Postmark'd Art Postcards

I finished another piece before it is due!! Am I becoming organized!! Can't be!! This last set of postcards is due to be mailed by May 30th and today is the 27th. Wouldn't that be great if I can make this a habit....

These cards were started a while ago. The background is bleached with a bleach pen to look like a Chinese lattice. It began with a plain brown cotton. I love the color it turned from the bleach.

Some shapes, cut with the Cricut, were added. At the time I thought I liked the starkness of the white against the lattice. After looking at them for a month or two a change was made and I painted them.

The Kanji word means health. I know I have a mix of cultures in this card, but working with what I had available, I thought they mixed well together.

I visited my mom yesterday, which is a 4 hour drive each way. Her birthday was last week so I purchased some books on CD for her to listen to. I also bought one for myself to listen to on the drive. Mine is called The Quilter's Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini. I listened to six and a half of the disks while driving. There are nine altogether. I love historical books about the everyday life of women. It is not quite as much about quilting as I expected but it is a good story. I was at the half-price bookstore so it was only $8, which seemed good for a 9 disk story. Most of the books my mom likes are not longer being published so they are easier to find at used book stores. Maybe I can give mine for a raffle prize at Contemporary Quilters once I have heard it all.

Have a Creative Day
Janet

MCQ Challenge "Melange aTrois"

I finished my challenge piece for Minnesota Contemporary Quilters. I was inspired by an impressionist painting by Claude Monet called "Rouen Cathedral". Here is the painting.

I attempted to re-create the painting using bleach discharge.

Since this challenge was "a Trois" I needed two more.

I did some thread painting and added one angelina 'stained glass window' for each as a unifying piece. Than I decided I wanted it to look as though it were a painting. So, I created a mat and frame.

Have a creative day.
Janet

Lot's of fun lately!

I'm still experimenting with what I can do with copper. It really is a lot of fun. I found out I can punch out shapes using my paper punches that I have for scrapbooking. My pictures are still lousy but they give you an idea.

I'm also learning to make shapes with the wire. Now I need to design a few more quilts so I can use these shapes.

I was fortunate to be asked by a friend to join her in the Twin Cities Shop Hop. I've never gone to this before because the shops are so far apart and honestly, I get lost easily. We took two days and went to five shops each day. I had only been to one of the ten shops before so this was a gold mine for me. Now I know how to find (sort of) nine more quilt shops! Each shop has door prizes and there were other prizes given to a lucky few. I can't believe how lucky I was. I won several small prizes and one terrific book. The book is called Fabric Embellishing The basics & beyond by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas and Lauren Vlcek. I won it at Bear Patch Quilting Co. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to add different techniques to their work. They cover over 50 techniques. I've made a link to Amazon so you can check it out more closely.

I also finally went to see the Foot in the Door exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It is more than a little overwhelming but luckily they have a computer so I could look up my friends to find where there art work was in the exhibit. You can look for mine at this link, click the search button and type 208-04 and it will show you just mine. Or you can press the random button and see lot's of different works. There were some amazing works of art. It happened to be Mother's Day when we went to see the exhibit so they also had a special event for that day. There were different musician's throughout the museum and all of the galleries were free that day.
Have a Creative Day
Janet

Raining again....

I have to admit, I'm getting a little tired of the rain. They are saying it's supposed to be nice on Sunday, I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed. I have lot's of flowers to plant thanks to the local boy scouts who come and sell door to door every year. It will be passed the date of possible frost damage by this weekend so that will be perfect.

The rain stopped for a few minutes yesterday so I played with my Bernz O'Matic again. I did get some rainbow coloring on a couple of pieces of copper. It's a little hard to photograph but here is what I did with my propane torch. I'll try to figure out a better way to photograph this because it really does look better in person.

I finished my little 'Go Native' piece. I decided the bottom half was plain so I added another little design with copper wire and turquoise beads. Metal and turquoise remind me of the southwest. I also used a turquoise binding. I still think there is something missing but I'm not sure what. I'll keep it on my design wall for a little while and see if something comes to me.

Have a creative day!
Janet

Go Native!

The theme for our Rosie Quilter challenge this month is Go Native! That can make me think of many ideas so it will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with. I've been working diligently on my seminole quilt. Man, that has a lot of pieces! I have all the rows finished now, just need the border and quilting.

I think the seminole pattern influenced my train of thought for the Go Native! theme. I immediately thought of Native American. I've been wanting to do something with a photo I took of Montezuma's castle when we were on vacation in Arizona.

I've also been wanting to use the ExtravOrganza that I bought several years ago. In case you have never used ExtravOrganza it is semi-transparent silk sheets for inkjet printing. You can see through to what is underneath. I put a skyline photo underneath that my husband took while we were in Arizona. I actually used the skyline right side up and upside down. I just thought it was a cool effect.

Metal and turquoise are two things I associate with the southwest as well. I just received a propane torch for Mother's Day!! How cool is that. So I am excited about heating up copper to change the color. I want to get some wire to make some things with it as well. Here is the metal I played with today. I was just weaving it. We used to make placemats out of construction paper when I was little using this technique.

I was supposed to have this done for tonight but I'm not quite finished. I did the hand stitching on the top but not the bottom yet. I want to add some turquoise beads all along the edge when I bind it. It's a little smaller than 8 1/2 by 11.
Have a creative day
Janet