This is my last post for 2023.

It's also a time that we all think of giving to charity.  Mostly because this is the time when non-profits kick up their solicitations.  

One of my favorite charities is the Morgan Adams Foundation.  This is a charity that raises money to support childhood cancer research.  The hold an event every other year and 2024 is the next one.  They ask Artists to donate a piece of art for their auction.  This is my donation for next year.  It is one of my Artist Rolodex Books containing 100 unique mixed media pages.

Last time, I donated a piece of fabric art (hand dyed and stitched) and it won an award that gave me the opportunity to have an exhibit at Space Gallery here in Denver.  The piece also sold for $500.  They treat artists well, telling us who bought our piece and for what amount.  they also give us 2 free tickets to the event.  I skipped the last one (due to Covid) but plan to attend the next one.

This is a great cause so if you have a piece of art you would like to donate, here's the website.

​Happy New Year everyone!

Lately, I've been having fun making some Japanese Rice Bags.  These bags ere used to take rice to the temples during holidays.

Also, I'm drawn to hand stitching these days.  So making these bags couples my love of embroidery and machine stitching.  

I think it's interesting how my artistic life goes through stages.  I try something new and if I liked the process, I'll do it for weeks until something else captures my attention and I repeat the process.  To me, being an artist is all about letting my mind wander and my hands learning new skills.  Eventually, it all comes together and I wonder "Why haven't I done this for years?"

And so it is with embroidery.  I loved doing this when I was making Stupendous Stitching pieces but stoppd for more than 5 years.  Now that I'm doing it again (in a different way) I remembered why hand stitching was so satisfying.  

​My current dilemma is finding the perfect needle that is sharp enough to sew through batiks and btting  like butter and has an eye large enough to handle pearl cotton thread and 5 strand embroidery floss.  Any ideas will be much appreciated!

I have lots of acrylic paints in my stash but never know how they all interact.

So I like to paint different swatches.  Here's what I painted today  Sure, I know about the color wheel and what colors are supposed to work with other colors but that seems to proscribed to me. 

I think artists need to discover their own color voice and that's why I just wing it and see what appeals to me.

I encourage you to do this too!  Ignore the rules and just paint!
​

I haven't made a traditional quilt in many years but when my niece had a baby boy, I needed to make one.

Of course, I didn't want to make a pattern so I designed my own.  My sister-in-law told me that babies can only see black & white in their early months so I chose that as my color palette.  I hand cut all the letters and did some blanket stitching to attach them to some white fabric.  

I loved this photo that my niece sent me after she received my gift.  

My sister-in-law sent me an art piece she created by being inspired by "The Creative Cove" on YouTube.  I loved it and went to her channel to see what she was doing,  And I got hooked.

Her techniques (watercolor, black & white markers, and lines and circles creating patterns around leaves and other nature images) while not original but how she combined them was.
At least to me.

So now, I've spent the last few days creating my own pieces with these techniques and loving how the addition of large black sections, softened by white dots, make the work so interesting!  

​This piece is the second one I made and I'm just having a good time.