The final, finished wall hanging art quilt

Here's the final piece....with a blue border taking the place of the green.
Now....what the heck to do with it.!
Looks like I'll have a show and tell for a few quilt classes.

Wall hanging, part 3

Part 3...I added a piece of netting over the whole thing....then the border pieces and finally attached strings of "seaweed" on the outside....made of various yarns, ribbons, beads and hand made fabric beads. I wasn't happy with the green border, however.

Step 2 of the quilt

This is step 2 of the fish wall hanging...
The bright colors on the fish bodies are all
pieces of fused Angelina fiber.

The initial idea is started

This is the beginning of a wall hanging that I made. At the time, I didn't know quite where I was going.

SANTA FE SUNSET

THIS IS A PROJECT THAT I CREATED WHILE ON AN ART QUILT RETREAT IN MAY. I FINALLY GOT IT OUT AND FINISHED THE BORDERS, PUT A SLEEVE ON THE BACK AND IT'S NOW A WALL HANGING.
I LOVE TYING UP LOOSE ENDS. NOTE: After finishing this, I donated it to an Earth Day Auction, benefitting GREENPEACE. My postcard swap group, SURFACE DESIGN, donated 23 items to the auction and raised almost $800. I miss the piece, but the cause was good.

BACK TO DOLL CLOTHES AFTER A FEW DECADES

My sister Jean has been kind enough to "lend" me her little 5 year old grand daughter to end my frustration about wanting to sew a doll outfit, but having no little girls to make one for. The last time I sewed it was for my daughter, who is now 42, and it was Barbie ponchos and bell bottom pants!

So--- I picked up some lovely faux suede, faux leopard print and faux fur and the pattern for the American Girl doll and proceeded to cut and sew and follow a pattern that was sadly lacking in it's instructions.

I can only credit Ms. Schuller for her sewing classes that I took in school, never realizing all she taught me over a 4 year period.

I truly enjoyed making it.....for all of its fuss and feathers and will probably make more-----someday----and sell them on ebay for next to nothing, because that's all the ebay buyers of hand made things want to pay.

For now, my craving is satiated.

THE UNIVERSE ON A POST CARD

I saw a program
on the science channel.
Scientists talking about
the string theory of the
universe.
I don't pretend
to begin to know what
they were talking about but the idea was fascinating.
This 4x6" postcard is my interpretation of the universe and the string theory.

Crabapple Hill hooked rug

I occasionally like to try my hand at hooking rugs.
I've hooked rugs using wool yarn and wool strips.
This particular primitive was made with wool strips. It's called Crabapple Hill.

I'M GETTING BRAVER!

I just joined a postcard swap group named Surface Design...and oh boy, have they stirred up my creative genes (whatever is left in me).
Challenges have been thrown out there that I had to try. The first being to create a card that showed a mythical creature. I chose the Phoenix...thinking of 9-11 in part and of other things in my life...
The second challenge was to create a card in monotones....I settled on a mystery planet where everything was green, and the sea was inhabited by creatures...

A PATRIOTIC POST CARD

This will be my postcard for my FabriCardArt swap group. I'll mail them in time for arrival on the 4th of July. The 3 stars represent the fact that this will be the
third swap of our little group.
It's paper pieced, using Robert Kaufman fabric that I just fell in love with. I had every intention of going in a totally different direction with my card...but once I purchased those 5 fabrics I just had to use them in something.
I've lived in enough foreign countries to have formed the opinion that whatever complaints there may be about our country, there is no better place to live.
Bless the young men and women who are putting their lives on the line to protect her.

BEING 70

The following are exerpts taken from an article written by author Barbara Holland, author of "When all the World was Young" (Bloomsbury, 2005). It has put into words better than my own, my own feelings and musings.

"My 70th birthday didn't feel as breezy as my 60th, not half as cocky and capable. Face it, 70 is old. For a woman, the only plus side is that we can stop worrying about how we look: we look old, and suddenly there's not much use spending time, money and energy on our looks. Just try to make sure our clothes are buttoned and zipped and our hair is combed before we go out. Forget all those creams and colorings. It's a relief, in way.
We accept limits. Limits are always nasty, but we hold our noses and swallow them anyway. Meeting challenges is said to be good for us, but how often must we meet the same challenges, overcome the same obstacles? How often do we have to climb Everest? Is it time to look for someplace easier to live? Admit limits?
All of us, waking up in the morning, forget for a moment where we are and decide to paint the living room ceiling or go pony trekking in Iceland. By the time we've brushed our teeth we remember that we'll have to be content with ceilings already painted and treks already taken.
They make good musing. I know we aren't supposed to dawdle around in the past, they tell us it's healthier to live for the moment, to look to the future. But the future shrinks:how will our great-grandchildren turn out, what will happen with global warming? We'll never know. One of these springs, and then for many more springs, the wild rhododendrons by the chimney will bloom and I won't see them. (In my case, it's the lilac bushes outside my studio window.)
It's annoying.
The past, though, expands, and what we've already done improves the view. It lifts us up a bit higher every year. Great granite building blocks under us, all those people and places, summers and winters, everything we've learned and the songs we remember, all solid to climb up and stand on for a grand view of our world. Our personal, hand-made world. All happy people have self-protective memories, but if we'd rather be miserable, we can choose to haul along with us the tears and betrayals, missed chances, and lost loves. We can remember not the happy trip to Mexico with a friend and the margaritas we drank, but only that the friend is now dead and the margaritas now give us heartburn.
We can do what we like with our past. It's ours, and we've earned it. We can stand on top of it, taller than most, and admire our view."

Hello out there to women of all ages. I hope you are as happy as I am when you reach this part of your life.
Phyllis

A FAVORITE BLOG

http://www.fabricaffair.blogspot.com/

My journal cover

I just completed making my journal cover, complete with a mojo doll. She's there to encourage me to use my new journal for sketches, notes and all things of interest to me. It's the result of my weekend retreat with my most favorite and talented fabric art teacher and a beading class.

ANOTHER RETREAT PROJECT

One of the lovely, creative women I met on my retreat suggested that I post a picture of this project, that I made. It was a kind of "pull it out of the air" idea. I really enjoyed watching it develop over the day.
Thanks Linda.....are you gonna post your creations?

MY BEADED MOJO

I just finished making this mojo good luck doll. The latest in my learning endevors
from my weekend retreat. I find that when I'm taught something in class, I have to take the idea home and chew on it for a while before I can "spit it out" into a finished project. That's why I love classes...I learn the technique....ponder over the ideas presented, then try to do my own take on it.
So--take classes in whatever interests you, my friends. You'll be paid back many times over.

STORY TELLING WITH FABRIC

I had the pleasure of attending a weekend seminar at The Hermitage in Three Rivers, Michigan...about 76 miles south of Grand Rapids.
There I learned to kick start my creativity in fabric art with the assistance of 2 wonderful facilitators and 8 other Quilters.
Fabric art is not like quilting as you might think of it.
I could never call myself a traditional quilter....I guess because I'm not good at following hard and fast rules and patterns, and I'm a bit sloppy when it comes to finishing the work. I admire all the beautiful quilts I've seen and the people that create them. Anyway, I'm not even close to "showing off" any work I've done...in fact I'm just scratching the surface of all that fabric art has to offer.
I'm reading books and taking classes and trying to figure out where this new art form is going to take me. It's like starting with a fresh clean page and whatever I want to put on it will be all mine.

My opinion and I'm entitled to it !

FiberCardArt

Here are some fiber art cards I sent out to my swap group of 25. I decided to do a Lake Michigan theme since this is where I live and thought that it would be a good way to greet the new members. We hope to have a second swap, starting in April.
It's a wonderful way to be creative in a small space, and to share that with others with the same interest.

One of my favorite blogs

http://julaine.blogspot.com/
This is one cool fiber artist and teacher. I found this blog purely by coincidence, and it's fascinating.

HERE'S THE LATEST FABRIC ART POSTCARDS

I JOINED A SWAP GROUP OF 25 FABRIC ARTISTS AND WE ARE CREATING WHAT WE CALL FABRICARDART.
We are creating our own postcards that we send through the mail to the other members of the swap. They have to be hand cancelled and go through the mail without a protective envelope....just like a postcard is sent. We have fabric artists from all over America and even England and Denmark!. We've been given 3 months to create and send our cards, with whatever theme we wished.
Since I'm from Michigan, the "Great Lakes State"....my cards are all scenic lake landscapes, representing the many moods of Lake Michigan. Doing this kind of miniature fabric art is really a good practice in creativity. I find that one idea leads to another, etc. and am already looking forward to my next swap.
The people participating in the swap are friendly and helpful and encouraging. What more could one ask for?
My sister and I are in the same swap and are always exchanging ideas and techniques.
So...here they are..some of my post cards. They were fun to make and they challenged my creativity.......and that's
A GOOD THING.

FABRICARDART