I made this card for a special friend and I used MistyFuse to adhere the outer edge with some of that great fabric I found in the city. I also used the embossing MistyFuse technique for the center.

Cyanotype Printing

You know I'd never heard of this before reading Maggie's blog. This process looks really interesting where you use sunlight. Has anyone else done this before? Looks like you might need a bunch of materials. Any thoughts...greatly appreciated.

Also found this website that has supplies...I think they even sell the pretreated fabric...interesting.

No Stone Unturned

We are doing a trade on SurfaceDesign where you create something influenced by a Jan and Jean technique. I was thumbing through books and came across "No Stone Unturned". There are a lot of great ideas in there. I built up many layers experimenting. And, I also used my MistyFuse embossing technique this works great. In their book they talk about adding demensional paints but you have to wait for these to dry. But, with my method, instant gratification. I also zapped some felt and added layers of cheese cloth. I layered each layer with MF and really made it easier to layer. It's not quite a stone..but I love the surface.

BTW, for those of you who don't know, two of their new books just came out!

Central Park

I thought these pictures were really lovely of Central Park...they span a couple of years and were taken by my MIL.

Doreen tagged me...so here it is...


Seven honest things about yourself

1. I often find myself buying things with the thoughts.. "hmmm, this has a great future use"...and as a consequence I believe I have too many things and spend way too much money! Speaking of future uses (lol), read down for my latest example.

2. I have lots of time to think about things and little time to actually focus. I have two young children that take up most of my time.

3. I own too many books I haven't read.

4. I'm jealous of those of you who are able to go on workshops and quilt trips.

5. I too often worry about what other people will think.

6. I need to take things a little more easy and stop thinking about the future and being on time or making the optimal use of time. The other day I was out shopping and I was getting my daughter into the car when my son (who I should learn more from) started splashing around in water puddles with no concept of time or what was to be done next and I was rushing him into the car telling him to hurry up. Sometimes..we should all just live in the moment and enjoy.

7. All in all, I really do have a good life...so why complain!



And, on to my latest acquisition, I found this fabric on sale and really thought how basic and interesting it is. It really brings me back to school when we had to map things out on graph paper. Wouldn't it be interested to do a quilt equation? Maybe, I need to ask my husband..haha..he's the math expert...this fabric has some possibilities!

Garment District Finds

This first picture was my most expensive purchase but I just loved the fabric it is a silk and had a matching chiffon with grey and black circles.

The laces and trims were unbelievable. I really love the copper look so I settled on some copper trim and also some gold trim. These were not badly priced. I got them for $2 a yard. They are so ornate and shimmery. I also came across some great metallic netted prints and a really beautiful lace cloth that I am going to dye in parts. All in all, I am very happy with what I have and I hope to show you these things in a piece.


They also sold this really fine chiffon but this is silk chiffon from France. I am thinking the thin scarfs that I see that are being used in projects are polyester chiffon? Anyways, I have to do some research on this because silk chiffon is really expensive $30 a yard.


I also thought it was really great how you could get swatches of material so one of the shops I went into had them already cut so I grabbed a few.

Garment District

I took a trip through the fashion district today. I haven't been in the city in a couple of years so I thought it would be a nice opportunity to get out.

First stop was Mood fabrics... I had to stop by as I LOVE Project Runway and this is the place they go to. All I have to say is...I don't know how they get their fabrics in one hour. It was so overwhelming.
The garment district has so many little shops selling notions, trims, and fabrics. I saw so many different fabrics that I felt really overwhelmed. So, many different types of knits, silks, brocades etc!
Tomorrow I will take pictures of my finds but here are a few pictures of the places I visited. The information booth in the garment district had a big button and needle which I thought was really cute. My favorite place was B & J fabrics. It's amazing how much a yard of fabric can run...some fabrics could be $200 a yard...can you imagine? I did splurge and bought one that was $30 a yard but even then I thought that was quite expensive. If you do go, bring your scissors! I didn't realize it but some of the shops let you take swatches. So, you can get a small swatch of some of that $200 fabric for free!