She's Done!

Well I did it. The mermaid is completed. Well not quite as I need the label, but it is designed and on the computer waiting to be printed.

Introducing Mystique’s FantaSea. The size is 15 ½ inches by 13 inches.
























I am not overly thrilled with how I created this, but I am happy with it. I know I could have done more if I had not been in a rush to finish this up. I think the fact that I wanted to complete it to say it was done and then making the minor mistakes while working on it, just kind of took the fun out of it. I may come back to it and add a little more hand stitching across the bottom. We’ll see. Now to decide what the next project will be to work on.

Mermaid Update

I’ve made some progress on the mermaid piece, however not quite as much as I would have liked.

Here’s what I have done so far.















And a closer view.














I don’t know where my head was when I started back on this piece but it certainly wasn’t where it should have been. After I had completed adding these embellishments I realized that I should have added my batting and backing fabric and quilted it first. I know I can still do some quilting but it is going to be a lot harder now. That is not the only dumb mistake I have done. When I cut the batting, it was too small and I had to cut a second piece. If that wasn’t dumb enough, I turned right around and cut the backing fabric too narrow also. DUH! When that happened I said it was time to quit for the day.

Continuing the Mermaid WIP

Continuing from the previous post on the mermaid piece, for the past two weeks I have been working on and off on choosing machine embroidery designs and stitching them out onto a layer of organza and water soluble stabilizer after resizing and re-coloring them.

These are what I have done. Once again the colors are off. I have tried both scanning and taking digital shots and I just can not get a really good photo of any of these.
















Except for the longer shells in the first photo these designs are all less than 1 inch in size. The longer ones are about one and three quarters inches long.

The seahorse measures about two and half inches and looks better in real than it does here.




















The turtle was stitched onto a piece of green felt to give it more depth and color as the embroidery design was more sheer than dense in design. He is about three inches long.















I stitched another starfish and another small fish like the one above. I also stitched two larger fish, but I am not real happy with them. I have some other smaller fish that I am going to stitch and then I think that will be all of these embroidered pieces.

WIP or UFO

My first WIP (work in progress) that I decided to work on is one that I started last June. Back then I played around with the idea of making a small fabric book with the theme of mermaids. After thinking on it for a while (size, how to put pages together, etc) I decided that maybe a small wall hanging would be better (read easier). So I started going through my stash and pulled all the fabrics I thought I might use. I picked three and got started.

This is how far I got with the piece back then before laying it aside to start on something else.



















Sorry the photo is not that great. It is a little on the dark side but when I tried to lighten it, it really changed the colors. The background fabrics are all commercial hand-dyed. It measures roughly 14 x 16 inches.

The colors are still off in this next photo. The mermaid is from a Jill Sawyer pattern. She was created separately and then stitched to the background. I wanted her to have sort of a 3-D look, so her upper body is done in stumpwork. The lower body half has a little padding added (in the rear area only). The tail fan was in sections and pieced together with satin stitching. To create her hair I loosely stitched mohair onto a piece of tulle and then tacked it down adding her head.

The seafan is a piece of free-motion lace done on water soluble stabilizer.

















So all of that was done last year. I will continue with this in another post.

Thank You and What's Next

First off, I want to thank everyone who has left comments here recently and also those who stopped by (but didn’t comment). I am truly appreciative of all the wonderful things that you say about my “art” or whatever else it is that I have posted about. When I first started this blog I wasn’t sure if I would be posting much or if anyone would even really be all that interested. While I may not have huge numbers of visitors, I do have way more than I ever thought I would and I keep seeing new names pop up in the comments. So just let me say “Thank You” one more time.

There has been some talk about choosing a word for 2008 to “guide” you throughout the year. I guess it was pretty evident in my first post for the year what word I had decided on. FOCUS. I could also add to that “concentrate”.

Moving on, I am planning to participate in a monthly WIP challenge. The challenge is to gather together your WIPs and decide what you want to do with them.

finish them

rework/repurpose them

give them away

ecetera

Working on my WIPs is something I had intended to do this year even before the challenge was issued. I have decided which one to work on first and have already been in the process of working out what my next step(s) with the piece will be. This is still in the planning stage and actually I have not started on it, so I will wait to post about it. I need to take photos. Stay tuned.

Challenge Results

Some of you are familiar with the yahoo Fibre & Stitch group. The challenge put forth for the month of January was to spend no more than 15 minutes picking through your scrap pile for scraps to make something with. I put together two different piles and these are the results.





















I turned those scraps into this.





































Scrap pile number two.
















These became this.




































They both hold a 3 x 5 inch notepad.

Make My Day

I've been awarded with the "You make my Day" Award by Waltruad. Thank you so very much.

It is so nice to know that there is someone somewhere in blogland that is inspired by my little pieces of work.

In kind, I would like to pass this award on to some people that both inspire me and make my day a little brighter just by reading their blogs.

So the award goes to….
Baumcat (Cathy)
Debra S
Doreen G
Lynda M
Mags (digitalgran)
Pat W
Sara L
Susan L

There are so many others and you all deserve this award.

Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times!

Some if you may have had this already, if so, please do not feel any pressure to participate again.

The Coming Year

Last year I was involved in several different projects and exchanges. I made many new friends. At the present time I am not committed to anything. I belong to several yahoo groups where I can either choose to participate in a challenge or I can just sit by and enjoy seeing what others do. This may sound a bit passive and boring, but it suits me at this time not to have that pressure of “having to get something done”. I plan to take a couple of classes in 2008 and I do have plans for several projects.

Looking back at last year I know I did accomplish doing a few things, but for the most part I feel like I just played around. I am not saying this was a bad thing because I learned a number of things and discovered things as well. One disappointment to myself was that I did not complete the TAST challenge last year; I stopped half way through. I did follow it to the end though and saved all of the stitches.

For the coming year, I feel I need to do the things that I choose to do, not do things chosen by others. I hope by doing this I will be able to focus on specific projects and concentrate on creating better pieces of work.