Color

                                    I love the touch of lavender in this room. 

Looks hand painted.  Rather interesting for  a very plain settee. 

Random thoughts

                                                                                        
                                                   Lovely Pumpkins.  Must be laser cut.

   
                                                                 Great free motion work.

Love this for inspiration board.

Baggage

The bag above and those below are clever packaging ideas.  I particularly like the pigtails as handles below.

                                 

This one is paper, but the others are plastic.

 

 

Three fiber and color things

Fiber Frame.  How cute is that.  Silk screened and great as a group on a wall, even when left empty.

 Simply sweet.  Great small gift idea.

I really love the colors of this room.  All the parts  (chairs, tables) are old and some recovered, but

somehow it looks contemporary, yet warm and inviting.

Cloth Paper Scissors Studio Tour

I'm a fiber artist specializing in art to wear, which I sell thru art galleries across the country. My sewing studio is located on the second floor of my farm house. I have a dying studio on another floor, but that's way too messy to share. The sewing studio is not a very big room but every inch of space is used for storage. If I were to show you a photo of how the whole room looks I would have to really vacuum those threads up, so I thought I'd share in bits and pieces.

Above is where I sew. I like everything in proximity so that I don't have to walk across the room to change a needle, iron something or use another machine. I use a serger, machine, and embellisher machine almost every day.

Refer to the numbers above for what I store where:

1.Zippers, trims, specialty embellishments.

2. Threads for serger, machine, etc.

3. Beads, crystals, antiquities for embellishing things.

4. Yarns, mostly hand dyed that I use for my art to wear and arranged by colors.

5. "The Basket" labels, pliers (I use jewelers pliers for lots of helpful things when I sew), press cloth, small pieces of fabric for what every project I'm working on.

6. Needles, snaps, beeswax, etc.

7. Not shown - The drawers below my sewing machine hold scissors, rotary cutters etc., embroidery materials, interfacing, elastic, instruction books for all of my machine and whatever attachments I have for all of them.

This is an example of what I make.

Here I'm making tie transfer fabric (shameless self promotion: This technique is featured in the current, October-November 2010, issue of Quilting Arts.)

Number references:

1. I collect old hand made boxes and use them for storage. In this instance ties and scarves for transferring onto other fabrics.

2. I use baskets a lot for storage of projects, small pieces of fabrics I think I might be using on a project, etc.

3. Ties laid out for transfer.


This is my inspiration board. I do clean it up from time to time otherwise

it would pull the wall down.


Here are the number references:

1. A piece of foam core that I hung on the wall as a bulletin board. It's located at the end of my cutting/painting table. The table is huge - 7 feet x 8 feet - and pushed against the wall in a corner most of the time. The table is made of 2 hollow core flat doors hinged in the middle and sitting on top of 4 folding waiter's tray holders ( like in a restaurant). It makes it movable and it's very stable. Lots of messy storage underneath.

2. Wine case full of dyed and printed silks and cottons that are close by when I'm working on a project.

3. Specialty paints, brushes, etc. Handy when needed, removed to under the table when cutting large items or printing yardage.

The top of my fabric storage system. I keep lots of vintage buttons in the containers and boxes above. The shelves are in a system that folds down to become a table. I thought that would be very useful when I found it, but the reality is you have to clean off the shelves before you can use it as a table and that's lots more work than I'm going to do when I need it.

There are 6 large shelves below, full of fabrics and too messy to show. The remainder of the fabrics are kept in boxes in the room and in shelves in the very small closet in the room.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Pillows, Dresses and Plants

I think the pillow cases on the left are wonderful. Great use of small pieces of fabric.

Last week in New York, the national stationary convention was in town and this is how bergdorf Goodman dressed their windows.

All dresses are made of PAPER. Cool Huh?

Greenhouse eating. Kind of cool.

Another great way to use succulents.

Mini Thoughts....

Something about this picture, which was sent to me by a friend in an email thing, appeals to me. I think it could translate wonderfully in fiber. Think I'll have to work on that.

The following are fiber necklace ideas.

Great fibers and colors.

News of the Month

These are pieces submitted for the quilting arts article that were not used in the story. The purse is an example of a great way to use tie transfer dyed fabrics. They are beautiful when appliqued, embellished or couched.

Big Month!! My article on Tie Transfer Dying appears in this current issue (October-November 2010) of Quilting Arts Magazine.

I've been in Chicago for the past 2 weeks for my son's wedding. This is the beautiful bride. She's as lovely as she is beautiful. It was a great wedding.

Miscellaneous Thoughts......

I've been saving these pumpkin ideas for a while. Hard to believe it's that time of year.

I'm always looking for storage ideas. Aren't these cute. Now if I'd only make them.

Love these colors. This simple room could really lift your spirits.

New Workshops.........

Here's the next workshop. Hope to see you there. A really fun technique.

Fiber Art - On the Wall.....

Great Wall art - String or fiber or vinyl or a drawing, I know not. But I like it.

Selvedges and Stripes and Jane Austn.............

Came across this the other day. It's Jane Austen. On a towel. Cool.

Thought this was a great display, installation, whatever you would call it.

This adorable chair is covered completely with fabric selvedges. How cute and what a great use of a useless part of the fabric.

It's Too Hot in Virginia....

I've been in the studio a lot this summer because it's too hot to do much of anything else. This is eco -friendly tie-transfer dying. If you look at the picture above you'll see which ties produced each detail on the scarf.

This is the finished scarf. We (The NEST) will be doing a lot of workshops on this technique this fall. It's eco-friendly because it uses no chemicals. It's a great way to make a remembrance scarf. I use it to make pieces of fiber to applique, make into quilts, or add to dyed pieces for embellishments. I've also torn it into ribbons. It's a fun technique. Stay tuned for more.

I haven't been here since the weather got warm........

Aren't these the cutest cookies ever?

I'm always looking for the coolest, most effective hangers for my Art to wear. Although I would probably not include a bow, these in hand printed fabric would really be wow.



I'm making and dying bedding for my kids wedding/shower gift. This is very arty, soothing. and comfortable looking.




I've never been very good with the rubics cube, but this is so amazing.

Great Pillows.

It's Spring and it's warm and I keep thinking of plants.......

This is just a beautiful image. I love the feel, the bloom and the lighting.

This is a great use of succulents via Heatherbullard.com.

This I love, love, love. Succulent Art. The box is divided into segments so that a small amount of soil is in each one, and the segments are tipped within the area. Absolutely gorgeous.

As an exterior decoration.

A nice closeup of placement within the box.

Another edging for the same thing. Kind of cool.