Week 1

I'm posting my Progress Notes and pictures for Week 1 of "28 Weeks of Creativity 2012."  It was a good week creativity-wise.  I met my goal for the week, which was 6 Dutch Embroidery birthday cards.  That was pushing it however, as the stars take me about an hour to do and the comets 2 hours, plus time picking out the DMC embroidery floss colors and background cardstock.  I need to either better estimate the time involved or not put a number on the craft (or writing or art) projects.  Should I post more often or just once a week when I take pictures?  If you have an opinion, let me know.  :)

6/18/12

I really have missed doing Dutch Embroidery.  That's why I picked this to do first.  I'm going to make 6 birthday cards.  These are not my patterns.  They are from 2 discs of patterns given to me by a friend of a friend.  I have no problem using other people's patterns in my crafty/arty stuff.  It's what you do with an idea that counts, color choices, etc.

I'm doing the Star and Comet design cards based on friends and family's favorite colors.  I know, I could go with an over-arching color scheme, but I think I'll just go with favorites and colors that appeal to me.  I lost my pinking shears that I do edges with, so I have just straight-ish edges cut with scissors.

6/19/12

I decided on variegated thread and solid backgrounds for this week's projects.  Some of the birthday cards are for specific people, some aren't, just depends.

6/20/12

I started out with a white background then did a gold star on a dark blue background.  Whatever looks good!  Fun!

I was looking at cross-stitch patterns for future projects and realized that most of the patterns are very time-consuming.  My new criteria is, can I do it in a week?  Not much fits that criteria especially at the skill level I'm at with counted cross-stitch.

6/21/12

There is a prejudice for complicated time-consuming art.  The gesture, the art that takes little time isn't as valued.  At the same time people who aren't artistic may  not appreciate your time-consuming art.  It will be interesting to see what I can come up with in a week's time.  :)

6/23/12

Extras:

I did 3 drawings tonight.  The idea was from "Art Lab for Kids" by Susan Schwake.  It's not about being an artist (or a writer) or whatever.  This is just about expanding my skills and enjoying myself.  I had a hard time sticking to just contour lines.  I wanted to add detail!  This was from Lab 1-Contour Drawings:

I've also been doing some learning how to draw stuff at:  http://www.drawspace.com/  I'll post pics of those in the Extras as well.  I'll also post progress on my longer projects here (like the U2 jacket).

6/24/12

I made my 6the card today, finishing at my friend's house.  These are the ladies I embroider with.  I gave Mary the card as a housewarming gift.  It has orange variegated floss on yellow cardstock, comet design, the best of the lot.  Too bad I didn't have my camera with me!

Super Secret Embroidery Projects

I started embroidering floursack towels for some CoachCreativeSpace friends.  I can't post pictures of them until they are finished and in the hands of their owners.  I can post the progress I've made on the Love towel I'm making for Kari.  She is in love, so I picked out these designs and the floss for her.  I've made pretty good progress on it thanks to a couple movies and insomnia.  Floursack towels are blank white towels that are really big, lots of room to embroider on!  Kari has already seen what I've done so far.  I did find out doing this that there's an art to doing iron-ons.  It seriously helps to have the iron on the highest setting for half an hour before using the iron-ons.  Makes a much darker image. I use all 6 strands of floss so it's easy to cover up the lines.

Parable of the Talents - the start

Our church is doing the Parable of the Talents project.  The church gives us each $5 to use to do crafts or food to sell or provide a service.  Whatever money we make goes back to the church.  So I spent my $5 on embroidery floss, already had the paper.  I will have to pay for the laminating, but not much outlay on my part.  I'm making cross bookmarks.  They are not my design exactly, but they are my execution.  I drew out the designs very large and then reduced them and printed them out.  There are two cross designs, four colors of paper and matching thread.  I think we have until Christmas, not sure.  Here is the picture of my baby project:

Coffee-themed Apron - Finished! and a Metallic Purple Concrete Leaf

I finished the coffee-themed apron!  I just had a few small motifs to do and the "sweet" lettering.  This is a present for my friend, Beth, for the Grand Opening of her coffee shop.  The apron is dyed with Rit Dye.  It was so much fun to do.  I picked out 6 colors, 3 in the brown family, 3 in the hot pink family and bought two skeins of DMC floss each.  So I had to be creative.  Once I was out of the dark brown I was out!  Designs ironed-on from Colonial Patterns (Aunt Martha's) and Sublime Stitching. Making this apron was so much fun.  I hope Beth enjoys wearing it as much as I enjoyed making it. I just entered it in a Sublime Stitching combo contest. Here is me modeling the apron.

And here is the concrete stepping stone my mom made.  I painted it because she had to work on the last day of Vacation Bible School for adults.  They take a month to "cure", so in early September the stepping stones will go out in my yard.  It's painted with acrylic craft paint.

A Princess Among Dragons

For the July/August Challenge in the Art Challenges~ group at http://creativesouls.ning.com/. DMC floss backstitched on cardstock with Far East Matstack papers. Stencil designs by www.spraypaintstencils.com.
What really helped me finish this was Dan Goodwin's suggestion on Coach Creative Space http://coachcreativespace.ning.com/ to work on one project at a time through to the finish.  Of course you can't always do that.  Actually I think it was in one of his blog posts.  This is just embroidery on paper or Dutch Embroidery.  I just printed out the stencil designs and poked holes along the lines in pink, green and purple cardstock.  I used black DMC floss on the dragon and variegated floss on the rose and stem.  After sewing I stuck it all together with double-sticky tape.  I used DCWV papers around the edges.  Here are pictures of the process.

The back.

Fall Napkins

I've only done two out of six of these so far.  They are turning out nicely.  It is just a simple split stitch design.  I got the leaf designs free off the internet. (pattern excerpt from Small Stitches Booklette by Carina Envoldsen-Harris, www.wardi.dk )  I printed out the patterns on Sulky Solvy and hooped them, then pulled out the little pieces of paper after stitching.

I'm using DMC floss I had on hand.  The fabric napkins are from Target and they are died with Apple Green Rit Dye.

Musical Tote

I finished my friend Janet's musical tote bag!

 I also ordered 1000 yards of DMC thread from Herrschner's. It came unsorted.  Not sure what I will do with the colors.  It was kind of an experiment.