Fibre Art for the Library, Starting New Projects and Finishing Others

Prairie Dawn

In my last blog entry I talked about entering "My Sacred Tree" in a show at our local library in Stittsville, Ontario.  I had to abandon my hand stitched prairie piece for now so here is my second attempt, all machine stitched because I still can't do any hand sewing.  My hand was improving then the pain started in the other hand and my physiotherapist thinks the culprit is arthritis not a tendon injury so she gave me instructions and exercises which seem to be helping.

So at least I have been able to start machine stitching again.  I painted the satin sky, did some free motion on the fields, then painted the edges of a stretched canvas to match and mounted it on the canvas (still needs to be glued down).

Painted Edges

I love the premise of this show.   We took the first line of a book as inspiration.   This piece was inspired by W.O. Mitchell's 'Who Has Seen the Wind'.    The line reads as follows.

"Here was the least common denominator of nature, the skeleton requirement simply, of land and sky - Saskatchewan prairie" (Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O Mitchell, 1947, McClelland and Stewart, page 3).

I have also finished off my black and white hand embroidered piece by adding some subtle watercolour effects to it and framing it in a float frame.

Safe Harbour

Inspired by a photo taken in Prince Edward Island several years ago.


My latest project is completing some journal covers for a show in November.   I had ideas for the creative part  but really no idea of how to make a journal cover.    So I tried several techniques which did not work or only worked marginally.   Then I went online and looked at several tutorials then started again.   I completed three journals so far and working on more.  Here are a couple of them.

This next one, still to be assembled, started out by painting fabric, stamping with homemade stamps, then free motion stitching the leaves.  I've got to say that I think my machine skills are improving since I am unable to do any hand stitching.  I needed to have a reason to keep at it I guess.  The plan is for this to be a journal cover but it looks interesting as is.

Free Motion Embroidery

On Thanksgiving Monday, after a big turkey dinner the day before, I went for a walk with two friends to Mud Lake, a lovely spot along the Ottawa River.   We spied these Wood Ducks.   The female was aggressively grooming the male.   We wondered what he was carrying around in his feathers.

Wood Ducks

And the weather was fabulous!

 This post is linked up to  WIP Wednesdays     Take a look at what other Canadian fibre artists are up to this week.