Feathered Path

I spent this morning doing a little housekeeping in my gallery space in the Woolworth building turned art gallery. It's a great place to visit if you're in Asheville, NC. It's right on the main street which is Haywood Street - easy to find. My buddie Mary Stori and I share a space and there's lots to see in our booth as well as 100 other booths...something for everyone. Mary and I are on the lower level in #235.

 I had some lovely self-made kits ready to be made into something. The small wallhanging -top (and top of wall) is a recent addition.

I have many hand dyed silk scarves which make great gifts and another new wall hanging (bottom photo and bottom of wall) made from the leftovers of first quilt. The scraps were just too pretty to toss.

And here is quilt #2 below

It is heavily quilted with a feathered pattern. I do love to do feather quilting but I have a tremor in my hand and it gets harder and harder to do......some of the loops get wonky sometimes. But you can't keep a good arm down and I will continue to make feathers until the resemblance to a feather is so far from the real thing, I'll have to quit....but in the meantime....I'm loving the process.

The name of the quilt is "Feathered Path" It measures 22.5"W x 32"H...so small enough to work in many spaces.

I also used the same writing fabric (not a thread left of that wonderful fabric) which is delightful and illustrates that the visual texture of the writing is what's important, not necessarily the words. The words here are "The Night Before Christmas"...Come visit us both when you're in Asheville.

Scarves for Woolworth

I've been dyeing lots of scarves with the new method I learned of ice dyeing/microwave style. It only does one at a time (you can do more but I like the variety) and only takes 5 minutes so I can pick a different combination each time. I've accumulated a lot of dyes over the years and have so many choices. I usually use 3 dyes per scarf and take into consideration the blending of 2 colors which can and does happen. For example....I never use complimentary colors together to avoid getting a brown.

I've hung them on my design wall to get a count and also to see the colors I have and where I need to fill in. With the holiday season upon us, I'm hoping to sell them at Woolworth..they make wonderful Christmas presents...so fingers crossed.

While in Germany, recently...walking down the streets and voila!...A Woolworth and I do believe it was like the original Woolworth. Woolworth used to be a "5 & 10" as we knew them as kids...a little bit of everything and very inexpensive. We had to walk through this one and it was the same format....very fun to see.

Have a wonderful day...til next time.

Woolworth in the Fall

 "Leaf Peepin" season is starting although it's been too warm for any color change...our peak here used to be @ the third weekend in Oct...now it's in Nov. Mary and I are gearing up and doing some "fall" cleaning on our booth. We've added some fall items which adds a lot of color and gets you in the spirit. I sell lots of cards which are fun to make and people always seem to need cards.
Time for some new ones...In looking through my stash, I came across a large pieced background I had decided not to use....I cut them a little bigger than needed and added some machine buttonhold stitching along some of the edges. I love doing the buttonhole stitch with rayon or decorative thread.

I than found leaves I had transferred through a method I developed years ago using real leaves and image transfer paper.They are identical to the real thing except they don't die.

Using an invisible thread, I stitched down the middle of each leaf, leaving the sides free for more dimension. I machine stitched the fabric/leaf to a card blank and voila! I hope they do well as they are definitely seasonal.

Years ago I made ties for the Southern Highland Craft Guild Fair. You can buy the silk blanks through Dharma. I had a number of ties already dyed but not embellished. Sooooooo I was happy to move them out of my studio after finishing them with a leaf (image transfer process) and a tiny bit of gold stitching you can barely see at the top of the leaf. The stitching only goes around 1/3 of the way down...but adds a little more visual texture.

The booth looks nice and updated .....

I added more new scarves created on our recent retreat.

If you're in the Asheville, NC area, come and visit us at Woolworth on Haywood Street which is right in the heart of town. We are downstairs in booth # 235...Hope to see you there.

New Kid on the Block

My son Michael is an artist, working mostly in oils and drawings. He was in Woolworth Walk many years ago and is back!  Woolworth is an historical landmark, even has a working soda fountain inside. The rest of the space is divided into cubicles for artists who pay a monthly fee and a small percentage of sales. Woolworth is on Haywood Street (our version of Main Street) in downtown Asheville, NC. It's a wonderful place to see new and well known local artists and also have the opportunity to purchase their work.

This is my son's booth filled with beautiful paintings, drawings and cards...His booth is downstairs in the center aisle towards the back....# 219.

Hope you can stop by and see Mike's work as well as the work of other artists.

Asheville in the summer is always bustling with fun, tourists and a fun place to be and Woolworth is always at the top of the list to see.

Here'e Mike...the maker of all this beautiful work.....I wish him good luck with this new venture and hope for many lookers and sales...Good Job Mike!

But on another note.......

Well, we've taken on a huge project...after 11 years in our home, we felt it needed some fresh new walls. So the plan is the laundry room, pantry and kitchen before Christmas....family room, front hall afterwards. Deciding on a paint color has always been agonizing for me...what looks good on a chip doesn't relate on a wall...so 10 samples later, along with mixing my own, I think I came up with something I like... In the meantime, it's emptying out those parts of the house and what better place to dump stuff than my studio...Yikes!!...

 So I'm sky-high in stuff....not much creating going on in the near future...as you can see, every empty space is filled....Now where did my sewing machine go?

 We brought in extra tables to pile stuff on and the overload...

 went into the dining room.

 What a mess...but on another note...

 my good pal Mary and I (we share a booth at Woolworth Walk) decided to do a little spring cleaning and add some autumn related fiber art to the walls.

 We're hoping all the leaf peepers that Asheville is well known for will pay a visit to our booth.

 Lots of new inventory in the way of wall hangings, scarves and cards...

and Mary's wonderful felted items as well. Stop on by if you're in the area. Woolworth is in the center of downtown Asheville, NC and just a fun place to visit.

Welcome to Woolworth Walk

Last summer, my 2 pals, Kate and Mary and myself decided to look into getting a booth at Woolworth Walk in downtown Asheville. The building is the original Woolworth and on the register for historical buildings. It now houses artist's work. Located on Haywood Street, (Asheville's main street), it is the hub of activity, especially during tourist season.

We just got notified that a booth was available on the lower level. It needed a new color for the walls...so a few days before move-in day, we had our painting party...first coat.

You've heard the expression...about as much fun as "watching paint dry"....that's absolute truth. We literally had to hang around before doing the second coat...but it does look nice and fresh and new. Once we decided on what wall would be whose..., I could go home and map out what to hang.

I pushed the tables back in my studio, giving me an open area to tape off the size of the wall. It was so tempting to try and fill up all the space but then remembering, quilts can't go to the floor. This is the plan I came up with.

Kate did a great job building a scarf rack. We hung it on an angle; the hooks were positioned on a angle also.

While we did the scarf rack, Mary started on her wall...

and it looks great.

The ladder holds much of Mary's hand crafted felted items and boxes.

Mine is hung...still needs a liittle tweaking and straightening of some quilts. Taking a picture helps to point out what needs to be done.

Our scarf rack works great; Kate and I are sharing it.

Kate's wall is done. We are all using the canvas holder (lower left) for matted items and the shelf above for cards.

And our first visitors...quilters...of course!

And when you're done with seeing everything...you can go upstairs to the old restored soda fountain for lunch.

Such a fun place to visit...hope you'll stop by.