I made this tonight for the fundraiser, Hearts for Anna, which is being sponsored by Artful Home for one of their long time artists who has a recurrence of breast cancer which has now spread to her bones. She has no health insurance because this was considered a pre-existing condition. (Don’t get me started!) How could I not participate. The pieces of art need to be 5 X 7 inches or smaller. You can get more details here: Hearts for Anna.

Here is a detail:

I made this with hand dyed fabric background with embellishments of silk and organza that are hand painted. I did some seed stitching in the brown fabric using a luscious hand dyed Perle cotton form Elin Noble.

It felt good to go down to the studio tonight and make this. The weather is getting back to normal here, and I have more energy! I spent all day with M & M so that Steph could get her hair done and do every thing that a mom needs to do so that the family can fly to North Carolina tomorrow to visit the other grandparents.

We wanted to go to the library this morning which is one of their favorite things to do, but it was closed so we went to Bi-mart and picked up some stuff for entertainment. After lunch on the deck, we prepared the materials for making bubble snakes, an activity that Deborah suggested on Face Book after I pondered what to do with them today.

Here are the directions. Carefully cut the bottom off the bottom of a water bottle with an Exacto Knife. Cover the end with a piece terry cloth held by a rubber band. Dampen the terry cloth then dip in dish washing detergent and blow through the top of the bottle.

Something different than normal bubble blowing. They had fun. They also enjoyed some Popsicles:

Scooter watched all the activity from his spot in the yard. Can you see how banged up his protective collar is? He is such a doofus, running around and bumping into things.

It has been a good day.  I keep having this creativity crisis recurring. I am not sure what that is about. I just need to keep working and to remember how happy I am when I am in the zone.

This is my piece for the 12 X 12 theme, Passion. The title is Satin Sheets. Several ideas passed through my brain, but I decided to go for the more titillating, tongue in cheek view.

I cut strips of silk charmeuse into strips which wove on to a background of white silk satin. I then machine quilted with sensuous curves.

To create rose petals to be strewn on this perfectly made bed, I fused two pieces of painted red silk together. I then cut petal shapes.

To make them 3 dimensional, I cut a slit and glued one side to another along the slit.

These were sewn to the silk background with a matching bead in the center.

So there you have it – satin sheets and rose petals, foretelling a night of passion.