A quick post...

I bought this wonderful print by Jill Mayberg on our way home from artfiberfest at the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery in Salem. Jill lives in Vancouver, WA and had lots of other wonderful paintings at the gallery.
These odd and wonderful ceramic pieces by Kim Murton spoke to me and I had to bring them home to mix in with my eclectic folk and contemporary art. The gallery had many more of her pieces....some very large heads overlooking the gallery to smaller size masks and heads.

And this is how Mary Lou wrapped up my pieces! I guess they really were a present to myself!
And now my hubby and I are off on another adventure. He decided he needed to see the Sierras this weekend and so off we go this afternoon to his favorite lake to fish and hike and read and (me) sew. I plan to work on a stitching sampler inspired by Pam Garrison who was inspired by another blogger as well as one of my favorite stitchers, Jude Hill over at Spirit Cloth. We'll see if I get any actual stitching done. What I really want to do is just sit by the stream and take a nap.
I still haven't unpacked everything from artfiberfest, but that will have to wait.
So wishing you all a Happy 4th of July and see you next week!

Artfiberfest Adventure

The car is packed to the gills with kits and supplies for classes and goodies for vendor night.
After a full day of driving we spend the night in Yreka and make it to Ashland for breakfast at our favorite spot, Morning Glory. Delicious as always and ready to check out some of our favorite shops in Ashland.
Syd checks the map for the days travel plans.
Sweet little garden and bird bath in front of Morning Glory....
One of our favorite stops is Websters...full of yarns, roving, books, wearable art, jewelry and buttons.
Colorful Noro yarns from Japan...
Fleece and roving...
Needle felted animals in a basket....
Interesting scarves...
It was a warm day and on the way to the car we put our feet in the stream to cool off...
Onward to Portland...a stop at Multnomah Village for visits to the yarn store, fabric shop, shoe store and brunch at San Marco's cafe. Before taking off we got a cool lemonade at Fat City Cafe.
Lory from Canada in my first day of classes with her wonderful hooked bird.
At vendor night with some of my fiber creations....
Lisa Kaus came to vendor night and left with three of my hooked creatures. Thanks, Lisa!
Emily's hooked bird in progress.
Nancy got hers finished up.
Love the colors in this one, bright and cheerful...Linda does it again!
Carol's sassy robin...
Tammy Gilley's wonderful bird....this is her third hooking class with me...always fun to have her enthusiastic spirit in the mix. She taught a great class this year on fabric bird nests that came out really wonderful.
Carol's finished bird with long legs and cool party hat.
Lory's finished bird and felt collage from the next day of felting.
Lory's wonderful felt scarf made from pre-felt..
Close up of Lory's scarf from show and tell night...
Here are the ladies sewing up fiber charms in my third class "Charm School"...Kari on the left, Pam in the middle and Cindy on the right.
Kari made a sweet necklace and a cuff...
Deb made a cool fiber charm necklace and some little house charms...
The famous Nanci Drew holds a little felt house she stitched up and wears some of the circle trade pins from Artfiberfest. She always makes the best trades and gives them to everyone.
Pam Garrison models her charming necklace. I love the soft colors and textures she picked out. She showed us how to make a rick rack flower that looked really cool on her necklace.
Pam's workspace.....love the colors and the charms she made for the one and only fiber mobile made in the class.
Pam and Charlotte Lyons, who came all the way from New York to teach, kept us laughing every spare moment. Here they are packed in the back of Syd's car for a trip to the airport to pick up their rental car afer a quick cruise around the neighborhood looking at the yard sale goodies.
"Sassy Art Goddess", Carol surprised me with a rug hooked "Bird in Hats" piece at show and tell that she found at a local thrift store. I think Ty and Marcia toted it home to Canada with them!
Thanks, Carol!!!You rascal....
Some of the girls relaxing at the end of fiberfest.....Traci, Nanci, and Sarah..
More folks visiting at the end of fiberfest
Charlotte, Pam, Me and Syd at Show and Tell...we stayed up late laughing and sharing funny stories...I think we had way too much fun!
Saturday night we went to Hawthorne St. for some Mexican food. A fun neighborhood to explore. Everyone was out and about on this warm Portland summer evening.
Syd and I took off and made a stop in Salem and found the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery on State St.
Mary Lou and her husband were painting the front room for a new show but let us in to look around. We managed to find several really cool things to buy before we left. If you find yourself in Salem, be sure to visit this great gallery of local artists......
We stopped in Mt. Shasta for dinner at Lily's. Great food. They made us some blackberry creme sodas that were cool and refreshing. We drove on to Red Bluff for the night.
Outside Lily's in Mount Shasta....
A vist to Sausalito for a stop at Pine St. Papery. Across the street the Caffe Di Vino had the best little cookies for the trip home.
Back home now after a wonderful trip up to Portland and Reed College where we met for Artfiberfest this year. A great group gathered to share our love of all things fiber. We had a fun kick off meeting and then 3 full days of classes. Mini demonstrations by Pam, Charlotte, and Reenie were an added bonus. So fun to get together with friends, old and new to learn new techniques, share stories, and gather new materials to play with. Loved all my students and they made the most amazing things. I know I took more photos of the felted things but have no idea what happened to them! Anyway we had lots of fun creating and I loved everything that every one made. I will try and get a flickr set made for Artfiberfest 2009 soon. As always, Teesha and Tracy created a wonderful retreat and were always on hand to help us move things about and take care of all the details that make Artfiberfest such a uplifting and creative adventure. Thanks so much you two for all the work you do to make this happen for all of us.
On the way home, Syd and I were already talking about possible classes for next year.

Happy Summer Solstice Everyone!

These dollies are coming with me to Artfiberfest and are looking for new homes.
This basket of creatures will be coming too....
Two brand new mushrooms made last night....
And I made it to the Festive Summer Solstice Celebration in downtown Santa Barbara on Saturday. About 50,ooo people or more lined the streets. We have an annual parade...all of the floats are made by hand, no motorized vehicles allowed. It's a great community celebration of creativity and a fun day for everyone. Dancing, art, food, crafts followed in the nearby park. I somehow left my camera in my car and had to take these from the Sunday paper....

The fabric animals...now painted....
The two kitties asleep on a rocking chair.
And my ole pal, Tiger totally relaxed on an antique quilt.

I leave tomorrow for Portland, Oregon....so this might be my last post for a bit....Thanks to Marie, Sheri, Jude, Chris, Tara and all you others who stop in for a peek...I appreciate your comments and visits!

Busy week...

It's been a busy week here with the boys out of school and getting ready to travel to Portland with all my class stuff. I did manage to get these two dollies finished up and the ones below are needing to be painted some more. We shall see if I can get them done in time for our trip.


On Wednesday we had a fun little felting day here at my home. Barbara, Kate, and Cindy came up the mountain and we felted with prefelt and had fun making things and trying out new techniques. I made these little circles for pins for my felt collage class, Barbara made a cool "Welcome" sign for her home, and Kate made a sweet little collage piece before heading off to Montana.

Looking forward to Artfiberfest...and busy getting all my kits together....just a few more days and we will be heading North!

New Cats!

I finished up these two new cats last night. And the girl on the right is wearing my new "Susan Skinner" bug-found object necklace. I decided I had to have it when the numbers were the same as my birthday! (2-3-48)
I am trying to finish up dolls and hooked things I have been working on for Vendor night at Artfiberfest, my best art sale of the year. We leave for Portland, Oregon in one week!

And Good News! Syd and I will be teaching at Artfest next year!!! There is an incredible bunch of teachers coming (Tara, Jill and more) and it will be fun to take classes and teach. The hard part is deciding what to take out of so many choices. I hope you can join us!
And other news....I will have several cats and mushrooms in the new issue of STUFFED! coming out this July 1. And in the Autumn issue of Haute Handbags one of my felted totes will be included.....making me happy and good for the ole self esteem!

Kuba cloth and a visit to Ojai

My friend Cindy and the musical bamboo....
Some Kuba Cloth from the Congo was hanging outside a store in Ojai called Verandah. Wonderful textiles and ethnic art inside, a visual delight.
Woven bags outside the main doorway....
Cindy is visiting from Kona, Hawaii and we took a little day trip to Ojai where a jewelry artist that I love was having a trunk show at the Human Arts store. Susan Skinner lives in New Mexico and makes fun, whimsical silver jewelry using found objects and semi precious stones inlaid into silver.
I bought a necklace and earrings and got to share some fun time comparing stories of growing up in the Los Angeles area and going to cool music concerts in the 60's and 70's. Ojai was having a Music Festival at the same time so we crossed the street where there was a Pottery Show and sale and other fun stuff going on. There was a solar powered bamboo music project that was fascinating. I'm not quite sure how it all worked but it made some interesting sounds as the bamboo went up and down in the tubs of water.
This solar powered disc had something to do with the musical bamboo....a bit other worldly!

Spirit Cloth

Here is the beautiful "Spirit Cloth" from Jude Hill. It is called "Persistence" and you can read more about how she made it on her blog, "Spirit Cloth", at the top of my Links list. I still can't believe that I have it in my possession, it is such a treasure!
Close ups of some of my favorite parts.....we have exchanged fabric and messages for quite awhile now and it is so fun to see bits and pieces of fabric show up in her creations. I like to play a little "I spy" game with myself when I see something that I think came from the West Coast.

Cuffs

Added a bit more to the cuffs or bracelets.....these are fun and easy to make.