Renaissance Festival

I am finally done sewing for the Renaissance Festival.  My family and a few friends went last Saturday so I thought that I would share some pictures.  I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted because it was much cooler than we hoped for and we were more bundled up than usual.

I made this top and skirt, which looked lovely with the leather vest.

I made this tunic top for my oldest boy this year.  Next year I will have to make other pieces to fit him.

I made this knight garb many years ago for my oldest daughter.  I modified it a little so it would fit.

 Here is my daughter and some of her friends.  I made the purple dress and the royal blue and gold dress.

Here are a few sights from around the festival.  We always enjoy our day walking around seeing shows, shopping, and enjoying a small piece of the past. 

Autumn

I have been excited about the Lifebook course on Willowing & Friends.  It is a yearlong art class with a lot of great teachers.  Here is where you can find out more information. http://wildprecious.com/blog/2011/09/26/lifebook-news-and-fantabulous-giveaway/
and http://willowing.ning.com/page/life-book
Check it out if you get the chance.


Here is a picture of the leaves just starting to turn color a bit.  The Autumn is usually gorgeous around here and it is just getting started.  I will try to get more pictures up as the color ramps up.

I made a composition book cover for my daughter out of an old pair of jeans and some muslin.  I am still working on the indoor picture taking, but I thought that I would show everyone anyway.  I still have to perfect my light box and lamp set up.  My camera also wants to use the flash indoors all the time.  I haven't figured out how to turn it off yet.

I made the cover using instructions from Lyric Kinard. The tutorial can be found here. http://lyrickinard.blogspot.com/2011/03/tutorial-sketchbook-slipcover.html

Have a great day everyone.

Janelle

Etsy

I am considering opening an Etsy shop in the near future.  Right now I am doing some research trying to find out everything that I need to do before I am ready to open a shop.  It all seems to be a bit overwhelming.  If anyone can give me some hints or reassurances I would appreciate it.  I am trying to figure out if this is the right thing for me.

Another Wednesday

I have been spending most of my time in the sewing room still.  I hope to be done with some projects soon and get some more pictures up.
Here is another cuff that I completed.  This one has super soft leather for the backing.  I love this color pallet.

I also joined Whimsical Workspaces on Willowing.  It is a free workshop to help you get your studio or other space cleaned up and organized in a way that is meaningful to you.  I have spent a lot of time recently getting my sewing room and studio space cleaned up, but I can always use help to do a better job so I joined anyway.

I wanted to share pictures from my garden.  My hydrangea doesn't ever bloom well, but it is still pretty anyway.

Have a great day everyone and thanks for visiting.

Janelle

Wordless Wednesday

Early September Doings

I have been working on a lot of different projects the past couple of weeks.  Only a couple are completely finished and ready to show however.  I will post more when I get the others finished.
I have made a couple of fabric cuffs, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  I have plans for some more, I just haven't had time to complete them.

I also did a bunch of gelatin mono-prints, but I am still working on those (adding more color).
I am in the process of sewing a couple of dresses for our Renaissance Fest.  I have been working on these the most because they need to be ready to wear soon.
I also experimented with Derwent Inktense pencils by coloring in a sketch that I had made previously.  They were easy to work with and added beautiful color.  

 I hope you enjoy my pictures.  I hope to post more soon as I get more projects done.

Fall Doings

School is starting tomorrow, so all the older people in my house will be gone.  I will find out if my two little people will happily play and let mom work in peace.  I am hoping that I will get to be creative at least during nap time everyday.

In the next couple of weeks I am planning on sewing dresses for the Michigan Renaissance Festival.  My family makes this a fall outing every year.  It is more fun if you are dressed up.  We don't do authentic outfits, but we are inspired by the times in our costuming.  

 My daughter and some friends last year at the Ren Fest. 

My daughter and I cut up a stack of old unwearable jeans last night.  We want to make journal covers, cuffs, and purses out of the denim.  When I get any of these projects completed I will post pictures.  Now I am off for the last minute school shopping that needs to be completed.   

Studio Space

I have spent three days cleaning and organizing my studio space.  I needed to have a nice space to get messy in and now I finally have that.  I have all my messy art stuff, dye equipment and scrap-booking supplies in my basement.  (I am lucky that it has windows all along one side and gets a lot of light.)  I have my sewing room upstairs right next to my kitchen.  I was tired of having everything crammed into one small area, except my dyeing supplies which have always been downstairs.  Now I just have to finish organizing my sewing area and I will be ready to create some more art.  I have to have my all my art making supplies in the house somewhere.  With two little boys at home I can't really go anywhere else to be creative.  I am feeling a little more energized just to have my area organized, so I can find things when want them without having to dig around.

Sister Quilt

Here is my latest project.  This is a small art quilt that I made for my sister.

This is my first attempt using a whimsical style of art.

Weekend Fun

This weekend was my son's fourth birthday.  My family went camping near Interlochen MI, where my girls were attending band camp.  We saw their performance and went to Sleeping Bear Dunes to see the sights.

My son is really into superheros, so I made him a superhero belt for his birthday.

Now he has loops and pockets to hold all his little goodies.

                 Here are some pictures from around Sleeping Bear Dunes, which is along Lake Michigan.

                                           The water below, 400 feet down, is Lake Michigan.

                                           Here is one picture of the band during their performance.

Summer of Color Finale 2011

It has been  a fun ride this summer.  This is my first time following along with an art challenge.  I have enjoyed seeing other people's art and seeing so many different styles.  I enjoy having a community of artists to communicate with.  It has been really amazing and encouraging.  I hope that I can keep in contact with the artists from Summer of Color, because you are a great group of people.

Here is my main work for the challenge.

These are a few of the different projects I made.

This is some of my daughter's art from this summer.

This is a sampling of the dye work that I did for the color challenges.

I hope that everyone can have a great year and keep on creating and sharing.

Summer of Color (Orange)

I used a poem for my inspiration that I learned in an Asian Literature class I took in college.  I can't find the author, but here is the poem:

Red as wine
leaves fall
one by one in the autumn rain.


These fleeting dancers
quicken my heart
and tighten my throat.


Beauty never stays
but memories linger,
the leaves whisper to me.


When I dance my death
will that be beautiful too?


I have been thinking about autumn and all the joys that come with that season here in Michigan.  I used this to create my orange leaves atc.

 I used Shiva Paint Sticks to add color the the leaves on the top.  I want a hint of fall color to tone down the orange.  I dyed the fabric with my dye named soft orange, but it is a really vibrant orange in person.  


I also want to show a page in an altered book that I am working on slowly.  I was trying out some different art materials on these pages just to see how they worked.

Here is my daughter Katrina's art for the week.

Summer of Color (Purple)

I had fun with purple this week.  I want to thank everyone who left comments.  It really makes blogging worth it.

I tried a new technique for this atc.  I made chenille cloth.  I sewed six different purple pieces of fabric together.  I sewed lines across the fabric pieces on the bias.  I then cut all but the bottom layer of fabric between all the lines of stitching.  After that was done I washed it so that the fabric would fray and show the layers.  The fabric is very soft after washing it.  I painted a metal heart charm with fingernail polish to add some shine and sparkle.

I took a very dark piece of dyed fabric in Imperial Purple to make a night scene.  I put a basic tree and hills on the fabric with stitching.  I then took shimmery fabric paint and painted over the stitching and added some silver stars.

My daughter was into silver roses this week.  She made a small card and a fabric atc.

Have fun creating in orange for next week.

Horse shirt

Here is a picture of my niece in her completed birthday outfit.

She is a little horse lover and farm girl.

Summer of Color (Red)

I am finally getting to post my red ATCs for Summer of Color.  Red was fun to work with even though it is a color that I don't often use except as an accent.  I had a beautiful piece of hand dyed fabric that I made a couple of years ago.  I used that for the base and then stamped images on top.  I love dragonflies and I had a stamp of one that I carved earlier this year, so adding something with wings was easy.

This is my daughter's submission.  She didn't have time to sew this week, but she had fun with a dragon stamp and embossing powder.