Flower Power

My long time friend (we met in grade1) and I decided to give our other addiction ( knitting/sewing) a break and go back to the 70's. Do you remember the shabby chic vintage crochet coat hangers, Afghans, ponchos,granny square blankets and bikinis only Twiggy could wear? Our new project is an updated granny square throw. I went downtown and bought this.....

Yesterday my husband had his heart surgery and during the long hours waiting for good news I started making flowers.

I call it crochet therapy for me and making these colourful flower can be addictive.

A flower for a good heart.

My new iphone toy

It arrived yesterday from Photojojo a camera on-line store. Three different lenses , one macro wide angle
 ( my favorite), a telephoto lens and the famous fisheye lens. This $49 lens package for your iphone let's you play endless. Kate Daniel,who I met at Artfest showed me how easy the magnet rings snap to the iphone and the new lens mounts on top of the iphone lens.

Here are my photos for the macro wide angle lens

Fish eye lens

2x telephoto lens

This is not the most exciting shot but it shows the zoom. The photo app+ will do the same.

Project 365 iphone March

The month of March went by so fast that I have only now uploaded my photos. Here they are:

Spring arrival

Surprise, as I opened my woodshed up north these two eyes looked at me. Raccoons have this believable cute look, but I rather see her in the woods. I think I have to wait until mama moves out with her little ones.

The last Artfest class

Day 3 Junker Jane

This is the gang of Catherine Zacchino aka Junker Jane. A super sweet teacher with a very helpful hubby to set up and deal with sewing machines. A sewing machine was required and I was so happy that could borrow a machine. I pre- sewed legs and arms already in case I had to do it by hand. Sewing these monsters by hand was not the way to go. You ask me about instructions - there were none. Just a few starter points and you were off to go with your one-eyed doll. I would have liked to see some face scribble designs on a piece of paper as a hand-out. The embellishing part takes the most time.
Some were aged in a tinted water solution and fluttering scared in front of a fan like this guy.

This is my little voodoo tucked to go to sleep.

...and these are my other two dudes with wild hairdos.

We all left with a little treat from Jane.

Artfest classes

Day 2  painting with Mindy Lacefield

These were her words: make those beautiful mistakes and scribbles! Until lunch we let the process happen.... first it was hard
to follow how the blank page filled up with paint and added papers, mark makings and odd circles to end up with the cutest girls and bunnies.

face demo by Mindy

 ( this is my sister's painting, very cute)

The day ended with an artist critique ( I think very class should end like this) and gave us  chance to see everyones work. Instructions for this class were presented in a very colourful mini blurb book to be optional for purchase for a cost of$25. I thought that was a lot on top of the class fee.

( these are my postcard paintings)

... and Happy Easter

Artfest classes

A really bad cold put life on hold for a few days. Tonight is the first time that I  look at my computer screen again.
 I took this photo of cherry blossoms in Seattle. I just love the pale blue colours in this photo.

Day 1 Stephanie Lee

Eight months ago I signed up for Stephanie Lee's class to learn how to make plaster vessels.  I heard wonderful things about this teacher and I had taken her on-line class. She was well prepared, each of us got a beautiful package with instructions and a small kit of plaster gauze you can only purchase in the States. Her demos were step by step and very simple to follow and aloud us to go on and make our own design.
I loved every minute of this class and I will dip my hands into plaster during the summer with some friends.
( plaster party anyone???)

Artfest - the last for now

( this journal cover belongs to Michelle Allen, a very talented artist and teacher)

It's a wrap. After thirteen years hosting this incredible event at Fort Worden, WA Teesha needed a break to think about something new. She promised at opening night that this is going to be BIG.
For the second time my sister flew in from Germany. You might think this is german timing, we landed 30 minutes apart at the same terminal, placed her luggage in a rental car. ( mine was lost, but Delta managed to drop it off at 2 in the morning at hotel MAX. OMG - each floor had his own artistic setting.

Before putting our feet up I introduced my sister to Joann's fabric and Michael's - bad idea. She was over the moon from all the craft ailses. One thing I can say that she can't handle to see anymore fabric stores, since I had several on my to-do-list.

The Pike Market ( where did the fish go????)

and not to miss my favourite store

Uwajimaja, a large asian food store with the best japanese book store in the back.

Now I need a japanese friend to translate the instructions!

The cutest pencil case and tiny rubber stamp.

More tomorrow......I feel I am coming down with a cold and have to catch up with sleep.