The Month Of May – Part 2

In the last post, I was telling you about the last day at Tan-Tara resort at the Missouri Fiber Artists (MoFA) conference.

After Annie gave her presentation and we checked out her quilts, the style show was next.  I took photos of almost everyone’s garment because they were all so wonderful, but there’s quite a few to post, so I will post a few here and if you are interested in seeing the rest, you need to join Facebook, Like the Missouri Fiber Artists page, and I’ll have the rest of them posted in an album…eventually!

These gals can sew and not only can they sew, they are in to making their own cloth using surface design.  The garments and ideas represented in the fashion show were awe-inspiring.

I can’t tell you who made this. It all went too fast. This is a fiber student doing the modeling.

This is Carlene Fullerton doing the modeling. I think Sharon Kilfoyle is the creator of this smashing silk piece.

Carlene again modeling a gorgeous jacket.

I thought this little orange jacket was quite creative.

And the winner for Best of Show is….

The wedding dress…made entirely of white plastic bags! One of the students made this.

Stay tuned…Part 3 is coming.

The Month of May

May has been a busy month here at my house.  The farmer’s and artisans market in New Harmony started much earlier this year on April 21st and has continued.  Normally we don’t start til mid-June.  The artist festival, Arts In Harmony, was the first weekend of May.  The heat was pretty bad that weekend, but I was indoors in the air-conditioned gymnasium, even though they did leave the doors open!  It was much cooler inside than it was outside.  Sold some scarves, some note cards, some art.

Then came the highlight of my month.  I traveled to Tan-Tara resort in the Ozarks of MO for the Missouri Fiber Artists conference and exhibit.  The reception for the exhibit was on Friday night and juror Bob Adams chose my piece, Compositions #2, for the Surface Design award.  That was a wonderful surprise.

Compositions #2 Mixed Media and stitch

I took a glass fusing class Friday afternoon and learned a little bit about that process.  I made some pendants and earrings.

Saturday was an all day class with Bob Adams on building images.  That was fun.

Some of Bob Adams’ samples

This is the paper mock up I did in class. My bottle turned out looking too much like a milk bottle for my taste. That was not my intention!

Saturday night was a barbecue with everyone together.

Sunday morning was the final day…we had a delicious buffet brunch, short business meeting and a speaker, Annie Helmrichs-Louder, who shared her journey and her work.  She is one of the featured artists in the new Portfolio book out by Martha Sielman, The Natural World.  It can be purchased here. You can read my review of the book here.  Her work is wonderful.

That’s Annie facing this direction and chatting with some MoFA members.

To be continued….

Back To Work…

After a few days out of town with one day on the lake….

Barkley Lake Vac. 043

…I am back getting to work…time is short as I have a show in less than two weeks.  I spent Sunday evening and yesterday getting some cloth ready to make into little bags…it was fun getting back to  surface design and matching zippers to the cloth…some samples but there is more…

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I am starting to list my bags in my  etsy shop here if you want to shop.

My Growing Pile…

Does anyone else have one of these?

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Let me explain to you what this is.  Every time I make cloth, I sort the pieces afterwards.  Into this pile goes my very favorite pieces that I want to use to make art.  But this pile never goes down…it only goes up…(wish the stock market did the same).  Why is that?  BECAUSE…I am so enamored of surface design…that I can make the cloth faster than I can the art.  The other day, the pile fell over, but I just put it back up.  Some of the pieces in this pile have been here for years and never gotten made into anything, but I can’t bear to move them from this pile and into the pile of things I will sell…at least not yet.

New Reading Material…

I ordered some back issues of the Surface Design Journal.  Yummmmmm………  They arrived very quickly.  You can order back issues here.