Golden Sacrifice close up

Here is a close up of the head of my fish. You can see the details, and might even notice that I did some painting inhis mouth and along the contours of his spine. Some of my friends think this is a girl fish, but I've thought of him as a boy fish right from the first work I did on him.

His eyes are made of hand appliqued, stuffed kid leather, such as you might find in ecclesiastical gold work. I had a tiny piece and it was just perfect for "fishy". I tried a lot of other ways of doing his eyes, including getting some fish eyes from a taxidermist, but nothing else worked.

Golden Sacrifice

This is a picture of the quiltlet I made for the Quilting Arts Calendar contest, 2008. I painted the background, then FMQ'd before adding the fish. He is made from hand appliqued gold lame. I did a bit of soft sculpture in his body, before hand embroidering the details. The scales are made of sequin waste, and his gill cover is painted Tyvek. The fins are organza that has been machine emboidered, painted with Lumiere metalic paint, and then had the edges burned with an electric needle. The weeds are machine appliqued, and the beads are bone beads that I bought in Cuba.

Thank you Linda!

I've managed to get into my blog again after too long a time! My friend Linda helped me, yet again, after I'd given up and thought I would never blog again! In the past few weeks I've attempted to sign in and been denied, but have sometimes been able to get in after trying again a few hours later. Let's hope this time it works for good.

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to get ready for two important shows. Now I've been asked to teach a class and have to have my samples ready by mid-June, so that's yet another looming deadline. Work has not been going well, and I've been doubting I would ever be ready for any of them. Well, yesterday I sat down and got a big piece of the work done for the first show. I still have a long way to go, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that keeps me going. I can't tell you what a relief it is to actually believe that I might make it and have something ready!

Once I get these deadlines behind me, I have so many other ideas in my head! I have been taking watercolour painting classes and what to make a three-dimensional object that incorporates both fibre work and watercolour painting. I have the whole project more or less sorted out in my head, and I'm dying to get working on it. But the deadlines come first. (This really makes me think about entering shows and sales. But I have to sell stuff so I can buy more fabric. What a conundrum!)

Spinning yourself into the ground

Have you ever been that busy? I sometimes don't know my right hand from my left, these days. I want to do it all!! I want to work on all the projects in my brain, but the projects I worked on yesterday aren't finished. Now I have show deadlines and no hope of ever making them. And I still haven't found time to re-learn how to use my camera or to post pictures on the blog! This weekend I took a course on perspective in landscapes for quilters. No new information on perspectives ( How often can you hear the "same old, same old"?) This teacher didn't even think we were capable of learning two point perspective, let alone the difference in perspective indoors and out. The question is always " did I learn even one thing in this course? And if I did then the course was worthwhile. I have always found this a good way to look at courses. They also provide dedicated time to work on something. Time away from phones etc. with nothing else calling on your time. Sometimes they are worth their weight in gold just for that reason. Well I learned how to mount small quilted pictures within a mat. I actually think that I might make up several of these and take them to the next sale I have to go to. I wonder if they might sell? Tonight I get to chill out with friends who like playing with fibres as much as I do. What more can I ask?