As Summer Ends: Farmington Gardens Images, Lavender and 4th of July Whimsical Wired Characters

 Images from Farmington Gardens in Beaverton, Oregon taken in late June.
These photos capture colors and compositions of the summer garden.

Lavender was harvested from our home garden and placed in containers to dry.

A new family of Wired Characters took shape on July 4th...four in all.  Three of the four have been purchased; their new homes are in Wenatchee, WA, Portland, OR and Durban, South Africa.  They are dancers built on wood spool bases with wild hair made of fiber, button faces, fabric or knitted skirts, wire and fabric-wrapped bodies and colorful wire arms.
The three sisters in the photo below are in various stages of construction.  

Around the Block Fiber Arts Stroll

My new series of birds, inspired by the birds in Kristin Shields' folk art, will be shown and sold at the 9th Annual Fiber Arts Stroll in Sisters, Oregon on Sunday, July 7th, Noon-4pm.  We'll be at "The Jewel", 1221 W. Cascade (Hwy 20).  

This red bird has a wool body and an angelina fiber wing embedded with triangular flecks of angelina film.

This chubby pink-orange bird's body is made from angelina fibers and its wing is made from angelina fibers and angelina film.  It has long swirly twirly tail feathers.

A closer look.

Whimsical wired women, other critters and wiry trees will also make an appearance.

Stop by and visit us if you have a chance.  We'd love to see you.

  

Whimsical Wired Characters and Critters

I am participating in the Around the Block Fiber Arts Stroll in Sisters, Oregon on Sunday, July 7th, from Noon-4pm.

I'll be demonstrating, exhibiting and selling Whimsical Wired Characters and Critters at:

The Jewel

1221 W. Cascade (Hwy 20)

Sisters, OR  97759

Here are some of the Whimsical Wired Characters and Critters that were purchased this month:

 Sweet wiry dog with a button body and beady blue eyes.

 Sewing Machine Companion - She watches over and blesses the sewing work from her perch on a spool holder.  She has a metal sewing machine bobbin head, silk hair and a knitted skirt on a vintage wood and metal spool body.

 This little lady now lives in Idaho.  She has metal sewing machine bobbins for her head and waist, yarn and fabric hair, button hands, and a knitted skirt.   She is bound together with wire, fibers and fabric and is built on a vintage tree-shaped wood spool base. 

 This angel ornament with Angelina fiber wings also lives in Idaho.  She has yarn hair, a bead head, beaded wire arms, fabric skirt and a wire flower in her hair.

 Silky dancer.
I wrote about her in this post.

 Wiry bird.  Made primarily of wire of various gauges and colors, with a lampwork bead head and bead beak.

Tall, yoyo-head bird.  He's colorful, with a very different look on each of his sides.  His body is a tree-shaped wood spool, and he adorned with beads and buttons.  He stands on a tall wood spool wound with red.

Projects: Quilt Companions and an Angel

The doll on the left is the one I made to order for Kristin; it is crafted with scraps from the quilt Kristin pieced in the retreat we participated in together.  The angel on the right was made last year and features wire and beaded hair and angelina film wired wings.  This photo was taken during a sunny moment on a mid-March day.  The dolls sparkled brightly in the sunlight.

Before I sent Kristin's Quilt Companion doll to her, she needed a little something special.  As the doll stood there waiting to be packaged up, I remembered that the quilt Kristin had been working on at the retreat had baskets on it.  A basket - built of wire and fabric - with a heart in it was the perfect touch.  Kristin blogged about her doll here. 

Barbara sat at the other end of the long table I sat at during the retreat.  Barbara's Quilt Companion doll is constructed from scraps of fabric from her colorful quilt which featured dogs and flowers.

This Quilt Companion flower was also made from Barbara's scraps.  Butterflies on the petals, and dog bones on the white fabric.

This Quilt Companion dog was made to go with Barbara's doll.  Its spool body is wrapped in black and white fabric.  Very cute.

Quilting with Freddy and Gwen and friends!

Three and a half days of exploration and creating offered by The Stitchin' Post in a spacious and beautiful setting with Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston.  The experience was full of color, the hum of the sewing machines, happy conversations and chocolate.

My class project incorporates strips of fabric sewn together by my Tutu (hawaiian grandmother), fabric Mom used to make a shirt for my brother when he was a boy, and modern fabrics pieced by me into "liberated" blocks using Gwen's techniques.  Freddy and Gwen guided and encouraged the evolution of this quilt. 

It is wonderful to be incorporating the fabric strips and the fabric from my childhood... and a bit of myself and the fabrics and designs I enjoy today ... into a single project.  Now I realize that mixing old and new elements together to create special and delightful quilts is something I've wanted to do for quite some time, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.

Day 2:
This picture shows a couple of Tutu's long strips, some liberated star blocks, green and orange 4-patch and 9-patch blocks, a liberated house block, and a stack of blocks from a class taken last summer.  (Behind my design board is a magnificent large stone fireplace and a stack of wood.)  I was very skeptical about what was possible given this collection of "parts".

By the end of the day, things were looking a little better as the first three rows were sewn together.  But still, I wondered at the randomness  and a the row of green and orange to come.  How could that possibly work?

It was amazing to see all the different projects come together throughout the room.  Great diversity and personality.  People came from all over and with all sorts of different quilting interests and backgrounds.  Fascinating stories and delicious quilts.

That night I took stock of the fabric and button flower samples I have been making.  Earlier in the day I sold four fabric flower barrettes.

Later in the evening, inspired by the activities of the day, I made two whimsical wired dolls. 

Day 3:

As I unpacked the whimsical wired dolls in the morning, they received a lot of attention - which, by the way, they loved.  This tall doll kept us smiling as she watched over our work. 

 

This spool doll sat charmingly in the midst of a sea of sewing activity.

My project grew with the addition of those green and orange blocks set on point...

and a row of Tutu's strip and the construction of some liberated homes finished the day's work.

Day 4:

The next morning the spool doll had three new friends that I fashioned with scraps from classmates.   Those dolls went home with my classmates at the end of the day!  I am so happy that the dolls have gone to good homes with such wonderful people.  Here are the four spool dolls sparkling for their photo shoot at the entrance of the FivePine Conference Center.

On my quilt, the row of homes were attached and things were looking surprisingly good ...

Bits of colorful inspiration beckoned for attention throughout the room....

At the end of this last day, my quilt top looked like this ...

... with plans for the row of rectangular blocks set on point (on orange and red), a Tutu strip, a row of (flower) pots with flowers and another Tutu strip to finish up the horizontal rows.  Two of my flowers already have found their places on the quilt top, placed there by Freddy's hand with instructions to attach them only after the quilt is quilted. 

Wow.  That's a lot of color and whacky wonky piecing... fun, fun, fun... and it went together much, much fasster than it does when I am on my own, questioning and pondering every move and possible next step.

I am looking forward to absorbing, learning and applying what I heard and did and saw last week *and* finishing this first project in the series and building the series! 

Thanks to everyone who made this such a positive and fulfilling experience. 

Bird Sighting, May Class Samples and Our Mailbox Stands Straight

A bird feeds as damp pine needles glisten in the sun.  A sweet sight.

Class samples for my Embellished Fabric and Button Flowers class at The Stitchin' Post in Sisters on Friday, May 21st!  The class includes working with angelina film and angelina fibers.

Class sample for my Whimsical Wired Spool Characters class at The Stitchin' Post on Saturday, May 29th.  The class includes simple wireworking and making fabric beads. 

Fabric and Button Flowers coming to life at my "studio" in Central Oregon.

  

Our mailbox - hit by yet another vehicle, was leaning futher over than ever before in the nearly twenty years we've lived here.  The post has never stood straight.  Much of the year the ground is very hard, but this time of year it is wet and fairly workable.  We spent some time straightening up the post (it looks kind of crooked in the photo, but that's an optical illusion) and its still looking pretty good a couple weeks later.  Very nice. 

Recent creations

This sweet little angel has wings made of wire and angelina film.  Her body is an old tree shaped wooden spool, and she is decked out in left over scraps from quilts my mother and I have made.  She holds a lavender-filled heart made of angelina film and wrapped in wire.  I gave her as a gift to my sister and her husband for their anniversary.

The way the wings sparkle in the light is very fun.

Angelina film hearts and other shapes wire-wrapped with long tails can be used in many ways.  I like to keep a few in the cup that holds pens and pencils on my desk.

This is a little bowl made of angelina film.  Fibers are embedded between layers of film.  This bowl is one of a series of vessels I have been making with angelina film and angelina fibers. More photos of that series will be posted separately.

This is a set of three sachets filled with lavender and crushed walnut shells.  They are embellished with beads on one side and buttons on the other.  The fabric is from my "paisley collection" (which I have been building in my stash for many years).  I made these for my sister for her birthday.  This is my first real project using crushed walnut shells and I really like the way they turned out.

This canvas and fabric piece was finished with eight coats of varnish.  It incorporates angelina fibers and dimensional fabric paints.  Pictures of the piece during construction were included in an earlier post. 

I'm working on getting into the habit of documenting the things that I make and posting them... I've got a long way to go. 

Downstairs two big bowls of beans and a bowl of tomatoes fresh picked from the garden this morning await processing.  The dogs, thankfully, are snoozing on this sunny afternoon.  Piles of laundry and dinner making are next on the list this afternoon.  Its good to be home after a happy few days visiting and celebrating and exploring in California.  Just transferred from my camera onto the computer are photos from the trip - loads of inspiration for projects to come.