バルセロナのはなみ

Hanami in Barcelona. Catalan japanophiles will love the combination of the flag and sakura

neki desu


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stitching away winter

Not me. unfortunately . This stitched wall hanging was bought in Port au Prince, Haiti time ago. It includes varieties of chain stitch, stem stitch,up and down buttonhole, satin stitch, seed stitch and a stitch whose name i don't know,

but it looks like crossed florentine in needlepoint, worked very close together. Note the delightful parrots and the pink sky. The tropics, sigh!

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which way?

This way or this way?

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promise of spring to come

Right, i don't have photos of snow. We'll have to make do. The clematis vines are budding and my katsura momiji is already sprouting.

i've also been accepted to the textile triennial in Hungary.
What a year! :) :) :)


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and now some digital work

This post was the prelude to the postcard pictured here. The seamless pattern created in the tute was printed on tyvek and then stamped over in some parts with metallic paint.
Over the week i got a message from Arlee in which she generously offered to share some pages on lace embroidery which i very gladly accepted. The embroidery is well above my present skills, but nonetheless, it gave me some ideas and a new direction.
And here's the latest on the lace chronicles.

The week has flown between studying Japanese and joining teams and further exploring Etsy and it's possibilities. It is a lot more than a venue for virtual shops, that's just the surface. Lots of time also spent on Facebook trying to sort things out. Feels like having a 9 to 5 without a paycheck. LOL!

In planet weaving the scarf was finished 2 weeks ago, but i' mot cutting it until i finish the rest of the warp.This is called discipline and also trying to weave something for the complex weavers study group i'm in before i get kicked out for not submitting a project .
i feel i need a dyeing distraction session :)

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helping hand

Both Vero and Annica gave me the helping hands award for which i'm truly grateful. Makes me feel good that in my own small way i can contribute to the on line community giving back some of what i get from it.

Here is how it works;select 10 bloggers, 5 you consider your Helping Hand
and then Pay it Forward to 5 additional new bloggers, in support and encouragement for their efforts.

My turn now:Helping Hands
Jude, Glennis, Elisabeth Marshall,the Missus, Ruth Mclaughlin

Pay Forward: most of them are not new in blogland, but helpful nonetheless.
Bhakti, Sandra, Cally ,Leigh ,Deepa

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creating seamless patterns

The P program has endless filters that you can play and be happy with. But you can go beyond and create your own seamless pattens. Note that the pattern generator filter in filters creates patterns but you can see where the tiles meet, therefore they are not seamless.

There are many ways of creating a seamless pattern.
You can start from scratch with an image do the tessellations and build it up.
There are also plug ins that do all the dirty work for you, so why not take advantage.
i'll show you how to use a nice little plug in that helps you with the task and it works with CS onwards. This mini tute presupposes you know the basics of how to handle the P program.

• First go to mehdi and download kaleidoscope.2 plug in. While there browse around as there are many cool and useful plugs ins.
• save it in a folder in filters.
• go to file new and make it 300x300 px.
• then you can draw simple shapes or scan an image.

We'll concentrate on a scan here to narrow down the possibilities into a manageable tute.

• get your image and copy it to the 300x300 px file you created.
• make any adjustment you wish.
• flatten layers.
• go to filters and look for kaleidoscope.click to open
• change settings by working with the sliders until you find something you like.
• adjust pattern size to desired by clicking the bar under the picture.
• click save.
• check pattern by creating a new file let's say 800px
• go to define pattern in the edit menu and click.
• use the food fill .voila!! seamless pattern background!
  

i'm presently working with lace and here's a rough run of my process in pictures.

(apologies for the last picture.a glitch prevents me from uploading one w/out th white border (GRRRR)

This is the base for many surface design techniques.
You can then print the background to any substrate, make a thermo fax screen or simplify the image and carve stamps.

Hope this is useful to ya'll :-)


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i'm in business!

Yes folks!
After years of pondering about it i dove in. Not at the best time, but better late than never. And extra credit goes to Ruth from Just Weaving who has been the nudging force. Ah! friends!!
Check me out here and over on the sidebar.
Let me know your opinion.

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is it a sledge hammer?is it a plane?

No, it's obasan on steroids!i can officially announce that two works of my Strata series were accepted to the HGA Small Expressions exhibit. It was my work for last year and as i intended to submit it to HGA and the Hungary triennial i had to keep the lid shut.
Needless to say i'm thrilled and it's the second good news exhibit wise of the year. Perhaps i'm on a roll. Now i'm waiting to see if i get accepted to Hungary.Then i'll post some photos here.

A wish though.
i thought the juried work at Cyber Fiber was great and i wrote about it to Susan. The juror took time explaining her choices, something unfortunately infrequent, and i think it was positive feedback for all.
i find it very useful to know the reasons behind an acceptance or a rejection because i see exhibits as having to do more with learning experiences than ego stroking.
My hopes and wishes lie in that a precedent has been established and a trend will follow.

Turning a corner now this is a zen like piece i worked sidetracking from the lace series which is very intense.
Stitching and some puff paint. Oh and some iridescent paint too. As always the Flickr photo in the site has a few explanatory notes.
Can you see i feel elated ?

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cheerfully looking towards spring

Can't fool anyone. Autumn is my favorite season, but i'm a Spring girl. All good things happen to me in Spring . And there are quite a few goodies in the good news dept, but i need a go ahead to spill the beans :D
However, one of the good news is the lucky find in Pin Tangle of this link about net embroidery.It was a very exciting find that will definitely add another dialog here.
i'm anxious to start stitching.

And as an aside i had noticed some change in parts of the tulle, not discernible to the eye, but a tactile sensation. Thanks to the link i was able to infer that the mantilla had been repaired and some pieces of new tulle had been added. So fine a job that you can't tell with a naked eye.
Now i can almost be sure that the mantilla belonged to my mother in law's mother.
i feel humbled and graced.

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