Where does the time go.

We're only a week away from Christmas and as always I'm really struggling to find time in the studio. I was late sending my friend's Christmas card to Nova Scotia and didn't make the cut off for Britain at all. So I guess I'll just give it up and send a letter after all the Christmas prep is done. Hopefully I'll be forgiven. Christmas just isn't my time of year.  I feel that I can't devote the time I want for my projects and it's getting more and more frustrating for me as the ideas are there and just no time to put them into action.

This is the postcard that I made for my friend in Mona in Nova Scotia. It got mailed late, so if you see this Mona...Merry Christmas...it's coming. The background is a Christmas fabric from my stash...I don't have much Christmas fabric because it's not my favorite holiday. Then I dismantled a fabric poinsettia that someone had used to decorate a present of mine last year and stitched it in layers to the postcard. I beaded the centre and then added some blue Lumiere paint as an accent.

The next project is the surface design challenge #2 so the pictures are just samples of the section that I completed on this persons dress design. The dress pattern came to me with sections already done that show it to be a special evening dress. Therefore I wanted it to have a sparkle but this time I didn't want to bead it. I started with cigarette wrappers that I glued to canvas.

Then I decided that I wanted to overlay a loose woven, decorator fabric, with cassette tape woven through the loose weave. This picture is showing how I wove the cassette tape very loosely and exactly how it was...I wasn't worried about it twisting...that's exactly what I wanted it to do. I wanted the light to catch it and I wanted it dimensional rather than flat.

This picture is showing the finished section with a 1/4" seam around it. I really like the effect although I am concerned about how stiff the section is compared to the other sections already completed. Well...I can't fret about it because it's deadline day and it needs to pass on to the next person.