Yesterday I received a bundle of old cards from Gina after asking if I could have some of those she was offering to new homes.
It wasn't until I actually rubbed a finger tip over this card that I realised Gina had not sent me a stitched bouquet and faggot edging.
I can feel a stitching spell coming on...........that spray of flowers should look good in a heart! 
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For some reason "mrBlog" doesn't like the link I put up for you to view
"Kim in Fargo " CQ purses.
So maybe if you cut and paste the link below you might have success,that's if clicking on the blue link is still on strike!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kim_in_fargond/
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to have another look at her CQed evening bags made for herself,her sisters and her mother.
Now it's back to the real world for me as I really must go and tackle that basket of ironing.
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I had an idea of what I wanted...........dead,dying red-gums in a wetland.
A piece of quilting fabric gave me the trunks .....with some fussy cutting;
I wanted a swampy,blue-green algae effect,so I shredded some dyed silk-tops,and added some (saved) thread and fibre off-cuts;
To keep the fibres and fabric in place,I placed black tulle over the fabric and fibres;
Added the other two layers of the quilt sandwich and using black embroidery threads machined the sandwich together.I tried to accent the tree shapes with some stitching shadowing the trunk and branch outlines,as well as just swirls of fog/mist.
So you could say the result was a mish-mash of shadow quilting and solvy type thread lace..without the solvy!
And if you can "see" what I've tried to portray............
I guess that I've succeeded.
">Link Have you ever noticed how Blogs tend to go in cycles?
Several groups I'm involved with are all venturing into
Art Quilts;
Journal quilts
Fibre ATCs(Artist Trading Cards for the uninitiated) and
Postcards (again fibre, or even mixed media)
and all of a sudden I find all these wonderful sites full of eye candy and stimulation for my creativity.
SharonB over on inaminuteago refers to a posting she did January last year on using fabric postcards http://inaminuteago.com/blog/index.php as a journal because they're small and an easily portable project.
Then another of my online friends suggested looking at Postmark'dArt
to view yet more;add to that Artistic Inspirations http://artisticinspirations.blogspot.com/
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and you could spend your entire day trawling,admiring and doodling,and never put needle to fabric once!
You may have realised what I plan on doing the next couple of months........yes, mainly small stuff that hopefully I journal sufficiently to be able to refer back to at later dates
This post is for Darilyn and Tigger of Tropical Screamer &Tropical Dreamer
I always come away from my daily dose of TSTD feeling happy;but I'll never want cold pizza for breakfast D:Slices of paw-paw,mango, and stone fruit are more my style!
In the process of sorting through my (sane) quilting fabric stash yesterday,I was surprised at the number of Cat fabric FQs I've accumulated..........nearly enought to start a quilt!
And then today whilst checking out a couple of links I found a cat quilt where the cats bodies were pieced FANS.
For some reason I can't fathom mrFlickr doesn't want to communicate with MizBlog(read "me") so I include the link for you to enjoy
Eye Candy!
You want Eye Candy?Check out Pat Winter at her Home pagehttp://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/pwinter.html
and Lilla Le Vine for some CQ to die for.
Maybe,one day...........
I have enjoyed experimenting with my new set of paints!
I've found that they work well on various fabric textures and on plastic buttons
too.
Another thing I like,is that if you don't like the colour you end up with,another coat with a different colour is no problem.
This set is metallic and pearlescent colours,I think the next set will be the neopaque.
Yesterday the postie delivered a package of Lumiere paints that I've anxiously been waiting for!
I had prepared a piece of cotton fabric and stapled it to a frame and then I smothered a rectangular area with quilters basting spray
(Safety hint:this definitely needs to be done outside or in a well ventilated area!
Once I felt the adhesive was tacky enough,I started positioning bits of braid,lace and motifs in the marked area and then left it all to dry.
">Link As I commenced the FUN part today(using the paints) I realised that I need a few more textural bits added.
In the meantime,this is how it's looking and I've only used 3 colours with varying amounts of water to dilute the paint.
Incidentally the same paint has been used on the large daisy motifs as on the lace motif that's not fully coloured.
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Catherine asked how much stitching was required to keep layers together:
Not much!
The piece probably didn't even need the tulle overlay,but I wanted to try using my zipper foot to outline the beads closely,and that's why...............
I put a fairly hefty and tacky layer of basting spray on the fabric initially (next time I'll use a craft glue , and brush and dab) and I used tweezers,toothpick and rubber gloves to firmly squish the fabric confetti into the goo.
I left it to dry out for about 24 hours before I went to the next step of adding the tulle.
I'm still toying with the idea of embellishing over the quilting lines........
When is enough
ENOUGH?
Having previously "made" a fabric using Solvy and the leftovers from previous embroidery projects,I wanted to try using "confetti" as mentioned on another site to which I belong.
Maybe B and D will recognise where I'm coming from !
After choosing the fabrics to trash,I destructed them into "confetti"!
It seems quite irrational to take even small samples of fabrics and" destruct" them into minute scraps,but,there you go :
A bowl of confetti ready for the next step!
Using a piece of batting approximately 7 by 5 inches,I liberally sprayed the batting with Quilters basting spray;
(Why anyone would choose to sniff the stuff is beyond me: I did the spraying outside & still ended up with a monster headache.Next time I'll be using a bottle of craft glue)
Once the sprayed surface was fairly tacky,I positioned the confetti pieces,added a couple of sparkling buttons,some glitter threads,and waited for it to dry!
