Flowers at Biltmore, Asheville North Carolina

Had a chance to visit Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC last week. My girls had spring break, so we took a road trip over the mountain. The weather was great, as was the company. It couldn't have been a better day. The feature at the estate was a Downton Abby costume exhibit, showing costumes from all seasons of the show throughout the big house. Cannot show pic from that since they don't allow photographs. Instead I wanted to post a few of the orchids from the green houses, just thought they were worth showing. Possibly inspiration for future quilts.

As you can tell it was warm and cold that day, or maybe one is cold natured and the other warm natured. Either way the best road trip crew around!

Felting fun at Appalachian Center in Norris, Tennessee

A Saturday in March I had the pleasure of having 6 wonderful ladies come for a Nuno-felting workshop at the Appalachian Arts Craft Center in Norris. It is a small town in east Tennessee, promoting local arts and crafts. The Gallery features textiles, wood crafts, pottery, jewelry, photographs, paintings, class works and paper art. If you are in the area, stop by and check it out.


Karen, Beth, Darlene, Sheila, Julie and Cindy chose the silk they
wanted to use. It was white, black or dyed by me. All options
worked great, and we ended up with a very attractive assortment
of scarves.

Karen at work laying out merino wool.

Beth working with white chiffon and spring colors.

A few more lay outs. Top pic is Darlene's bronze dyed silk and Karen's multi-colored silk.

The bottom pic has Beth's white silk base and Cindy's black silk.

Julie is trowing her scarf to finish the felting process. She worked a very light weight white scarf in beautiful spring colors, purples, greens and yellow

 Some of the felted scarves, after drying they can be steamed to hold the shape and add softness to the wool.

And now wear your beautiful creations!

Beat the winter blues.

A great group made the trip to the Folkschool even though there was lots of snow and ice on the ground. Luckily, the roads were clear and it made for a beautiful drive over the mountain.
This was a class in Transfer paints on fabric, and a short weekend got pretty intense. This is one of my favorite things to teach. Dye is made into paint, which are applied to paper. The paint from the paper is transferred to fabric with heat.The wonderful results tells you it was worth it!


This is a section of a larger piece I worked on, my homage to the ice and snow we have had this year. I have enjoyed it very much.

Denny Webster from South Carolina has a very creative mind. She had a very clever way to use stencils and  cut-outs, unique to her style. By the time she adds stitching and possibly embellishments, she will have a few awesome pieces.

 A few more pieces of Denny's production during the weekend. Samples and t-shirts.

Debi Osbourne from South Carolina, created some very vibrant samples and an orange scarf (I am just a little bit partial to orange). Some of these will make it into a wall quilt.

Sy LaWing from North Carolina had the most patience as she completely covered a large shawl with lacy transfers on both sides, impressive and beautiful.

Detail of  the  shawl. Using the lace as a resist creates the patter. Sy totally mastered this look.

                                                         A few more of Sy's lacy
                                                          transfers.

Kate Weston from South Carolina also loved working with the lace. The photo doesn't show very clearly how delicate the t-shirts are, using lace transfer along the sides and around the neck area.
Kate also discovered that the newspapers we used to paint on and meant to trow away, was another source to use , and that they transferred really well. So now we cannot throw away the scrap paper either! Thanks Kate.

This is also very delicate, but the straws from around the corner of the studio has a lot of promise. Kate will add some stitching and texture and turn this into a very exiting piece.

Jeanette Carpenter from Tennessee made several leaf samples, and enough to turn some of them into a wall quilt. Great colors and patterning will turn this into a really good quilt.

Transfer paint gives a very layered effect, often with a surprising "pattern". This comes from how the heat from the iron is distributes and how the paint has been applied to the paper. Every one works differently and will have different results. Jeanette was able to add many colors  to one piece, and by stitching around the leaves she will make each one of them special.