Friday Fragments Flowing Faithfully

I am currently following a wonderful Whispering Hearts with the wonderful Jude Hill and below are some of the works I am doing and influenced by the fabulous work that she does. I know that mine seem a lot different then hers but she is an inspiring and thought provoking woman. You can see the work of many of her students here.

Yes there is a cross in my heart. Thats about all that needs to be said. I think this one will evolve.
I have been looking in the mailbox every day this week hoping for a pkg. from a wonderful textile artist Arlee. I am pretty sure that I found her blog from Jude Hills blog Spirit Cloth. Arlee has taken some online courses with Jude. I was so excited to get the book because it was an eco dyeing book. So I opened the envelope and took out the book and then opened the front of the book and was shocked to see two beautiful pieces of fabric tucked just inside. I have to say I was very overwhelmed by finding these in the book and I just can't express to you how overwhelmed i was. I was gasping .. oooooooooo..... and to see the stitches and the work and the dyeing and I just kept saying .. ooooooo haha .. I wasn't expecting to have these and my reaction was even surprising to me. I just couldn't get over that she had stitched the cloth and put together these lovely fabrics to stitch on. It was an amazingly powerful feeling of gratitude and blissful blessing. I know I am gushing about this but honestly I was so impressed and delighted to have these cloths not to mention the  fabulous book. So please pop over to Arlee's blog and see the wonderful things she's doing there. No doubt she is already well known to most of the followers of Jude.
So ... tonight I am going to read the book and gaze at my new pieces of a loveliness as I go off to sleep tonight. Thanks Arlee... love everything!!

Monday Mounds of Making

On top the long field of blue images is of my stitching results while taking a whispering hearts online class. I am learning many things and enjoying the interactions with all the people that follow the sewing blog and participate in the class. Lots of inspiration there.

It seems that I am always doing something and it never seems to be just one thing continually just many of several things. haha. I just can't seem to focus on doing one subject matter or media.

So what I am showing here under the sewing are some photos of a church birdhouse. Every year a local non-profit group called Homes for Hope does a fund raiser to help house people. They ask local artists to decorate/paint the birdhouses. This year I took two birdhouses, one church and one house. I thought I'd post the results of my efforts. I added the trees because I am still loving the drawing of trees. I also painted some jewels on the steeple just because I could. I'd been looking at some books on jewelry antiquities. I thought they were beautiful so I just added them to my church. Inside I wrote out a poem that I found in an old piece of sheet music and because I just thought it was beautiful. And I painted it all with gesso inside and then covered it all over with walnut ink and then in clear mat medium. Also the imagery inside on the ceiling of the church came from another piece of sheet music. Sometimes the illustrations and borders on them are quite elaborate. I'll post the other bird house tomorrow. Oh and with this church birdhouse I also donated a framed tree painting of mine.