My weekend trip to the Bead Bazaar

We went to the annual Bead Bazaar in Denver this weekend.
Good to know where my peeps are! There were many different guilds there so I could talk to them. I decided to join the bead group, and the painters.

It was a beading extravaganza to me... I wanted one of each. I got some good deals and some terrific unique items not one of each however!

I spent a lot of time in this booth talking to the artist. They are really unique items made with raku (a pottery style where you place the items to be fired in actual flames to crack and absorb soot)

She was quiet and unassuming, so I was drawn to her to talk of process. She gets ideas all over the place of course, one piece leading her to the next idea.

She loves to play with color and embellishment

I believe this was my favorite for the intricacy and texture
this one was almost transparent.

I talked with one dealer who said she was a magpie, and I said how did she organize all the shiny/sparkly things she gathered and brought home? When you are an artist yourself and a dealer, how do you keep inventory separate? She said her studio is a big mess, and it was SHOCKING when she had to inventory her personal stash to start the business.

I have a friend who did that with quilting business. She said she had some outlandish shocking amount of money invested in her stash. I believe it. One day my husband went to my wall of fabric and said with a sweeping arm gesture, "Voila! Our new car!"

I loved this tray of thimbles...

silver, and a band to push the needle from the side of your finger. If I felt more financially secure I might have bought this one

I could use the whole wall by embellishing quilts and I did spend some money here.
I got some backing for doing embroidery pieces and cabachons.

I bought some delica's for peyote weaving.

I got some gold for pretty.
I had a grand time talking to the Aussie woman who explained the sizes and makers to me. She was like a breath of fresh air. I love makers.

look at this lovely antler with a carved owl and beads... so cool
I enjoyed the signs too... this piece was in the booth and awesome

Look at this!!!

shells and beads and sparkle, and hanging things and things you want and things you could use!











I liked this business name!

This may be the prettiest millefiori clay work I've seen.

The design is so fresh, not covering it with flowers, but sprinkling it with the flowers makes an enormous difference.

The difference from covering a garden with gnomes every 6 inches or placing groupings...

Do you like Day of the Dead items... you'd find them here

I did not take shots of my purchases but I will admit to indulging in this booth.

I had a great time talking to the designer. What fun she was, and she not only designs patterns and sells kits, she just opened a bead store in Texas.

I asked her the usual questions. Where do her ideas come from... the findings she owns. She does what most artists do when they pick something up in their hands, they ask "what can I do with this?"
Her biggest obstacle now is having enough time to make it all!
Ain't that the truth?
My husband got me three kits of my choice, the key necklace which looks like a Kachina doll to me, in turquoise.

this pretty bedazzled purple flower
not this although we dithered over it

(I have her number lol)
I did get this kit

and just the moon face to play with once I learn how to play with these circles. I figured by the time I did three kits, I'd want to do something unique to me.

How I could ever make it better I have no idea but I will have!
That's her card and number.



Our final shared joke was I asked what condition her studio was in. She snorted and laughed and I laughed and knew the answer because we all know the answer. A working studio is a mess.

I asked if she could work in chaos or needed everything in it's place.
Again, bwaaahahahahaha we shared a laugh.
We both decided if we had to wait for order and tidiness we'd never make a thing!! Can you relate?

This tote bag says it all "The Earth without art is just EH!
The little bag says, " Life is like Art, you have to know when to color outside the lines"

Our words of wisdom today.

links to
Let's be social Wednesdays 
Midweek makers wednesdays

a writing prompt Back roads and Busy roads

I wanted to do the writing prompt from  ( http://sundayswhirligig) again, and the words this week are...

praise, raven, dignity, cloud, forget, spirit, path, roads, song, singer, more, rain

 This is my offering (with the prompts used in purple) 

It is personal, as my stories are right now. 

One day I will return to fiction, or other forms of writing but I dwell in this style at the moment, understanding that creativity makes it's on path and I just walk on it. Love, LeeAnna

                                         Back Roads and Busy Roads

They had looked at so many houses. Some were homes where they could see into the lives of those who wished to sell the house. Some were houses with all vestige of humans removed in a remodel. Some were large, some small. Some were fresh and some very very stale. Some yards were small but nice, and some were tiny areas to be walked through to leave the house. Some were on busy roads and some were on back roads but no roads led to the right house.


Oh but life is complicated. None  felt "right"


They were not stupid, they knew no place was perfect. But they thought some place would be right.


They liked some aspects of most places. She could work here! The yard was lovely. The walking paths were good. When the clouds parted and they craned their necks from a balcony they could see mountains between roof tops. One had a glorious studio space facing a lovely view. Each place had one good quality.


So they made this their life's work, as it's an important step. Comparison charts. Pluses and minuses. This but that.


cost

It came down to values not value. It came down to the hard part of deciding what was most important. Which factor they should make a decision based on.


She was a spiritual person, and waited for guidance and that feeling. She wanted the feeling. The one where she had "came home" and the other factors were not important, the decision was made in an instant that it felt like the place.
Their place.


Trouble is, the feeling never came.


She felt left on her own to pick from all the homes that didn't sing to her. Just pick one. Now! Hurry up! The haven she sought, the place to belong, the starting point to making a life, the safe place to fall had to just be a house. For the first time in her adult life, she had to spend most of their salary on just a house. But she had always had the feeling before...now her guiding light was dim.


She had a conflict between the vision she was shown of their new home, and reality.
She had to somehow come to terms with the disconnect between the expectations, the hopes and dreams and the reality. . She had to just... pick... one. She no longer had the luxury of time from which to choose, and it hurt her spirit.
 She was not good at decisions in her head, she was good at decisions in her heart but her heart refused to choose.


"Wait" it said, and insisted, trying to be louder than the clock ticking.


tick
tock
Her dignity slipped like tears down her face, as she saw house after house that wouldn't work. The tears came unbidden, embarrassing in front of strangers. They all tried to comfort her by saying it's out there, you haven't found it yet. But she feared it was not.

 She would just move with all the uncomfortable change that implied, into another house where she would not find the comfort she sought.
The joy was missing, the anticipation and happiness were missing.
It was just a house, and she would make it a home. Yet she still delayed one more day.

Her new mantra became, "it will be okay" ...and she tried to believe it

Tweet! The bird's Glen

Imagine... spring sunlight through the budding trees... birds gathering again, life restarting for flora and fauna.
Remember the watercolor squares I picked up at the Boulder Quilt guild free table??  A while back I arranged them, sewed them together, then let them rest.

This week I picked them up and appliqued the tree by just cutting out with pinking sheers laying it in place, using a glue stick to baste, then sewing it with a straight stitch to be gone over in the quilt process. I love a bit of a raised edge, so I'll heavily quilt it and let the very edges lift.

Look at the borders. I thought not to border it but changed my mind and found in the small amount of fabric available, this multi colored batik, perfect for three sides. I carefully cut strips from pattern and color I liked. The burst of gold along the bottom of the tree brings your eye to the tree.

since this is a scene, I used a blue-purple with some of the same colors for the top (sky) border.
I tried and discarded many batiks, even cutting strips from some, before settling on these and I just love them!!! This quilt is on the portable design wall made of a packing box and batting, at the top of the stairs. I saw it each time I went up and that helped to make choices.
Aren't the squares lovely together? At first I thought there were too many plain ones but this arrangement leads my eye around the piece, and is very organic, and spring like.

I did make sure to measure carefully through the center for border length as watercolor quilts can stretch and wave if you're not careful. I also fussy cut the strips to get the color placement just so.

Then my mind turned to the birds... I knew I wanted to paint them, then decided to use oil pastels...

 My friend Cindy suggested doing samples on muslin before launching into the actual sewn background. Brilliant! So I pulled out the three types of oil pastels I like using, and the samples told me three things. (I chose to reverse the smaller bird stencil to see if it worked better in my composition)

I liked the gelatos the best for color and blending

1. color and type of crayon I preferred in this project
2. tested by heat setting, and washing to test for colorfastness... all passed the test
3. placement of the birds...

Sweet!

with a black pen outline

With three birds...

I don't know....

As it turns out, I jumped in after all this experimentation and painted two on the background.

That required taking a breath, and leaping!

It's always a bit scary to add an element that cannot be removed but I trusted my supplies, and knew the stencils were just the start. I removed the stencils and continued to color and blend each bird til I had removed the stencil lines and somewhat covered the prints in the fabrics

Pretty!!! Love!!!
I can just imagine it with lovely threadwork in the quilting... baby blue rayon? Gold rayon? 

Lovely! How delicate! I like the prints showing through a bit for texture. And the little hint of a twig stenciled on too. It was hard to position the top bird not to cover up the leaves already there.

Oh so sweet! I just love it. It was like, well beauty is healing.  I painted it with fabric then got to paint it with paint too!
It is so happy isn't it? Can't you see all the threadwork giving the bark definition?
I may add in the last bird, but I may leave these two. I will not add in the word, as the design is enough.

I used to date an art dealer, and he said once, "It takes two people to make art, one to do the work and one to tell her to stop now"

I am telling myself to stop now

24" X 32"

Time to quilt!

Linking to
http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/
Esther's blog Wednesdays 
Let's be social Wednesdays 
Midweek makers wednesdays
Free motion by the River Tuesdays   
https://stitchallthethings.com/ to do Tuesday
design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
Pink Saturday!
 scrap happy Saturdays
sewcanshe Saturdays
off the wall Fridays 
http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/
can I get a whoop whoop Fridays 
tgiffriday
allseasons
 
 

I Like Thursday #86

Welcome to this week's list of likes! Mad Tea party edition!
This party is going on outside our library. That will be my first like because ...
I Like our library

 It's large and modern... look at the magazine area... easy chairs, big fireplace

 I like the "bookends" next to the mantle. If you like, you go out the french doors to this area

sit in a rocker, and on a clear day, unlike this one with snow all day long, you see a magnificent view of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Take my word for it, it's taken my breath away a few times.
The library is the new town center with so many activities. I enjoyed the kid's drawings all around the sidewalks leading to the front door.

 Let the party continue with this fun wheel cover...

 Kind of makes me want to do a Halloween quilt... wonder if the martini leaks through when he drinks?? Party on Dude.
We've toured so many homes most look just alike but this one had some cool stuff...

Pretty lavender pillow

Pretty black shiny backsplash!

We don't know but it's an old house so we thought maybe a closed circuit tv monitor? Wonder if you can play pacman on it... lol

pretty entry table

pretty bird on a pretty screen

I must say, I wanted this screen. So beautiful with lots of movement and nice crossing swirls.
Very inspirational, no?

I liked the view from our walk this week. We went from 75F to all day snow

little snowballs, like styrofoam pellets

I like the new harness we are inflicting on our draft horse baby Milo

Milo: Finally they stopped yanking on my neck. Oh that never stopped me but I felt like they were being pretty bossy so I pulled even harder on the leash. This thing is kind of like a hug. 

LeeAnna: ahem, if you don't mind, it's still my turn

I also liked seeing this old hack of a truck in Aqua 

Cool, man!

Now it's your turn Milo
MILO: finally! Hi Y'all, BOL! I've got so many likes this week... most of all I likes the ladies. I've been collecting a harem around here. There's Jumble, and Blossom, and Carley, and this little number who is the youngest at about 6 months...Noelle

She's a doodle! I like that her Dad and my Mama and Daddy yakkity yakked while we played leaving us alone to have a good time. We both stuck around them, just so they didn't wander off but we mostly played "my teeth are bigger" don't you love that game? It's my favorite next to "grab and run" and "chase me"
I like that the dining room table shrunk so's I can see what's on offer up there now...

Heyyyyy have you been eating like that all this time? Where's your kibble bowl?

Apparently the pawrents are eating like kings on that thing.
Well now that I know that, you can bet I'll be right there touching their arms to remind them they have a hungry growing poodle who would like to be a gourmet. More cream cheese is always better.

I liked finding 5 balls in the park this week! So I tried them all out... chased each one... figured out the rolling to bounce ratio on each of them, weighed the colors against each other, tasted them all (results, they taste the same) (like humans have touched them) and chose two to take home.

I Made up a new game. Chase the ball, bring it back then roll over for your human to wrestle it outta your mouth. HA! AS if a mere human could win over the enormous poodle teeth! Mama cheated and tickled my feet causing me to drop it.

I got her back though. At home I'd go get the ball, and drop it on her foot while she was watching the talky talk tv. Heh heh
Poodles=sneaky
That's it for this paw-pisode, now SIT! STAY! and clickety click on the links mama puts in so's you can read other Paw-sitive blog post by her friends!
New today is: minousminute.blogspot.com

 1 . .http://3poodlesandanana
2 craftscaviescontras
3.maryinpeoriahandmade.blogspot.com
4...http://littlepenguinquilts
5. http://sandysnowden.blogspot.co.uk/
6.. http://whataboutrheema.blogspot.com/
7.https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/ 
8...http://homesewnbyus
9..http://imworkingonaproject
10.. https://barrels-of-monkeys.blogspot.com/ 
11. https://quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com/
12. http://www.mmmquilts.com/
13 https://quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com/

https://grammasquiltingroom.blogspot.com/2018/04/i-like-thursdays-2.html

linking to some of these

Make My Saturday Sweet @ Amanda’s Books and More
http://www.quiltfabrication.com/
Our World Tuesday
Travel_Tuesday  Our World Tuesday
Travel_Tuesday 
design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays http://sky watch Fridays
http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com
http://asoutherndaydreamer
Thankful Thursdays pet parade
http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com
http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/
http://shabbyartboutique.com
willy nilly Friday (random images)
habbyartboutique fridays
http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/pink-saturday/