Art – Page 12 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Inspiration

Posted on November 18, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This weekend has been totally given up to family and fun. Our #2 child is home from school, junk food is in evidence, and we have accomplished little of any worth. We mostly try to sit around and stare at him when he will allow it.

Other than child-watching, I’ve been making some art and dyeing some yarn.

Vicki’s Pocketful Round Robin Book has been out on my table for the last two weeks, and I’ve been working on it here and there. I knew what I wanted to do the second I saw it — her book is titled "Habit" on the front cover and in my mind that immediately translated to "Habitat" and the idea of where I live — my comfort zone.

I have a beautiful rubber stamp of Catherine Moore’s that I love — an old garden chair that reminds me of my cottage garden, or at least of my pre-drought cottage garden, so I immediately envisioned using that stamp, making it multi-colored to represent all the colors in the garden and the pleasure I take in sitting quietly and enjoying it. So, I did this.

And strangely enough, chair was the theme at Wednesday Stamper this week, so this is my chair piece of stamp art, as well.

The other side of the pocket is done almost in a glue book fashion, using some of my own photos from the farmers market this summer.

I made a little babble to go inside the pocket — it’s an altered plastic tag that I’ve used images off of an old bird-watching book and an optometrist’s lens on, and tucked it inside the pocket.

Vicki’s book is beautiful — full of watercolor pocket pages and happy, pretty art. She’s going to be so happy when it comes back home to her!

After making art I did some dyeing. I’m working on presents for friends and family, several wholesale orders, and some yarn for the stocking at Elliebelly to benefit Heifer dot org. If you missed out last week, please drop by on Thursday when new yarn will stock and you can bid or buy raffle tickets, with the proceeds going to support a great charity that helps hungry people become self-sufficient.

Because of all the requests, I’ve done some Paintbrush yarns in "boyish" colorways.

and a silk/cashmere blend in the "Wanton" colorway.

There will not, however, be any organic merino this week, as a certain someone decided to claim the yarn I had measured out for her own.

Cabinet Cards

Posted on November 15, 2007January 4, 2016 by Joyce Makes Art

***Before I start in with cabinet cards, I want to remind y’all that I am auctioning and doing raffles with yarn to raise money for heifer.org. The listings start today, Thursday, and will continue for the next several weeks, so please check back. It’s for a good cause! To be part of it, click here and look for the "Give Back" listings.

On to cabinet cards. I haven’t been able to share art for what seems like forever, due to issues created by the men in my house totally racking a brand new computer. I’ve rigged it so I can scan to the computer that has major issues, transfer to my laptop using a primitive USB picture card (they’ve messed with the computer so much it won’t even recognize my external hard drive) and give you a little peek. Like this.

This is Petunia, and she was my little warm up piece for Susie LaFond’s cabinet card book project. Susie’s idea was that we would each alter a cabinet card, front and back, and then make enough (embellished) copies for each participating artist. In addition, we were each to make two more original cabinet cards, which would be used as the front and back covers for one of the books. Susie always comes up with the best ideas, and I love playing in her swaps.

I finally ended up with this card as the one I decided to copy.

I rarely draw or paint because, well, I can’t. But this card cried out to become a nesting baby in a tree, so I did enough painting with acrylics to get a tree that my little nest could perch in. I dislike working on original cabinet cards, because of the sense that they are someone’s family, so I chose cards that were damaged beyond repair for this project — the acrylic paint is covering up lots of nasty spots and splotches and I think this sweet little baby is probably happy to be having an altered life. I didn’t scan after embellishing because, well, a girl has to have a few surprises up her sleeve.

This is one of the cards I did for covers.

This is the first time I played with my glass glitter (flower centers) and it is some seriously cool stuff. I must have been a crow in a former life because I love shiney things. It’s going to be a temptation to use this glitter everywhere.

And this is my favorite of all the backs. I think I’ll print out the scan and use it as the basis for some more art this week.

This was a fun idea and lots of good motivation to reach out and try new things. I’m not quite done with altering cabinet cards — I have some more ideas I want to play with, but it’s time to move on to my round robin book for this month and a few other things, so they will have to wait.

Give Back

Posted on November 10, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I have an idea for helping other people. My life is so full and I am so fortunate. And a lot of the time, I feel like I don’t do enough to help others. So between now and the holidays, I want to try to do something that will make a difference. The issue that concerns me the most is hunger — the idea of little children like my own living in constant hunger.

One of my family’s favorite charities is Heifer. At Heifer, you can purchase an animal to help a family in need become
self-sufficient, and since I’m a knitter, I want to help buy sheep. This part of the site lets you pick out the animals you want to donate. I like the whole idea that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, if you teach him to fish, he can feed himself.

So between now and the holidays, I’m going to be dyeing up some special yarn and offering it in my store as a lottery or auction listing, with all of the money, minus only paypal fees and shipping, going towards purchasing a sheep from Heifer. Look for the items titled "Give Back."<br><br>

I hope you all will consider dropping by and helping out. Individually we might feel like we can’t do much, but if 60 people buy a $2 lottery ticket, that’s one sheep. This is going to be a whole family effort in my household — The little ones have been helping with colorways and dyeing, and my 17 year old is winding skeins. I hope you will catch some of our excitement!<br><br>

I would really appreciate any help you can by letting your friends know about this. Word of mouth can do so much on the internet! I plan to stock the first skeins as lotteries this Thursday, the 15th, at noon, and will keep stocking as long as there is interest. I hope to be able to buy one sheep, but would love to buy more — maybe an entire flock?

Yarn For Thursday

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m so sleepy! It’s one of those nights when I can barely keep my eyes open. But I haven’t shown you much of my dyed yarn lately, and I really want to share a bit of it tonight because the colorways have been so pretty.

This is mostly for sale yarn, that you can find starting Thursday at noon, Eastern time, here.

First off there’s Lucy organic merino. I just love this yarn. I can’t help myself. I only have two skeins of it dyed up or I would be keeping it for myself. I think there is some Lucy sock yarn in my future.

Then there is Ella, one of my paintbrush series, on a nice bulky blue faced leicester that I love for hats and sweaters because it knits up so quickly, but behaves like a much finer yarn.

The paintbrush yarns are the ones that knit up with this lovely random coloration that makes a great knitted fabric.

I’m also in love with Morgan, an elusive colorway that just wouldn’t photograph as pretty as it is in real life.

FInally there is Old Flame (we all have one, don’t we? tell the truth girls). I don’t work in reds an awful lot but I’m always very happy when I do. I’m going to dye enough of either this colorway or Hedgehog to make Ollie a little sweater now that it’s finally getting cold.

All of these colorways and more will be up for grabs tomorrow, Thursday, at noon when Elliebelly stocks. There are limited numbers of skeins, so make sure you get there early to get your favorites.

Also, please keep a look out for information in the next week or two about my holiday plans for turning yarn into giving. I’m dyeing up some favorite colorways and planning to sell them via lotteries to raise money to make a donation to one of my favorite charities, Heifer.org.

If you don’t know a lot about Heifer, it’s worth checking out. It is one of those charities that really uses your money to do good works. Heifer is modeled on the insight that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day but if you teach him to fish he can feed himself. They offer the opportunity to buy farm animals to help people in need establish themselves. I particularly like the idea of donating a sheep — it seems so fitting — and hope to raise enough money to donate one.

I’m in the middle of dyeing up so colorways I hope you will really want to get your hands on so that together, we can help others during the holiday season. Stay tuned for more on that soon.

Art & Soul Virginia 2008

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m going to be teaching at the Art & Soul retreat in Virginia in 2008. I’m very excited!

I’m teaching one class, on Saturday, on fabric portrait collage. Sort of like this.

We’ll spend most of the morning dyeing cotton and silk fabric using a low immersion method that gives fabric a pretty crackle dye look.

I also like to do a lot of surface design on the fabric, much like I would on paper with layers for the background of a collage, before I get around to using the fabric. So we’ll be doing a lot of that as well.

Having never done anything like this before, I’m not sure if I should be worried that no one will sign up for my class (info here) or that too many people will sign up, so I think I’ll skip the worrying part and just get down to enjoying the fact that I get to teach something I love doing to a group of interesting, fun people. And, If there is anything I have learned from lecturing about that law it is that people really love teachers who bring along snacks. Thankfully, the room Kathy Wasilewski (check out her classes here and here) and I are sharing has a small kitchenette, so I’ll make muffins or banana bread, and make sure we all have lots of art and good stuff to eat.

I’m looking forward to seeing lots of old friends and making new ones like I did last year. Even though May of 2008 seems far away right now, I know it’s going to get here quickly, and I can’t wait!

Monday, Monday

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

It’s Monday. And I just don’t generally like Mondays. Although they do signal the return of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, which is a small consolation.

My Monday started with sending all of my Moo cards off to Susie LaFond for the swap she is hostessing. I can’t wait to see what I get back! There have been so many fabulous Moos posted.

And, my Monday picked up a little bit more when I did some seaming and knit the collar on Ellie’s Cahaba River Jacket. Now all I need to do is set in the sleeves and sew in the lining.

It actually fits — probably a total freak given my adventures with gauge of late.

And, if that wasn’t enough yarnie fun, I got to ~~roll around in sock yarn~~ send out October sock yarn to Elliebelly Club Sock members. I had lots of fun dyeing it all up.

I guess it wasn’t all bad as Mondays go, after all. Later in the week I get to fly up to Connecticut to bring son #2, who goes to school up there, home for a visit. I really despise flying, but I have lunch and yarn shopping to look forward to with an online friend before I drive over to the school. And, I’m incredibly excited about getting to see my "baby" after six weeks away.

Please make a note to stop by and see the yarn I’ve got for you at Elliebelly at Hyena Cart when the store stocks Thursday at twelve noon Eastern time. In addition to pretty yarn, I’ve painted a couple of tee-shirts for little ones.

Susie, Don’t Read This!

Posted on September 29, 2007January 4, 2016 by Joyce Makes Art

Before going any further, if you are Susie L., please consider turning back. Unless, of course, you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t like to wait to see things.

Every year around this time, Joanne Huffman (make sure you look on her blog and see her beautiful buttons and art dolls) organizes an artist to artist swap. It’s always wonderful.

This year, I spent a good bit of time on a collage, decided it wasn’t right for Susie, and ended up spending most of today making this little book, The Joy Of Ordinary Things, for her.

The book started life with profoundly ugly dull green covers with silver text, so I promptly covered them with one of my favorite patina papers, adding elements as I went along. I actually worked on the inside cover first.

Using some Catherine Moore collage sheets, one of my own images, and vintage stamps. The inside cover done, I returned to the front, glued everything down and added the pretty ribbon and vintage button. While I was gathering ephemera to work on the book, the phrase, "the joy of everyday things" had popped into my head — a concept I think about a lot — so I decided to stamp it on the front cover.

I knew that I wanted to do something interactive on the inside of the back cover (the outside is simply covered in the patina paper) and decided upon a little pocketful of inspiration.

I arted up a library pocket, using a Teesha Moore image, some of my favorite Moonshadow inks, and rubberstamping the word inspire on some old text. After everything was dry, I added in some butterfly images, paste papers, a dried rose, a vintage telegram, and a few other little goodies I hoped Susie would find inspiring.