Creative Cue : Shiny

Bet 'cha can't guess what this is ... Scroll down to find out.



















Yes, Terri. It's another food picture! It's smoked salmon, vacuum-packed. My Unca Ray brought it over as his contribution to the Christmas Day Feast. It disappeared in about 20 minutes!

My guilty pleasure : I like the sparkle and shine of fish skin. In Lake Wobegone, Garrison Keillor talk about a venerable trout-skin parka at the Sons-of-Knut Lodge that they drag out on special occasions? I always wondered what that parka would look like, and how they managed to tan a trout skin into a wearable commodity. It's such a fine, thin skin.

This salmon skin came out pretty well in the photo. I've tried taking pictures of fresh-caught rainbow trout, but the pictures never turn out. There's too much shine, maybe. The light bounces back and makes for poor pictures.


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The Horses are Complete!

The Horses are complete!


Here's the happy recipient, my Dad, on Christmas morning.


And here we are together. He liked it!
Ma said he's looking for the perfect place to hang it in the house. ;-)

Here are some more detail shots of the stitching :






You can read about some of the progress notes here :
Thread Painting on the Horses and Horses (so Far)

Creative Cues : Snowflake and Stamp

Read about the making of this embossed velvet snowflake and the foam stamp here. This is something I did in 2007.

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Creative Cue : Sponge

I played with the effects settings in Paint.net to "develop" this image. I think this was the Outline effect. I like the way it makes it look flattened, as if it's on a microscope slide. And the colors look more like watercolors. I never thought a sponge could be so interesting!


Here's the everyday sponge photo I started with.


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The Rust Fairies Left Their Feathery Marks

I went down to my wet studio this am, and this is what I found ...
The Rust Fairies did their magic over the past few months!

I had an old dish pan with some rusty liquor in the bottom. I left it last September so the liquid could evaporate, and I could recycle the rust dust. I usually use vinegar and water to speed the process. This batch must have had some salt in the brine. I never dreamed it would leave such a pleasing pattern in the process!


Here's a close-up of the rusty frosty feathers.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could get these patterns to form on the fabric? How? I don't have the answers. I'm just wondering ...

Creative Cues : Fan / Ornament

The Fan : On the first day of school in the mid-1950s, Little Holly (my mom) made a paper-folded fan. She gave it to another girl in class named Sally. Holly said, "I'll give you this fan if you'll be my friend." That was the start of a lifelong friendship.

Sally's mother (Gramma B.) made a similar folded fan into a Christmas tree ornament and shared the story many years later. The story has entered our family lore. I had to wait until I got to my mom's house at Christmas to get a picture of the fan ornament.

See other Creative Cues for Fan and Ornament.

Rosita's Twisted Bargello - Finished

This quilt top was made by my Aunt Rosita in her Quilting Connection class at Cutting Edge Quilt Shop in Antigo, WI. When she showed it to me, I liked it so much that she gave it to me, along with the book.



For the quilting, I used Leah Day's Matrix Rays in an edge-to-edge pattern. Since this is a smaller quilt, I was able to do it on my domestic sewing machine with the walking foot. I wrote about the quilting of it back in October, where you can also see a picture of my Aunt Rosita. She and my mom got me into quilting back in 2004 -- What a great idea they had!

Glad to have another quilt done! Bindings are getting easier and they look much better these days. Quilting is definitely a practice that gets better with experience.

Blue Picnic Quilt Finished

This quilt pattern is fat quarter-friendly and comes together fast. Each block is 16-inches square. I've been wanting to make a scrappy-looking quilt and when I saw Annie's Wicked Easy Quilt pattern, I gave it a go. I'm pleased with the results. ;-) Annie used to have the pattern available free on her website, but I don't think it's available anymore, or I'd include the link for you here.

I quilted it myself on the Tin Lizzie at It's Sew Rite, here in Oshkosh. It only took me about 2-1/2 hours to finish it. They allow people to rent time on this long-arm. It's a great deal! Even the quilting went fast with my default rolling bubbles pattern. Here are some detail shots :


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