The COOLEST blog!!! Check this out!

http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/2008/07/s-journaling.html

This is a tutorial on making your own art journal. I've read this beginning post, and I'm not reading another until I get my own journal--who knows, maybe I will make one out of watercolor paper; I have the paper and now I also have an excuse!

Have y'all seen the Ning communities? I found the link to Sarah's blog here on Artful Journaling, which is part of this community http://fiberartsmixedmedia.ning.com/ Fiber Arts/Mixed Media.

OH MY WORD... I had to come back and edit this to add another one. Check this one out, too! http://rivergardenstudio.typepad.com/ This is River Garden Studio, and it was a little slow to load, even on highspeed, but oh my, so VERY worth the wait! Roxanne is an art teacher and VERY amazing artist; her blog is filled with inspiring images!

Comments! and more pics

Hello Ari, Lisa, and those who have commented privately! Thank you so very much! *huge grin* I really appreciate that you took the time to read my blog and also to comment!

Ari, I looked up the book you recommended, Stitch Graffiti. Here are a couple links I found in following the trail, so to speak. http://www.monsterbubbles.com/index.html This is the author's website, and she has three images in her gallery right now. There's also a link called "stuff" that takes you to a page that's like an artist's portfolio--it has links to everything she's published and the TV shows she's appeared on.

The company that publishes the book also publishes PieceWork magazine, a truly inspirational work! Here is a link to their free projects page. http://www.interweave.com/needle/projects_articles.asp

Lisa, thank you for your lovely comments! I figured anyone who is so much inspiration needs to be acknowledged!

Here is the progression on my first strip-pieced fabric. I knew the minute I read a tutorial on strip piecing that I could do it... but I didn't know how successfully, and I SURE didn't know that it's magic! So amazing!

Here they are, in order, as I sewed the strip in half again and again and opened it out each time. I started with 2 inch wide strips of fabric and sewed them together at the short ends with quarter inch seams, to sew the strips into one humongously long strip, piece after piece. Then I folded that long skinny thing in half and sewed up the long side, again with quarter inch seams. I confess I was just dying to see what would happen when I cut that short little fold open the first time. It was interesting.

Then the second time, folding it in half and sewing up the long side, cutting the short little fold open... the length halved and the width doubled again... how cool!
The third time, I began to get an inkling of what I had done.... it began to look like a real piece of fabric!
Then my dears, the finish... and I realized what magic I held in my hands. From a pile of strips--your basic pieces of nothing much and not very special-- I created this stripedy wonder:
You see here a piece of fabric that is big enough to make a cover for the back of that hard wooden chair! It is absolutely magic!

Here is the thing that told me what I had REALLY done, though.

There, do you see that?! I draped the fabric over the back of the chair to check the size, stepped back... and saw custom decorator fabric in MY Craft Room!!! Not just that... custom decorator fabric that *I* made!

See? I told you it was magic!

The second piece of fabric is twice as big. Pressing out all those teeny seams last night took quite a while, and I enjoyed it except for the part where my injured knee complained mightily about having to stand for so long--but yanno, once the seams were all pressed and the fabric was finished-looking, I was certainly impressed with it and with myself! *grins*I think my next step is to stay-stitch and wash my thrift store fabrics. I bought several pieces of white for backing, and a yellow blanket to cut apart and use in lieu of batting. This chair cover set (seat and back) is going to take some heavy wear, so I think I will line my Custom Decorator Fabric (lol!!) with the white fabric, use the (bright yellow, lol) blanket-batting, and then back the assembly with the green corduroy, a wonderful fine-wale deep hunter/forest green corduroy that I also found at the thrift store. The color is so deep that I can't actually tell which it is, hunter or forest--but it coordinates and that's what matters to me. The ties will most likely be from the corduroy, but other than that, I haven't yet worked out the design. I'm okay as long as I know the next step to take--stay-stitching.