Erosion Bundle Project

Erosion Bundle Project ----
I'm participating in a really unique and creative challenge called The Erosion Bundle Project. The idea was originally from Seth at The Altered Page.
The idea is to create a small bundle out of whatever you want and then hang, place, bury or submerge the bundle and watch mother nature have her way with it. The due date for putting your bundle out is Jan. 1, 2010. We have such mild winters here in South Texas that I decided to get mine started now so it could have longer out in the weather. Everyone in the project then take pictures of their progress along the way and removes them April 15th, 2010. Once we remove our bundles we'll have until August 2010 to finish art pieces using our eroded items from the bundles. Pretty neat huh!
If you'd like to participate in this challenge check out The Erosion Bundle Blog, and leave Kris Henderson a post saying you are in. Kris is the inspiration behind this project.
Below is a picture of my bundle. I have it all wrapped in white fabric and tied up with purple fabric. Inside is felt, coffee filters, a cork washers, raffia, fabric paper, a brochure a postcard, stamps, a piece of baked polymer clay, bottle caps, paper beads, another piece of fabric that was bleach discharged, tulle, ribbon, a silk flower petal, 2 confetti eggs, a metal spring, a feather, 2 coasters that are cardboard, paper ephemera, colored foil and more odds and ends.
I'm not sure where it's going to be placed yet, hanging from a tree, in my compost tumbler, sitting on my patio wall, buried in my garden or where. Hummmm! What do you think???
I will keep you posted on the progress of this project and photos of my bundle and please let me know if you join in the fun! This will be very interesting! Ohbtw, I heard about this from Bea at Dog in the Hole studio. She is full of good info about lots of things. You need to pop on over to her blog sometime.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wanted to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for having gotten to know all of you and thank you for visiting me and leaving comments. Thank you to those of you who don't leave comments too and maybe one day you will come out of lurkdom and say hello! :)
Hope you all don't eat too much turkey but have fun today!

I took this photo when I was at my friends in the hill country. There were some large turkeys just coming through near the cottage early in the morning and I happened to be out for my walk when I saw them and got some pictures. It was wonderful!

Remember to enjoy the little things!

South Texas Snow

Wanted to show you this "cool" photo. I wish I knew who took the photograph so I could give them credit. I do know that it was taken here in deep south Texas in 2004 when we got 6 inches of snow on Christmas Day. It was rare and wonderful and amazing and cold! First snow in probably 100 years or more. No one who lived here could remember ever hearing of it snowing here before. Most people here had never seen snow before. It was so rare and exciting that there was even books written about it. To find out more about the books you can go to www.texassnowbook.com . Well the snow lasted about 2 hours, because soon the Texas sun came out and melted it all into a memory, but it was a fun 2 hours for all. It brought lots of smiles and lots of laughter on that morning. It was surely a Christmas morning to remember.

I will be going on a little trip to the hill country tomorrow until the day before Thanksgiving. I will see some of my family, my children, and will be staying with my friend Lana. So, I will leave you with this beautiful, and rare snow photo in south Texas. Thought you might enjoy it. I will be returning refreshed and with more photos and new creative ideas to share.

Until later, have some fun people! :) Yvonne

"The Bears Went Over the Mountain" Art Quilt

The Bears Went Over the Mountain

I made this piece to remind me of the Rocky Mountains when I visited Colorado. There were just mountain after mountain after mountain. Between the mountains and the sunset I don't know what was more beautiful!
Let me tell you a story...to let you know why I put the bears on this quilt.
When my children were growing up we used to to go riding and would always sing in the truck. Well, their dad would never sing, he would just sit over there driving, quietly, smiling, listening to all of us sing. One day he said he had a song for us. All of us looked at each other in disbelief. The children and I were all excited because we had never heard him sing a note. So, he began to sing this song..... very seriously.
"The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see.
And all that he could see waaaaaasssssss,
the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, was all that he could see."
The children and I laughed and laughed till we had tears rolling down our face!!!! LOL To this day when I see a bear or a mountain that 's what I think of!

This is made from all of my own hand dyed fabrics and was quilted on my home sewing machine. I added the bears and the porcupine quill for embellishment.

2 More Art Dolls

Awhile back I made an autumn swap doll. You may remember that post because it is now my header. I really liked the shape of the doll so I decided to make some more. These two have polymer clay heads like the autumn doll did but I tried and tried to figure out what I could use for hair. After a long while of not coming up with any ideas I liked, I just decided they looked good without hair! Remember, with art dolls, anything goes. They only have one hand too. The hands are ceramic type hands that I picked up in New Mexico at a Fiber art show. I only had two and they are both right hands, so I gave them each one. I appliqued some geometric printed cotton fabric onto the front of each and added some turquoise discs to them. This black fabric is the under side of a very bright colored corduroy fabric. I put recycled sari yarn (I use that for everything) around their neck to cover up the stick that goes from their head into their body. I also put a weight in the bottom of the body so they wouldn't be top heavy and fall over. They stand about 12-13 inches tall.

Swap Dolls--Peace

The 3D yahoo group I'm in recently has had lots of swaps. The latest two has been for the 50th anniversary of the Peace symbol and then a holiday ornament swap. Here are the 2 dolls I sent out.

This tiny doll went to Brenda. She is only about 2 inches tall and is made from polymer clay. She has yarn for her hair and is holding a peace symbol made from a Bingo game piece with a peace symbol decoupaged onto it. She has leather sandals on her poly clay feet. Her headband is yarn and she is painted bright tie dyed colors. Brenda could sit her somewhere or use her as an ornament.

For the holiday ornament swap I got Dots name. We could either make an icicle doll or a star shaped doll. I chose to make an icicle doll. I used my fabric paper and put the words "hope" and "peace" on it, under a collaged face and peace sign. I also added yarn for hair and buttons with tulle at the bottom along with yarn and a painted paper bead hanging down from the bottom tip. I love these icicle dolls. This one is about 5-6 inches long and I think I will be making more for my tree this year.

Rust Fabric Art Quilts

A few weeks ago I made some rust fabric. I love the process and the look. Three of those pieces I decided to add color. That really made the rust fabric pieces special. Below are three of my finished, yes, finished art quilts using those colored rust pieces of fabric. Click on each picture to see the quilting and the detail better.

I first noticed on this rusty fabric that there was a star shape on the left, so I decided to make this piece an underwater scene, and the star would become a starfish. I love this color (turquoise) that I added with the rust color. I had some turquoise hand dyed fabric to make the raw edge applique fish. Then I added lots of free motion quilting to the whole quilt. The border is another rust piece of fabric that has no color on it. The corner blocks have more of the turquoise color. The binding is very simple. I left a raw edge and zig zagged it down around the edges. Last I sewed on 3 shells at the right bottom border near the corner block.

This piece was inspired by a piece I saw at the SAQA trunk show. The SAQA piece was about Australian Mimi's, which are spiritual beings. I saw my rust fabric and I noticed this one had spiral shapes on it and I thought it reminded me of Newgrange (a very spiritual place) in Ireland where they have lots of spiral shapes. I had already had added the pink colors to the fabric so I decided to add Mimi women with a twist. For the Mimi women I used some of my hand dyed fabric and I drew them out and then free motion sewed them with variegated thread. They are not quite as thin as the normal Mimi and mine are a bit more embellished. They are spiritual beings, and a little bit otherworldly in a way. Then I added banana yarn and paper beads to the top corners.

My thread painted tree was the first of its kind that I tried my hand at and it's been sitting in my studio for awhile. I wanted to do something with it and I thought this piece was a good one to put it on. I tacked it in place and then began to do a lot of free motion quilting on the entire piece. Then it still needed something to balance it out. Gail had send me some natural items and I found these 3 seed pods. I sewed them on and they were perfect!

Now I need to name the art quilts. Any ideas?

Embroidered Animals Quilt and a Denim Tote

This is another quilt I made on my embroidery/sewing machine. Just got it quilted by my friend Mary. Most of the blocks are African animals and I made a log cabin design around each one. Scraps were used for this whole quilt.



There are lions, tigers, bears, alligators, monkeys, and more. I loved making this quilt.

This is a close up of the borders and the quilting that Mary did.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks. This elephant is one of my favorite designs. You can see his wrinkles!

This photo is a tote that my friend Mary Anne made for me. I did a trade with her. I made her a polymer clay head and she made me this denim tote. I feel like I came out on the better end of the deal. The doll on the front is juggling the balls and each ball says something different...wife, mother, daughter, artist, self. I just love this tote.

This is the back of the tote. Three pockets sure come in handy. I took it to the quilt guild with me yesterday and got lots of comments on it. The inside is just as pretty. It has a pretty blue fabric and there is another pocket inside too. MA did such a great job. Thanks Mary Anne! You should check out Mary Anne's blog, Magpies Mumblings. Go see what else she creates. MA is in the Art Doll Coolaberration 2009 project with me. Her doll is Shudayra, who is becoming a volcano goddess. Go check it out. It is amazing!

Quilt Guild and Project Linus

Joyce brought one of her pieces that she did at Shirley's one day. She did a mono print using freezer paper in the shape of a pitcher and then put that pretty embroidery in the middle of the pitcher which really made it. It is simple but very pretty in my opinion.

This is Darlene showing 2 twin quilts she made. I love the flowers at the bottom. Love the colors as well. Very nice Darlene. Oh, btw, Darlene was celebrating her 59th wedding anniversary! Wow!

These are 2 felt pieces that were shown. I love them both. They were the same pattern but different colors and they were showing how you could make them look different just by choosing different colors, by binding one and framing another, adding words to one and not the other etc.

This is a Christmas piece. Love it. There were lots of great show and tell pieces at the quilt guild this time but these were my favorite of all.

Another thing that was presented at the guild was Project Linus. If you like to make quilts please check out this website and see what you can do to help these little ones. A little time is all it takes. A quilt = a hug in my book, and they need all the hugs they can get. :)

Steampunk pendant for Miss Elspeth Darkly

I wanted to make a steampunk style pendant for Miss Elspeth. I had never heard of steampunk before this Art Doll Coolaberration Project I'm in. I was introduced to it by Karma, one of the project participants. This is her doll by the way. I have looked it up on the Internet...thank goodness for Google...and actually Steampunk is pretty neat. It has to do with gears and machines. The steampunk jewelry can be very pretty and delicate. So, for this little doll I made this little steampunk style pendant.

I used silver polymer clay and put a little washer from the hardware store in it and a red bead in the center of that. Then I baked it. Oh, I also put a piece of wire in the top with a loop so I could run a ribbon through it.

The bead did not melt at the low temp that you bake the clay. After it was done I coated it with a clear poly sealer to hold it all together. Then lastly I ran the black ribbon through the wire loop and tied it on her neck.

I think it looks pretty good!

Fiber Art Society Meeting and SAQA

This weekend was so exciting! I attended a SAQA trunk show, not once but twice. I am not allowed to show you the art pieces themselves but I do want to tell you about SAQA itself and our meeting with the Fiber art group. SAQA stands for Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. If you are an art quilter you need to go to their website and check them out and become a member. This trunk show was wonderful! I saw about 120 different artists work from all over the world. The pieces were 12 inch square, matted with an 8 inch opening... and what I found just as interesting was reading the artists statements on the back. I did recognize some of the artists, such as Susie Monday and others, but most were new to me. Being able to look at the art up close and to read how they did it and what materials they used was just so interesting. It was all marvelous work. Such detail and such imagination! This trunk show has traveled all over the world and will continue to travel for at least another year. Isn't that amazing!

Vou Best, from Seguin, Texas, (shown on the left) presented the trunk show. One of Vou's pieces was in the trunk show by the way. She was so informative and helpful giving us info on SAGA and more. Vou is a long time friend of my friend Shirley (on the right...Darlene is in the middle btw). Vou presented the trunk show on Saturday to our Saturday Quilters group, and then again on Sunday to the Fiber Artists Society in Corpus Christi. I went to both! WooHoo! We meet at Happy Jonas's home for the FAS and we have a wonderful group. I know everyone there enjoys just about anything having to do with fabric.

The group of ladies in the FAS are wonderful artists themselves. They greatly appreciated what they were seeing in the SAQA trunk show.

Most, if not all, of the SAQA pieces were very inspiring to all of us. There was so much discussion going on among the ladies... we all had a wonderful time. Happy had refreshments for everyone and Vou had giveaways for all of us to take home afterwards.

Happy is such a gracious hostess and it's wonderful to be able to meet in her home. Here she is talking about what we will be doing at our next meeting in January. She has purchased 3 CD's and they are are all on different types of quilting arts techniques. We also discussed doing an Exquisite Corpse project. Eight of the ladies were interested in that. None of us have ever done one so if any of you can give us some idea on how it is done, please email me at thyme4giving@yahoo.com. I have done some research but would like some input from someone who has actually participated in one.

Darlene is showing one of her small art quilts she recently made for a friend of hers. She took a photo of him for his 80th birthday, enlarged the drawing and then made this art quilt for him. I think he will love it! Great job Darlene! I'm going to try and get more photos of Darlene's work to show all of you. She is a wonderful quilt artist. She is available for commission work and I will try to get her contact info also.

So, that was my weekend...full of eye candy! I sure enjoyed it. Now to get back in my studio and do something with all that inspiration! If you ever have the chance go see a SAQA trunk show! I hope all of you go create something too!

Flowers in a Quilt...what kind of pillows?

Well, it seems I go back and forth between art quilting and traditional quilting. In between I do my art dolls and other fun stuff. My friend Mary Kout is back down from Kansas (she and her husband are winter Texans) and she has brought me some of my traditional quilts that she quilted for me on her long arm quilting machine. So, I've been busy putting the binding on those. Here is the finished Grandmother's Garden quilt that I posted on awhile back. It is set on point with some colorful dark red sashings. This quilt will go in my guest bedroom. I just love it, but I think it will be a while before I do another one.

Another close up for you to see.

All of the flowers are 3D and the baskets are pieced.

I used all scraps to make this quilt.

I was really into color when I made this quilt and the border is very colorful....yellow, green and red like the sashings.

This is a queen size quilt by the way. It was great fun to make.

Pattern is by Eleanor Burns.

Any ideas for pillows to go with this quilt? I love pillows on a bed. I don't want to do more blocks like in the quilt, I think that would be too many flowers. So what are some of your suggestions? I need help on that one.

Fabric Paper Ladies

I've been making fabric paper again. It is more fun! If you haven't tried it, you should, because it's easy and it gives you a great base to work on. I bought the book Stitch Alchemy by Kelli Perkins and have been experimenting the last few days. Here are two pieces I made from an inspiration piece in the book. These photos are copyright free or you could use your own photos.

Each piece is about 8 inches square. After I made the fabric paper and it was good and dry I collaged the photo onto it. Then I took watered down acrylics (they used watercolor for this one) and applied the wash of color here and there. Then I blotted here and there with a paper towel to highlight, as the book suggested.

I added a torn up paper doily around this photo for more texture and then put on more color. Both pieces are then stitched with a bubble pattern in several places using pink thread. I went around the edge using a zig zag stitch to hold it all together. These pieces can be ironed to flatten them out good by the way. I ironed them on the back side using a medium heat. Now I would like to add some words or a quote or something to finish them off. What do you think?

Here is a piece of my fabric paper that just finished drying. I'm going to have fun with this piece! If you make some fabric paper, I'd sure like to see it.

Another Coolab Doll is Here!

I am so excited about each doll that comes in the mail for this Round Robin doll project. Today I received Miss Elspeth Darkly. She is the 4th doll in the Art Doll Coolaberration 2009 project that I will be pleased to work on.

Isn't she pretty. She started in Canada with Karma. Karma made her face from her own secret clay recipe. Her body is made from fiber that is needle felted. To find out more about this doll and all the dolls, please go to the Art Doll Project website.

Miss Darkly is about 8-9 inches tall. If you go to the project website you can see what she looked like in the beginning. You can also see what each participant has added to her. They have all done a wonderful job.

The journal is shown on the project website also. It is a very unique journal and I can't wait to add to it. It seems like each doll has a great story line and this one is no exception. Miss Darkly has a great mystery behind her.

Now I just have to listen to Miss Darkly to find out what she wants next. She has made herself quite at home here and is settling in nicely.

Grandmother's Garden Quilt

I made a 3D Grandmother's Garden Quilt. I wanted to show you a few of the blocks so you could see what I mean by 3D. The design is by Eleanor Burns and it is great fun to make. Each block is a different flower appliqued in a pieced basket. I used all scraps for this quilt.

This is the Tiger Lily.

This is the Pansy.

This is the morning glory, one of my favorites.

I think this one is the bleeding hearts. I'm not sure because I don't have the book anymore.

And I can't remember what this one is. Sorry. Can anyone tell?
There are many other flower blocks. Some of the flowers have embroidery that really adds to them. If you want to do an interesting and fun quilt you should try this one by Eleanor Burns. Her instructions are great and if you go step by step it is quite easy...a little time consuming, but easy. My quilt is put together on point with sashing in between, but you can do it different ways. It just got quilted by a friend of mine on her long arm machine and it looks great, so all I have to do now is put the binding on.

So try this one and have fun!

Baby Quilts

I've been working on baby quilts lately. This is a work in progress. Shown here is part of the quilt top I'm working on. I got an order for a little girls quilt. They wanted purple, with dragonflies and butterflies. The purple fabric in one of the borders has dragonflies in it...it's sooo cute. The other border has butterflies and dragonflies and bees in it. The detail of the fabrics, and the detail of the free motion stitching on the dragonfly wings are real cute. I love free motion stitching! It makes such a difference in a quilt, especially a baby quilt.

I always make/draw my own design. The dragonfly is about one foot wide. Part of the dragonfly is made from some of my hand dyed fabric. I was going to put embroidered butterflies on the quilt, but my embroidery machine quit on me, and it has to be done by December 1st. So, now I guess I will make appliqued butterflies. I will also put the baby's name on the quilt top. I still have to stitch the dragonfly antennae, add more fabric borders and then put it all together and quilt it. Then I bind it last.

This quilt is one I made for my great niece. Again my design. All the blocks were embroidered on my machine. I put embroidered butterflies in each corner. Then I quilted it on my machine.

This quilt was made for a little boy, my great nephew. It has geckos, spirals and leaves on it. This is my own drawing/design also. It went out in the mail last Friday. My friend Mary quilted this one on her long arm quilting machine and then I put the binding on it.

It's always a good idea to label your work. I put homemade labels on all my quilts.

I put who it was made for, who made it, who quilted it, where and when it was made and any other pertinent information. You can add anything you want to on your label to make it special.
Each one of my quilts has its own unique label. Baby quilts are appreciated and usually kept for many years. Make them strong and soft and unique for that special baby.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Well, this is the last day for All Saints Day, Day of the Dead, whatever you happen to call it. I was thinking of my trip a few years back to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New England. I went with my friend Lana and we sort of did the authors tour together around Concord, Mass. We visited Walden Pond, the authors homes, and of course author's hill at Sleepy Hollow.

Sleepy Hollow is a beautiful cemetery. Of course lots of people visit here. Cairns are all around the graves of the most popular authors such as Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau, and Emerson. I added my little stones too.

Sleepy Hollow is a very large and beautiful cemetery and if you are ever up in that area it is worth visiting.
Most of the headstones in Sleepy Hollow date pretty far back. Of course everything is older in New England than here in Texas it seems, as it was settled first. I always felt like I was stepping back in time in a way.

Thoreau seems to be the most famous I guess. He is one of my favorite as well. All of the authors have family plots and just small headstones are in place for each member with their first name inscribed on it.

It was very interesting and very calming there.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said of cemeteries...

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.

Hunter...Gatherer

I molded three small faces this weekend. They are the beginnings of my hunter/gatherer spirit art dolls I plan to make soon. I will add a bit of paint to their faces, and their bodies will include a lot of natural items, fabric and who knows what else. I'll just let them speak to me.



Making these faces put me in a hunter/gatherer mood I guess because I went to some great garage sales over the weekend, hunting and gathering.

This table cost one dollar but it didn't look like this when I bought it. It was covered with lots of padding and fabric. The fabric was gathered all around the side and went all the way to the floor. There was at least 3 yards of fabric there. It was red and white toile. So I took all of it off, and will use the padding and fabric for another project. Then I saw the top of the table and thought to myself...whoa it's in bad shape. But I started looking and it had potential. The legs had been sanded and some of the green paint was still showing, but that was okay with me. I like that sort of shabby chic look. The bad thing was, it had peeling wood in places on top and someone had tried to fix it with something like caulking. I could not get the caulking off without making it worse, so I just went with it. I decided to put a thick layer of gesso over it to sort of level it out and fill in the peeled up areas. It looked better already. Then I did it like I do fabric paper. I used watered down glue and put layers of torn paper from an old National Geographic and an old Readers Digest Condensed book (both from the thrift store) on the top of the table only and then put layers of torn white tissue paper over that. I let that dry and then put a coat of Mod Podge on it. I was going to use varnish but I didn't have enough.

I put just a little gold acrylic paint here and there and that was it. I let it dry really good. It is already really hard and tomorrow morning I will put it by my sofa and put a lamp and books and more of my stuff on it. Pretty good for 1 dollar plus a bit more. I like it! I will use it as a side table and not a coffe table most likely.

While I was out hunting and gathering I got more feathers! My friend Teresa Yates from Cedar Junction Studio gave me a whole bag of guinea feathers on Saturday. I just love feathers, and I guess the word is getting around! LOL That's okay. I love to use natural items in my art, especially my art dolls.

Now isn't this one just the coolest feather you have ever seen! Sooo pretty! I love it and I would love to see the guinea it came off of.

And look at all of these pretty ones! Neat aren't they!!!! Thanks Teresa!

Teresa makes all kinds of neat stuff. She is quite the artist. Here is just a very small example of what she does. These are tags that she made. She took old photos and altered them. Pretty cool, huh!

I also picked up this old mailbox door and two key holes. I just love stuff like this. You need to visit Teresa at Cedar Junction Studio because she has some great items for sale.

Well, I continued hunting and gathering...found a great old door (without the glass and with a shelf) and...and...and....well you don't want to hear about everything I found. Let's just say I was glad we have a pick up truck! :)

Hope ya'll have a good day!