Itty Bitty Knitting - Part 2

Well, it seems that this Itty Bitty Knitting is taking longer than I had planned...or is it just too many 'Itty Bitty' projects on the go. The neighbors have a new baby so with a gift unfinished, the best I could do is this 'Wee Sweater' card. The new parents (especially Mom) loved it so now I can breathe easier knowing that the gift will be made at least in the New Year.

Several other knitting projects have been completed and are ready to wrap to put under the Christmas tree. Can't put them onto the post yet since the recipients may subscribe to my blog postings. I have also had some teaching assignments last month - Fabulous Felted Scarves - for the Edmonton Weavers Guild www.edmontonweavers.org/. Next posting, I will put up photos of my fabulous student's work. I sold my felted scarfs at the annual Edmonton Weavers' Guild sale as well. I have a few available that I will show you here, so if you are still shopping for Christmas gifts, give me a call or email and I can send one or more along to you.

DO YOU KNOW that Interweave Press, the folks who bring you the magazines, Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors, have many ebooks and How To videos available from their website www.interweavepress.com. You can also subscribe to several enewsletters that they publish (nearly every day to my delight). They including Quilting Daily, Cloth Paper Scissors (almost daily)and Knitting Daily. These newsletters include FREE projects and lots of FREE advice for quilters, knitters and journal junkies like myself. This is such a furious time of year and today I am taking a breath following a family birthday, knitting madly and stitching madly to finish Christmas gifts, and just the general furor surrounding Christmas preparations. Now I will get down to writing the annual Christmas letter. I am planning to post one more blog before Christmas so watch for that. In the meantime have a glorious time preparing for your own Christmas celebrations.

Itty Bitty Knitting

Our summer was more than busy with a move to a new much smaller home. With that and fitting in a bit of summer holidays - look at the Pow Wow photos at Kamloops, BC, I have been remiss in publishing my Cloth N Paper work. I have been remiss in actually making any Cloth N Paper projects. Now that fall is here I am busy and happily at it again. I have just finished knitting the baby sweater above for my niece's baby Liam. There Liam, now you are famous. More knitting is on the way and that will be in my next blog post. Birthday yarn turned into 'something sweet'. DO YOU KNOW is a new feature of my blog. It will be an information section to give you ideas and where to find information for your projects. DO YOU KNOW that Golden Artist Colors website has free videos on all sorts of subjects relating to their products and can be found at http://www.goldenpaints.com/VIDEO/library.php. Have fun looking through all of these videos. If you find something that particularly interests you, let me and my blog followers know.

Pow Wow in Kamloops

It was a pretty exciting August. I celebrated a birthday, Mark and I celebrated an anniversary, we moved to a new home, got rid of all sorts of stuff that is no longer needed with condo living and downsizing, went on holidays and met our son's new young lady. Wow, BC can really put on the heat! It was 35 to 40 degrees a couple of weeks ago in Kamloops. Probably still is. We saw lots of interesting places and did neat things during our short stay. Kamloops hosted a pow wow on the weekend that brought aboriginal peoples from all over North America. The entry dance was pretty amazing with it seemed hundreds of people dressed in their 'best' traditional garments...including kids of all ages. It was certainly a family show. Here are some photos from that event. I think there is lots of inspiration for textile and journal work here. Click on the photos to for a larger view. COMMENTS?

More of Kamloops area to come in my next post.

Print and Stitch

My Saskatchewan students pushed their creativity beyond boundaries for two days. The first day was the painting and printing. Then 'what do I do' with these lovely pieces of fabric. The second day students worked at their sewing machines to interpret their prints. Choosing thread colours for stitching and fabrics for borders took up some time in the early morning. Input from others in the class and some from me helped each person choose threads and fabrics. Discusions and sketches helped students decide how to 'put it all together'. They worked on designs for their art quilts, then they got right at it. Sewing machines hummed madly for the rest of the day. Have a look at the results. Some people were planning on going right out to purchase their own setacolor paints to work on projects over the summer. I can't wait to see photos of the finished works of these creative people! Send me your photos.

Amazing!....From White to Glorious Colour

My student's work from the Saskatchewan Stitches Conference Every time I teach a class, my students absolutely amaze me! I offer materials to work with, suggestions for design, thoughts about my own work and that of other artists. These few thoughts and ideas along with a field trip to collect materials and 'get out into the world' stimulate imaginations far beyond my wildest expectations. Everyone has something different that gets pulled out of their brain. So many tell me that they are 'not artistic' or 'not creative' but look at what they produce. All of this glorious colour from a sheet of white fabric, a few fabric paints and brushes. Over a number of years I have taught many classes in fabric painting, decorating and surface design and each group of my students never cease to amaze me with their creative juices running wild. This was the painting day. Next each person in the group created a small art quilt with piecing and machine embroidery. Look for those pieces in my next post. I would be really pleased to hear your comments about these works. You can now follow my blog by subscribing by email. Have a look at the box at the top right of this page the fill in your email. You can always unsubscribe. I DO NOT GIVE OUT EMAIL ADDRESSES ANYONE.

Saskatchewan Stitches Conference Challenge Winners

Ten days, 250 participants, 13 instructors, 39 classes, a fabric challenge and 50 entries. Another fun conference was held at St. Peter's Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan and sponsored by Haus of Stitches and Wendy Toye from Humboldt, Sask. All of those sewers - mostly women and a few good men had another great time over the week participating in quilting, painting, bra, swimsuit and panty parties, painting fabric, stitching threads and yarn into scarfs and making wild dolls and even knitting. The work times were intense and the social times were great. Beverly Johnson gave her 'Uplifting' presentation at the gala evening and had the room of 100 people rolling with laughter. I had a day off prior to my teaching days so had a chance to sew on my project that I will present next year. My students were fabulous and creative. Every time I teach, my students amaze me with their creative ideas. I give them white fabric and paint and they come up with amazing work. Over this week I will post photos of my student's work. But today I will post photos of quilts of the winners of the fabric challenge - Beverly Johnson and Annette Schultz. Both of these creative women received prizes for their artworks. Congratulations to both of you!

Knitting and Printing

I have finally finished some of my KNITTING projects. Mark's socks are a Christmas gift - for 2011!! And Liam - well he just arrived in January so I have been madly knitting his wee socks as well. I finished the lace project from the Virginia's Knitters Retreat. The yarn is thick so I only needed two repeats of the pattern (wool, silk, bamboo and sequins). I found this yarn in Palm Springs. I don't get it - it's too warm for knitted much there - maybe January is colder; but two knitting shops. Here is my work.

Fabulous Felted Fusion

At the Edmonton Weavers Guild (clubweb.interbaun.com/~ewg/) on March 17th. Eight students worked madly all day producing felted scarfs. It was a very diverse group of students - some knew a bit about felting and for others it was a first try. In the morning they made a scarf of just wool roving with decorations of bits of roving from their neighboring students and silk throwsters waste (ask me about this product). Following the layout of the roving and wetting it down everyone spent the morning rolling and rolling their soon to be felted fabric. And voila...the magic of soapy water on wool came alive with resulting Fabulous Felted Scarfs. The afternoon was a second method of laying the roving onto silk and again rolling and rolling. Even the teacher (that would be me) was tired at the end of the day. Eight students produced sixteen Fabulous scarfs. They were all really pleased and so was I. I have been invited to teach another felting class in May. If you want to join me, contact me for registration. Glenn kindly took photos that are posted here.

Saskatchewan Stitches Conference

May 24 to June 3. Put these dates on your calendar for the Saskatchewan Stitches Conference. This is the 10th anniversary for this conference. It includes all sorts of cloth and string classes from a Painted Fabric Corset to Sunprinting Fabric by myself to Bra-making, knitting, rug hooking and many quilting classes. I have been fortunate enough to be invited to teach again this year...my fifth year...of teaching and even taking a class occasionally. I have made many friends from Saskatchewan and elsewhere. I have had the opportunity to learn lots about knitting and now I am addicted. I have even made myself snazzy bras embellished with fabulous laces - custom fit and all. Check out this conference at www.hausofstitches.ca and register soon so that you get into the classes that you want. My classes this year are all to do with painting fabric. The Corset class will get you going using many of those embroidery stitches on your machine that you have never tried. Beverly Johnson designed the corset pattern that will be included in the student kit. The Sunprint class will include painting with light sensitive fabric paint as well as Paintstiks and foil. Students will design their own art quilt for this piece.
Here are photos of these projects. Now I can't wait to get to Humboldt!

Fabulous Felted Fusion

Well finally I am back here again.  It is Valentine's Day so I will wish everyone sweet wishes today.

The scarfs in the photos are pieces that I made for the November 2011 Edmonton Weavers Guild Sale.  The pink one didn't sell and I am happy because it matches my winter jacket.  I feel very dressed up when I wear this one.  This was one of the projects that I worked on during the summer of mad felting with friends.  The warm deck was just the place to do this work - me rolling felt underfoot while reading 'girly' novels.  I must have read quite a bit because I did produce quite a few scarfs like these.

There was quite a bit of interest from guild members about the technique that I used to produce these scarfs.  As a result of that, I have been invited to teach this technique.  I call the class 'Fabulous Felted Fusion'.  The class will take place on March 17th at our guild home.  At the time of writing, the class is full.  There is still interest from several potential students so hopefully the class will be held again later in the year.

As I write this my sweetheart is having his afternoon siesta.  He has had a tough year end with a slip on the ice resulting in broken ribs and punctured lung.  He is taking care of himself now and hopefully recovered from that escapade.  He needs a vacation.

I am madly knitting tiny socks for my new wee 'great' nephew born on January 27th.  Photos of those will be in an upcoming posting.

I have been working on a mapping project in my journal this year.  I have been inspired by Jill Berry in an online workshop as well as her book, Personal Geographies.  Now I am seeing 'everything' looking like maps.  I wonder what kind of a map I can make from the baby socks?  Have a look at Jill's blog and website.  Try some 'mapping' and let me know what you come up with.  I will post some of my maps in upcoming days.  It seems that I have much to show but in the meantime I had better get at my work.  Send me photos of your projects.