Hand made wooden boxes

I didn't have the information before about where you could view all his art pieces.
Here is an URL to his Etsy site
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_10&listing_id=11267534

He used to work for Chris Roberts Anteau.

He is also making wooden cabinets using old books as drawers and doors on them. They are really something to see.
I hope you all go and buy one for somebodies BD or start your Christmas shopping NOW and really get ahead of the curve.
Enjoy

Unexpected gifts

Yesterday was a big day in the mail department. I received TWO unexpected gifts. The first gift is a potholder made from fabrics that my new friend and student Shelby made in TN last week. This was a great surprise and welcome addition to my kitchen. We had such fun in that class and it is nice to have a reminder of that. Shelby is also an excellent cook, and she sent me two recipes that she made while I was a guest at her charming home that I really enjoyed . I will post them later.

But besides the pot holder I received a really unexpected gift from my pal in MI Gayle. Her son created this charming and useful box. She said he is making these now as a new enterprise. Let me know if anyone wants Gayles email to order one of these treasures. They are little boxes for holding your sock knitting needles. I travel with my knitting and I only knit socks while I am on the road. This will be a great addition to my knitting supply bag. Add of course I love boxes, who doesn't, little containers to hold stuff. I have had an infinity for small containers since I was very young. Maybe it is the idea of hiding stuff, or just the fact of something with a lid that looks interesting, I don't know what the attraction is, but I love small lidded, hand crafted boxes.

So thank you girl friends, you certainly made me feel special. I most be the luckiest person in the world today.

Top of box.

Anne Lullie

Anne Lullie is featured in a article today in the Daily Herald. Check it out.

Art Work

This is the wonderful painting from Melody that I came home with, "Little Green Apples". It looks terrific in my kitchen and what I really like is I see it everyday all day long.

While Melody and I were in Chattanooga we went to the Hunter Museum of American Art . There was an instillation called Myth Object and the Animal by artist William Morris. He makes class pieces. These are a few of the pieces that I really liked. The top one is a small wall decoration.

This "jar" was so cool with the bats.

This piece sat at the end of a huge structure of tusk like ribs that reminded me of a viking ship. These shells are each about 6 inches.

Bloomingdale Park District Museum show

Yesterday was the opening of the Chicago School of Fusing Woman packing Irons and Quilt National at the Bloomingdale Park District Museum. It was great, there were so many people there to see the two shows. This is the third year that we have been invited to hang a show in conjunction with the display of Quilt National so I guess we are getting a wonderful reputation.

But what I want to show is this fabulous quilt by Elizabeth Brimelow. The book just doesn't do it justice. The first image is of the front. The quilt is made from silk, I believe, and each of the white areas of the trees is cut out from the whole cloth of silk and then inserted in that space. The tree, the fruit, and leaves are raw appliquéd to the top of the structure. Then Elizabeth went in and sliced the silk in a pattern to create the textured around the trees. It is fabulous. You know me and trees.

This is the back of the piece.

Close up of the trees and fruit. The leaves seem to be made from organza, and the over lay of the fruit does too. I love it!

Flooded with Color

We had a fun time in Franklin TN doing my "Flooded with Color" class. We started out the two days by discharging black fabrics. This process is especially fun because you never know what color the black will discharge to! We used diluted bleach as well as Clorox bleach pens and soft scrub. Each medium creates a different diffusion of the color. The gals barely wanted to move on they were having so much fun.

After lunch we started our gradations. I have the class do three different color value gradations. Some of the woman did their gradations on white on white fabric and the results were spectacular. They work in pairs. Each pair has a clean person and a dirty person. Of course everyone wants to be the dirty person. But in reality we make very little mess in this class because of the way we have everything contained.

On the second day we did more gradation and in the afternoon we did direct application dyeing. We do stand and pour, over dyeing of the discharged pieces, free form application to larger pieces, and thickened dyeing. Towards the end of the day I couldn't get some of the ladies to quit! That is the sign of a good class. But the best part was that the weather was incredible! Warm and dry with no humitity and no bugs. It's a good thing!

Visiting Melody

After teaching in Franklin TN, Shelby my hostess was kind enough to take me half way to Palmer TN, where Melody and Dave have retired. It was so great to see their new home and hang out together. You can read all about our adventures at Melody's blog. The visit was just the right length of time. Long enough to catch up on everything and everyone, and of course do girlfriend things and enjoy Melody's great cooking.

The scenic view half way to Chattanoga TN.