Thrilled to be Back!

Well, some technical issues prevented me from joining in on all the fibery fun these past two weeks. Now that the technical glitches are (mostly) cleared up, I’m excited to be back amongst the Fiber Art living.

As some of you may have read over at Woollove functional fiber art, I sent Heather her swap gifts last week. (She sent me an awesome felted messenger bag which you can see here.) Of course I needed to send her some most excellent gifts, so I started with this shawl:

Made from a wonderful Syl Caron pattern, I got the opportunity to work with some of Andrea’s wonderful suri alpaca and soysilk fiber (you know, that Wonder Why Gal and her super cool alpacas!). This commercially-spun fiber is so soft yet sproingy. I loved the stitch texture and drape of this shawl so much that I didn’t even block it (a first for blocking magic-lover moi). I added some size 3 Japanese seed beads around the final edging row, and their aptly named colorway – Ceylon Cream Soda – was just the right touch, if I do say so myself. Chopstick shawl pin was optional, but included to complete the shawl package.

Additionally, I also knew I wanted to paint something for Heather. Given her love of neutral palettes, it was a fun challenge for me to create something with that particular limitation. With black, white, gray and some greeny-blues, here is the final product:

Ok, not quite the best photo, but ...

This 11 x 14 sized mixed media canvas allowed me to utilize several of my artistic loves – painting, mixed media, and crochet. In fact, the hints of flowers on the upper portion of the canvas (next to and underneath the tulip) were created using a few of my personally designed cotton thread crochet motifs that were pressed into inkpads and then stamped onto the canvas. They created a very delicate, almost ethereal pattern that was perfect for this work.

See the crocheted motifs stamped on
the side and bottom of the tulip.

Can you tell I was just a little excited about giving these gifts to Heather?

Can you also tell that I’m thrilled to be back with all of you this Friday?

Definitely check back with Andrea's blog, and see what everyone else is so excited about this Fiber Arts Friday!