I am honored to be one of three artists exhibiting at the Soft Expressions Upstairs Gallery during the months of March and April. My fellow artists are Deborah Stanley and Teresa Shippy. We are part of a group of fiber artists called "5 Artistic Expressions". You can check us out at: http://www.5artisticexpressions.blogspot.com/.

We are calling this exhibit "Three Visions, A Collection of Unique Beauty". Each of us have several of our pieces on display. I am focusing this exhibit on my still-life work, with both watercolor and fiber pieces being shown.

Deborah Stanley will have wonderful displays of her portraiture in fiber and watercolor. Teresa is going to be showing part of her floral work collection in fiber.

We have a reception on Saturday, March 10th, from 1 - 4 pm at Soft Expressions, which is located at 1230 N. Jefferson St., M, Anaheim (phone is 714-630-7414). I hope you can come to the reception to see us, or at least stop by during the months of March and April to see the display.

Mounting Quilts on Canvas



canvas mounting

 I decided to display some of my smaller pieces by mounting them on a stretched canvas. I painted the gessoed canvas first using acrylic paint. Then I "glued" the fiber art piece to the canvas using acrylic matte medium. The last step was to sign the lower right hand corner and add a hanging wire on the back. I think this makes a nice display.

Freshening up the look of my blog

It feels like spring, so I decided my blog needed an update to its' appearance. I hope you like the change.

Good Iron, Bad Iron



irons

 I started using an old, "bad" iron when I am pressing fabrics with fusibles, or starch or glues or plastic pin heads, etc. I got tired of cleaning the bottom of my good Rowenta and had an old iron sitting around. I found that just using the bad iron and not worrying about how it looked was the way to go.  When I am in the midst of making something, I just like to blow and go and not worry if I am pressing on something I shouldn't be!


irons

 Well, this is how the "good" iron, and the "bad" iron look on the bottom. I think the bad iron earns its reputation when it looks like this! I run the old iron over an unused dryer sheet, which helps to remove the gunk, but the ugliness remains!


irons

 And now the "bad" iron has a frayed cord. I taped it up and that fixed it for a while, but now the black tape is melting on my ironing board and leaving little black spots all over! I think its time to give this baby the heave-ho!

So, I went out and bought a new, cheap iron to use as my "bad" iron. I like the idea that I can use and abuse it and it won't cost me an arm and a leg to replace it. And my good Rowenta is always there for my clean clothes and fresh new fabric! Welcome to my new "bad" iron.

Bitter and Sweet

First let me wish you a Happy Valentine's Day. I hope your sweetie is doing something nice for you today.

And on a sad note, I want to say good-bye to Carol McDaniel, one heck of an art quilter. Carol passed away this last weekend. Carol's work inspired me and her kind words to me gave me encouragement and confidence. I will miss her, but always remember her.

Finised Serendipity - Small Bonsai 1

 Here is the finished front on this piece. I will just call it "Bonsai".

...and here is the back showing the label. I put it in the mail a few days ago to Mia Bloom. I hope she likes it!

Serendipity - darkening the foliage shapes

I decided to darken the centers of the foliage shapes I stitched in. I used Tsukineko inks to do this, and fixed the inks with a hot iron.

I also added some stitching to the bonsai itself. I stitched around the trunk, the vase and put some stitching in the foliage. Here you can see the foliage stitching.

Bridges Slideshow

The Quilts on the Wall  "Bridges" exhibit at Road to California is posted on "The Quilt Show"  daily blog. If you follow the link below you can check it out.

http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/blog.php/blog_id/4544

It's a nice way to see the exhibit if you didn't catch it at Road. Now I am going to stitch down a binding and later watch the Superbowl. Go Patriots!

Next steps for Serendipity piece

 This shows the two pieces on the background fabric already sandwiched. I used a printed denim fabric for the background. The weight of the denim worked well with the corduroy around the two appliqued sections.

So now for the decorating of the denim background fabric. I love the curving shapes on the bonsai, and I decided to do some curving foliage on the background. I used Superior's Super Bright threads for the stitching.