Testing again

So now I am posting from the iPod. Gradually I will catch up with the 21st century. It's a process.

New challenges

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from one of the peeps about a group of like minded artists who are making art quilts inspired by Beatles song titles. So of course I responded and got the song title I wanted "She's Got the Devil in Her Heart". Yay! I have an idea and am thinking about how it will come to being. Just the right thing to clear my current creative block. This is going to be fun.
In addition, I have signed up for a surface design challenge too. Busy in a good way. Stay tuned.

Testing 123

This is to try out the app recently downloaded to my iPhone. We didn't get the flying cars we were promised as children but smartphones are a pretty good second.

Whew!

A quick update on the iron situation, because I know you all are holding your collective breath over whether I was having to send the new one back or not!!! It's staying here to become my new favorite, I hope.
  I called Wawak the other day (Tuesday I think) and talked to the nicest person at customer service. By the way, ALL the customer service people there are VERY nice and helpful. When I told her the problem I was experiencing, she asked if I had removed the blue sticker covering the LCD display. WHAT?? Just peel it off...okay....duh! So we both had a good laugh and she says it happens all the time with this particular iron. We laughed some more and I suggested the instructions should have that on the first page. She agreed and we laughed a little more, I said thank you VERY MUCH, she said you're welcome and we both got on with our respective day. Which I must say was a pretty good day, considering how crazy my life is right now.

RIP Bernette is60

A week ago yesterday my trusty iron bit the dust. After several years of service, my faithful companion decided it was never going to get hot again.I really loved this iron. It had everything going for it that I needed to make all my creations more perfect. Plenty of steam when I needed steam, big water reservoir so I didn't have to fill it repeatedly, quick heat up, simple controls, long cord, and most importantly, it did NOT turn itself off. I cannot stand an iron with the automatic shut off!! I was heartbroken.
    So I had to scrounge around in the iron graveyard (don't all sewists have one?) and find something to use until I could find another iron to fill the void. The catalog from Wawak Tailoring supplies was handy and I considered for a moment to upgrade to a gravity feed system. But decided that was too much of a jump, especially now when my finances are in limbo. The catalog had another iron that sounded like a decent replacement for my departed friend, so I went online and studied the reviews, which were fairly glowing.

 So this is what I came up with---a Reliable Digital Velocity V100. I ordered it from Wawak on Thursday and it arrived Monday afternoon. It has the option of automatic shut off, but that "feature" can be overridden--whew--the water tank is is big enough so there is not constant refilling and it produces TONS of steam. The controls are a tiny bit complicated and we all know how technologically deficient I am. I think it is supposed to light up somewhere, so it might have to go back, but in the meantime, it is working very well.

So the jury is still out on this iron and it will never replace the Bernette in my sewing heart, but maybe I will learn to love it for what it can do to help me create masterpieces.

Altered Book--from long ago

 This post is for my sister to look at so everyone else, avert your eyes! Hahaha...This is an altered book I made years ago. We were talking about it the other day and she wanted to see what I had done. The first photo is the cover. I got the idea to make the book from another book I found at the bookstore---a translation of a fifteenth century German manual on the rules of combat. These pictures were from the chapter on a fight between a man and a woman.

 Of course these photos are out of order (grrrr) because the photo above is the first page. Maybe you can enlarge the pictures to read the captions and make some sense of the pages.

 I made several books and gave them to married couples as gifts. Some ended differently mainly because there were more pages in some of the board books I used. In my versions, sometimes the man won and in others the wife won the fight. The board books were from the dollar store and were sanded to rough up the shiny pages. Everything was attached with acrylic medium. I used the original pictures from the manual, then added paint, my own captions and rubber stamped images. I had so much fun making these books and laughed the whole time I was working on them, which took several days. Of course, I am easily amused.

The covers were fabric from the stash and shiny embellishments I had squirreled away for years. There is a reason to hang onto everything!

Spring Artisan Market Update

The market has been a success. Lots of sales, although none for me--boohoo. I worked the morning shift last Saturday and had a great time seeing my friends who came by and meeting lots of new people.

The real estate manager/owner for the shopping center was so impressed with our art work, he asked us to stay another week!! YAY! So we are going to be open next Wednesday through Saturday. If anybody didn't get a chance to drop by last week, come on over this week.