Welcome to spring at our house.

The snow the last 2 nights has added to the "glacier" on our roof. It has been slowly melting and sagging farther and farther off the edge.

It is interesting to view the curve of the formation from the front door, but I don't want to be there when it finally falls.

The deer were waiting by the edge of the woods.

Transitions - Through Thick & Thin

I took another class at Callaway Gardens with Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn. They have been teaching classes at Callaway School of Needlearts in alternate years since 2001. It is one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. There are two four-day sessions with one day off in between. We were fortunate to have good weather this year. The first session it was in the 70's and rainy. It was cooler for the second session, but no rain.

We began with scrim for pulled thread. This butterfly happened by chance when I was moving the fabric in loopy motions through the sewing machine.

We bonded cotton velvet to the scrim and added hand stitching to pull the threads.

We transferred a drawing onto transfer paper and ironed it on to solusheet. Then tacked the solusheet to fine netting and stitched & beaded. Then the solusheet was dissolved and the stitching dried.

This piece was constructed on a sticky soluble. It ended up twice as long and half as wide as it started.

This is a fragile piece constructed on a sticky soluble with hand and machine stitching. I used some fibers I purchased at lace conventions. The unusual fibers are sold by Bart & Francis from Belgium.

We withdrew threads from fabric.

Then we chose one stitch to use, in this case the stitch was raised chain band.

The challenge was to build up the stitching off the surface of the fabric.

Beads were added.

"Whose fault is it anyway?" began with a transfer print to fabric. The next layer was painted fusible web. Bits of yarn and scrim were placed on the surface and sheer "chiffon scarf" on top. This sandwich was bonded together and then stitched using flower thread. The design began with a network of fault lines in southern California.

Ogee Ornaments

For the holidays I made countless Ogee ornaments. Here's one batch.

Cookie Pillow Bag

At the retreat in November, several members of Doris Southard Lace Guild constructed drawstring bags that Anita Wild designed for us to carry a 13" cookie pillow and tools. We tried a couple options for the drawstrings and are thinking about other options.

Spherical lace

At the lace retreat in Dubuque last weekend, I started making a Christmas ball.

More boots

On the trip to Colorado we spent time visiting doctors as well as family. So I had more time to make boots. These are my final boots for a total of 10 for the Hoover tree.