Bobbin Magic

Oh, my! Other than some Booking through Thursday posts, I haven't posted about any creative ventures in 3 weeks ... need to change that right now! Earlier this week I was able to take a workshop with Pat Nelson called Bobbin Magic. She taught us how to fiddle with the bobbin cases on our sewing machines so that we could make really neat stitches with wonderful threads. This is the sample I made in the class. The trunk is a whipstitch and the flowers and leaves are done with 2 variations of a feather stitch. I really enjoyed the class and look forward to playing more with these techniques. As for the tree, not sure what I'm going to do with it ... I'm thinking of adding a few more flowers around the base of the tree and then maybe using it for a pocket on a tote or something. Or maybe I'll just trim it and tack it to the design wall for a little inspiration ....

Booking through Thursday 9/28/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you own any bookends? If so, how many sets? If not, do you need or want any? I don't have any actual bookends on my shelves ... instead I use other things as bookends, like interesting, large knick-knacks or sturdy vases. And sometimes I arrange a stack of books as a bookend.


2. Which are your favorites? How long have you had them? My favorite is this large iron jack. It used to be on my mom's bookshelf and now it's been on one of my shelves for over 15 years.

Booking through Thursday 9/21/06

Booking Through Thursday

But, enough about books. . . what else do you read?? Magazines? Newspapers? Professional journals? Cereal boxes? Phone books? Purchase invoices? Homework? (Please be specific. There may be a test later.) I read just about anything ... if it has words on it, I read it. And sometimes I read things 2-3 times! Seriously, though, I read magazines (quilt mags that I subscribe to and other mags that my mil gives me from time to time), our curriculum stuff (and I'm also currently rereading my personal library of homeschool help books), lots of internet sites (mostly about homeschooling, lapbooking and notebooking at this time, with a little art thrown in), and just about any stray papers that I come across. On top of all that, I read lots of kids' books to my girls ... at least 2 (and often 3-4) each night before bed. Whew!

Booking through Thursday 9/14/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you tend to read more books written by one gender over the other?


2. If so, which one? Men? Or women? Is this a deliberate choice? Or just something that kind of happened?


3. And (without wanting to get too personal), is this your gender?

I don't prefer one gender over the other when it comes to authors ... if they write well, I'll read their books, that's the bottom line. However, these questions made me notice that most of the darker, more mysterious stuff I read is written by men, and most of the lighter, funnier stuff is written by women. Not sure if that's because of them or because of me!

Reading journal

Another reading journal entry, for the book Sequence by Lori Andrews.

Booking through Thursday 9/7/06

Booking Through Thursday

1. We asked last week about what draws you to your favorite kind/genre of book. This week, we want to know--how often do you depart from that comfort zone? If you love mysteries, do you ever read fantasy? If you primarily read cookbooks, do you ever read a good romance? I love murder mysteries, most, I guess, but I do often read other things, too ... most genres and also some nonfiction (mostly about quilting, altered art and homeschooling at this time) catch my eye often. I'll basically read just about anything if it gets a good review from a friend or other reliable source/book list. The only fiction I don't like is sappy romance novels LOL!


2. How MUCH variety is there in your reading? Do you mostly stick to one type, with just the occasional toe-dip into a different style? Or do you generally read a variety of things, just, maybe more of your favorite style than anything else? I read quite a variety of things, really. I'd have to say that murder mysteries is more than 1/2, but probably less than 3/4 of what I read. The rest is a mixture of everything else I like.

First reading journal entry

Remember the reading journal I created? Well, I finally made my first entry in it last night. I couldn't decide what book to do first, but then I finished a book (Echo Burning by Lee Child) over the weekend and decided to start there.

Art journal page

Over the weekend I did another page in my art journal. The egg, birds and quote on the right page are packing tape transfers ... very cool technique!

Art journal pages

I did two more gluebook-style pages ... one yesterday and one today. The first one is in response to the challenge to portray the group's mascot, the glue monkey ... too fun! The second one is one that I put together after I found the question that I glued to the right page ... "what makes you comfortable?"

Calendar journal -- August 2006

Here's my August 2006 page. The background was done with chalks.