Inspiration Sunday October 2, 2011

Happy October!


Here's a photo of what I see out my bedroom window:

The colors are now past their peak, and the leaves are rapidly falling from the trees, creating a crunchy carpet underfoot.







My challenge: For any new followers, I am  creating a painting, hopefully each Sunday, following the Artist's Muse by Betsy Dillard Stroud. Each week I choose 1 or 2 cards from the three card decks included, and follow the instructions.

card 1:- do an unlimited palette painting using at least 12 pigments. To finish, glaze over all or part of the painting to coalesce the composition
card 2:- compose the entire painting as though it were a pattern

My inspiration: leaves gathered on my daily walk

beginning with three shades of yellow

adding greens, and golds, and a touch of burnt sienna

With watercolours, I painted  the underside of each maple leaf, pressed it onto the damp watercolor paper, topped it with waxed paper, added weights, and set it aside to dry.

 Once dry, and the waxed paper removed, I mixed indigo blue with various shades of green, outlined each leaf, and softened the edge with a damp brush.

 a closer look

all the leaves outlined

the Reveal.  Can you see the veins and texture of each leaf?




on the leaf in the lower left corner, I used acrylic paint, applied thickly. The result was not as crisp as with the watercolours.

The leaf veins and texture show up nicely. The underpainting glows.







I think all the many colors work with the leaf pattern.

I chose not to glaze over the painting, as this might cause bleeding of the strong colours.





Next Challenge:
card 1:- Set up a still life. Paint it abstractly
card 2:- use a sgraffito technique: coat your paper with gesso. Lay down 5 layers of paint, scraping through in places to show the previous layer. After the final coat has dried, you can glaze the entire surface with transparent paint.

Hope you're having a lovely Sunday.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

Tatting and Touches of the Heart

Autumn leaves in 'A Leaf Falls' inspired by the patterns of  To de Haan-van Beek in her book "New Dimensions in Tatting". 


Rather than using 2 needles as in her directions, I needle tatted each leaf in one round.

tatted in Lizbeth 'Falling Leaves' size 40
I like the look of the leaf skeleton, showing the leaf 'veins'.









I have discovered many wonderful and kind people in blogland-- people I probably would never have met without today's technology. Just recently, my heart was touched by their kindness.

New tatting thread from Anika. 
I can't wait to tat with these beauties!
I had hoped to purchase one of her colors, 'Purple-Magenta', in size 30 thread, but that size was not available.
Imagine my surprise and delight when my new thread order arrived and Anika had generously included a skein of the 'Purple-Magenta' in size 30!
She'd dyed it just for me! ( It's the second from the left. Isn't the color wonderful?) 
Now, that is just kindness and thoughtfulness in action!
Thank you so much!







Linda of Chalky's World blog sent me this surprise package all the way from the U.K.

Cute baby bibs she'd made.
Why?
We'd been chatting about grandbabies on the way. She'd shown a few pics of the bibs she'd made for her grandchild arriving in December, and I'd commented on how adorable they were. My DD is expecting a little girl next month, and I'd told Linda I was thinking of tatting edgings on some bibs.
 I was so moved to receive this unexpected surprise. Linda, you have touched my heart with your thoughtfulness. Thank you so much! The bibs are now on their way to DD in Australia. They should arrive at the same time as baby makes her appearance!

From 'gay Paree' to me....
Jillayne was in France for holiday, and, once home, sent me these lovely items!
a Giverny postcard, poppy bookmark, and French laces, with a very nice note.
I am spoiled! And I love it all!
Thank you Jillayne for thinking of me!

Last, a pic of Turtle Island rising through the fog on a September morning. It's a view that always touches my heart.





May you find kindness and caring hearts in your day.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

A Sunday Walk in Autumn

Happy Autumn!
The days are growing cooler, the sunshine weaker, and the nights carry frost's icy fingers.
My peonies are wearing their autumn colours

This maple turns a glorious orange

the small bushes are turning scarlet

the ferns browning

golden glow

 The driveway becomes full of colour

This thin maple was bowed by the ice storm two years ago, and has never recovered and becomes a golden arch each fall.

returning home, a shot of red and burgundy rests against the deep green of the conifers

 even at the lake, there are changes

 in the underbrush

 yellows and reds, gold and brown reflected in the water

all around the shore the forest is changing, preparing for the winter ahead.











Hope you've had a wonderful Sunday.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

Tatted Mock HairPin Lace

I offered to test tat a pattern for the Online Tatting Class using Ruth Perry's Tatted Mock Hair Pin Lace (TMHPL) technique.  Now, I am not an accomplished tatter, but I do enjoy learning new techniques, so I decided to try Saundra Hameed's Angel pattern. It's supposed to look like this:

Isn't it pretty?





The pattern calls for creating a TMHPL strip, cutting and tieing,  and then later attaching to the head.

I wanted to avoid an extra cut and tie, so I decided to begin the pattern with the head, then create the MTHPL piece and complete the rest of the pattern in one go.

And the changes I made worked, but my angel looks like this:

slightly wonky

Why? Because my picots are not long enough. Had I followed the pattern, I would have realized early on that my picots were too short.
Doing the pattern in one go, and beginning with the head as I had done meant that by the time I reached the second wing, and discovered that it pulled it out of shape, I was almost finished the pattern. 

I should have stopped then, and started a new one, but, there's that stubborn streak...............and I was running out of time........


The TMHPL  creates an up and down picot, which resembles the hairpin lace. Having several lacemakers remark that the fancy picot (FP) stitch I often use looks like hairpin lace, I decided to try an experiment. The FP creates an alternating up and down picot.
Realizing that the TMHPL uses 3 half-stitches per picot, and the FP uses only two half-stitches, I added in an extra ds/set to create the same length.
The usual FP stitch is written thusly if d= 1st half of ds  and s= 2nd half ds,  - = picot
1ds (-2d-2s)x  where x is the total number of FP sets desired
and adapted it to:
1ds (-2d-2s, 1ds)x  and this way strengthened the FP mock hairpin lace strip, as well as matched the length of the TMHPL strip. I decided to test my theory by tatting Saundra Hameed's "Round Center Motif in Tatting and Hairpin Lace" Here's a pic of her example:

 It's a wonderful pattern.

 My result:


not perfect, but I think the FP as an alternative method  for TMHPL has possibility. I still need to work on my tension, and not tat so tightly.
Because I like to use the FP, and do so frequently in my tatting, it was quicker for me to tat this larger motif with the FP, twice, rather than the angel with the TMHPL once.





On my first attempt at the above pattern, I made a joining error, and this happy accident occurred:

a cute fan motif that may just find itself on a future CQ block




I hope all your tatting accidents are happy ones!
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

Cards

Shirl's birthday was coming up.

I had to add a wee bit of tatting for some flowers. It adds a little dimension.



Happy Birthday, my friend!












Cards in the Mailbox

From Createology came this delicious card, as she was "squeezing every drop of summer sunshine" and sharing with some of her followers.  It's blank inside so I can use it, if I wish, but I may just frame it and hang it in my kitchen. It's so cheery and I love it!

This hand-painted card arrived from my good friend and fellow artist, Betty D. Betty creates beautiful watercolors and barns are a favorite subject. Thanks Betty!

From halfway around the world, I received this hand-painted card from Penny of a pelican she'd seen on her walks. As a lovely surprise, she included one of her cute little dolls as well as

a wonderful little cross-stitch kit. I'll have lots of fun with this!
Thanks, Penny for thinking of me!













I hope your day has nice surprises in it.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

Zipper Flowers 2

I wanted to try a few different things with the zipper flowers.

here's a short, navy zipper with metal teeth and the short picot tatted chain

from the side it looks a little tight and tall

I opened up the tight zipper rounds by folding the bottom row back.

this sits nicely and has some dimension to it.
I like the soft tatted frills against the hard metal teeth

the second portion of the navy zipper with a doubled, singed organza frill creates a different flower look. I added a turquoise cracked glass bead to the center, topped with a small silver seed bead. The contrast of soft, frilly, and transparent organza against the solid navy zipper fabric and the hard, metal teeth appeal to me.

hmmm, maybe some more color?

or, some more tatting?


why not both?!

tada!



I'll be adding a pin back to create a lapel pin. I think I'll wear it to choir practice.
I wonder if anyone will notice.











I'm a member of  StitchMap, and some of our members have been affected by the fires raging in Texas. You can read all about how StitchMap is working to help, in a small way, those who have lost so much. Check it out here. Maybe you'll be able to help, too. Thank you.

Hope you have some fun, creative time today.
Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz