Santa Fe Enchantment!

It has been just over a week since I returned home from EGA's Santa Fe Enchantment, 2012.  I promised a report, but how does one convey the enchantment that Santa Fe, New Mexico really is?

How does one convey 'on paper', or in this case, on your computer screen, the aroma of cedar fires   and caramel corn in the plaza, and roasted chiles, and the rustling sound of the golden cottonwood leaves, and the crispness of cold air on your cheeks?

The world famous Hatch chiles drying in the sun....acres of them!

Ristras!

Sage along Canyon Rd.

Miles and miles of cottonwoods along the Rio Grande.

Cottonwood leaves on the plaza grounds.

My sister Dorothy and I left on a Friday morning, my car packed to the hilt with stuff for classes and stuff to sell at the EGA midweek Trading Post.  Luckily, there was still room for the two of us!  Traveling with a much loved sister is priceless! We rode and laughed, and talked, and laughed, and talked and laughed some more.  We never ran out of things to talk or laugh about, which must be a 'girl' thing.  Most of you will understand that.

Back seat!

Trunk, all trunkekated!

Arriving at Buffalo Thunder Resort, things continued to run as smoothly as our travels.  (NO Glitches!)  The hotel staff was great!  We loved our suite!  French doors opened out onto a ground level patio, even though we were on the 3rd. floor!  Our view was of the distant golf course, the mountains, and always, the moon rising brilliantly white and round!  (We only saw that view, because we were up and out the door at 7:30ish every morning, attending to business, and didn't return until evening.)

The Bellhop was a Magician!

Room with a view and my little iPhone camera did pretty well capturing it!

I taught two classes, Santa Rita Prickly Pear, and Las Flores de la Noche with my sister Dorothy assisting me, because of the size of the classes.  Thank you Dorothy for your kind nature, patience, and ability to connect and help where help was needed.  Both projects involved the same process....stitching the subject in white cotton floss (DMC) and/or white Flair, a sheer panty hose like material by Rainbow Gallery.

Santa Rita Prickly Pear

Las Flores de la Noche

 After the subjects were stitched, students were instructed to saturate their canvases with water...getting them good and soaked!  Shocking I know!  Next, they mixed a textile medium with acrylic craft paints, and proceeded to add color to their stitched work, allowing the paint to extend into the blank canvas background.

This was scary for many...but I was proud of how eagerly they all launched into the work.  Some had their own vision, and others just went with the flow.  (of the paint....sorry...could not resist!)  The best part was that these 'painted thread' projects are mistake proof!  No matter the skill or level of the painter, no matter how worried one is with that process, the outcome is always successful!  Truly!  I am not kidding!  I've never seen a piece that didn't turn out beautiful!

And now I have to apologize to the Santa Rita class.  Alas..I did not take photos of your individual pieces.  So, the photos here are primarily of the Las Flores de la Noche class.  As you can see, each student did beautiful work!  They had a limited color palate to use, but the range of colors they managed to create was remarkable!  We laid the canvases out to dry in the sun.  Luckily, we had big french doors that led to a large patio and lawn area. (And long windows all around the room!  I'm telling ya...we had the very best classroom lighting and space in the entire seminar!) After lunch, classes convened for more stitching, and in the case of Las Flores, a bit more painting with Crayola fabric markers and the use of stencils.   We added more color and texture in each class by stitching with Caron's Watercolours and Wildflowers, Sundance beads and sequins, Kreinik metallics!  In the Santa Rita class, they created flower petals out of strips of torn organdie fabric and used Sundance beads and Kreinik metallic to create thorns on the cactus pads!

Santa Rita Class Pieces

Las Flores de la Noche Class Pieces

Celebrity Elizabeth Bozievich in her designer smock!

See our great windows!

This lady was a darling!  Cute and feisty, she worked harder than anyone in this particular class...and was determined to reach her goal, which she did! 

I consider this experience, sharing these projects with a collective total of 71 Santa Fe Enchantment students,  to have been an enriching and joyful process for ME.  I think too, it must have been for them as well.  Sure, there were a few problems to solve or deal with, considering....(egads!  I forgot to put in a single strand of DMC in the kits, but fortunately, found a substitute.  And the room, though bright and beautiful,  had a 1/2 high wall divider in it, which we worked around. That said, after reading the class evaluations, I believe that 99% of those attending agreed it was a great time, well spent and that they enjoyed it as much as I did! 

PS....will the student who asked me about having the remainder of the prickly pear jelly we snacked upon (spread on crackers! Yum!) please contact me?  I can't remember who you are, and I'd like to send you some.

Why I Paint My Own Orders

Yesterday, I finished painting an order for a shop.  The piece is one that is no longer being featured in my line that is distributed by Sundance Designs.  But, when someone remembers a piece and requests it, I am happy to oblige!

When I got ready to paint, I first had to find the master copy.  There in the pile, in the box, under the bed, along with the master, was a second canvas already painted.  This one had been painted by a copy artist, back in the day when I tried to use them.  The reason this canvas was never sent out is the subject of my blog post today.

But first, a little background.  I am not opposed to any designer using copy artists.  I would gladly join the ranks of successful designers who use them:  Lani, Melissa Shirley are just two who come to mind!  I am also thinking of Leigh of Leigh Designs.  Love you Leigh!  Your work is amazing and astonishing and wonderful, and that only taps the surface of my admiration for your talent!  Leigh explained to me one time, how she has a staff of copy artists that she personally trained, and oversees while they work 'in house' on her property.  I envisioned  Leigh standing over them with a bull whip, snatching the brushes out of their little hands when they screwed up!   LOL!

At one time, I also envisioned that if someone else could paint my designs, that would free me up to design more and more and more canvases, and also to stitch them!  Thus began a series of unfortunate and miserable events in that quest.  I won't go into the gory details but I'll show you what I mean.  Because it was expensive and I didn't have time to keep experimenting with different people, I decided to just stick with doing it myself.   And I'm happy with that decision.  I do enjoy the painting process, even though it can be tedious sometimes.  But those times give me moments to reflect on many things, listen to audio books or music, and sometimes watch tv..or at least, listen to it also.  And when one is 'in the groove' of canvas and paint, it can be very enjoyable.

So..here is why I paint my own orders.   This is the order I completed yesterday.  One is the Master and one was done by a copy artist.  If you click on each image, you can see them enlarged.  But before you do that, they both look pretty good here, don't they?

Or do they?  Let's take a closer look........Click away....I'll let the images speak for themselves.

 So...the verdict is yours.  It was mine too, along with the conclusion was that I will paint my own orders.   UNLESS..... someone hands me a bull whip and builds me a big studio warehouse and I see a big long line of talented copy artists on the horizon, all anxiously awaiting to do my work for me.  LOL!!

All That Fun Stuff!

I was surprised to see that my last blog post was dated July 12th!  Well, I have been extremely busy!  My 4 sisters and I put together a big birthday bash for our Mother's 90th Birthday!  We had 120 people in attendance at a wonderful lunch in her honor on Labor Day.  This was quite an accomplishment to achieve considering that we all live in 3 different states, and almost all of the planning was by email communication!

Just because I want to brag, here is a photo of our beautiful Mother, 90 yrs. young on her special day!  She is such an inspiration for us all, with her upbeat attitude and cute sense of humor.  Even though she is legally blind with macular degeneration, she still manages to live alone in her little home, which she navigates comfortably inside and out.  She is always positive and has lots of stories to tell, which we all love to hear.  So Happy Birthday Mom!  And may each day be full and bright and interesting for you!

Speaking of full and interesting, that is what I want to focus on in this blog entry about my stitching.
I ADORE my life and work in the needlework industry.  Being creative is what makes me happy and it gives me such joy to share my ideas and designs with others.

When I first started to design painted canvases in 1985, and finally to stitch some of my own designs a few years later, needlepoint was still very conservative with not a lot of embellishment or fancy threads being used, nor many different stitches either.  Then, in the late 80's..early 90's, enter silk ribbon embroidery.   I'm not sure of the date, but I do remember when I first saw a little Bucilla kit featuring silk ribbon work.  It was a little fabric heart with some flowers on it.  I saw it at Sundance  Needleworks (back in the day when they owned a retail shop).  The kit had been sitting on display for quite a while, I was told, and no one seemed interested in it.  Of course, it needed to be stitched as a model, but no one at Sundance wanted to do it or learn how to do it.  With some twisting of my arm, the owners thrust that kit upon me, and told me to 'work on it.'  (It was pretty much like that!  LOL!)  And I did.  And I fell in love!  And I began to incorporate silk ribbon work into my canvas designs.   And the rest is history!

                                                       From that
                                                           to
                                                       This......

                                                               

Fast forward to today!  I can't get enough of all That Fun Stuff, which now means not only silk ribbons, but for me, often adding paint to stitched work, putting on the glitz with gobs of beads, sequins, and all kinds of embellishments!  Think tiny doll dishes, neon lighting, buttons,  and felting techniques!  Oh, and the fibers and threads!  OMGOSH!  Talk about heart palpitations!  The metallics, the fuzzys, the neons, the very velvets, the thick and thin braids, the fiber covered wires that bend, the SPARKLES!!!  The array of fabulous materials to stitch with is endless!

I have not even mentioned all the decorative stitches and the teachers, and the book authors who compile all these stitches together in a format that we can all access, even on our phones!  It is all just too wonderful!  And to think, that not so long ago, in the 1970's, (ok, some of you weren't even born yet!) when needlepoint was at it commercial height, all anyone knew to do was use wool threads!

Which brings me to my point:  Today, anything goes!  And today is a good day to tell you about something I am very excited about!  Beginning the new year, 2013, I will be teaching a 12 month  class at BeStitched Needleworks in Scottsdale, AZ.   This will be just like the classes conducted by quilt shops, where one gets a 'block of the month' to create, and at the end of the year, you have a completed quilt!  In this case, I am going to be stitching right along with my students each month, to have a completed Princess Chandelier!  I can't tell you how excited I am to do this.  I will have to agree that my chandelier pieces  are very large (Approximately 23"X24"), and that can seem overwhelming.  But think about it:  If you stitch just a small portion each month (and I have it all broken down for you!), it is easily doable in 12 months time.

OH, you have NO IDEA of the Fun Stuff that will be incorporated on this canvas!  Here is a peek of just one of the monthly portions that I'll be teaching.

HINT:  Silk Ribbons, Fabric applique, Memory Thread, Sundance beads, Neon Rays, Stump work, Overdyed Threads, Decorative stitches...And when we get to those silver scrolls, we will be using Silver Sparkles to create the most elegant swirls you have ever laid eyes on!

Look for further details in an upcoming issue of Needlepoint Now. 
I can't wait!  In the mean time, I'm stitching up more Fun Stuff all the time.

Happy 4th of July!

It's time to celebrate our Nation's Independence again!  I hope you get to.....

                               
                                                                  Watch a Parade!

         

                                                               Eat some Cherry Pie!

Watch a Spectacular Show!  (The American Astronaut, canvas designed by my daughter Aunna Elm.)

        Sit in your comfy chair and do some stitching!

       God Bless America and let's all be safe and kind to one another!