Nandina Berries in the House

After writing the post last night about the swags and garland made with the evergreens and berries, I just had to bring sprigs of those berries in the house for a bit of holiday cheer. Adding a piece of ribbon from the wrapping box and two flower ornaments make a cheery setting.
This opening is above my kitchen sink. It's as good as having a window since it lets in natural light from ,as well as the view of our courtyard entry. There is always a bouquet of whatever is in season on this shelf. After the first of the year it may be nosegay bouquets of pansies or even a few floating in that art glass piece. The plum fairy mixing a bowl of something sugary is in permanent residence ... usually sitting on that blue cow. Last year she shared this space with geriatric Elvis and friends.

Decorating For Christmas

The extent of decorations for Christmas at our house is limited to outside this year since we celebrate the holidays up north with our children's families leaving well before the 25th and coming back after the new year. Also, it's my gift to our immediate neighbors.
I collected holly boughs and evergreen branches from trees on the extensive property owned by the condo association on our morning walks. Magnolia leaves from the tree plus bunches of Nandina berries and branches of red leaves from the shrubs in our yard accent the five holiday swags I constructed to hang between the garage doors in our pod of condos.
I love those Nandina bushes dripping with berries all winter long. In fact I'm fascinated by the abundance of shrubs and trees that stay green through the winter here in Tennessee.
A couple of buildings have stands of Nandinas between the garage doors that began as transplanted seedlings from those in our yard.

The rest of the greenery became a garland for this iron gate. It's my present for a friend who's also a neighbor, but lives in a different set of buildings. She never knows when, or if, I'm going to do this. She either finds me fiddling around at her entrance or discovers it when she comes home.
I stuck the leftovers in this pot located in the walkway leading to her gate.
I've found that branches placed in pots of soil will last until about Valentine's Day in this climate. I call them winter bouquets.

Two More Birds

One made by me as a Christmas present for a friend. It's similar to one I made for another friend this past summer.
And a second bird made by Kay Susan in England. Go here to see more photos and read the delightful tale that involves this "Rockin' Robin".
There's just one more little bird that I have yet to make before I fly north for the holidays on Monday.

Shared Goodies

This fabulous postcard is a Pay It Forward gift from Karoda.
Can you believe it traveled through the postal system? ... and arrived in perfect condition.
This exquisite little cheeper is created by Kay Susan in England.
This is her 'S'Mockeryfied' version created from my bird pattern.Its body is made of her complex cloth and decorated with stitchery. She even wrapped the wire legs with stitching using wool. Go here to read Kay Susan's description of her techniques.
This little beauty is added to the Picasa album of "Birds" along with others shared with me as well as all the ones I've created. That album is now posted in my sidebar. Click the picture of the bird to go there.

December 11th Post Script:
Susan Kay has made yet another bird, "Rockin' Robin". Go here to see him and read the delightful story that accompanies him.

Dynamic Creating

"A way to minimize the tyranny is to see your art in a state of adjustment and creative development, rather than trying to fulfill some preconceived vision. I call it 'dynamic painting' and it's quite magical. It could be called "dynamic writing" or even 'dynamic living'."

That is a quote from a Robert Genn's newsletter. It came earlier this week just before I conducted a day-long workshop on Thursday sharing my method of creating art quilts from scraps. I hadn't realized there was a name for how I work. I think of it as having a dialog with the piece, or even just playing. At any rate, sharing the way I create was my primary goal.

I was pleased how each participant "got" the dynamic way of creating ... choosing one scrap from the pile in the middle of the table that caught their eye and building a piece around it ... they all played like 6-year olds. No one seemed to notice the cold, rainy, dreary day outside.
I hadn't taught a workshop in so long, there was trepidation about getting into the "flow". However, that interaction with students and responding to situations as they come up was still there without missing any steps in my lesson plan ... whew! The one decision I was a bit worried about was that instead of my demonstrating on my own machine, I walked several students through the featured process on their machines with the others looking on. It worked! The machine owner could ask questions or verbalize during my instruction which helped her and everyone else to really "get it" ... another whew!
In the photo above Martha is going through the steps to determine settings and adjustments for using Bottom Line thread on a prewound disposable bobbin. I suspect there are a few converts to this product available from Superior Threads. BL thread is a fine thread which requires a change in the bobbin case tension ... something many consider to be a NO-NO. Also, bobbin cases vary in depth which means that one or both cardboard sides may have to be discarded so the bobbin rotates freely in the case. Go here (Superior's education site) to learn more about bobbin tension adjustments and prewound bobbins.

Also, introduced was the use of Superiors Polyester monofilament invisible thread as the top thread in machine quilting. It's soft and heat resistant and comes in Clear and Smoke. I use it when I don't want an obvious quilting thread or color to be a design element in a quilt. Often, just a quilting pattern works best with complex and detailed small compositions. The main trick for working with monofilament is lowering the top tension to "0" ... or nearly so. Also, the thread is straight wound onto the spool as opposed to a criss-cross wind, thus it's meant to feed off the spool on an upright spindle. Care must be taken that the thread doesn't reel off the spool too fast or freely.

Here's a series of photos from beginning to end for Carol's piece, one of the ladies who had never dreamed of working this way.
She had brought big scraps of that jungle print. She did a good job of snipping it into bits and rearranging it all.Carol played with a lot of different blues for the sky and created her own wind blown garden.Another feature of this workshop was learning my tricks to couch yarn as an edge finish as well as a surface decoration. The instruction sheet was taken from the tutorial I posted here.

Here's Patty happily sharing her creation at the end of the day.
I'm grateful to Patty for taking and sharing these photos PLUS those in this album I've posted on Picasa. Go there to see the progression of many pieces created dynamically by those twenty quilters as well as classroom scenes thoughout the day.

PS: To read good thoughts and reasons for using Bottom Line thread for machine quilting go to Kathy Yorks blog and scroll down to her post for November 22, 2009.