Felt

My Filz Felt order arrived and I am so excited! I decided to try three 18" squares of the 3mm felt. The plan is to cover photo albums (large and small) with the felt. No boards just straight felt on the albums. The felt is sturdy enough and photo album paper is also quite thick so I think this plan will work. Stay tuned...

Here is a shot showing the felt thickness. It is great stuff! I have seen this in Europe for years and am excited to see that is available here in the States as well.

DIRT - The Book for the Exhibit

I have been working on this oversized book for the artist Margaret Boozer. She does amazing work with dirt. Her exhibit, Dirt Drawings, is opening Saturday, June 27th at the Katzen Arts Center at American University. The book will have photographs of dirt to accompany the exhibition. This was a very interesting project both because of the scale of the book (25" X 40") and materials used. The covers are made from Dibond - street sign material - so they are super durable and will not warp.

Just to give you the scale of the book this is my eight year old daughter holding the finished product.

I love the way the light picks up on the stamped silver title - lower right hand corner. It reads simply DIRT is 30 pt. Optima.

If you have a chance stop by the Katzen Arts Center June 27-August 16.

Washington Folk Festival

I was a vendor at The Washington Folk Festival last weekend at Glen Echo Park.  It was a lovely two days - not too hot and no rain!  This was my first ever two-day show.  The craft vendors were in the bumper car pavilion.  My neighbor were Marla Rudnick, who makes AMAZING silver wire knitted jewelry, and Janet and Claudia of LotsAKnots two friends who knit, weave, crochet - all things textile!

I had a little help from my daughter Claire for a few minutes.  However, the carousel and various fun activities beckoned!

Here is my booth set-up - Three tables and lots of vintage luggage filled with books.  I liked it but want custom fit tablecloths that go to the ground!

My husband took this funny picture of the "Art Car."  I like the motto - "Drive Art and Live."

We Like to Make Snails...

Sometimes a day does not go as planned but turns out to be fun anyway. Kai was home sick and wanted to play with play-doh. We were out so I broke out my vintage 1970-something copy of Ann Wiseman's "Making Things" and made it ourselves! (Also a great book for macrame, tie-dye, and pot holder projects.)


I like the Baker's Clay: 4 cups flour, 1 cup salt and 1 1/2 cups water. I add a teaspoon of cream of tartar to the flour and warm the water to slightly dissolve the salt. Then add food coloring to the salt/water mix and add that mix to the flour/cream of tartar mix. Squish it up and there you have it!


Somehow we always end up with lots of snails! It is so much fun to roll the dough into a snake and then roll it up into one of these cuties.

Refreshed, Renewed, Relaxed

This past weekend three girlfriends from my "Needle Exchange" needlework group went away for a relaxing weekend (meaning sans kids!)  We ate, worked on our projects, took walks, and ate some more.  It was a wonderful, stress free, three days. 

I worked on these cocktail napkins using a Sublime Stitching pattern.  The idea of a weekend away was so exciting that I ordered this awesome bag set from This Chickadee - great quality and just the right size for this embroidery project!

Thanks again to my hostess Hedy for a lovely place to stay.   And to my husband Eric for holding down the fort!

Day 2 - "Summit of Awesome"

Today I had the pleasure of attending a lunch talk with Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching.  She is the embroidery guru - with funky/fun patterns, kits and a new book coming out from Chronicle Books.  It was so much fun that I changed my afternoon plans and stayed for her embroidery workshop.

So here is Jenny followed by my very first embroidery attempt - from Jenny's  "Sexy Librarians" kit !

Hello Craft "Summit of Awesome"

Today was day one of the "Summit of Awesome" sponsored by Hello Craft.  It was really fun and informative!  The highlight was Maria Thomas, CEO of Etsy, our lunchtime speaker.  The program is really amazing with hands on workshops and learning sessions.  

Me with Maria Thomas!  

Some of the talks are being shown in the Virtual Labs.  Tomorrow, Saturday, May 2nd, the following will be shown:

"Developing a Product Line" at 10:oo A.M. 

"Selling Successfully Online" at 1:30 p.M.

For more information check out the Virtual Labs Schedule!  These are worth a peek - and free.