages and pages of these to hang as is! I also tried a couple of other resin bezels, which I haven't photographed yet.

We let everything dry overnight, and the next day worked on the book. We made the spine using rebar and wire wrapping to hold the "vertabrae" in place. Then made the frames with the same materials. My discovery is that I am terrible at wire wrapping. Don't look too close. Once the frame was done we attached the covers. This involved putting eyelets in the pages (yes, I did too many) and then stitching it to the frame with linen. This part I could do!

Putting the pages into the book involved inserting a longer piece of metal tubing, binding the pages together, and then inserting a length of rebar into the stitches and attaching it to the spine. This part I don't feel worked as well. Susan's skills are definitely as a jeweler, and this felt like an awkward binding technique. It also meant the pages didn't move freely, which is too bad given how cool they are.

Regardless of that, I did finish it, and it is now on display in our house.

Lessons learned:
1. Resins are cool. I will definitely be ordering some soon to play with.
2. I am not a jeweler. Metal working is not my strong point!
3. Susan Lenart Kazner is very fun to work with, and she makes some amazing things. If you are a jeweler of any sort, you should take a class with her if possible. In fact, I'd probably take a class with her again, despite lesson #2 above.

Art and Soul trades

Art and Soul trades
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich

Ok, so just a quck post to show off the fabric flowers that I made for Art and Soul to trade. For some reason, my sister and I did not have a lot of luck trading, and there seemed to be a lot of people with ephemera packs rather than personally made art work. It may be just me, but I'd rather trade for something that someone made rather than more stuff to add to the piles I already have. There were a few nice things amongst the ephemera, and some of the other things went to Michelle for her art supplies and treasure box.

In any case, a number of these flowers made their way back home, and were distributed to my sister's Stitch n Bitch group. I've heard they were well received, and that's really all that matters.