Angel begging me to come and sit with her so I'm done in my studio for the night. She actually let me touch her, did I mention that this a dog with abuse issues, so I know she's desperate for me to come be with her. And in the spirit of not having a neurotic dog from Hell tomorrow I'm gonna go have a sit with my dog. 

This is as done as it's going to get for tonight. I may work on it again in a couple of days. 

Detail shot of what I did, I have more wire to add, lots more wire. Pictures don't do it justice but it does look pretty good. 

Just a bit more beading and wiring left to do, and then I might add some spun grass to the bottom portion of the page. 

Happy New Year and More

Happy New Year, lets hope and pray that it will be a better year than 2005 and on many many levels.

I'm about half done with my page, which is turing into quite the page I might add. I think I will have to glue a backing to it whence I'm done so that it's stable. Maybe a very thin piece of plywood that I cover with some nice handmade papers.

I don't normally post pics of work in progress but this is for those of you who are creating and are ever so frustrated with your work. Sometimes you have to make drastic changes. The book cover and back pieces for instance was one large single piece that just didn't do a whole lot for me. So I hacked it up, in the opinions of some individuals, it instantly became a book cover once it was divided into two pieces. I started out doing one thing, a little quilt that was supposed to be verticle and wound (did I spell that right???) up making a book instead. But hey my general theme of a garden is still intact.

And that's another point, sometimes you start out with one theme and the piece becomes another. I say why fight it, it wants to be what it wants to be.

Ok I lost the brown looking log stuff in lieu of something more exciting, twigs and grape vine. The ribs got broken in the milkweed pods, they are extremely fragile and there's no way I can glue them back in. So I've come up with another idea just now that I think will work really well. You'll have to wait and see what I"m up to! 

A closer view. 

Cotton Boles set behind tulle. What can I say I am thinking of losing them. 

More Fibers

The green and yellowish looking fiber threads are spun grasses, I will be carrying them in the store soon as well, first I need to get them listed right. Anyway I've been playing with these for over a year now and am in love with them.

Seems no matter how loud I play the music I can't drown out the sheltie, she's in the kitchen so I can get some studio time in. Everytime John comes in house she barks like the devil dog she really is!

I decided some horse hair would be a nice addition. 

Some gorgeous wild fibers and threads I'll soon be carrying in my store. Click the Prairie Fibers Company link for more threads and such! 

Getting there, now to add some seeds and weeds. 

Pepper making like a goon! For some odd reason he really likes the plastic on we put on the windows this fall. He's declawed but it's still obnoxious. 

"Winters Garden: Seeds and Weeds" Altered Book

Well it's almost done, if I can keep the cats beat off long enough to assemble the book I've got it made. Apparently bring nature indoors is tantamount to giving caviar to a love struck socialite. I don't think Catnip would hold a candle to this, course it probably smells like the store, not like nature.

Anyway, the blob of burnt orange fluff above the book cover is wild Cotton Boles. If I lived down south I'd cultivate them and harvest cotton as a past time, but alas cotton doesn't thrive well in Iowa.

I'm off to make a few pages, gotta dig all of those wonderful yummy threads out. The fabrics, ribbons and trims are dyed with natural dyes unless otherwised stated. I've been doing a lot of surfacing to my fabrics of late.

This was going to be a page in my book but I decided against it, I'm going with the seeds and weeds instead. 

The cover of my book, it's almost done. 

My e-freind sent me this from Minnesota last year, at about this time. It's birch bark and some flat cedar I do believe. Smells wonderful.  

More goodies for my altered book. The pink piece with the grid on it is Silk Dupoini that I painted with inks, paintstiks and metallic waxes, it's the back side of my page. The fiber page is hand made paper. 

Fibers for my altered book.  

New Logo Problems

Now if I could just figure out how to get the picture to show up in the logo. I'm going to offer several logo options, for The Prairie Fibers Company, and what the hay even for my blog. It'll have to wait until I get the picture figured out.

New Logo

The Prairie Fibers Company

Angels, Herbs, and Cameras

I'm really pleased as I have now figured out how to get my digital camera to take macro shots, that's a close-up for those not familiar with camera terms. The world is my Oyster so to speak now that I've overcome this hurdle.

The Angel, yes she was on a nativity, it was laying int he bag with my mothers nativity scene. Which btw needs a good old fashion coating of moss. It's probably older than I am. We had other ornaments just like this one on our tree though. So I'm wondering if mom bought them at the same time as the nativity??? I still don't know where all of her nativity figurines are.

I'm going to enjoy Christmas this year, got a few goodies for my better half, that he doesn't know about. Nothing out rageously expensive, just something he might enjoy. We're going to go book shopping after xmas, I have coupons for the Half Price Bookstore which ought to be a lot of fun.

Lately I've been buying herb books, mostly medicinal herb books as we already had some basic herb books. I've decided I want to do a distance learning course for herbal medicine. We'll see how much time I have for this first, until then I'm reading up on herbal health and it's very interesting. I picked up two Chinese Medicine books yesterday, one was by Penelpe Ody, the other by Dainel Reid. Both are very interesting, though I don't think I can get even a tenth, of what they perscribe, here locally. But i'ts still very interesting reading.

Here's a very old angel ornament that I brought home from my mothers. It is made of pipe cleaners, a felted head, and what looks to be panty hose material and wire. It looks as if it's all hand made. I'm sure my mother bought it at a craft bazzaar in the 70's. Does anyone know how to make them? We also had waxed star ornaments, oragami that my dad made in Sunday School as a kid, my aunt has told me about how them made them. They had sparkles on them as well. 

Nap time is over. 

Angel plotting her next move, the dogs have been wild tonight. While Barley slept on John's shoulder. 

Do you have to do that??? 

Family time, everyone is read a story before bed. 

Here's a little ear lick for you! 

Hurry up and turn that page would you! 

Silky and Angel. There's no since in recovering the sofa so long as those two think it's their bed! 

My first stippling from 1995, back in my drawing 101 days.