Friday Favorites

Have I told you that I have signed up for a beginning drawing class at my university?  The class starts on January 10 and meets twice per week through the end of April.  The grade is based on your portfolio of drawings.  I am not a great drawer and never have been so I have my trepidations but I want to get better.  I decided to be brave and give it a try.

Along that line, I have just discovered the Sketchbook Challenge.  I don't know that I will formally join the challenge but following it will certainly give me another incentive to work, work, work on my drawing skills.  A second benefit to me is the group of artists who are participating in the Challenge.  My goal with the drawing lessons is to be able to translate my lines into fiber art.  The university class is strictly paper.  However, many of the artists participating in the sketchbook challenge are fiber artists and make the translation in their own work.  It will be lov-er-ly to have their helpful tips and hints.

Here is another WIP at Janeville.  I love her stuff. Don't get tired of looking at it.  She also has a mini-tutorial on how to use your drawings in collage or quilts.   And then there are these 3-D leaves  at Loose Ends that I love too.  Don't bother with the video--doesn't really show you how to do anything.  Jane and Geni are both in the Sketchbook Challenge. And Laura at Periwinkle Art Quilts put me onto this fiber artist.  Laura thought I would love her work.  Oh yes, I do love Kirsten Chursinoff's work.  Another person I can use for inspiration! Here is a peek into her process.

Malka Dubrawski is all over the internet these days advertising her new book, Fresh Quilting.  I love the contemporary quilts but am not really interested in repeating someone else's design. However, here Malka shows off a quilt that has hand embroidery in it.  NOW she is really talking my language!  LOL

If you are just waiting for snow so you can snow dye, you need to check out "Art ADD works for me."  Gisela Towner shows several pictures of her snow dyeing set up.  Mine is far less fancy.  I use a wicker basket I half fill with snow, place my soda ash soaked fabric on top of the snow in the basket, and then finish filling the basket with snow before I squirt my dyes. Mine just sits out in the cold for several hours.  Don't ask me how the dyes work in all the cold but they seem to.   From all I have read, the key to snow dyeing is to have drainage for the dyes to pass through the fabric.  Otherwise the dyes puddle and give you mud cloth.  Not so pretty.

Kathy Loomis, who is never afraid you are going to steal an idea, offers a tip for making fractured blocks.  I am torn between using this method or using the method that Jude Hill shows in her tutorials for making my background for my IT! quilt this month.  Perhaps I will try both and see which one works for the picture I am interpreting this month.