Sentimental Cloth
76 Bond Street East K0M 1N0 Fenelon Falls, ON, Canada

One of the many reasons that Wayne and I purchased our historic home on Bond St. was the front entrance. It's beautifully proportioned with a room off the side that I use for my studio. It would be difficult to find a better location to showcase my work than in my own gallery. The gallery strips that I designed in collaboration with Chris Handley, of Handley Lumber are perfect for the job. Simple with clean lines yet completely invisible when and where they are not being used. Thank you to Geoff Coleman for doing such a good job with the creation and installation of this lovely addition to my home.

The word no does not seem to be in my vocabulary when it comes to gifts for my stash. This black and white bird print was no exception. It totally fascinated me. The coloured birds were created using images from the print, embellishing them with bits of cloth I had on hand then placing them on pieces of grape vine for a bit more three dimension. All the birds are inspired by species of similar shape from around the world. I'm currently contemplating a piece that is black ...and white images of leaves. It will be interesting to see what happens as the creation unfolds. Coming up with 7 images to share has been a very interesting experience. Thank you Dianne Lister for nominating me for the challenge. I am nominating Susan Taylor Simpson for the next round.

Another really interesting challenge. This piece was actually created on three separate layers of netting that were stretched individually then placed one in front of the other. The embroidery pieces that I was given to work with had a number of repeats so I decided to create something three dimensional instead of flat. This piece also had to travel to the west coast so size was a very important factor. It didn't photograph particularly well (not my strength) but does look pretty spectacular in real life.

This is what happens when a box of cloth with a photo at the bottom ends up in my studio. The cloth was a lifetime collection of pieces garnished from favorite things. The photo was a baptism on the shores of Georgian Bay. This is a "continuing story" visual poem incorporating every piece of fabric the was in the box. The back of the piece has instructions for making additional cloth beads. Any new special cloth can be made into a bead then added to either the crowd a the shoreline or the treeline on the far side of the bay.

This bear is a different from most of the memory bears I create. In this case it was made using a commercial pattern rather than being an individualized character built using my ghost bears for parts. Nana's Bear was made from a pattern that Nana gave me when my girls were tiny. She is made from a towel Nana used to use with button eyes that came from her button jar as are the button joints. The fringe on the ears is the towel edging. She is definitely Nana. As with all the creatures I create, fussy cutting (the art of cutting precise pieces) made a huge difference to the overall effect.

Once upon a time I came across a book devoted to the creation of puzzle balls. (It's in storage at the moment;/) I've always thought that it would be interesting to create a bowl full of balls with each ball telling the story of a different member of a family or group of friends. An interesting way to create a never ending story. This one was created with old hankies and bits of lace.

I've always really enjoyed working with organza. Carefully managed it can work a bit like watercolour, every layer that is applied changes to background fabric just a bit. This piece is organza over plaid silk, with a nod to the Log Cabin quilt square.