Roy Winner, Play Date & Great News!

The winner of the VIOLET Challenge Fabric is... Cindi!

Congratulations, Cindi...if you would please email me (threadborn@gmail.com) with your mailing address I'll get this piece of fabric off to you soon.

I thought I'd also post a few photos from Thursday's play date with my friend, Kathy S. This is the second annual studio play date with Kathy. Last year, we did gelatin plate printing. This year, we made animals.

Kathy's been an admirer of my wrapped wire animals for a while now. She keeps asking, When is the book coming out? This time, I had to tell her...well I guess it will be my second book! For those of you who don't know, I just got a book contract with Quarry Books! The book will feature creating fabrics using supplies from the kitchen. The title: Fabric Printing at Home: Quick and Easy Fabric Design Using Fresh Produce and Found Objects. Publication date is October 2014. I'm very excited, nervous and will be very busy...as the book has to be written by mid-December! Needless to say, I will be on hiatus from many activities over the next four months (but will continue teaching classes).

But I digress...
Kathy decided that she wanted to make a giraffe after seeing my green giraffe with the sweet face. I also made a giraffe to show her the step-by-step.

Kathy's giraffe

And once again, Kathy provided a scrumptious lunch (with help from her equally talented daughter, Abby!). She even brought the bouquet of flowers for the table!

We had steak salad.

Brownie pie with whipped cream as well as fruit salad so we didn't seem completely decadent!

Kathy managed to get her giraffe completed with the exception of sewing on the bead eyes. We decided that he was definitely the Male of the family!

Kathy's orange and blue giraffe.

What a great time we had!

Day 1: Advent-ure

It's a crazy time of year but I decided to challenge myself. I've been noticing that with each passing month, I have fewer and fewer posts. So this month, I am offering an advent calendar of sorts. I'm going to attempt to post at least a photo a day.

Growing up Jewish, I didn't have an actual advent calendar of my own. But some of my friends did. I just loved how each day they would open a little paper door or window and behind it would be a little surprise. Usually, it was just a cheery little drawing, but nonetheless, it seemed like a wondrous thing to look forward to. Let's just say that I will try my best to provide you with some little surprise each day.

Last night was Artfete at The Art League School. It was great fun. I arrived early and had lunch with my friend Kathy then off to shop for ceramics at the Ceramics Sale. I bought some beautiful pieces and I'm so looking forward to giving them as gifts (and maybe keeping a few for myself!). I will be sure to post some photos in the coming days.

Here I am in front of some of my printed fabrics.

More of my fabrics on display.

The rest of the day entailed helping with set up. I was in charge of the displays in the Fiber room. I also managed to get talked into giving a demonstration that evening. It turned out to be a blast! In the past, I would stand by my table of samples and talk about my classes. Giving the demo made so much more sense and I ended up in some very engaging conversations. One woman seemed so smitten with the idea that just about anything could be turned into a print block, she was just overwhelmed with the possibilities! She happily took my class schedule and I am hoping that she will become a future student.

There were other demos taking place as well as a fashion show. Sorry to say that the room where the fashion show was taking place was very dark and crowded, so no photos. I was soon back to my demo table.

Denise V. demonstrating silk painting.

A design by Candy Edgerley using thermofax screens.

Fleece roving ready to be spun.

As I was demoing, I got caught up in a couple of print block combinations. I'm a sucker for eyes! It was fun making some spontaneous designs. Hmm...maybe some larger pieces of fabric with eye motifs in my future?

Sharing a Day in the Studio

A selection of Kathy and my gelatin prints

The work table in my studio was put to good use today.

I invited my friend Kathy over to do some gelatin printing.

We made a whole day of it!

Here are some of Kathy's prints.

Kathy brought lunch over.

More art!

It was almost too beautiful to eat...but we did...we worked hard and were hungry.

It was delicious!

I really enjoyed sharing the studio today.