March

Making room for new things.  March is roaring in like a lion!  Write up in local publication; Organized desk; spring colors; clean for now calendar.

Celebrate You 2016 Workshop

We had a wonderful time creating vision boards at our Celebrate You 2016 creative arts workshop.  Let's see what fantastic creations unfold for the ladies this year.  Come join us for more creativity at Blue Pelican Gallery Gifts & Yarn every Saturday beginning in February. Stay posted.


The process of creating our visions.

Living the dream teaching creativity and healing on the beach!

2015 a very crafty year

This has been an absolutely fantastic year for Crafty Diva Creative Arts Workshops at Blue Pelican Gallery Gifts & Yarn I have had so much fun with my regular knitters on Tuesdays.  I've enjoyed Chatting and Crafting with the vacationers to Hatteras Island.   I was able to meet local artist's through a wonderful community crafting event.  I got to end the year weaving with old friends at the Clothes Encounters Clothing Arty Party.  Thank you all for your support and enjoyment in the creative process.  Especially thank you Jennifer Johnson for providing me this opportunity and Suzanne for cheering me on.

My regular Tuesday group and their gorgeous projects.

Loved meeting and chatting and crafting with the vacationers.

So happy to meet new friends and reconnect with my 'arty party' ladies.

2015 started and ended with a flurry of color and creativity.  I got to walk out my dream of crafting everyday in my dream cottage on an island.

Blooming where I am planted.

Playing in clay

This year I have finally been able to play in clay again.  I am a pottery freak and collect all kinds of ceramics.  I was so happy to find Antoinette and Edith at Kinnakeet Clay to assist me in creating these pieces.  They have a great gallery and studio. I have tried wheel throwing several times, but decided that being top heavy is not a good thing for centering on the wheel.  As a kid I played in mud and made all kinds of mud pies so I decided that handbuilding would be the ceramic technique I would try to explore.   I love the fact of using fiber, lace, stamps, fabrics etc to make  designs in the clay.  I can't wait to create more in 2016.

Calling Tiny Artist Event

I spent a awesome morning facilitating weaving at Kinnakeet Clay- Studio & Showroom for the 'Tiny Art Fundraiser being held at Indian Town Gallery next Thursday.  I got to meet some great local artist's and had lots of fun making and creating.  My daughter joined me also and made several pieces of tiny art.  Jenn @JypSea Fabrications by Jennifer Harmon wove a beautiful small tapestry for the show.  Antoinette of Kinnakeet Clay tapped into the weaving vortex too.  All in all a very creative morning.

Dyeing and painting on silk

It has rained the last three weeks here at the OBX.  We just dodged hurricane Joaquin.  Still a lot of wind, rain and flooding.  Thank goodness my street didn't flood and all is well.  I spent my time playing in a lot of yarn boxes and dyeing silk.  I love the majiccraft of taking plain white silk and mixing dye and watching how the colors evolve.  You never know what will come out.  There are no predictions.  You just go with the flow.  Then the process of discharging the color with bleach and stamps adds another layer of unpredictability.  I love this process though.

Then I started thinking of my other silk art I had painted over the years and am pondering a new venture in silk art.  Taking it to another level not just creating and sharing with friends but really finding and exploring my artistic voice in silk.  Knitting, weaving and spinning has caused carpal tunnel syndrome at times.  I love fiber color and texture so much I'm going to explore silk more.

September Spinning

September has been a very creative month.  I started out the month making quilt tops from my hand crafted fabric and making felted beads and turning them into jewelry.  All along knitted cross body bags and a sweater.  I finished off the month spinning yarn  on my spinning wheel and creating art yarn on my hand spindle.  Then dyeing and stamping silk scarves while waiting on hurricane Joaquin to disappear from the radar.  I guess I've been channeling the creative and Upleveling spinning energy of the Universe this month.

Crafting Yarn to Art

I've been in a crafting vortex this week.  Ideas has been flying around my head like crazy.  I've also had the stamina to craft my ideas.  It all starting with wool.  Felting balls to spinning fiber.   Oh, what a glorious couple of weeks.

Here I am crafting art yarn for a one-of-a kind artful accessory.

Felted Statement Necklace

I finally finished it.  There are so many possibilities.  I'm sure I'm going to try to exhaust them.  Check back to see my progress.

Lesson: Struggle into Success!

 Success:  today was a success!  I started over using my friend  Dalis' handpainted wool @dancingleaffarms.  Within  5 minutes I had a felted ball and I finished these in less than an hour.  So glad I didn't let yesterday's struggle get me down.  If I hadn't experienced yesterday's disappointment, I would  not have experienced today 's 'Joy!'

For my students:  Yesterday, I had a project fail .  I was trying to make felted beads for a necklace.  Felting is not my expertise, but I'm always up for something new.  My friend and Gallery owner Jenn @obxbluepelican braved her wool allergy to help me out.  We tried for over an hour and it didn't work.  These balls just wouldn't felt!!  When I got home I saw I had been using super wash wool which is designed not to felt!  Oh, well there really are no mistakes.  I'll just repurpose them into another project.  The lesson? When crafting there are successes and struggles.  The key is to turn the struggles into successes.

Final Update!  What a difference a day makes.

Craft book

I've begun work on my latest version of my Crafty Diva collection fabrics, books and craft kits.  I'm making it current and shifting some of the designs and layouts to put a new spin on things.  I've also given myself a deadline for completion.  It takes many a year to produce, write, design and publish work.  It's not overnight as we have been led to believe.  This is round three for me.  The third time is the charm.

Improv Quilting with Hand painted fabric

Twelve years ago I started painting on fabric.  I wanted to design my colorful collection of fabric to use in home decor.  One of  the projects I wanted to make was quilting with hand painted fabric.  I'm not a precise sewer.  My finishing skills suck to say the least.  I'm also a perfectionist so I never let myself be totally free in my improv attempts.  This all changed this week.  I finally got that 'aha' moment yesterday when I was playing with scraps from a patchwork quilt top I made last week.  I'm not finished with this mini quilt or the patchwork one.  I still gave to do the backing and I think that I will paint more fabric for that.  But, I'm in love with this little scrappy quilt.

My process in crafting this quilt.

The patchwork quilt I made last week.

My first stack of handpainted quilts from 2003.

Crafting while traveling

Part of my traveling adventures is checking out art galleries and working studios.  I love making arts & crafts and trying new techniques while on a trip.  I learn so much when I do this and I get so inspired.  While in Asheville last month I stopped at a paint your pottery studio that also had fused glass. I love making fused glass pendants and was ready for the next level of making plates.  I wanted my plate to have a neon outer space feel.   Random pops of color with not a lot of definition spiraling through the universe.  I definitely achieved my goal and I love the results.  My collection of fused glass plates is beginning.

Scarf to Quilt

Remembering the process.  I started this last February.  After I washed them the fabric frayed on a few of them.  So, then I couldn't sell them as planned.  Next I put them in a bag in the back of the closet.  Next I made space in my studio had my machine repaired.  I was frustrated and confused about what to create next.  I picked up my neon knitting (which is pure meditation for me) and voila the idea came to dig in my closet and see what would resurface.  I got this brilliant idea, but it was too hot in my studio yesterday.  I was frustrated , crabby and zen all day.  I wanted to start stitching but couldn't make myself go in there.  I let it go.  Woke up this morning and boom started stitching.  Love it!!

The process.

My batik scarves stitched together. Now, the question is do I hand quilt it? Machine quilt it? Or both? First though the backing fabric. I'm loving it and I don't want to ruin it by over thinking.

August Crafting

August was an amazingly creative month with lots of crafting, traveling, site seeing and art ventures.    I settled in more to my creative space and celebrated my one year anniversary 'living la vida beach!' I have lots of ideas manifesting now and I'm enjoying the creative process.  

Today, I've made space in my narrow and small studio for a long folding table.  This clean virgin area holds many creative possibilities.  Should I continue dyeing and stamping fabric, quilt or sew, paint or collage, weave (now that I made room for my loom at the other end of my studio).  What's a girl to do?  I have space to work on my computer projects, my good sewing machine is finally fixed.  So many options.  I think for today though, I want to enjoy this blank canvas. (uh table?)

Colors of the rainbow

Last week a day before the Blue Moon we had a short rain storm early in the morning.  It felt different, I could feel the magnetic energy surrounding me.  I didn't know what it was.  It just felt different.  Later on in the day my neighbor and other Facebook pages posted this great rainbow over our neighborhood.  I told myself that is probably what I had been feeling.  Two days later I decided to finally start working on a project I have put off for years.  Dyeing , stamping and painting silk prayer shawls.  Yesterday, Sunday when I began the weather was humid yet gorgeous.  The sun was shining so strong.  It was a great day to dye fabric and let it dry in the summer breeze.  I had a lot of fun and loved how the colors came out.  I didn't plan on it but they had a tie dye effect.  Today I finished the rest.  It was raining all day and was damp and breezy so different from yesterday.  The fabric came out differently.  Drying in the sun made the colors pop more.  I still have more processes to go to finish these shawls but, step one is complete.  It wasn't until a few minutes ago that I realized that I had been inspired by the rainbow over our neighborhood on Thursday.  I love to dye silk and I love the colors of the rainbow!  These scarves feel magical.