Mosaic Cabinet doors

I recently did a sunset tree mosaic for my good friend Lisa Peters

http://lisa-petersart.blogspot.com/
and her husband Hank, for their newly remodeled kitchen.
They sent me the cabinet door inserts, I created the design and nipped and glued lots and lots of glass then sent them back to them.

Inserts before installation

They grouted the inserts and installed them, aren’t they gorgeous??

Treasures of the Sea

Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted. Glad to say good-by to 2009, it was a sad, sad year.

Came to Panama City Beach, Florida the day after Christmas. It has been cold but beautiful, lots of walks on the beach and sitting to watch the waves, the seagulls and the sunsets.

I brought some fabric, yarn and beads along in case I wanted to make something, and have found lots of great shells on my walks. One morning I even found a tiny, perfect sand dollar, just laying at the edge of the water.

So I created this piece, it is approximately 8 inches in diameter. It features a beautiful raku button from Lisa Peters Art.

Fiber cuffs on flickr and Facebook

http://www.flickr.com/photos/texturedturtle/
Will be listing on etsy this weekend.

Felted piece hanging, sunrise and tiger lillies

I added a stick and some cheesecloth as a hanger and it is hanging in my cubicle


Sunrise on my drive to work yesterday, it looks like a bird to me

Tiger lillies are everywhere, my favorite flower of all time

Dyeing wool and silk

I got my Babylock embellisher in 2007, and gradually started accumulating roving in various colors from etsy and other online sources. I also, somehow, started collecting undyed wool roving, as well as silk cocoons, carrier rods, hankies, a little throwsters waste and even some wool curly locks.
I love to dye cotton fabric and yarns with procion dyes, but acid dyes always scared me, just the name, “acid” (of course that just means vinegar so it really isn’t scary). After a long break from my embellisher I am back at it and looking longingly at all the luscious hand dyed roving and silk hankies and other fibers out there, wondering if I too could dye wool and silk.
I also regularly read her Majesty Margo’s blog, and when she had this post about dyeing a bunch of different fibers in a turkey roaster, that was it for me.
I don’t have a turkey roaster so I used a large crock pot. For my birthday, my fabulous sister in law Anita (and equally fabulous brother Dave) got me a starter set of Greener shades dyes from the Woolery. They also gave me two bags of wool nepps and two skeins of pencil roving
So this is a picture of my first try.
I gathered wool roving, curly locks, pencil roving (right), cocoons and the wool nepps (left), which were gathered into nylon netting(top left). Yes, acid dyes work on nylon, yay!
The crock pot had a little water and vinegar in it. I soaked the fibers in warm water with a little synthrapol, laid them in the crock pot (two layers), sprinkled a little dye powder on each layer, and cooked it on low a few hours until the water was clear. Let it all cool, rinsed the fibers and laid them out to dry, all just like Margo said.
I was going for a mixture of blue and purple, and I am thrilled with what I got. The colors of these dyes are intense, which I love, and next time I will try and get a little more variation in the colors. I cannot wait to experiment with other color combinations and see what happens.
To top it all off, my amazing friend Gail mailed me some Jacquard acid dyes for my birthday. So I turned 50 and get to dye to my hearts content!

Felted landscape

I finally finished my felted landscape piece, it is approx 10x11 inches. I have some very cool lacy stretch fabric from my good friend Lisa Peters, who also created the fabulous raku cabachon I used as the sun. I used my embellisher to needlefelt various rovings, including some beautiful, silky shiny bamboo roving from Fiber Lady, you can see it better on the in process piece below, the yellow at the top, the coral/peach/green at the bottom left and more bright green middle right.

After needlefelting, I tried a little machine stitching, then added some roving to the back and tried wet felting for the first time ever.

Although my wet felt experiment wasn't great, I did get the effect I wanted on this piece. I added a little more machine stitching, then added some yarns, tyvek, cheesecloth and lots of french knots. I want to hang it from a twig or something similar, but I am really happy with how this piece turned out.

Hugo Themer - my dad

August 3, 1930 - April 28, 2009

My dad was the most wonderful, gentle, caring, smart man I ever knew. He loved God, he loved his family, he especially loved my mom (with him in picture), they were married 53 1/2 years when he died. He took care of all of us, and the world is not the same without him.
He touched everyone with his compassion and his smile, and the people who knew him loved him. As a Lutheran grade school teacher in Louisville, KY for 42 years, he taught thousands of kids to love learning and do their best.
In 1992, him and mom retired to Indiana. He was a woodworker and loved working in his garage, which was open to everyone. People would stop by to talk or borrow a tool or get dad's help on their project.
He was my biggest supporter in my art. He made frames for my fiber and mosaic art, bases for my mosaic jewelry and anything else I needed. No matter how crazy my ideas, he would figure how to make them work.
He was in the hospital for a week when they diagnosed cancer March 31st, we brought him home for two weeks, then he entered the hospice center for his last two weeks. He told everyone that God had given him a great life, and God would take care of us after he was gone.
Now he is at peace, which is good, but we are left here missing him so much.
This is dad's favorite verse:
Be Still and Know That I Am God. Psalm 46:10
I love you dad!