Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Field Tripping the Web....and other stuff

I try to post something to my blog every day but I avoid posting more than once a day. Since I left work last year and now work full time at my craft, my blog has gotten quite full. Because of all of the normal content I have been posting the Field Trip posts less often. I've considered discontinuing them but every time I mention that to someone they threaten to start a revolt!

In addition, I am spending a LOT of time reading blogs to find material for the Field Trip posts and I do need to cut that back a little.

So, I've made 2 decisions. The first is that I'm moving Field Tripping the Web to the 3 Creative Studios blog. We have more space there and I can post smaller and more frequent Field Trips. The first one is posted now!

To address the time investment issue, I've discontinued the garment sewing section.  I apologize to the garment sewists out there but the vast majority of my readers are not garment sewists and I had to cut down my 700+ blog subsctiption! If someone else wants to carry that feature, let me know and I'll tell everyone here where to find it.

You also might be interested in a weekly feature that I post at the MQResource site called I-Day on Friday. "I-Day" is "Inspiration Day" and the posts are brief and focus on inspiring things I find around the web. Sometimes it's a particular artist or it might be a gallery of inspiring photos. It's just a little something to get your creative jucies flowing for the weekend.

In other 3 Creative Studios news:

• Time is running out to enter the drawing for Adam Chenevert's feather DVD set!
• Our Guest Artist this month is Alycia Carmin, a wonderfully generous quilter who coordinates several Quilts of Valor projects. Read about Alycia and our community service project for this month. If you participate you could win some free batting!

I hope you will add the 3 Creative Studios blog to your reader so you don't miss a Field Trip!

Over at 3 Creative Studios

For those of you who don't get over to 3 Creative Studios often, I thought I'd catch you up on what's  going on there.

Our new Guest Artist is Leslie Vaskey McNeil from MarveLes Art Studios in Great Falls, MT. She does absolutely beautiful machine quilting/embroidery/couching work. She is sharing Free Motion Couching with us this month and you can read all about it here.

We have also started a new postcard swap and the theme is "Going Places". Read about it and how to sign up here. Sign ups close June 28.

If that's noe enough for you, Terri has written a great tutorial on thread sketching and you can download it here.

If you participate in any of our programs be sure to sign up for the newsletter because that's the only place where you will find out if you won! 

3 Creative Studios and other things......

I know that a lot of you follow me at 3 Creative Studios and MQResource but for those who do not, I thought I'd mention some of the other things I am doing around the web.

I used to do a Whistlestop Web Tour at MQResource but recently we changed that to a weekly inspiration article called I-Day on Friday. It's meant to be a time when you can relax with a cup of tea (or stronger beverage) and meet an artist, explore unique art or look through an inspiring gallery. Sometimes I focus on a specific color or maybe a certain type of art. I never know what I will find to inspire me....and hopefully you. Check out the I-Day article every Friday at MQResource. No subscription is required to read these articles. If you are a machine quilter (longarm, midarm or domestic), I hope you will check out the MQResource site. It's a wonderfully welcoming site with so much information and you can always find someone to ask a question.

Over at 3 Creative Studios we always have something going on.  Today Terri, my studio partner, has posted about a giveaway opportunity for the book Twelve By Twelve. Terri is one of the 12 co-authors. To enter the giveaway drawing, just go to the blog.

We also do a product review each month and this month we are excited to share Jenny May Designs stencils. I found these new stencils at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt show and I love them! You will see in the blog article that Jenny May Designs is offering a nice special for blog readers.

Lastly, I don't have a separate newsletter. All of my shop, and other news, is in the 3 Creative Studios Newlsetter.  There are times when I offer fabric special to newsletter readers. If you want to find out about these specials please sign up for the newlsetter on my right sidebar or here. Newlsetter signup only requires your email address but you do have to respond to a confirmation email. The next newsletter (with a subscriber shop special) will go out Wendesday morning!

 

Pocketed Notebook Cover Tutorial

Last month I made one of these pocketed notebook covers for my friend, Anne. It's designed for a large spiral notebook and has pockets to hold her Blackberry and some pens. 

Then people saw it. Then there were demands for more covers. Being a good friend, I met the demands. I also created a tutorial that was posted to 3 Creative Studios yesterday.

I only wish I had thought of this design while I was still working and dropping my Blackberry as I moved from meeting to meeting. But now you can make them for your office mates and there's plenty of time before Christmas to make one for everyone! Get the tutorial here.

Note: You can make these to sell at craft shows if you want. A friend makes them and they are big sellers for her! You may not mass produce these for commercial sale.

While I didn't make a notebook cover for myself, I did use some of the leftover screen printed fabric to make myself this folio for my stamps. Why would I need a stamp folio? Because I lose stamps, buy more, find the lost ones in a continual cycle. Now I have too many stamps. I made this using the same basic process as the notebook cover. Yes, I could have just put them in a manila envelope but this was so much more fun!

All of these projects were screen printed using screens from Lynn Krawczyk, the 3 Creative Studios Guest Artist this month. You can read all about Lynn here.

Playing with Transfer Printing

I'm happy to report that we did not get massive amounts of snow like our friends to the North of us. One friend who was visiting us yesterday left Richmond around 5 pm and arrived home around midnight.....he should have been home by 7:15! 

Fortunately, I wasn't snowed in but if I had been my plans for the day would not have changed. Today I started playing with the Transfer Printing technique that is the Technique of the Month at 3 Creative Studios. Shelagh Folgate, our Guest Artist, introduced the technique.

In the photo above I have 2 transfer samples. The heart was cut from a paper that was covered on scribbles with fabric crayons. I cut out the heart and ironed it to the pink polyester. On the right is a paper painted with Deka transfer paints and then printed on the pink polyester. I love the crisp images that this process produces. It is rather a long process to transfer the image but it's worth it!

In this photo the painted paper is on the left and the transfered image on the right. I did this one on pale gray polyester. See how much more vibrant the colors are after they have been printed on the polyester?

If you couldn't see the difference in that last one, you can sure see it in this one! I don't know what I will do with this but I love those vibrant colors.  So now I must get back to it. No more time to chat.

More to come later!