Birthday Party at Maren's

A beautiful day, and a beautiful table with the best friends...

Fresh from the garden....

Lots of presents...

Two parties in one week! On Wed. our artfest group had a lovely birthday party for Colleen, Patti and Maren at Maren's beautiful home. She set up a table outdoors in her garden with mountain views and sunshiney weather. We had the most delicious lunch of chicken minestrone soup with her homegrown vegetables, fresh greens salad with candied pecans and her homemade 3 layer ice cream cake! Lots of fun creative presents for all....books, handmade objects, soaps and I managed to let go of a couple of Judy Wise prints that I bought at Art & Soul in Portland this year.

I only got a few shots as my camera battery died on me. Syd should have more photos of our fun and lively day on her blog...We missed Barbara, Susan and Cindy....MIA.

More from Penny's ....

Love this 4 tiered village....

Cycle of life sculptures....

a better view of the felted hat!

Anne's fun embroidery for Jean....

Anne again....Fun!!

Fran made this needle felted necklace with eyeglass holder for Katie....great colors...

Penny hooked this colorful piece for Patty....lucky girl!

Annie made this for Sue, who likes to work with tin.

Pepa hooked this wonderful tea cozy (soon to be completed) for Anne. She added buttons and beads for fun.

fun at Penny's..

Penny's angel decorated for the Holidays

The mantle with lots of cool stuff to look at.

Penny's little village of houses and trees....

Maren's rug made of roving!

Felted hat made by Katie! Love it!

The Association to Creative Females (our rug hooking group) had our annual Holiday party last night. Lots of wonderful gifts were exchanged, many hand made. Katie made me the most amazing felted hat!!! Lots of hooked items including a tea cozy, wall hanging and a lockneedle hooked rug made from wool roving. Also fun embroidery, aprons and plants.

Penny had all her incredible Christmas decorations up and ready for us to enjoy. Anne made us her famous chocolate cake and we each had a little bag of her tasty Christmas cookies to take home. A fun evening with great ladies.

Lots to share...

Our mantle....starting to decorate...

New shoes!

New squirrel!

Two new house blessing ornaments!

Two felted wool dollies...

Hooked Scrub Jay....they are noisey and warn the other birds when our cat gets too close to the bird feeder.

I finished up some things that I've been working on...so thought I'd share those. Plus my wonderful new shoes! Finally found a good pair of everyday clogs that fit, are comfy and go with most everything. These are "Merrell Encore Grove Floral-Smokey Blue", but they look sort of tan. Found them at our local Nordstrom's. I wore them on two beach walks this weekend and they were great. Kind of risky because we have tar on our beaches, but luckily it was one of those really low tides...so no tar, but lots of cool rocks, shells and other stuff to collect.

We have our annual rug hooking holiday gift exchange tonight and I have to show you the funny little dolls I made for my friend, Pepa. One is Pepa and the other is her granddaughter, Zellie.

Starting to get the house in the Holiday mood....beginning with the mantle. One of my art friends gave me the carved Virgin of Guadelupe for my birthday about 10 years ago. I just love her...Thank you, Joan!!!

Red bellied Woodpecker and Nuno felting

Here is my newest hooked bird. I was inspired by our local woodpeckers which have been quite active lately. They have been storing their acorns in our wooden entry arch that says "Painted Cave" and anywhere else they can find. Our local woodpeckers have a little bit of red on their head and they are called acorn woodpeckers or downy woodpeckers, I'm not sure which ones they are. But I loved the look of the red bellied woodpecker for hooking purposes...the "Classic "woodpecker, so that's the one I used for a model. I have a little field guide to Birds of North America to help me out. Still need to finish up the Scrub Jay I made.

On Thursday we had a great Nuno felting class at the Art Clinic in Solvang. Barbara Carr brought all kinds of goodies for us to play with including already dyed silk chiffon scarves to felt. This was a new felting technique for all of us and so much fun! All turned out very different...you could use a little or a lot of wool and silk roving to decorate the silk base. We got wavy edges as the silk scarf base began to shrink with the addition of the wool as it felted. We all are anxious to make more of these fun felty fabric pieces. Trying to convince Barbara to teach at ArtFiberFest...2008. My first Nuno scarf is the one on the far right above. I made a second one in greens and blues on a different silk base.

And just want to say I hope all of our art friends to the North (Ore. and Wa.) are doing OK with all the rain and snow lately. Thinking of you and hope you are able to travel safely once again.

Just a little more "Folk" art

Squirrel book ends....don't you love these?

Covered with newpaper...

Ma and Pa..

Better in person....all embroidered..!

Red tin roof...

Twins?

These are Kelp!

I took so many pictures that I'll just have to share a few more....and I have been hooking....I made a fun red headed woodpecker and a new squirrel and almost finished a new doll made entirely out of felted sweater wool...sort of an experiment. I usually mix in a little sweater wool if I need the color, but I wanted to see if it was OK to do the whole thing with felted sweater wool and so far, so good...will show when she's finished up. For now, more from "just folk"...

Victoria's Fairies...

Thought I'd show you the fairy ornaments I bought on Saturday. These are made by Victoria Sjollema ..vsjollema@cox.net They came with no faces...so I painted the faces on when I got home...hope she doesn't mind! She has more if you want to e-mail her. I loved the little acorn caps.

More from "Just Folk"

I wanted to show you more from the store..."Just Folk"....so many wonderful things...here are some of the hooked rugs they had in their collection and some of the quilts, too.

The "bird" quilt was amazing. Made in 1934, the birds were appliqued using many different fabrics to create life like images of real birds...and with tiny stitches....so inspiring!

Just Folk!

I went on sort of an "art date" yesterday...first to a friend's house for a Holiday Craft Faire. I bought some fun little fairy ornaments for gifts and some nice handmade soap; lemon, lavender & rosemary, in a nice starfish shape.

Then, since I was close to Summerland I decided to check out a new store called "Just Folk". I brought along a little basket of some of my wooly cats and a few hooked items, just in case they would fit in with the folk art I'd heard about. Well, once inside...I just couldn't believe what an incredible place I'd found! The most wonderful collection of folk and outsider art I've ever seen! Like a museum...and all in a cozy wooden beamed store with an upstairs also filled with amazing stuff! They have quilts, hooked rugs, carved wooden animals, doll houses and cabins, dolls, furniture..I was in folk art heaven! They let me take pictures too. When the owner arrived I showed her some of my stuff and she bought a bunch of things...cozy cats for the big Christmas tree, a hooked squirrel, a heart, house, and toadstool. It just made me so happy to have my things in such a wonderful store.

If you are ever in the area, you must visit:

Just Folk....2346 Lillie Ave. Summerland, CA....

www.justfolk.com
A visual treat for sure!