a new bird

In another week
is the last Art Market of this season :

GRIETMARKT

in Amerongen.

It is a lovely market with art and design
combined with a farmers market (organic food)
If you are anywhere near on Saturday,
please visit
you won't regret it !!!

That means I'm still busy with some new work.
Stitching songbirds with all kinds of snippets
is like painting with cloth !

This time : a barn swallow.

I LOVE their acrobatic flight
and the way they gather together happily on telephone wires !

This was the start.
After the background was pieced together
the bird comes grows with little snippets . . .

. . . stitched together with tiny stitches

(Just need to paint the canvas
and stitch it on)

un-perfect 10 grams

First : the Art Market in Baarn was

HOT

 and therefor not very successful
. . .

This was around 12  o'clock when we had just started,
but it quickly became very warm and
though there were enough lovely people to talk to
and some sweet customers too, it was not a great success.
(it was a looong lazy afternoon !)

*

Today was again the day for our zoom meeting
to show what we made for the challenge this time.

The task was to include a foreign object
that had to be included in the 10 grams (!!!)
and some kind of contrast.

I thought about a spool for machine thread
but in the end (really just today !) I decided on a
scouring pad
(NO, don't ask me where the idea for that came from ???
because I really don't know !)
The scouring pad weighed about 3(+) grams
so that left less than 7 for the wool !

Because I wanted to stack them up
I made three resists out of bubble wrap
(15, 10 and 6 cm squares)
and had to lay out the wool very thin.

Halfway through the stacking process
I doubted if it all would work (as often happens . . .)

But it did !

Like a small cake !

Art Market in BAARN

Yes,
this Sunday we have again an
Art Market :
this time in BAARN

The Cultureel Festival Baarn again organizes the market in the

PEKING TUIN

There will be performances,
workshops for kids, music
and . . .
ART !

The entry is free
and the program is from 12.00  till 17.00 

(One of my paintings for appetite !)

Our stand is near the "Baarnsche Courant Podium"
Maybe we'll see each other there

ART MARKET tomorrow !

Everything packed away in daughter's car
so we can make an early start tomorrow !
ZEIST
here we come !

A  10 x 10 cm stitched piece on canvas, a cat in the 
Night Garden

And the latest belt pouch
FIRE
also finished

I think the weather will be okay
so I hope to  SEE  some of you there !!!

felting : "water" and "fire"

For the upcoming Art Market in ZEIST
on the 24th of August
I started with a hew
fish

To make sharp colour edges
is it easiest to work with pre-felt
and the industrial pre-felt is nice and even . . .
BUT, I don't have that many colours of it.

That left me with the problem to lay out my wool tops
in a way that the edges were still sharp,
but where I could, I used the pre-felt

The problem with this is that laying out tops isn't
the same thickness as the pre-felt
So : a bit fiddly !

second side . . .

and making the cut for the mouth
to remove the resist.

The final result was the little video
when my fish was drying in the garden !
(still a bit of stitching to do
to give the final touch for the eyes)

And after "water" came "fire"

A new belt pouch !
Brown for the colour of wood
and on the flap : 
FIRE !

First the inside colour, then,
the second layer, the colours on the flap
and a sleeve at the back for the belt.

Securing the edge after the cut to remove the resist
and I like to secure things with some (non-felting) stitches

(and I still have a belt to make !)

*
And again . . . we have sweet house guests

water . . . and materials

When I need some new materials for my creative work
I make a visit to Rotterdam.
That I do by boat,
and to be more specific : me and my bike go by boat.
(that way I can move around more easily
than when I go by bus)

But since a while there is some extra water in the city . . .

right now, a bit quiet, BUT . . .

it can be rough too :
just right for a bit of surfing !!!
New entertainment, in the center of the city !

New odds and ends.

*

The garden in Mai is always great
but, right now in August
I'm quite happy with it too !!!

A few days ago daughter found this fun flower,
fallen from a tree in our village

But what a coincidence when I saw the mail
from the "National Tree Museum"
with a flower similar to this one !

I think it must be the

Albizia julibrissin

(the "Persian sleeping tree")

"B" for bumblebee

The fun challenge by Yaroslava Troynich
to make an (existing) animal
in any creative way you can think of
had the letter "B" for July.

There were MANY animals to choose from
but for me the choice was easy this time :
the  BUMBLEBEE

Bumblebees live in colonies, gathering food and raising the young.
The queen, that hibernates underground during winter,
starts eating and makes a new nest in early spring.
Females have pollen baskets on the hind legs.
Their long hairy tongue is very useful to reach the nectar
that is hidden deep down in tube-like flowers.
They have a stinger, that does not detach after use,
but they hardly ever sting when they visit flowers
(but DON'T disturb their nest !!!)
Sadly the numbers of these insects too
are decreasing
which is bad for nature, and for us !

I love my garden and I'm always glad to see many insects,
especially the big teddy-bear-like bumblebees !

Years ago I made some wet felted bugs,
but of course I looked at many pictures before starting
this new insect.

The body wasn't a real problem,
but because bumblebees have these sturdy hairy legs
I chose to make them out of felt as well
(instead of the wire that I used for the bugs . . .)

And I can tell you :
that was a really fiddly business !!!

The wings, bumblebees have four,
were made on the machine, free motion stitching on polyester sheer.

Thanks Yara,
it was fun again !