A to Z Challenge Once Again

 

Here we go again. I've joined the A to Z April challenge for the 4th year in a row.

This means I will be posting every day except Sundays the month of April.  

It's fun, challenging (hence the name), educational, and gives a purpose & focus to blogging. 

Apparently I could use that about now as I have fallen off posting. 

However I have been productive in the studio with fiber art. See below.

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I'm happy to report I've gotten a bit of traction there of late.

In other news...had a great little get away to the Bahamas.
Winter here gets so long, and dark, and cold. Thank goodness for cross country skiing!
 

 Elbow Cay was a sweet laid back little Island in the Abocos.

Home to the only kerosene powered light house left in the world. 

A huge boating paradise with loads of marinas, docks, coral reefs.

 The neighborhood bar, "On Da Beach", just a few steps from the VRBO we rented.

The area is a turtle nesting ground.
 Got to know a local artist who did this mural on the ceiling at On Da Beach.


Meanwhile back at home I've been filling custom orders and making some storage for myself.

A couple new stencils and resulting storage bins for my pantry

An Etsy customer wanted a mountain design.

Matching  up the sides for sewing. 

The finished product.

  Cloud bin for the same order.

Just for me. A new oval bag for my knitting.

There's more. I'll be putting them up on the Etsy store soon.

Is everyone ready for Spring? I sure am.

 

Painiting Fabric

Spent a full day in the studio Thursday. Inspiration showed up and I had a painting frenzy on canvas.  Hardware cloth is one of my favorite surface design tools.

This lovely piece is growing up to be a square fabric box. It was made to hold items of a certain size I wanted to contain. I can see more of these being born in other sizes, maybe some nesting.

These are cut from old mat board scraps. They come in handy to frame what part of a larger piece you want to use in your design.

Flat brass strips in graduated sizes from K&S are used in book binding, but they made my seam allowance measurements so much easier.

 Acrylic paint to do an all over treatment on a larger piece of canvas. Got the fabric wet first so the acrylic acts like water color & bleeds.

To prove you can learn anything on Youtube I investigated how to draw ovals for the base of this vessel. It's in my Pinterest board for circles, which now needs to be changed to circles & ovals apparently. Of course I have made several different sizes.

 Masking tape with sides labeled is a must. I have pinned & sewn wrong sides together more times can I care to admit. See the second picture in this post.

I will post pictures of the finished items. soon.