Nicky Claus! I cracked up and ran to get my camera. Nicky is the sweetest poodle I ever met. He had special training so he can visit people in hospitals and nursing homes. I'm sure this little Santa suit made many people smile!
Yippee, my studio is compete! Here is a photo of my Viking Designer I in its new home. It's amazing how comfortable it is to sew at this height. The first thing I sewed was the hem on my husbands shorts because he threatened to leave a nasty comment on my blog if I didn't fix them soon. Then I made a postcard out of the leftover coaster fabric.
My sewing table backs up to an L shaped table, so I will have a huge working surface for large projects. I think I could have 3 people working fairly comfortable in this space. I'll have to test that theory out soon.
This shows the L shaped table from the opposite direction. You can see my laptop in the forground, this is where I do all my blogging, photo & computer work.
Here's the other end of the L shaped desk. There is a ton of storage underneath and behind this area.
I found some fabric that I won't use and will donate it to a local group. After organizing everything I have one empty shelf that will hold a large bin for leftover scraps. Thanks to my interior decorator friend, Nancy, I still need to find a way to store approximately 25 pounds of upholstery fabric.
This is what it looked like after I printed it on treated cotton fabric. 
I added a layer of Timtex to the back and couched yarn along the contours and free motion stitched in the blue areas with rayon thread. I added foiled circles to top. 
I cut four circles from the piece and stitched around the perimeter of each.
I popped the circles into the center of these acrylic coasters and sealed the back and Ta-da, I have a unique Christmas present!
Here's a photo of my lonely chair and lamp waiting for it's new sewing table! It has arrived and I'm hard at work filling up all the drawers. I really, really love the new layout. Photos to come shortly.
You can see most of the fabric wall in this photo, each rolled up piece is at least one yard. The larger pieces are in the closet, which are also being rolled up. This was taken before everything was put away. It's much neater now.
Here's a close up of my fabric wall. The fabric is rolled up, jelly roll style, tied and stored on end. This wall of fabric always makes a BIG impression with visitors.
The oak unit is packed with one-half yard pieces of fabric. Each drawer holds a different color and the large drawer on the bottom has a lot of hand painted/dyed/discharged fabric. The plastic drawer unit also has fabric and stabilizers and there are more bins under the table!
Aren't they beautiful? We had a lot of fun at the Blockhead Christmas Party. Great company, wine, food, fabric exchange and our Seminole Strip Exchange. Below are 8 out of the 9 strips exchanged (Ranell couldn't make it).
My fabric sample and strip is the first one shown above; orange background with a green and blue cross. The fabric has many colors, all very bright.
It has been a long time since I pieced a traditional block. There was a lot more precise measuring and stitching than I remembered!
We actually did the exchange earlier today. I'll take some photos tomorrow and show you all of the strips I received. I knew my fabric was bright, but I was surprised just how bright the finished strips were. They are great and I love the way they turned out.
This first piece is completely covered in Lumiere. It is quite shiny and stiff like paper. 
You need to work fairly quick for this technique. This piece was painted with a 50/50 mix of Setacolor and water. I used two blues and one red. After the fabric was painted, I added some creases for texture. I sprayed another piece of fabric with water and placed it directly on top of the wet paint. I pressed the fabric down and rubbed gently in places. The top fabric absorbed some of the color and resulted in a softer version. 
This next piece was a new technique for me and I'm sure I'll do it regularly. You will need Elmer's Gel Glue, a foam stamp, fabric and paint. I used a 50/50 mix of Setacolor and water, two blues and one yellow. This photo is showing you what the fabric looks like after it has been completely stamped with the glue. I used a foam brush to spread the glue and added more glue between impressions. Be careful not to add too much glue though, you will loose the details.
This shot is showing how it looked as I started to add color. The flowers magically appear as soon as the color is applied. Make sure to choose colors that will blend well.
Here's the piece completely covered in wet paint. It was much darker than I had hoped and I thought that I had ruined it. 
But the paint actually continued to mix together and it lightened considerably as it dried. The stamp became more pronounced as the fabric dried. It ended up looking like a beautiful batik!
I also ran six sheets of treated cotton through my inkjet printer with wonderful results. I'm not going to show those though, I have to leave something as a surprise! Now I have so many beautiful fabrics, I'm not sure which ones I want to trade with my Fibervision group.
For the base I used a sheet of stiff felt and arranged my fabric strips on top. I covered the whole piece with yellow shimmer tulle and did an allover meandering quilting stitch.
I cut the the finished cards (2.5 x 3.5"), stitched each one with an additional linear pattern and satin stitched around the outside edge.
Now I need to get back to fabric painting for the Fibervision exchange and Seminole Stips for the Blockhead exchange.
This piece is a commercial fabric that had white on white roses. I bought it with the intention of painting it. It has 3 layers of different paints. Some areas are highlighted with metallic Lumiere.
This began as a plain white pfd fabric. I applied metallic Lumiere to the cross section of pool noodle and stamped the large circles. I then stamped with sponge and a rubber stamp. Once dry, the metallic paint acts as a resist. I wet the fabric and applied green, blue and yellow Dye-na-flow all over. I sprinkled salt on top and added another wet layer of fabric on top and squished it all together. The top fabric picks up the excess paint and leaves you with a pretty soft pastel version of the base layer.
It was actually painted in this horizontal orientation, but I flipped it around 9o degrees counter clockwise and loved the composition. I instantly saw a landscape and decided to add a palm tree that was left over from another project. 
What do you think? Should I continue with my landscape vision or chop it up and use it as fabric?
This piece actually began quite a while ago. It was two silk-screened prints side by side. I decided to embellish it with more paint and texture and blend it to create one long piece. all the shapes are outlined with Lumiere.
ELVERHOJ MUSEUM: The reception was a lot of fun. It was so exciting to see our work hanging in such a fantastic venue. It truly looks amazing. I was very proud of all of us. I am very thankful to be part of such a talented and friendly group of artists. I sold one wall piece during the reception and quite a few postcards. Pieces of the Past (posted on Aug 19th), will have a new home in January. Fortunately, I know the new owner, so I've been granted visitation rights! LOL Cathi, I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I enjoyed making it!
This is the "Before" Photoshop manipulation photo. It is a metal grid that holds a large outdoor light in a parking lot. I was instantly attracted to the linear graphic pattern. There is no telling what I will stop to take a photo of. I'm sure many people think I'm a bit strange! LOL
This is the "After" Photoshop Manipulation photo. It still has the same basic structure but I think it's more exciting. Here's how I did it, more or less. Keep tweaking the numbers until you get the effect that works best for your photo.
1. Choose Layer/Adjustment Layer/Color Balance and move the sliders until you get a color you like. You can select different color combinations for the Shadows/Highlights/Midtones.
2. Make sure your background layer is highlighted. Select Filter/Texture/Stained Glass. Move the sliders for different effects. Smaller cells will result in an image that resembles the original. Larger cells will be very abstract. Here are my parameters: cell size: 7, border thickness: 4, light intensity: 4.
3. Choose Layer/Flatten Image/Save As: jpg. If you want to save as a Photoshop file, do not flatten image.
Make sure you play with all the sliders and try to keep notes on the effects you like. Otherwise, you won't remember how to do it again! Hope you find this helpful.
