What's ahead for me in 2016...

2015 is winding down quickly... time to look forward to 2016, and what's ahead for me.

New product - Waterfall jacket

More time and sales at our new "Arts Connection" co-op gallery

New product - Chiffon Scarf

Thanks to all who have supported my efforts in 2015, and I hope to entice you to continue in 2016! 

 Happy New year!

Gallery news, and what's up at the Fiberwerks?

The Arts Connection, our new Artists' Coalition gallery, opened November 15, with a Grand Opening reception on the 21st with a great turnout to celebrate!  For the first 2 weeks since we opened, sales have been great, and we're looking forward to a busy December.  If you are in the Flagstaff area, I hope you will stop by - we are at the Flagstaff Mall on east Rte 66, and the gallery is open 12-6 pm, Monday - Saturday, 12-7 pm on Sunday.  Click here for a preview of the gallery.

Meanwhile, I have been working on a couple of fiber art projects with the gallery in mind... always good to have a backlog of inventory!

"Meandering II", a fabric collage of mostly hand-dyed fabrics, accented with gold lame', yarns, angelina fiber and some fabric beads.  

Coiled fabric seed pot with dried arrangement

Not sure what I'll be working on next... there is snow in the forecast for the end of the week, so I might do a little snow dyeing, but I'm anxious to make more pots too... stay tuned, and I'll try to do better at keeping you posted! 

Lots of things going on!

So much is happening right now... all good!  Next weekend is our annual Holiday Artists' Marketplace, expanded this year to 2 days!  I will have racks of tie-dye clothing, knit and crochet scarves, covered journals and notepads available.  Here's the latest covered journal, just finished this morning:

This will be my last show of the year, but I am very excited to announce that the Artists' Coalition of Flagstaff will be opening a beautiful new co-op gallery November 15 at the Flagstaff Mall!  I will be a participating member, which gives me the opportunity to offer my bowls, dyed and shabby chic scarves, and some of my wall art for consideration!  The location is in the same storefront where we had our Prelude exhibit in August:

It is a beautiful venue, and we are really looking forward to becoming a regular presence here!

Here are a few of the bowls I have recently completed, which will be on display:

 Take in is next week, so I will post pictures once I have my space set up.  If you are in the Flagstaff area, I hope you will come by!  Here is the flier for our Grand Opening:

Hope to see you there!

New Directions

I just got a copy of Sherrill Kahn's book "Creative Embellishments":

I have devoured the contents, and started gathering materials to learn all I can about the wonderful techniques she describes in the book.  I also ordered 2 others by her that go into painting and mixed media techniques, so I think my winter explorations are fully mapped out!  If you haven't seen this book, do check it out on amazon.com or other book venues.  It is a veritable feast of color, pattern and textures!  I will be posting more about my adventures through these wonderful books over the next few months, and hope to have items for "show and tell" soon!

Autumn Leaves & Holly

I've been working on adding to my inventory for the Autumn Leaves & Holly show next weekend:

This is our third year putting this show on, and it has become a favorite of mine and my regular customers... lots of beautiful hand-crafted items from a variety of great crafters.  As usual, I wanted to have a good selection of Autumn-inspired items available, so here are a few of the bowls I will be offering:

This year, I decided to add some autumn leaves to the ones in back... I love autumn leaves, and use them a lot in my various crafts.  And of course, I have a selection of my autumn leaves batik shirts:

We have some new crafters in the show this year as well as some of our regulars... all very talented, offering some wonderful items for sale.  I hope  if you are in the Flagstaff area you will try to stop by!

Craft Show season!

My last post was about Flagstaff Open Studios Tour, which was a raging success for me this year! Wonderful sales, both at the month-long Prelude Exhibit at our local shopping mall, and also at the 2-day tour at my friends Mack and Cinde's home just north of town.

Cinde with a selection of her fabulous beaded wall art

Mack in his fused glass studio

So, the dust has barely settled on that event, and I'm busy making scarves, coiled fabric bowls, notepad covers, Autumn leaves shirts and more, because I still have 3 big shows coming up before the craft show season winds down for yet another year - see my Show Schedule above. 

BTW, here is one of the bowls that I sold during Open Studios, a companion to the first bowl I sold at Prelude exhibit:

I love these because I randomly pull strips of fabric from a bin to make a colorful bowl, then finish with wrapped cord I shape into a slithering snake, complete with beady eyes and a red serpent tongue. this one has a snake made from some beautiful black and white print fabric I bought awhile back, just saving it for something special.

Well, back to the studio... time's a-wasting!  

Getting ready for Open Studios Tour

Hard to believe that the Flagstaff Open Studios Tour is less than three weeks away!  It always seems so far off, then I wake up one morning, look at the calendar and go... OMG!  Time to ramp up production and crank out more product!
Every year, we have the Prelude Exhibit for the entire month of August, which allows the Open Studios artists to display samples of their work to the community, to help them decide which artists' studios to visit.  This year, we are holding the exhibit in a beautiful store in the Flagstaff Mall:

We had over 500 in attendance at the Opening Reception Saturday, and I sold both of my pieces... a good omen for the Tour!

Meanwhile, the Bowl Werks is up and running: 

                         

   And the Autumn Leaves shirt factory is up and running:

Time to head back to the studio... time's a wasting!  Stay tuned...

Just puttering...

It's been kind of a lazy month in some ways... although I have been spending lots of time in the studio!  But some of that time has been spent tidying up, some has been spent experimenting. However, this past week I have been able to finish up some projects, and that always feels good. First off, I took a little time to paint a covered box for a gift to a new friend:

I used to do flower pots and cigar boxes using a similar technique... forgot how much I like how they turn out!

I also started making my covered notebook pads again, trying to stock up for coming shows:

I have several more in the works, along with a start on some covered composition books.

Lastly, I finally found stretcher bars in the right size so I could mount my paper-pieced string quilt top:

If I had it to do over again, I would have mounted this on a slightly larger frame to include a small border in the black fabric... live and learn!  But at least now I have a better grasp of how to gallery wrap fiber art, and hope to do more in the future.

Hope you're having a fun and creative summer so far! 

Having fun...

I hadn't made one of my coiled fabric bowls in awhile, so I decided to fill a bin with fabric strips, and randomly pic strips to create a multi-color bowl.  Fun!  Totally unplanned, except for how I finished it off... with a wriggling snake!  I'm always looking for different ways to do the finish, and I like how this came about.  I'm calling this "Snake on the Bowl"!

The bowl measures 11" across, and 4" high.  I'm thinking it would work to keep fruit or serve rolls.  I finished it with Polycrylic sealer, so it can be wiped with a damp cloth or paper towel if it gets dirty. Think I'll have to make some more of these!

Jeez! How time flies...

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post... almost 2 months!  And I don't have a whole lot of creative results to show for it!  Sometimes I have to do really mundane things like cleaning, yard work, run errands... sigh!  But I also got in a new show in nearby Williams, Arizona last weekend.  Had pretty good sales on Saturday, and a nice group of folks from Kiwanis hosted the event, so it was a nice event.  I have also been puttering in the studio, and took some pictures of what's going on in there:

I've been wanting to do some "therapy sewing" ala Rayna Gillman, author of "Create Your Own Freeform Quilts", one of my favorite resources for how to use up some of my ever-growing fabric stash.  So today, I pulled out the bins and separated out pieces of fabric into piles, then pressed and color sorted them,

I still have at more to press and sort, and least one bin to sort through, but I feel like I have a good start.

Next, I hung a couple of my mounted hand dyed fabrics, so I could enjoy them.

 "Firestorm"

"Vision Quest"

I dyed these pieces in 2013, and have stored them except for a couple of times when I exhibited them... time for me to enjoy them, especially now that the new studio is completed... great place to have my own in-house exhibit!

I also decided to enjoy  some of my coiled bowls instead of keeping them packed away. 

What's next?  Well, I need to create 2 pieces for our annual Flagstaff Open Studios tour's Prelude Exhibit coming up in August, and I haven't got a clue what I will be doing!  We will each be allowed to show two pieces this year, and I want them to be special.  So that's what I'm hoping to accomplish in the next month... wish me luck!

Summer is right around the corner, and I also hope to get some time in on the yard.  I have overwintered several Geraniums this year, and they will be a welcome addition of color to the landscape, hopefully attracting Humming Birds, Butterflies and bees... just need to wait until the last danger of frost is past, somewhere around June 15. 

Okay, time to get busy!  Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of  "... Stop the World!  I want to Create!"  

New Tutorial!

I have been wanting for some time to create a tutorial on soy wax batik, a technique I have enjoyed using for several years now.  I have posted a number of times on various projects where I have used soy wax... even created a class hand-out demonstrating a couple of techniques I use.  Recently, I saw a post on Carol Eaton's blog describing a project where she used soy wax, and I commented on the post.  We e-mailed back and forth about some difficulty she had removing the wax, and the end result was an invitation from her to be a guest blogger so I could share the techniques I use for applying and removing the wax.  So, thanks to Carol, I have finally added a tutorial to my blog! Just click on the Tutorial tab above and scroll down to the link.  It's not a video like some of my others, but it has lots of process pictures and written guides to help you along.  So if you've been wanting to try soy wax batik, I hope this will encourage you to give it a try!  Here are a few examples of projects where I have used it:

Stamped with found objects, then dye painted 

Stamped with found objects, dye painted, mounted on painted canvas

Autumn leaves stamped on with sponge stamps over a pre-dyed shirt, then over-dyed with browns

Getting back to work...

My creativity has been on hiatus this past month, waiting for my studio to be expanded.  Last Friday, it was officially done, and I began the arduous task of moving everything back in from the garage... definitely grunt work, but welcome!  I have missed my sanctuary, and look forward to spending many magical hours enjoying my new space!  Here are a few pix to introduce you to it:

My new project station with storage underneath - it is 4' x 8', so plenty of room to play!  

This is the sewing area with cutting table at the back and sewing machine in front.  I have since moved a 4' folding table to the right of the cutting table.

The larger closet with new sliding doors... plenty of room for storing various craft supplies here!

Here are Lawrence and Richard laying the laminate flooring.  These two work miracles and I am always happy with the end result... thanks, guys!

I already have some tote bags in progress... couldn't wait to get back to it, so I had some fabric ready for the grand re-opening of my studio!  But they will have to wait... today I head to Sedona with my friend Joyce to meet Sherrie Spangler for a day of shopping, checking out Cottonwood, and warm sunshine!  Stay tuned...

Off to a great start!

2015 already promises to be a fun year for me!  I have found a new niche product with my hand dyed grocery totes - already sold 36 this month to a friend, and didn't even have time to take pix of the newest ones.  I have an order in for Kona cotton, replenished my grosgrain ribbon for handles, and hope to have a new batch ready soon.  Meanwhile, here is a picture of some that I sold to my friend:

Next on my list of things to share with you is my upcoming studio remodel, slated to be done in late February.  My hubby currently has a workroom next to my studio, and we have decided to move him to the existing seldom-used "Guest" room across the hall so that I can have the wall knocked out between my studio and his old work room, giving me double the studio space!  I'm over the moon about this, as it will give me more room for storage and a central core where I can set up work tables and hopefully have some small classes for dyeing, batik, printing, etc. Here are some shots of my current studio, with most of my materials removed to the garage:

North and east walls

East and south walls

South and west walls

West and north walls

The north wall will be torn out, and the carpet in both rooms removed and replaced by laminate flooring.  And the closet will be retrofitted with sliding mirrored doors for easier access.  I did not take pix yet of the other room as it is filled to capacity right now.  I plan to get shots when the clutter is gone, promise!

On another front, I am getting ready to start offering some of my scarves and wall art at the Artists' Coalition of Flagstaff's new gallery location in Tam's Boutique, 117 N Beaver St. in Flagstaff.  We will have a grand opening of the gallery part at First Friday Art Walk in February, so I'm hoping all my friends in Flagstaff will come out!   Here is one of the pieces I plan to show next month, a fiber collage I created in 2013:

It is currently suspended from a different piece of Juniper, but I don't have a picture of it, so this will have to do.

Finally, my first show of the year will be in April which seems like a long time away, but I know the time will fly by so I must get back to work to replenish my inventory!   Happy New Year to you all!