Giveaway Winner, and... The Art of Play

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway! I greatly enjoyed reading what made a year a favorite, and by far I would say that a connection to family and home, marriage and birth, all seemed to be among the top of peoples lists! Congratulations to Rachel of Fog and Thistle you're the winner! I will be contacting you and sending you your calendar ASAP!
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The Art of Play:



My focus on my new line of functional art quilts, (see here, here, here and here) has been derailed by a lack of clear focus and a massive wave of media induced, political ADD. So much is going on outside of me, that I am having a difficult time tuning in the old brain waves into producing clean and simple design. I am the first to admit that I tend to absorb the emotions around me, and am not the best with keeping myself centered. I have come to learn that for me, art is always a response to what ever I am feeling emotionally, and during these last few weeks my emotions have been pretty much disgust with the grown-ups running this world.


Creatively, I have only wanted to rebel from all the seriousness, and play like a 5 year old with her box of wonderfully smelling, newly sharpened crayolas. Scribbling to her hearts content.


However, instead of opening up my magic box of crayons, I turned to fabric and the pages of an old children's dictionary.


The illustrations were done by Joseph Low. I love his style! They take me back and make me feel all happy inside.




I used mostly vintage fabrics,




and kept the edges raw.


Simple embellishment was done with a tiny bit of hand embroidery, text from the dictionary, machine stitching and a few vintage buttons.

I am anxious to get back to my functional art quilts, but I still feel like I need to do a little bit more artful playing. To see each of the little sewn collages in their entirety, go here, here and here. Now go play!