Finally finished....well, maybe!

Hi everyone,

I thought I would show you the finished purse. Although, I am thinking of adding a liner and maybe some little sprinkles of beads near the beaded bezel....but since I want to think about that before I add them (if I do), I am declaring it done! I really had a great time doing this....it combines a lot of my favorite things....fabric, thread, beads, polymer, PMC and glass. I am going to wear it to the Art and Soul Retreat that I am going to next week. I am going to take a weeks worth of classes....some to actually learn something I don't know and some just for fun (those would be the Zentangle classes!). Although, I don't know how to transfer those Zentangle designs to fabric which I am looking forward to. I am hoping I will be albe to transfer them to fabric that I can then work into the nuno felt. Let the games begin!!! I am also taking a class with Chad Alice Hagen...she makes some wild felted pieces and I have seen her work at the ACC shows for years! We are going to learn how to dye the felt in all sorts of different ways! I used to dye fabric and do shibori and Katazome silk painting, so I am excited to see how I can transfer these ideas to felt for my purses....!!!!!

For those of you who are following my rings on the Flickr RAW project...don't give up on me...I have been working on some new rings and will get back to the project when I get back from the retreat. I have 4 or 5 laid out....one has a polymer bezel with the stone laid into the surface and is four fingers long.....one may become a pendant, but we'll see. I am still trying to use little bits and pieces to make these rings so I can try to out wait the cost of silver. I may have to turn in my 5lbs of scrap so I can buy a kiln to do bronze clay in. Who doesn't need four kilns!!? Maybe I should get one for glass and porcelain too!! No, that's just crazy!! One at a time!!!

I may not post while I am at the retreat....depends on how tired I get....I am taking 8 or 9 class in 6 days.....a bit crazy, but I want to get all I can out of the experience! So, I hope you will all have fun in your studios while I am gone....I will try to post, but I am not promising....Kelly

P.S. The photos, in order are, the front of the purse, the second is a close up of some of my polymer and PMC beads and the last photo is the back of the purse showing the bead I used as the closure. Hope you like it......K

Show News.....

Hi everyone,

Well, I just posted my show news onto the Metal Clay Magazine blogspot and hopefully, Jeanette won't kill me for that, since I didn't yack about metal clay. Oh, well, what are you going to do?? So, I will now tell you all about the work of the last couple of weeks.....I was waiting to go back into the studio after the the kitchen flooded....had to wait for the light to dry out and while I was waiting, I got a call from Darlene to ask if I wanted to share the booth at the show in Philly. I had enough beads and polymer cabs to go with but I wanted something new to have to attach beads to....how many necklaces does a person actually need? So, I decided to make some nuno felt. I had learned how to make nuno felt down at Carol Hamilton's back in Feb and thought that might be a great background to sew beads to. So, I did a lot of research and got a lot of silk tops and wool roving and went to work! My dining room became a make-shift workroom along with the kitchen and I now have multi-colored silk and wool dust bunnies of various sizes all over the house! But I do also have some great looking felted pieces! I was really happy with the response they got! I picked out three pieces for myself to use as samples and then put the rest out for sale. They were like honey to the bees...everyone wanted to come over to the booth and touch them! I started sewing some beads onto one of the sample pieces so I could show everyone what I was thinking what I had mad the felt for. I am making mine into a small cell phone purse, which is funny, since I don't have a cell phone! My friends are hoping that after I am done, I will love my purse so much that I will buy a cell phone! Not! I am doing all the beadwork first and then I will sew up the back seam with some decorative threads or silk ribbons and some sari silk ribbons for the straps with some of my polymer beads as accents. I may put in a liner and a tassel at the bottom, or maybe not.....I will post photos as the work progresses.

On another front, I just wanted to tell everyone that I will be teaching a class with Debbie Taylor and Carol Hamilton at the polymer retreat that is taking place in July in Chicago right before the Metal Clay World Conference. The class is three days long with a day each for metal clay, torch firing enamels and polymer clay. Carol will be teaching the metal clay and Debbie will be doing the enamel bit and I will be doing the polymer clay pod bit. There will be a good bit of experimenting in this class. Let me know if you are interested or have any questions.

Have fun in your studios.....Kelly

The first photo is the piece of felt opened with the beadwork on the part that will be the front. If you click on the photo, you will be able to see more detail. The second and third photos are the class project sample. Comments welcome, Kelly