spinning in many directions...

you might remember the wool i was unraveling back here in February. well, i've finally started spinning it. my goal is to spin one ball every night so that i can ply it and actually make something with it. it felt good to be spinning again.
click on the images for a close-up view.

have no idea how much i'll wind up with after plying

still working with white over at Judes What If Workshop so i played a bit with a white cotton rag that Home Depot sells in small bundles. loved making the eyelets. i now want to make eyelets in every piece of fabric i pick up. after manipulation, the cloth wound up to be a diamond shape and just hangs on my design wall.

stitched false seams on front and back with lace and cording

love the cording extensions

and still doing embroidery with lace in continuation of my Alchemy Journal. this piece will be a header for a page with old memories. i had lots of trouble photographing this as it is see through and the layers of ribbon have a metallic quality.

cross stitch, free motion embroidery, hand embroidery

this piece measures 8½" x 3½"

the weather is getting warmer each day so summer is on its way. we never have much of a spring but we do have mild winters. i have to get out there and do some planting but i can't seem to pull myself away from all my indoor projects. wishing you all a productive week.

just a bit of stitching this week...

trying to finish up this and that to eliminate some of the clutter in every room.
this will be the last pouch with bobbin lace for a while. it's a small one lined in silk. it just needs a closure...maybe a bead or a button...and then it will be gifted.

embellished with bobbin lace...measures 5" x 5½"

lined in pure silk

getting toward the end of Karen Ruane's Alchemy class and my ledger isn't anywhere near finished. i'm determined to continue working on it to completion. i did a piece of embroidery this week that i thought would be included but it's turning out to be a piece that will stand on its own...i think.

the embroidery is finished but it will sit within an embellished piece of acrylic paper that will be hole punched and stitched.  embroidered section measures about 7" x 8".

we've been having temperatures ranging from the 40s in the morning to the mid 80s in the afternoon and it's only March. looks like it will be another one of those very hot summers with very little rain. need to get all those seeds planted. have a good week.

mostly journaling...

i did get a bit further in unraveling this raw wool mess. another week or two and it will be ready for spinning.
click on the images for a closer view.

more than double the size since last week.

while searching through old pics and documents for my family memories journal, i came across this abstract drawing of a piano i did about 5 or 6 years ago. i modified it some and transferred it to cotton cloth. after it's all stitched, it will become a journal page.

i'm having to do the satin stitching of the keys wearing a magnifier. the black keys are wrapped bars so they are raised up off of the cloth a bit. all the keys measure 4" x ½".

both sides of this journal page have been finished. the mandolin was my grandads. my dad played it quite a bit when i was growing up. he couldn't read music. he played the mandolin and the harmonica by ear.

the negatives are from pictures my dad took in the 1940s

the bars of the mandolin are wrapped threads on wire for a 3D effect.

i'm working on lots more journal pages...so more next time.

have a great week.

if only i knew...

i ordered this wool from ebay several years ago. had no idea what i was going to do with it but it was such a good buy for wool. well, when i received it, i realized that it had to be spun and plied before it could be used. i knew nothing about spinning back then. now that i am learning to spin with a drop spindle, i pulled it out of the closet. i quickly realized that this was going to be a difficult task, as you can see. i will wind a little bit each day and hopefully it will get done sometime soon so it can be used. it took me a while to figure out a way to manage winding 6 balls at once.
click on the images for close-ups.

why would they have wound it this way????

 i spend most of my time working on my Alchemy journal in Karen Ruane's class. here are a couple of pictures of what i worked on this week.

my dad played the mandolin. printed a picture of a mandolin and did some coloring with my inktense pencils. the strings are wire wrapped with floche thread. each string is 7" long. it took hours to do but i like the 3D effect.

i finished embellishing this lace frame with embroidery and it is stitched on to a journal page.

hope all of you who have been inundated with snow are staying safe and warm.