Hello!

I love to dye fabric, make thread pictures and quilt. I live in the Yukon on an acreage with my husband, 2 dogs and 34 fish. It's the 'good' life.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

It’s Cold!

Not much to say as I ramp up to my class on Friday, but I wanted to say it is really, really cold here! This week we have averaged minus 30 during the day that’s minus 22 F for my American peeps..

I just got a new phone today and took a few pictures--and it looks like I take way better pictures with my cell phone than I do with my expensive camera!  LOL
treesday
     treesdark1
Trees on the same street, just taken at different times of the day—noon and 5pm.

One of the nice things about Whitehorse, Yukon is that in winter it gets cold but there is rarely ever any wind and this is the driest place on earth--you need moisturizer for your moisturizer!  When I was in University in Vancouver, BC, I found it much colder there because of the damp and wind even though they rarely got into the negative temperatures.

When it is perpetually dark, it is a struggle to come to work in the dark and go home in the dark, and one must work at staying engaged and optimistic throughout the winter.
treesdark2    tree light1
One of the great things that I love about winter is the look of hoarfrost on the trees at this time of year. I MUST do a thread painting with this subject…

And since I mentioned it, the phone I just got is the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. So far, I love it. These bigger phones are now called a “phablet”—and I have to agree it fits the bill pretty closely. Awesome toy for this geek girl..

Now back to my class prep!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Is this thread painting?

I have a class this Friday for intro to thread painting. I have taught this enough times in the past that I am looking for new material that will be the basis of the practice section of the class and something fun. I usually have students practice writing their names, making a flower, following a grid that I provide and tracing ‘something’.
Today I was reading the Aug/Sept Stitch Magazine  (the British Publication with the Embroidery Guild) and HAD to try the project called ‘Stepping Out in Style”.
14   13
It was like playing with dolls all over again. LOL

Make a few templates.



2


I have a TON of fabrics that I apply fusible web to and put in this large container. Then when I need something, I just grab fabric from here.. All of the fabric I used was obtained from this container.


3

The fabric I chose.

5
 
Attached the fabric to a drawing I did on muslin.Put it in a hoop and start free motion sewing. Next time I would use a stabilizer as the facial features got a little squished.


6

All finished and cut out carefully.

I just couldn’t resist adding her to a bunch of projects I have laying around.  Hahahaha.
7           8 
   9       11

Do you think my class might want to do something like this?? I usually make have them draw different flowers. I don't know about this...

Friday, November 23, 2012

Felted Landscapes

Hello, my name is Dahn and I am a hoarder. Well, not like the lady who keeps her dead cats stacked like pressed flowers, but I appear to be a memory card hoarder. Today I was looking for a specific item in one of my purses and I looked through a lot of satchels, quilted bags, Ikea plastic bags (my all time favourite things) and purses. I found seventeen memory sticks. Seven. Teen.
But it’s funny what you find when you clean out your memory cards. I really should be getting my lesson plan together for my thread painting class next Friday, but I was fascinated to see what was on these cards. I have only seen half of them, and I had forgotten most the pictures I had taken.
So far the ones that stand out are these ones—felted landscapes I made for a class a couple of years ago.
felt snowfelt summer
These involve simple free motion quilting on the snow piece and no stitching on the summer piece. If I remember correctly, on the summer piece I was trying to demonstrate that you could hand felt a lot of fabrics. Here there is a piece of a yellow and white rayon shirt, some threads and a curled up piece of painted cheesecloth. Nothing fancy, but I remember how much fun this class was to do and how wonderful the student’s work was.
Then I saw the only piece of hand work I ever did that was totally hand work. It is about 4” x 4” and I remember that I did this piece with my non dominant hand after getting carpel tunnel surgery!
I usually don’t like to make things that don’t look like anything, but I really like the piece for some reason..


Last in this long, rambling post I fixed the truck painting a bit and here it is. First, the original piece:
truck finished
And here is the tweaked picture. I don’t think its done yet, but its getting there.. This is a little brighter than the original, but not by much.
truck fixed
I’m off to see what else is on these memory sticks. They sure are bringing back memories!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am back from Vegas and was not arrested, assaulted or robbed, so it was a pretty boring trip.

Here is a big happy thanksgiving wish to all of my many  both of my American blog friends. Gobble, gobble!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Viva Las Vegas!

Well we are off! Hubby and I are going to Vegas for the first time tomorrow.

I hope this is me:
Image1


And not this:


But what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, so you may never hear about it..  ha!

See you all in a week or so.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Red work

In my post yesterday <<ahem>> I said I would show some of my Red work. I actually hate, loathe and detest any form of handwork, but I love the look of red work. What's a girl to do?  I decided to do this on my trusty sewing machine.  A pattern I have wanted to try for some time now is the Winter Twittering pattern by Purl Louise Krush. I took this to the retreat, but it was not worked on at all.


Finally, I decided to do this in blue instead of red. So without further ado, here are my designs so far. After the pictures, I added a really cool tip how you can trace these patterns. 
But first a disclaimer...

I think I take the worst pictures on the net. A 90 year old who has never held a camera could do better. My dash hound could do better with her paws tied behind her back. The flash went off, I had the exposure open too far (I hit a button by accident), and it was really dark outside. When I should do is take 2 minutes and take the pictures again, but nope, here they are. Wince and enjoy! 










Gack! These are worse that I thought. I think I will redo them, but you get the idea. These were done free motion with thick thread (to mimic hand work) using my sewing machine and they averaged around 7"x8", so they are pretty tiny. Those leaves were tricky and the snowflakes were fudged a bit. O

On to the tip
Did you know you can print on water soluble Solvy? And that you can iron in it too? Oh yes you can! So here is what I did:  
1--cut a strip of 8.5 x 11 piece of freezer paper. 

2--have a piece of solvy about the same size as the freezer paper. 

3--Iron the solvy onto the freezer paper. Iron both sides. Do NOT have steam going. Remember this is water soluble solvy so water will disintegrate it. 

4--cut the solvy to the same dimensions as the sheet of freezer paper. 

5--Scan the image from the book you want into your computer. Or take a picture of it and then crop it to whatever size you want. Or do like did and download the book from the internet (PLEASE buy these books and don't pirate them) and you will have the images already there. 

6--Place the freezer paper/solvy sheet into your printer and print.

7--Give the sheet a few minutes to set, then peel the solvy off of the freezer paper. Finish printing all of your images and you are ready to go!

When these were printed, I pinned the solvy sheet onto my fabric and started sewing. I did not use a stabilizer or hoop, but that is not a bad idea.. 


PPS--I am relieved to say that Michelle received the give away book. That was fast delivery. I enjoyed that so much I think I'll do another one before Christmas. Stay tuned!