Hooked pins and a new book

These little hooked pins are made with a variety of fibers...wool, cotton, silk and velvets...
And I just received this new book by Sherri Haab on Fiber jewelry....and I have an article on my hooked flower pins in it! Lots of fun things to make.

Kitty in a basket...

The kitties are keeping me company today. I hardly ever get sick but somehow I guess I have the flu! I have several projects that I'm working on so hopefully I can do a little hand sewing.

Where I've been...

I just had the best two days at Jill K. Berry's Painted Pages and Bookmaking Workshop held at Barbara Beck's delightful Artful Living shop and workspace in Ojai, Ca! Jill is a fantastic teacher who led us on a fast paced class of making painted pages with paste paint for making art books or whatever else you might want to use it for. Jill makes the most incredible books and is a very organized and knowledgeable teacher who shares her resources and techniques and kept us hopping. I confused the dates on the workshop and missed the first day of painted pages but got caught up on Thursday and came back Friday and got to get in on the book making . We made 5 books in one day using our painted paper from the day before. These are the books that we made: Nested Accordian Book, Four Rooms Book , the Dowl Spine Portfolio, Crown Spine Book, and the Carousel House Book.
Jill teaching and showing us Barbara's leaf stencil paper.
Jill's painted paper, step one.
Jill's paper step two...filling in the spaces with color.
Here's the one I did. Can't wait to use it for collage or book making.
Here another page I made using a bird stencil and paste paint.
Here's Barbara, showing us some paper sculpture masks from some visitors to her shop.
Jill's "Road Trip" book.
A fuzzy close up of Road Trip...
This was made from the "Four Rooms" book and has a Robert Frost poem called "Dust of Snow" on each page. Jill's original design. It all folds up and has pop outs on each page....a really fun book to make.
Everyone had such a great time. We had a wonderful group of women...Jill's mother came and we had another mother - daughter team....and it turned out that we had met many years ago in Sausalito when the commune I lived in bought the Danish sailboat that Judy and her husband had made into a houseboat. It took us a half a day trying to figure out how we knew each other...I thought it must have been at an art show somewhere, but that wasn't it. It was so fun to see her again and spend two days making art with her and her daughter who lives in Oakland. Judy is a master calligrapher and they both inspired me with their creations.
So if you ever get a chance, take a class from Jill! A wonderful artist and a great teacher!!!!
And Barbara has created a geat space for workshops....I hope to do some teaching there soon.
Her husband, Marv, is a real sweetheart too...he brought the ladies Margaritas at the end of class....and for two of us, not being real drinkers, plus I had an hour drive home, he made us Virign Margaritas!
Now I'm back to work on more Fiber Stuff!

A Good Day to Dye...

Spent the morning dyeing cotton scrim for my nuno class at artfiberfest. The open weave of the fabric allows the wool fiber to felt into it creating a wonderful texture for fiber art projects. And then since I had the dyes out, I got out some silk and rayon velvet that I had ordered and dyed some of that too. It came out so beautifully I can't wait to dye more colors to play with. I also threw in some old kimono silk just to see what would happen and it came out in a nice muted color too. Last week Barbara and I spent the day dyeing silk chiffon scarves for the nuno class...lots of colors...even though they will be mostly covered up by the wool roving...still nice to have a colorful background to work with.


The cats always come to see what I'm up to and pounce on the fabric when I move it around....
some fun little pins I made....

Three dolls and Sunday at Lake Cachuma

I finally finished up these 3 hooked dolls, one more to go that has an embroidered face.
Close up of bird girl.
Another close up...
And here is where we spent Sunday. Lake Cachuma is just about 2o minutes away from our house. Dennis, Justin and I had a nice relaxing day on the water in our boat. Dennis caught 2 fish, and then carefully released them, Justin got to drive the boat, and I got some sun and read a bit.
When I got home I worked on two hooking projects, a crow and a small heart.

Mitzie!

Mitzie is a rug hooked kitty that I just finished last night. I used Maren's lovely hand dyed wool for the body. The colors come from Magic Carpet dyes and are my favorite colors. Her arms and legs are felted wool tubes that I put chenille stems inside so that they are "poseable"...a couple of close-ups....She will be traveling with me to Artfiberfest.

Muffin!

Muffin, Jazzpurr's little sister stopped by for a visit while Miss Birdie and Zora, Zella, and Lulu are in Los Angeles for a photo shoot. I do believe that they will be appearing in the new Somerset Magazine called "Stuffed!" I think it will be available in January 2009 and looks to be a fun collection of softies of all types....so pleased that some of my "girls" will be included. And speaking of magazines....the newest copy of Haute Handbags just showed up in my mailbox and I have a tote bag that I must have sent in over a year ago! I actually sent in 2 bags and somehow they mixed up the descriptions and put the wrong one with this photo...oh well....I don't think it makes too much difference. I 'm just happy to have something in there!!!
The pocket has a rug hooked pin on it and a detachable cell phone holder...completely lined with vintage tablecloth fabric...(better in person)...

Hooked hearts

Just finished up these two hooked hearts. The first one says.."I love you"...just for fun!

And below is the sky this morning after I drove Justin to the bus....the weatherman said we may get mountain showers this afternoon...I hope so, it's so dry here right now.

Syd's painting

I love this painting by Syd McCutcheon that is now in Maren's home...
I'm trying out my new Blogger layout...I lost my "flickr" slideshow and other stuff and am trying to figure out how to get them back on my blog....

Group photo-Pumpkins!

I got all the hooked pumpkins to pose for this group photo.
Kitty exploring my Bird tote....

A few more San Francisco images...

Friday night outside our hotel..we took off walking to explore Chinatown and find House of Nanking for dinner.
Next morning we took the streetcar to the Ferry Building where the wonderful Farmer's Market is located.
I love handmade soap and bought a few bars from this vendor called Juniper Ridge. I got White Sage, California Bay Laurel, Western Juniper, and Sierra Cedar ...all organic and wildcrafted.
Lots of folks have breakfast from the vendors at the Farmer's market...this is one of the menus that greeted us. The best thing to do is look at peoples plates as they walk by and ask where they got it..that 's how we found the Primavera stand with the most delicious breakfast ...
complete with live saxaphone music by Garrick.....
Syd and I shared a plate of chiliquiles, black beans with fresh avocado on top! Half was just right, plus the blackberry mint iced tea....
Susan and Colleen shared this pluot galette.....yum!
Fresh basil and tomatoes, right off the truck..
Inside more delicacies.....mushrooms...so photogenic...


Mural on a woman's health building
more street art....
fuzzy photo.....
back over in Berkeley....Castle in the Air window
another window....
fiber dolls at art co-op.... and that's it for now.....