Sewing In Progress and a Hungry Hawk

    Hi everyone. Another Friday is already here. I hope everyone has had a nice week so far.

    Today I'm joining Nicole at Friday Face Off, Gillena at Friday Lunch Break and also Halle at Art Journal Journey. Today I have some art in progress  to share.

    I've been working on another cloth journal. My base pages are done, but I haven't put them together or added them to a rigid backing (like interfacing). After that I will stitch 2 pages together back to back to make a two sided page in this journal.

  My background is just an old yellowed bed pillow cover that I cut up. Then I die cut some circles from fabric scraps, and  I appliqued them onto the background.  The photo booth faces and  the slide are paper images that I  printed onto some white cloth. You can create your own cloth to run it through the printer (*instructions below) or you can use pre-treated cotton cloth sheets that you can buy. I happened to have an old packet of ready to print cloth sheets that had a few sheets left so that's what I did, but making your own sheets isn't all that difficult either.

  After that I took 2 little crochet-like flowers and 2 red buttons and hand stitched them down. I snipped these flowers off of something old a long time ago and I can't remember what they were on. I also took a small applique (again snipped off something old that I can't remember) and stitched it down. What I do to finish this page is something I don't quite know yet.

  My other face for today is this Cooper's Hawk. The other day I was driving into my driveway,  just a few feet from parking, when this guy swooped down in front of my car.  He/she then flew over and landed on my husband's workshop.

  I think he/she was interested in raiding the phoebe's nest which sits up under the eaves, but he couldn't get in there. I was down below in the driveway next to my car, and all I had on me was my phone. I zoomed the camera to max, and that means I can't really crop down these photos because they won't come out very clear.

   While I was watching him the whole forest was filled with songbirds in warning call mode. And then, it went very quiet.

  After that he/she flew off into the woods. I'm sure he was looking for another nest to raid.

  That's all for me in this post. Have a great Friday and start to your weekend.   

*Step-by-Step Guide for making cloth sheets for your printer

1. Cut the Materials: Cut a piece of freezer paper and a piece of fabric so they are exactly the same size as standard printer paper (8.5 × 11 inches). 
2. Iron Together: Place the freezer paper shiny side (the waxy side) down against the back of your fabric. Use a hot, dry iron to press the two layers together until they are firmly bonded.
3. Trim Edges: Snip away any stray threads or frayed fabric edges so the sheet will feed smoothly without catching on the printer’s rollers. 
4. Feed into Printer: Place the fabric-and-paper sheet into your printer's paper tray. Note: Ensure your printer is set to print on the fabric side, not the paper side. On most top-feed printers, this means facing the fabric side down.
5. Print: On your computer, set your print settings to "Best Photo" or "High Quality". This prevents inconsistent ink flow on the fabric. 

Sunday in the Art Room- A New Fabric Book

   

  Hi everyone.  Happy Sunday. I hope you're having a lovely weekend. We were back in the snow again yesterday for a little bit. 😩 Not  a dumping, but enough to look like winter again. 

   Today I’m joining Gillena's Sunday Smiles  and Nicole's  Sunday in the Art Room  also known as SITAR .

   I finally finished going through my bookshelves, and probably one of the most inspiring things about doing that chore (besides finding a few books I want to reread and even a couple that got lost in the shuffle that I haven't read) is having gone through some of my previously made cloth journals. Now I'm inspired to get back to making a new  one and also to finish one I started over a year ago and then put aside.

   To get to that unfinished journal and to dig out supplies for another journal idea I've had, I needed to clean a  few bins that I had  stashed under my sewing machine table.  Well it was another spring cleaning job that needed to be done, and that one didn't take much more than an hour to do. 👍

   Today let me show you the partially finished cloth journal. This journal is being made on some 6x6 inch (15x15 cm) pieces of felt.  The theme is old linens and lace.  I’ve  collected some assorted  pieces of old linens and lace over several  years.   Some of these textiles were given to me and are  old, stained, or torn linens.   I  like being able to give parts of these pieces  more life in a new form. 

  Some of these pieces are old crochet doilies that I've picked up here and there. One place that I used to be able to get a lot of these types of textiles was a fair that  helped support the local hospital. I could find many inexpensive pieces because a lot of people from a generation or two ago would have had them, and now they really aren't the style so they were donated.  However sadly since Covid they no longer run this fair, but I can still find things with some looking.  Luckily I have enough to finish this project and probably even do a few more. 

   I'm using neutral colors in this cloth journal. Even though I have some peach, blue and bright yellow linens and lace, they'll have to wait for another more colorful project.

  Here's a piece (above) of an old quilt and a lace flower. I had a couple of these epoxy cameos and I added one to this page. And this next page (below) also used some scraps of old layered material  as well as a square of white burlap. 

  (above)  I hand stitched some old tan fabric pieces on, as well as this handmade button cover. I sewed it on in reverse because I liked the pulled detail. Usually that pulled detail would be on the bottom.

  Lace on lace on lace for this page (above photo).

     And above, I hand stitched this small lace coaster sized doily onto the felt directly. Then I hand stitched on some beads and some seed pearls.

  I'd sewn down some lace on this next piece, but that's as far as I finished when I picked up and put away the project . 

  I was playing around with this piece the other day, and I like this next view. It isn't sewn together yet though.  My sewing machine has gone in for a good cleaning/overhaul which is needed. (And for those who ask, I do clean my machine, but with a bunch of electronics,  there's certain things I cannot do.) I could hand stitch it, but I think I want the big cloth circle machine stitched.

Here's another idea I had for a second white felt piece.

     And here's me playing around with some ideas for some lace stitched onto black felt. I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with this page.

   I'm also not sure how I'll bring these all together, but that's part of the fun of this kind of project.

  That's all  for me. I'll share more of this when I get more completed. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up my sewing machine next weekend. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

  

 

T Stands for a Yummy Lunch

Hi everyone.  It's good to be back after missing T day last week. I wish I could report that all our snow has melted or that has the mud dried up. The temperature is dropping off tonight as I write this,  but they are saying it will be warming up a lot later this week. I sure hope so since March has been a lion so far and I am ready for the lamb to arrive. Just a couple of days I hope.

I will be stopping by  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog  for T. Won't you?

This past weekend my husband and I decided it was warm enough to put the Christmas decoration boxes up in the unheated attic over the garage. Finally. Afterwards we did a bit of cleaning out and when we finished for the day, we decided  to go out for a late lunch.

We hadn't been to this local place for almost a year, but they have good food and a big menu.

Even better, all their meals come in 2 sizes. I always go for the smaller light fare size and still have leftovers.

 I had this yummy macaroni and cheese with some pulled pork. It came with a bread stick and a side salad. My drink was an unsweetened iced tea.

I mentioned last post how I found a couple of boxes of art goodies in my attic cleaning. I thought I would share another colorful painted piece of cloth I found. There were several of these pages and I think I was going to make a book out of them. No reason I can't do that now.

Even though I made this many years ago, I have never posted it. Does that mean it is too old to post at Moo Mania and their Colorful challenge?
I used some colorful fabric as my base, and painted and stitched the flower and the ini hearts.  I even added a little glitter  in the center of the flower as well a a few little brass mini butterflies.
Hope everyone has a great T day and thanks for stopping by my blog.

Treasures in The Attic

Hope everyone had a good weekend. 

Mine wasn't wild or exciting but I did get a bit of spring purging done. And the benefits of the purge, besides starting a good clean out, was finding some arty treasure.

I came across two small file boxes that had been sitting there for years. I was going to throw them out, but they felt heavy when I lifted them, so I pulled off the top and discovered lots of fun things.

There were old photos, some photo transfers printed on cloth and some images printed on paper.

I remember doing these years ago. I must have put the boxes away at some point and forgot about them.

There was also some art. Some seem to be pages for a cloth book and then there are some partially finished cloth collages with some photo transfers on fabric.

Here's one.

It is always exciting to find such treasure. 

And in this case, inspiring also.

Hope your week has  some inspiration in it.

Enjoy!