Alford Inn- Quilt Shop and Retreat
Just returned home from the Alford Inn in Van Alstyne, TX. We had an absolute BLAST!!! The retreat center and quilt store opened in January, so we had never been there before. The retreat center is in an old refurbished home that is just gorgeous. Each of the beds had quilts on them and were very comfortable. It was like "band camp" for quilters! All the food was cooked by Cindy Alford and was delicious (yay to no cooking and sewing all day).
902-271-0552
Martha Pullen 2009 Class Schedules
This will be my third year to go to the Martha Pullen Market in Arlington Texas. It is a wonderfl opportunity to learn new techniques and or improve on sewing skills. They offer hands on classes that are reasonably prices.
My favorite are the "free" classes that you can take throughout the market. With the paid admission you get a band to wear on your wrist- that gets you into the free classes. Those are wonderful. They are lecture style classes about an hour long if I recall. These are wonderful to expose you to new techniques that you may not want to pay for a full class if you are not sure your interest level.
Check it out- its coming up soon!
Martha Pullen Sewing Market, Arlington Convention Center, June 18-20
http://www.marthassewingmarket.com/
http://www.marthassewingmarket.com/class.html class schedule
Ami simms workshop
month. It is all orange and purple. Very fun!
The snails have arrived
tiny,tiny.
I love the farm!
Tadpoles in the pond
"pond" after the last rain fall.
Soon we will hear, them croaking at night.
Love the farm!
Organic Food Coupons mentioned in Living Green Magazine
I have been sewing, more specifically, taking lessons to learn how to tailor shorts for my husband for most of the week. Learning how to make shorts and clothing look professional and not homemade is very challenging. Very do-able if you know all the little tips.
Anyways- my point is that I have not been online. After reading favorite blogs today, I was so excited to find that in one of my FAVORITE magazines online, Living Green Magazine, included our families website OrganicFoodCoupons.com as a resource to find organic food coupons. Special thanks to Richard Kujawski who wrote the article and included our site.
http://www.livinggreenmag.com/food.html
If you are not familiar with Living Green online magazine, it is awesome and a must read for people interested in sustainable choices, eco-friendly, organic living lifestyles. The online magazine has wonderful ideas to help make eco-friendly choices and how to make them affordable.
Most people I know want to live green and reduce their footprint, but it does cost more then shopping at superstores the ship food in cheap from all over the world. It does take some planning to be able to live green and not spend all your green...
Lucas Texas May 2, 2009 Storm
Okay- now I understand why you have culverts in the country. This was our first storm in Lucas. Sitting working on my new organic food coupons website and the power goes out and the sky opens up with a rain, wind and lightening. Really spooky!
Standing on the front porch facing where my drive way should be but it is covered with rushing water.
The new rolling rapids river that has developed across the back of our yard. Photo taken from the balcony.
On top balcony looking toward the neighbors yard. It is almost completely flooded.
Neighbors yard.
Taken right after the storm passed of the rivers crossing in the front of my yard.
My front yard right after the storm taken from a upstairs window.
Winged Things A Series of Fabric Postcards
Made this series to exchange with Postmarked Art group. Each postcard is different but they are all made with the same basic materials. The base of the postcards is a bright aqua batik with a green butterfly free motion stitched. The next layers are either a butterfly on a white sheer fabric or a butterfly on dark blue sheer fabric. Then dragon fly stencils were added. The back has a little girl pixi stenciled on it.
The Pond Series of Fabric Postcards
The pond postcards started out as a simple batik postcard for an exchange. The background was a deep purple batik and the leaf was a deep yellow-green that has little frogs.
Even though less is usually more, it needed something. I started with dark open netting over the top. Auditioned several colors only to remember that I bought a piece of stunning blue shear fabric with vibrant shimmering lime dragon flies. (One of those have to have but NO idea what you are going to use it for.)
Placed it over the top and you could not see the beautiful batik fabrics underneath. It was not shear enough. So I free motion stitched one down and then cut away the "extra" blue sheer fabric to show the leave under.
LOVE the effect.
Finished off the edges with a green embroidery floss mixed with a green hollowshimmer thread. Bit of trouble stitching both at the same time, but took it slow and stayed with it. Totally worth it. The edges are awesome!
Fiber Book Collaborative Exchange
The postcard exchange group that I am proudly a member of is about to host a fiber book exchange/collaborative project.
If you are interested please sign up for free at the yahoo group postcardpizzazz
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/postcardpizzazz/
We estimate the project to run for approximately a year maybe longer since sometimes the muse does not come running just because we call her....
The exchange will be a fun yet simple one- Each month we will have a theme- if you are interested in the theme and or just want a full book of pages (sometime my best work has come from a theme that I was NOT interested in because it really stretched me) you sign up in the database for the swap. Each person who signs up will make (1) ONE page that will then be mailed to someone in the group and someone will mail one to you.
Each page will be the same format 51/2" by 61/2" so that they will be uniform in size and will fit into a small manila envelope to keep shipping costs lower.
This is going to be a great opportunity to share your art, try new techniques and work on a collaborative project and in the end have a wonderful fiber book to look at for years.
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More Details- these are posted in the FILES section of the yahoo group Postcard Pizzazz
2009 Fiber Book Exchange
- a collaborative effort Starting in June 2009 ending in June/July 2010 any postcard pizzazz member who would like to participate in the exchange is welcome to sign up in the database and make pages according to the theme that month. If you have artist friends that might be interested, please tell them about the exchange and ask them to sign up with our yahoo group to participate. The more the merrier!
Each month we will post the exchange database and theme, if interested sign up to participate. I decided to set it up monthly instead of a year long commitment because some months you may just not have the time to make a page. This will be a one-to-one exchange. Each month that you sign up to make a page, you will receive a page. I will try to keep a list of who each person has mailed to and received from so we can get someone new each time if possible. This will make everyone book fun as it will come from different artists all over the world.
If you participate for the whole exchange you will have 12 pages in the end for your book. Everyone’s pages should be the same size so we can each "bind" our books and they will fit together well. You can bind you book in the end any way that you choose, but I have seen them bound with rings that have fibers tied onto them and it looks just amazing.
RULES:
Hate to have them but gotta do it...
SIZE
Each page should be 5 1/2" wide by 6 1/2" tall. You might want to start with the page larger when you are working on it because if using batting it shrinks up and or you might want to have the option to cut it down to size later before mailing it.
CONSTRUCTION
*You can use batting,fast2fuse, timtex or anything that you would like that is semi stiff to support your page.
*The pages should be fabric on both sides-remember what ever you do to construct the "top" of you page may show on the backside depending on when you add the back fabric. Just something to keep in mind when you are constructing the page.
*Leave approx 3/4" un-embellished on the left side so the book can be bound easily. You design can run into that area but try not to have large beads or items that may have to be unsewn to be bound.
*Do not make the holes or button holes for your pages. We will send all of our pages out without them so each artist can decide how they would like to bind their book.
*Finishing edges of pages-Finish the edges in what way works with your page. You want to be sure to secure it somehow to keep the "fabric sandwich" together. Keeping in mind that the left side of the page needs to be bound in some way. Suggestions but not mandatory-zig zag stitch, decorative stitch, yarn or fiber couching, straight stitch, very thin binding
*On the back of each page you make please include the following to make the end books more personal. It does not need to be in the format just include as much of the info as possible:
1. Your name
2. City, State and Country if you are an artist living outside of the United States.
3. Include a brief story about your page- why you made what you did, what inspired you, techniques you used.
***Optional things to add to the back of the page
*Email address or full address added to line 2 (in case someone might want to contact you later-way to keep in touch)
*A photo of yourself
Please join us
Allison Ray
Homemade bagels
My dad came over today and we made the most delicious bagels EVER! I had never made bagels before it was a lot of fun.
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