Time to play!

It has been my custom over the last several years to reserve some time between the end of one craft show season and the beginning of the next, to experiment and play with new techniques, try out ideas for new products, and just let the creative ideas flow.  This year will be no different, and I have already begun to play with some ideas that have been fermenting in the back of my mind for some time: thread bowls!  What on earth is that, you ask?  Well, here are a few I have finished:

These bowls are more delicate than my coiled fabric bowls, but I love how they look!  And I love that I can use thread scraps as well as Angelina fibers and other fiber scraps... lots of possibilities here!  I learned the basics from a tutorial I found online, written by Wendy Hill.  I later ordered her book 

"Fast, Fun & Easy Incredible Thread-A-Bowls: 2 Techniques-5 Projects-Unlimited Possibilities", which describes the process and suggests several projects.  

I have also been working on creating some tree ornaments for the Arts Connection Gallery Holiday Tree:

 The birds above are fabric fused on timtex, a double-sided fusible heavy interfacing; the edge is a dense zigzag stitch.

The cactus are fabric stitched to a batting.  #1 has a soft green covered with a lacy overcoat embellished with sequins; #2 is the soft green fabric, with beaded "light strings" hand stitched on both sides; #3 is the green fabric, overlaid with Angelina Fiber.  I'm not big on making seasonal items, but decided to do what I could to add to the holiday decor.

I also took a brief foray into making a couple of bowls from heat-moldable double sided fusible interfacing - geez, that's a mouthful, isn't it?  Anyway, I've seen some examples in quilt stores of items made with this product, and decided to give it a try.  The jury is still out on the product... it's a pretty arduous task to use it, so I'll try again over time.  Here are my first results:

These don't photograph well as bowls, and in truth, they are fairly shallow.  I think I will do some research to find what others have done with this product before I try any other projects with it.
Well, that's my story!  I will post further over the next couple of months as I dabble in this and that... meanwhile, happy Election Day!