Soup Bowl - Seriously

The owner of Fusions in Pittsboro asked me to make a bowl for a fundraiser to benefit the Cathmam County Soup Kitchen. I think it might be connected with the "Empty Bowls" project, but I'm not sure. For a set donation, you get a simple soup lunch and you get to choose a bowl made by a local artist to take home.

Since all my art at Fusions is made with recycled materials, I felt I needed to create a bowl that reflected that. I found a pattern for a simple fabric bowl and went about fusing old NC map pieces, dyed paper towels (purple), painted dryer sheets (blues and greens) and candy wrappers (gold) to my base. I finished it by fusing a layer of blue tulle over the top and stitching. It took longer to create the layers than it did to assemble the bowl!
I need to neaten up my satiin stitch along the seams. I put the grommets in, thinking I would "faux lace" the sides, but I didn't like any of the lacing that I tried, so I just left it as is. I am considering adding bead dangles to the four corners for a little more interest. It goes to the shop on Thursday, so we'll see what time allows.

STACKED!

I joined a swap on Art Techniques along with 119 other artists. Each of us chose a mixed media technique and made 120 4x4 samples. The samples were mounted onto sturdy paper (Bristol Board in my case) with instructions on the back. It will be pretty incredible to have access to 120 techniques. Given that I am relatively new to mixed media, this will be a tremendous resource for me.

My pages were shipped to the hostess yesterday. Here's a photo of them all stacked up. I love this photo!
And here is a sampling of the different color combinations that I made. The technique I chose was painted paper bags - yes, they started out as brown paper lunch sacks (or in many cases, wine sacks - go figure!). Below are a few closeups - and I plan to post a tutorial here soon!
Water Reflections?
Aging Copper?

Honor / Remembrance / Peace

Those are the words I needed to keep in mind.

Four weeks ago, Capt. Richard Gordon Cliff became a Dad. He gave his name to his son.
Three weeks ago, Capt. Richard Gordon Cliff, a Green Beret, left the US for his third tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Monday, Capt. Richard Gordon Cliff was killed. He was 29.

http://www.jeffersonpost.com/articles/2008/10/03/news/local01.txt

Yesterday I received an email from a relative of Richie's. She had purchased one of my bottlecap necklaces at Knockabout and wrote to ask me if I could design a necklace for Richie's widow. She said she didn't want red white and blue patriotism, but something that would honor Richie in a more subtle way, and keep his memory close to her heart.

What an honor.

Above is the necklace I designed. My goal was to honor Richie in every detail possible. Below you can see the results. The background is a neutral color (by request). The three stars represent Richie, his wife, and their son. The phrase "Sine Pari" means "Without Equal" and is the motto of the US Special Forces, of which the Green Berets are a part. The motto for the Green Berets is "De Oppresso Liber" - "To Free the Oppressed". I sealed those words onto the back of a heart charm. Most of the background beads are green - for the Green Berets, of course. The extra heart charm is for love, of course, and the hole that will always be in his widow Stacy's heart.

On the flip side, how could I not use a bottlecap from RC Cola - afterall, RC are Richie's initials.

I didn't know Richie, or his family. My heart breaks for them. I know they will spend the next days, weeks, and months wondering how life can go on so normally for all the people around them - all living in oblivion to the tragedy they have suffered. If you follow the link at the top of this post, you can read a little bit about Richie.

So, thank you Richie, for giving your life, the ultimate sacrifice, for my freedom. Thank you Stacy, for letting him go. I am so sorry for your loss. I know it is unbelievably great. And thank you to all our servicemen and women who honor duty to country above all else. You are heroes. I look forward to celebrating the day that you can all return home.

Honor, Remembrance, Peace ...

How charming is Black and White?

I'm starting to think I live a charmed life inspite of the terrible economy! Remember the pink charms I made for Amber Dawn's Think Pink Charm Swap? Well, here are the enticing packages that arrived in my mailbox last week ... I will show you all my treasures as soon as I can get good photos of them. There are some fantastic charms and I can't wait to put them all together!

Don't forget the purpose of this exchange - two extra charms from each swapper (there were 31 of us!) are being used to make bracelets to be auctioned off to benefit the Komen Foundation. Also, you can buy entries to win the art doll Love Squared, which is truly an amazing and one-of-a-kind never-to-be-duplicated work of art. Your entry equals a donation to the search for a cure for breast cancer. What could be better than that??

So, now Amber is hosting a black and white charm exchange and I seem to have caught the bug. Below are some of the caps that I made while I was coming up with samples to share with Amber. I am thrilled that she liked them and has accepted them into the swap!!! The true black and white color scheme is really quite striking.

While I was playing around with the color scheme, I also created this charm. It is 2" long, which is a bit too large for the swap, and it was very labor intensive, but I just love how it came out! In fact, I have just hung it from the charm that you see in the top center of the photo above and with a little more bling (TBD), I think I will hang it on my Christmas tree!

Beading and jewelry making (other than with caps!) is new to me and I have a lot to learn, but it's a fun adventure.

Slug Fest

First, I just need to say that I cannot believe it's October. My kids birthdays are in October and January, and the ensuing four months always feel like a whirlwind to me - two birthdays and a bunch of holidays thrown in between! I'm not sure I'm ready for this.



We were doing some yard work over the weekend and Tom discovered these two slugs galavanting on the side of the house. I don't know how high they climbed before they realized that DOWN was the way to go. They were each at least 5" long and climbed nose-to-tail like this the whole time we watched them. It reminded me of the old Warner Bros cartoon of the skunk, Pepe' Le Pew and his relentless pursuit of the cat, Penelope. I loved that cartoon!

I hope these slugs are harmless, that's for sure!!!

Recent Dyeing Adventures

Here are a few pics of some dyeing I did while my computer was out of comission. The first piece is a combination of two techniques I learned while taking Marjie McWilliams' Shibori classes on Quilt University. I think it came out pretty cool. If I were to do it again, I would make the center portion (blue) smaller and make my dyes stronger.

Below is a blurry (sorry) photo of a glue resist piece I did with dye rather than the usual paint. I first stamped some flowers onto the white fabric with Elmers Gel Glue. I then dyed the fabric yellow, leaving it in the dye for only a short time so as not to soften the glue. I washed the glue out and had a yellow piece of fabric with white flower areas. I took a different stamp and stamped glue in other areas on the yellow fabric and then overdyed the piece (this time I sponged the dye on rather than immersing it) with a weak red dye. Of course the yellow fabric turned a beautiful orange. When I washed out the glue I had yellow flowers and where the fabric was white from the first stage, I had pink flowers. It's a pretty piece and there's a lot of potential in this technique.

Because I brushed on the pink dye, I got different shades on the piece. I set the piece on some paper towels so that the dye wouldn't run all over the place. I let it dry in place and the paper towels made a really interesting pattern on the back of the fabric ...

My daughter is on a year-round school calendar and she's been out for 3 weeks. She goes back today and my list is ready! I've got 9 weeks to "get 'er done" before she tracks out again. Go Go Go!!!

Guess Who's the BIGGEST LOSER?

My cat, Pumpkin, of course! Our vet held a "Biggest Loser" contest for the cats and dogs at the clinic. Miss Pumpkin was a prime candidate! And she did really well! She actually came in 2nd

place. She lost 3 lbs, which was 17% of her body weight. The winner lost 18%, but I guess he was on the program longer, so they awarded the grand prize to both.

Just what is the grand prize? A year's worth of cat food (the diet kind!) - free!!

We've been trying to get Pumpkin to drop some poundage for a while, and she was slowly doing just that, but this new food by Purina seemed to really do the trick (that and eliminating all dry food - apparently she doesn't handle the carbs too well). And no, we are not starving her, she is eating plenty. She's still got about 2 more pounds to lose. Now that she can jump up on my sewing desk, she likes to sun herslef in the window while I sew. I love it!