A Country Home Christmas

http://www.tiarts.org/tour_cc/index.php

I've been having a lovely time at the home of John and Molly Sorensen of Ballycanoe & Co. for our TIA's Christmas tour. Old friends and new joined us for a cup of hot cider and wandered around John's fabulous workshop and braved the chill to explore his giant barn of architectural bits and pieces.

http://www.balleycanoeco.com/

Here I am working away on a new sculpture...can't just sit there after all!! I am a big Dances with the Stars fan and so I decided to do a couple dancing....if you follow the show, it's Edita and Max...it will be a real challenge to give her the bling bling costume she usually wears. I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday and Tuesday nights now!!

I'll be back at Ballycanoe next weekend for A Country Home Christmas...I hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Wendo

My weekend book cover project

As promised I've taken a picture of my book cover. Cathy painted the fabric and let me loose. I found I couldn't easily use the felting machine directly on the tightly woven fabric, too many holes, so I machine felted the tree on to a piece of white craft felt (next time I'll think about it and put my fibre on a darker craft felt..doh) I cut out the tree carefully and sewed it down to the fabric. I didn't get the placement as centred as I should have but I like the skewed look. I then hand embroidered the leaves on...I LOVE hand work..and then last weekend I discovered the fabulous art of FREE MOTION stitching. I had WAY too much fun and didn't want to stop..even when there really wasn't another spot for me to stitch on...I love the look and the texture. I dabbed a bit of sliver glitter glue on the tree trunk and like the subtle way it shines in a certain light.
Oooooo...I can't wait to start something else with free motioning in mind! Monster created!!
Til next time...

Loose Threads Retreat Autumn 2008

What a spectacular weekend...we learned and we ate and we played and ate some more.
Helen, Pam, Sally, Anne, Micheline, Deb, Marie, Helga, Frances, Jo-Ann, Rosemary and Janet...thank you so much for being there with us. I learned how to free motion...and now I'm totally addicted...I'll take a picture of my journal cover to show what I loved playing on.....
Eric..thank you for clearing up all sorts of machine related issues and fixing my little White and just being there to answer questions....
http://vbsimkinssewingmachines.com/
Ladies...I've put up photos of the retreat on my slideshow...so just click on it to get my images...Cathy and Pat will be posting images too...so keep on the lookout.
Happy new addictions!!

Where am I???

I can't believe a whole month has come and gone! I've been flying about like a whirlygig. I'm working in Toronto on Disney's Princess and the Frog and trying to bring it home to work on here in Prescott...Well....the beginnings of a production like this are slow and sporadic at best and frustrating at worst. We're finally getting enough inventory to keep us all busy and happy. The start of a production is fraught with changes in story and design and alas, the deadline never changes....so we all KNOW what the next 9 months to a year will be like! Crazy!

BUT...I'm still involved in the felting business and recently I was a guest at my friend Pat's house for the Seaway Autumn Studio tour.

http://www.sast.ca/

We had a lovely visit...This is the view in to Pat's very comfortable garage..that's Cathy Breedyk-Law's work in the foreground... More of Cathy's workI caught Joanne reaching down for something but this shot shows her work off..sorry Joanne!This is Bonnie Lemaire with her new book hot off the presses!! It's called I'm so Hungry!! check out her work:

http://www.bonniella.com/index.htmlCathy and Pat working on baby quilts..making good use of Bonnie's garage sale chairs!
Well back to work...I'm drawing frogs this week...

Cathy, Pat and I are hosting a fabulous fibre weekend at the Opinicon Resort at Chaffey's Lock Oct 3, 4 and 5...

I'm teaching how to create a moose trophy, Cathy is sharing her very cool use of washers and holes in her art and Pat is teaching her embellishing techniques, We still have a few spots so for more information please feel free to contact any one of us

wendovan@sympatico.ca

purplepatch@xplornet.com

catelaw@ripnet.com

Til next time,