Just a random crafting update...
I love flowers- doesn't everyone? And I love embroidering flowers. I've wanted to do a free-style stitched piece for awhile, but I really only know how to draw one kind of flower and it's the same flower I've been drawing since fifth grade.
Then I found this book, Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers by Lisa Congdon. I picked out a bouquet of flowers from the pages of the book and traced them onto a man's handkerchief.
This probably isn't a recommended method for transferring images, but my stitching will cover any pencil marks.
Over Memorial Day weekend, I was digging through a closet and found a bag full of different patterned knitted squares in shades of white. I first mentioned these in a post way back in Feb 2009. I was inspired to knit them by a throw I saw at Anthropologie. I stitched them together last week. It probably would look a little more pristine if I had blocked the squares first, but sometimes I just go my own way. There is hope for UFOs (Un Finished Objects)!
In May I went back to the big red barn in Nebraska for Handmade U. Our hostess, Rachel, showed us how to make these darling "quilt-adoris". A quilt-a-dori is a take off on the Midori refillable notebook. Our notebook covers are leather, covered in a piece of quilt top fabric.
The notebook is refillable by just slipping a new set of pages under the elastic band that also keeps it closed.
We made four filler notebooks. I decorated mine with roses to match the pinks on my quilt-adori cover. (The rose in the upper right hand is a copy of a painting by Karla).
This is the back of the quilt a dori- you can see how the elastic bank wraps around the whole cover.
The other class at Handmade U was taught by Mindy Lacefield. Mindy paints darling little girls on abstract random backgrounds. For our class, we painted on a board book. This was something completely different for me- I'm not a painter or a drawer. I was even a little freaked out by the supply list- oil pastel crayons? What are those?
The class turned out to be fun- just experimenting with new supplies and trying new things...
...like this page, where I used the flowers from the paper towels as part of my collage.
One thing this class made me realize is that I really don't like to get my hands dirty with paint and glue.
Another thing it made me realize that it's HARD to draw faces.
It seems to me that all my girls look a little bit crabby. ..
I don't think I've found my new niche, but I'm glad I took the class. And I'm not showing you my crabby girls because I think they are inspiring or my best work. I'm showing them because like I've said before- for me, creating is about the process, not the end product. It's about playing and trying new things.
And sometimes in between playing and experimenting, you do get a finished afghan that's been waiting for you for seven years.
