Fiber Frenzy--so much fun!

Yesterday was the Fiber Frenzy meeting. I am SO LUCKY to be associated with this group of very talented women. Every meeting is wonderful! Yesterday Francyne gave a presentation on thread--I learned so much--the program was excellent and very well prepared. Much better, I think, than I would have done. And much more information than I would have known. That's the purpose, though, right?

And now for the best part--pictures! The challenge for this month was Using Scraps Effectively. You might notice that there's not a photo of my work here. I started two pieces and finished none. Oh well, maybe next time.

This is Anita's scrappy, stringy quilt (it looks much better than it sounds!). Yummy, yummy colors:

And here's Cleo's scrappy, stringy quilt--and so different from Anita's and just as lovely. It's such a happy piece:

And Frances makes the prettiest flower wall hangings. This one is a gift for a friend of hers, that lucky girl!

Francyne made some great flowers--this one, too, is so happy, and makes me smile to look at it:

Nancy introduced us to "Put a Bird on It" (Youtube--such a hoot!). I just love this little piece--so fun!

Shirley did a beautiful butterfly. Her work is always wonderful:

Sue went totally beyond the expected and did the cutest hand puppet! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

And finally, Nancy brought her quilt from the last challenge, "Go Green" This is so clever, wonderful and the color is amazing:



Can you guess what it is? Hint: most of us have replaced this with cds. Very, very fun recycling!

That's it for now. Thanks for visiting!

More Minis

I'm still needlefelting and embroidering, though not much else is going on. Hope you enjoy!

City Park:

My Secret Garden:

Taking a Walk:

That's it for now.

If you're in or near Greenville SC this weekend, go by the Upper SC State Fair Grounds to the Maker's Fair and stop by and say hello!



Quilting Arts Alliance Meeting

Last Tuesday was our Quilting Arts Alliance meeting, made up of wonderful women who share ideas and work and techniques, etc. I always love those meetings.

This week Nancy had the program and talked about two of the workshops she's been to recently. She gave us lots of great ideas that she had learned in two different machine stitching workshops that focused on thread sketching and thread painting. Very interesting projects and techniques. I hate that I didn't get any pictures of the work she showed us, it was outstanding!

I did get a few pictures, though. The following is a quilt done by Marybeth--it was wonderful! This is a type of trapunto using felt behind the flowers for the colors and the raised effects. I wish I'd gotten a close up for you!

Anita showed us one of her string quilts. I just love the mountains

And beautiful Diane modeled one of her felted hats:

And check out this hat that Diane created!



Frances had done the most wonderful, whimsical quilt of a close-up of a camel's face. You can check it out on her blog.

Hand Embroidery

That's enough about that, now let's talk about me! I'm still addicted to the hand embroidery I've been doing. For quite a while I have wanted to work on creating layers on and of fabrics. I haven't really put much together yet, but I love making "art cloth" with layers of paint and dye and stitching and printing and stamping and embellishing.

But, in the embroidery process, I've found another way to make layers. After needle felting various fibers, colors and textures on felt, I've been embroidering them and I'm so happy with the way they've turned out. They're all small--the largest is 6 x 8" and they still have to be finished with some edging stitches, but here's what I've done so far:

This one is called "Seasons"

"It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood:"

And I'm almost finished with "Easter Egg Hunt:"

Thanks for stopping by!

Classes

I made a discovery today--blogspot does allow for separate pages!

So I created a page for the classes that I teach--if you or your guild or local quilt shop is interested in any of my classes, just send me an email at maryannmauney@gmail.com
 and I'll get right back to you!

Currently I am scheduled to teach my "Capturing Nature" class at the Dragonfly Quilt Shop on June 11th, 10 - 4. Call or visit Dragonfly for the details and to sign up.

Hand Work Is My New Old Passion

I used to do a massive amount of handwork--crewel embroidery, needlepoint, counted cross stitch, hardanger, pulled thread, etc., etc.,etc.

And then I thought my eyes were too old and I didn't have the patience to do a piece that takes so much time.

But! Things do change.

I think it might have been watching my friend, Anita, do her turned applique handwork to pass the time. I, all of a sudden, got the urge. I thought I would start with some needlefelting, and as I was getting out the stuff that needlefelting is made of, I found this:

I decided that this needed to be a part of my next project. So I cut out some shapes (some say they look like surfboards, I think they look like shields, but what they are supposed to look like are LEAVES!). I buttonhole-stitched (not sure if that's really a word) around the shapes to attach them to the background fabric. Added some beads. And then did a LOT of chicken scratch hand quilting and added a binding.

Voila!

I like it (in it's own way). I plan to do more with some different shapes and different types of embroidery. It was fun and got me started in a new direction.

I've been in a slump--I haven't really been able to create any machine stitched works--whatever I try to do just doesn't work out. So I'm happy the hand-stitching bug has hit, because I'm still making art, but just in a different way. Yay for all the different ways to see and create!

I also began an online class with Susan Sorrell, "Creative Embroidery, Organic Designs," and finished my first week's lesson. I really, really, really enjoyed making this piece and if I do say so myself, it's very pleasing to my eye. Only, I think I liked it better before I added the beads, so they may come out any day now. I've started a second piece, smaller, and not part of the lesson plan, but fun, fun, fun.

And I think this is my favorite part:

As you can see, I used different types of threads--embroidery floss, pearl cotton and wool. I'm now on a mission to find even more types of threads and REALLY mix it all up.

Thanks for visiting, come back again!



Fiber Frenzy

Today my Fiber Frenzy group had our monthly meeting--what a bunch of accomplished artists! I gave the program, just talked about threadwork (thread painting, thread sketching) and it was fun. But we also got to see the challenge pieces that were due this month. The theme was "Go Green." And it's amazing how different each of our works were.

Jodie used Inktense pencils on hers and it was quite wonderful:

Shirley did two that were really great:

Frances used water soluble oil pastels and caught the green icky sky of a tornado. It is wonderful:

And last, but certainly not least, Sue got creative with old neck ties! It's lots of fun!

You've already seen mine. It was the "Go Green and Spicy" jallapenos that look more like pickles. Yuck, I'm hiding that one--maybe some day I'll cut it up to make something I like better.

One more thing, I have finished the stargazer lily, complete with binding. I like the way it came out.

Bye for now!

Experiment

I am not a painter. I don't even do well when painting walls in my home, and to try to paint something with a steady hand and a good eye, I just don't do well with it.

But I have these wonderful media that I've wanted to try, and so I did a little experiment in comparing neocolor water soluble crayons and water soluble oil pastels as well as the tool that I used to apply the colors.

I started out with this photo of a stargazer lily:

And then I traced the flower on to pfd cotton sateen. For the first test, I applied the crayons to the fabric using a q-tip. The results, pretty, but not at all satisfactory for painting the lily--way way way too much bleeding:

On the next try, I applied the neocolor crayons with qtips again, but this time I squeezed out the excess water. Better result, but still not what I wanted to do, not enough control:

For the next one, I used the neocolor crayons with fantastix (the "brushes") that come with tsukineko ink. It was much better:

But I decided to keep on going. On the fourth try I used the tsukineko ink with the fantastix. It was too "inky" and not enough "water colory" for my taste. And I couldn't get a very smooth texture:

 And finally, I used the oil pastels and applied them with the fantastix and we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!

This one did not bleed much at all and blended the best. So now it's become:

I also used the pastels on the background of the fabric--4 colors of blue  and a purple. But then, the flower looked flat and boring. So I quilted lots and lots of leaf shapes on the backgroun and filled in a few with more thread. Now all that's left is the binding. I hope to teach a class using this sample at some point in the near future.

Until next time . . . .