today's oops moment, and baby gifts!

whew! things are just the slightest bit ridiculous for me at the moment, so please excuse my lack of posting! i'm start a graduated return to work schedule in two days, i'm in the process of moving, and a million other things are going on as well. life gets so complicated sometimes!

i've been in a spraypainting mode the last few days, which is so difficult for me that it's pretty much ALL i've been able to do. but i bought a stool for my kitchen at the thrift store, to sit on while i'm cooking, and it was a very dirty white, so now it's a bright green and i had a bunch of shelves that i want to put up together in the new place, so now they're all bright pink, and my blue scratched filing cabinet won't be hidden in a closet anymore, so it's on it's way to being a glosay black.

i haven't been crafting much, since i'm trying to sort and organize and pack and find things (i KNOW i used to own a can opener!), but i have several needlework pieces that i've finished recently that i want to frame and post. i found incredibly ugly gold frames, but with really awesome shapes, and since i'm already spraypainting, i thought i'd paint them fun colours and they'd be perfect.

i painted them yesterday (i even primed them first! i NEVER prime!) and they turned out awesome! they are so perfect! one's bright pink, one's bright green, and the other in a turquoisey pale blue.



this morning i decided to mount the embroidery pieces..... and they didn't fit! the frames said right on them that they were 8"x10", but i never ACTUALLY measured....

the inside of the frames is only 8" x 6.25"! of course my 8x10 pieces don't fit! i'm so disappointed, i was so excited to get these pieces framed.

let this be a lesson to you, ALWAYS doublecheck the actual open part of the frame!



in other news, i know, i know, i'm so far behind with posting. i have some charity crocheting, the gelatin prints, some awesome mail, the amazing present a friend made me, so much to post! in the interest of trying to get even the slightest bit caught up, i'm going to post the oldest first, and try to get caught up soon!

as i'm mentioned before, the mod girls over on craftster have started having kids in the past year or so. it's been a influx!

the most recent addition to the mod babies was chase, who was born at the beginning of the summer. for each of the mod babies, i've sent hand embroidered bibs, and chase was no exception. i had 4 or 5 bibs embroidered, just waiting to be sewn up... but when i went to make the bibs, they were gone! i searched EVERYWHERE, and they were nowhere to be found. i had one bib that i was still embroidering that i finished up and made, just to be able to send A bib, but i felt bad! (i didn't find the rest of them until last week, they were in a bag in my studio, of course)




i thought it was awfully cute, and now i just need to get moving on finishing the rest!

(the pattern is sublime stitching, and it's all chainstitch, except the backstitch used for the "reflection" on the rocket window)

luckily, i had more to send than just the one lonely bib!

i made him a quilt! i actually made two quilts with the same fabric, and gave one to my mom for a friend of hers, so there are two in the pictures below. the backs are both solid blue flannelette, and they're both tied with red embroidery floss.

i fell in love with the robot flannelette, and went searching for other colours to match. i kind of wish i'd sewn it with some of the striped squares going vertical, just to add a bit more movement to the quilts, but i still think they turned out cute!





by the time i finished the two quilts out the same fabric, i felt like they'd taken FOREVER, but i had a super pretty purple floral flannelette that i want to use, that i thought would be perfect for anne marie, so i made another! (anne marie was born in february, and i posted before with the embroidered bibs i sent her)

i found pink gingham flannelette and pink polka dots, and used them along with the purple i already had. i did an actual pattern with this one, one of my absolute favourites ever, a rail fence quilt, and i'm much happier with the movement in it. the backing is the same purple, and it's tied with pink embroidery floss.








(hemi felt the need to help!)

micheal de meng workshop, part two!

so! yesterday was the second day of the micheal demeng workshop. amazing, of course, but not quite as fabulous as the first day. the theme of the second was supposed to be nicho libra, but there wasn't really any instruction on creating the boxes or niches. he covered more in the critique at the end than he did during the instruction portion of the day!

i wasn't super inspired about making a niche, because i thought that was more something i could do at home, so i decided to concentrate more on the paint layering techniques that micheal taught us, so that if i ran into problems, he would be there to help (and it was good, because i did, and he helped!)! i'm really glad i took the second day of the workshop, because i really wanted the full experience, but i didn't feel like i got as much accomplished, or that i learned as much.

that being said, the workshop/classes were OF COURSE, so incredible! such a positive experience in pretty much every way (except my body hating me, of course, but even that was okay, it held up!). i am so so glad that i took it, and that i managed to do both days. it was awesome to work in that setting, talking to other artists, because as much as i LOVE all of my crafty and arty friends on craftster and in blog land, i am pretty isolated un terms of crafty or arty friends locally. and the workshop was incredibly inspiring (which i was totally hoping for!) and now all i want to do is get my studio organized so that i can start making stuff every day! i have so many ideas for new projects, i can't wait to start them all! and i am already looking forward to next year, when he'll come back and teach again, and his new book will be out!

so..... you wanna see what i worked on? of course you want pics, right? as sweets always says "without pics it didn't happen!" (sweets is a little picture obsessed, but since she takes amazing ones, we don't hold it against her!)

so. i worked on 3 projects yesterday, alternating while they were drying. i showed you the first two pieces that i started, here's what more has been done!

first, the cocktail fork piece. this was really hard to photograph, the flash makes it seem darker than it really is. i'm definitely going to add more, i think that the top and the bottom pieces need to be blended together better. i mentioned that saturday i'd done a coat of molding paste and white acrylic on it.

so yesterday i started layering paints.

the first set of paints -

second set of paints -


you can see that the colours are a little bit more tied together in the second picture, but there's still more work to be done.

the sieve piece -
i decided that i wanted the girl to blend more with the piece, to make her seem more robotic, in a stepford wives kinda way (with her "trophy chest"! that was a total fluke, i wasn't thinking that when i did it, but it goes well, doesn't it?). i did a coat of gesso, and then a coat of grey paint as a kind of primer.


then i did a coat of lightened up illuminaires silver paint and did some dry brushing on the bottom using golden's interference paints. she definitely needs more coats, and maybe a wash, to tone down the brightness of the silver (perhaps an uszhh, as micheal calls it!). and more dry brushing needs to be done. i might use some micaceous iron oxide on it too, to give the top part a bit more of a leaded look.

with flash and without flash



and the piece i started yesterday, the BVM (blessed virgin mary). i was thinking about niches of boxes that i'd like to have on my walls, and i'm always berating muself for never getting around to making stuff for my bathroom, so this seemed like a good idea. i had two of these statues, but one had several marks on it.

i started by giving it a layer of gesso. my plan was to use a layer of dioxazine purple paint, then a layer of quinacridone/nickel azo gold, create the look of verdigree with several colours dry brushed on, then a wash of uzshh (quinacrodone gold and carbon black). i wanted her to look like an old brass statue, if you know what they look like with the green on them. micheal suggested i paint her black, then use interference violet on her, to get a bit more movement in the purple. i liked that idea, so i started painting her carbon black. it looked SO COOL all black and glossy while the paint was drying, but it was weird how uncomfortable i felt painting mary black!


after i'd added the layer of interference violet, i REALLY liked how it looked. unfortunately, my painting was really sloppy with the interference and it's super obvious! i thought i was going to put another layer over, remember? i think i'm going to sand her down and repaint the interference violet, even the black of neccessary.

current status, with flash and without. isn't the interference violet gorgeous on the black? oooh!




the back piece for her is a silver plated bowl. it has a bit of a patina since it's silver, and i dry brushed interference silver, violet, blue and green on it. it really looks like the mary is reflecting on it when you see it in person.

i still need to attach the mary and put a hanger on the back, but that has to wait until i'm done painting or re-painting her.

and that's what i did yesterday! i'm really excited to keep playing around with the paint layering, and do do a couple of niches or boxes.

if you ever get an opportunity to take classes with micheal demeng, JUMP AT IT! it is so worth it!