“It’s been a quiet week in my home town...” Actually, it hasn’t been quiet at all! Two magazine projects, several tests with Earth Safe Finishes’ Generation Green products, an opening at the Yale School of Medicine (trying to get a link to some photos now), and getting ready for an opening at Sozo Studio and Gallery in Kendallville, Indiana.

Studio partner Lori and I took 19 pieces to Sozo yesterday. Although Kendallville is less than an hour from my studio, I was not aware of the studio/gallery until a contact at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art (FWMoA) passed along some information about an upcoming fiber show.

Here’s the link to Sozo’s website http://www.sozoartstudio.com/ Sozo is the Greek word for “new life.”

To make a long story a little shorter, the owner Peggy Tassler is a fabulous portrait painter who works in oils, but is open to other media as well. Her busy shop has an after-school art program for children and provides a number of services, including portraits and faux finishes for commerical and residential customers. It’s amazing and encouraging that this small town can support an art studio and gallery. Hooray for Kendallville!



This is a scene inside the gallery during the take down of a photography show and getting ready for the fiber show. There will be an open house with a live demo of my Threadography techniques on April 23 from 6:30 to 9:00 EST. So, if you’re in the area, please stop by!

Sozo will also be hosting our Joys of Rust Dyeing workshop Friday, June 5th!

Tomorrow is the deadline for donations to Virginia Spiegel's Collage Mania to benefit the American Cancer Society. This is one of my eight submissions.

I'm so grateful to Virginia for making it possible for quilters, collage artists, and mixed-media artists to participate in the fight against cancer. So many times we want to help, but feel helpless and don't know where to begin. Virginia's commitment and dedication have made it possible for hundreds of fiber artists to contribute and to make a difference.

Here is the link to the call for entries page http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CollageManiaCall08.html (one of my pieces is on the call for entries page!)

Each piece is only 8" x 10" so you have time to whip one up today and e-mail the jpeg to Karen Stiehl Osborn.

This is the next experiment with the Environmentally Safe Finishes (Generation Green) products. A new batch arrived Friday and I've only had a few minutes to work with it. Isn't this yummy? Even in a low-resolution photo you can see the way the colors blended!

This is an embossed wallpaper border with five different colors of Shimmering Gels applied with a stipple brush. The base is magenta, followed by bronze, copper, peach, and white, although I'm not sure the white added a lot. The cumulative effect is really pleasing!

This will be a background in an album to hold e-mail greetings to Clotilde from friends around the globe—maybe even part of the cover.

After church I'll work with the ESF colorants on rust-dyed fabric. Hopefully, the right ratio of water to Fabric Magic will be easy to pin down. Actually, Nancy at Environmentally Safe Finishes says the colorants may be used alone, but won't be as light fast as they are when used with Fabric Magic. I may try just the colorant and then do a light-fastness test (which takes several weeks of sunshine to complete).

Are you a Clotilde fan?

Did you have the opportunity to get to know Clotilde before she retired? She has been part of the lives of so many quilters and sewing enthusiasts over the past 35 years—through her catalogs, at sewing shows, on TV, video (before the days of DVDs)!

She has retired from business life and is now living in a retirement home. This is a big change for her and I thought it would be fun to shower her with cheery greetings to help her during this transition time and let her know how much her work meant to so many.

If you are interested in sending a card, fabric postcard, or some other small greeting, I am collecting them until May 1. At that time Clotilde's long-time assistant LeeAnn will deliver the greetings to her personally.

Clotilde will probably not be able to respond to the cards (because there will be so many!) but LeeAnn should be able to tell us how she responds.

Let me know and I'll send an e-mail to you with my snail-mail address.

The first Extreme Needle Felting class goes live today. It is packed with information, exercises, tips, and ideas. The first class is so packed, I had to break it into three parts so the pdf could be easily downloaded. LOL!

There is so much potential for abstract fine art, as well as folk art, and more traditional designs. I can’t wait to see what directions class participants take the exercises!

The sample above uses a non-traditional technique that would probably make purists turn pale! It begins with variegated soy-silk roving in shades of yellow to peachy orange and creates a really interesting texture. This uses a synthetic fiber mix-in and will receive final embellishment in Week #4 of the lesson.

Follow this URL, if you'd like to join me: http://www.quilterskeeplearning.com/needlefelting.html

I am attempting to upload a pdf preview of my new 4-week Extreme Needle Felting class that begins Friday on Quilters Keep Learning: http://www.quilterskeeplearning.com.

It doesn't want to be uploaded into the body of this posting, so I'll put it in the column to the left of this posting. Well, it isn't elegant, but it gets the job done!

This little preview covers tools and materials used in class, photos of some projects, and general description of some of the techniques.

Hope you'll join me!

I'm so excited! All my attempts to rust on fabric in color have been dismal—although I now know many things that don’t work. The goal is/was to find a way to add color to rust-dyed fabric using little or no nasty chemicals, requiring little or no measuring, no boiling, mordant dips, etc.

After many months of frustrating disappointments, Barbara Matthiessen a longtime crafting buddy introduced me to Generation Green from Earth Safe Finishes. They have a complete line of artist’s quality paint and finishes, all made in the USA—and all using formulas with little or no volatile organic compounds in them. The packaging is made of recycled materials and is biodegradable and recyclable—and they donate 1% of their profits to Global Green USA.

The colorants, fabric medium, and gel media caught my attention immediately, because they work on fabrics. The example above is the blue colorant on a piece of rust-dyed cotton and the example below is on bleached muslin.

No measuring! No boiling! No nasty chemicals—or little dead creatures involved! No waiting! I mixed one part fabric medium to four parts water, mixed in a drop or two of the colorant and that’s it! Isn’t the texture yummy? I placed the wet fabric on a plastic drop cloth and it dried with the crystal-looking texture. KEWL!

I’ll post more photos as they are available, but this has such exciting possibilities for fiber artists, kids’ crafts—and is environmentally responsible.

No affiliation with the company; I just really like the product, the company, and their social responsibility!