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Guest appearances!

Check it out!  Kim Lapack of Persimon Dreams and the famous Project Quilting has been sewing with my fabrics!

She came to a trunk show that I did at Millhouse Quilts last summer and bought some.

Yes, there are other fabrics in there as well.  Mine are the indigo (duh) and the hand dyed mustard colored fabric.

How awesome is that?

But wait!  There’s more!

A friend just let me know that I have made a guest appearance on Sewing With Nancy and I didn’t even know about it.  It’s really just a half second of a picture of me during the Monona Library Mending Day.  It was a teeny tiny part of a larger story about the amazing and fantastic Sewing Machine Project.

The interview about The Sewing Machine Project starts about 20 minutes in.

A girl can dream:  In my head, I’ve made several recent guest appearances.

 

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Blotch a Day!

I’ve been playing with paint (and tea bags and wine and such) and making faces.  It’s inspired by Carla Sonheim’s Faces 101 class.  I’ve been posting them on my Facebook page (catch up here) but I think it’s time I moved it to the blog.  It’s the way funnest think I’ve done since Monster Monday.  So, here’s today’s Blotch a Day!!

OolangI saw all kinds of faces on this one, depending on the angle.  But this one was the clearest.

Face

 

Tada!  There he or she is.  I think s/he just spotted a quarter on the ground.  What do you think?

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Indigooooo

025 024 023 022 021 019 017 016 015 014 012 011 010 008 007 005The outdoor dyeing season is over in Wisconsin. I dyed a buncha stuff before it was too late though. Here are some scarves and dishtowels I dyed. They are all for sale at the Madison Craft and Gift shop. They seem very nice there. It’s a little different than what I’m used to but worth a try.

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INDIGO!!

INDIGO!!

I can’t get enough of it!  We’re getting ready to have an Indigo Immersion Day this Saturday yet I still set up a vat to play with in my back yard.

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 Pretty freaking awesome!

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Because everybody needs blue socks!

 

photo 2

 

This was excessive, wasn’t it.

photo 1

 

Getting all my toys ready to bring out to Still Point farm.

photo 5

 

Here’s the indigo vat with the flower still on it.  Check my events page if you’re local and want to sign up, it’s not too late!

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Monster Monday (aka Wednesday): Week Four

Sorry, I’ve been crazy busy like, Woah!  I lost track of the days but I’m back!  I tried to post yesterday but the internet was fighting me all the way.  

Week Four:

This week’s supplies: Pen, Music that you like and a piece of paper (Not an index card this time, sorry). Any old paper will do, I used the back of a print out.

m4c

Sit down in a comfy spot with your pen and paper. Play a song that you like. I listened to “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, it’s my favorite song right now. Put the pen to the paper and just follow the music and doodle. Hold the pen loosely and don’t worry about how your scribbles look. Try to keep the pen to paper the whole time and just let it flow. If your chosen song is long, you don’t have to doodle through the whole song. Just doodle until the paper is pretty full and the lines intersect all over.

m4g


Now, try to find some monsters in your big doodle. Rotate the paper around and look for a shape that could be a monster. Keep rotating and looking.

m4d

When you find a shape that could be a monster, draw those monster lines in a little darker. You can add new lines, circles, or whatever works if you think that it will bring the monster out. If you’re having trouble, look for eyes.

m4f

Two big circles that are close to each other. Pupils really help define a monster.

m4e

Monsters are something I love to find, I tend to look for them in floor tiles and clouds.

m4i

I have a friend who said that monsters just don’t jump out to her, flowers do. If you find something other than monsters, that’s great.

m4j

The point is not to bring more monsters into the world, it’s to relax and have fun creating. So if you find something non-monster-y, please send it to me and I’ll share it.

m4h

Jennifer@Jenniferfalkowski.com

m4k

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Mail Art For You

A little Mail Art for you.  

Here’s what I started with.

I made sure to leave spaces for the address and postage.

And then went to town with the Sharpies.

I limited the colors and really had to fight the urge to add green in at the end.

I don’t know where she’s going yet but I hope whoever gets her sends pictures of how well she took to travel.  Sorry, it probably won’t be anyone who reads the blog…so I guess it isn’t really for you.  

If I get pictures of her after her travels, I’ll share them here.

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Pretty Dang Awesome Quilt

I totally forgot to show off my linen quilt now that it’s finished!  Every inch of fabric is linen.  It feel amazing and super soft and light as a feather.

Linen Quilt Front

 

The blue fabric was all dyed with indigo.  It’s from our first couple of times dyeing and we have learned a ton since then.  So it’s splotchy and much lighter than the stuff we dye now.  Still love it, though.

Linen Quilt Back

The back is all from skirts and shirts and thrifted clothing.  I love it so much, it could easily be the front of a quilt I would be proud of.  

Linen Quilt Detail

Here are a few detail pictures.  This is my first tie dyed experiment.  It started as a lavender skirt panel.  Because we use thiox, a dye remover, in our dye vats it has some white to it, too.

Linen Quilt Detail

I did get a titch carried away on the edging as usual.  This is my favorite bit.  I love this combination of colors.

Linen Quilt Detail

This is some of the cool piecing that improvisation quilting can leave you with.  It’s why I love it so much.  It’s interesting and surprising.  Even the worst mistake you can make looks pretty dang awesome. 

On Saturday (November 9th, 2013 for future reference) it’s going to be hung up as part of the Modern Quilt Guild Show at the Sequoya Branch Library in Madison.  I’m going to hang another quilt there too, if there’s room.  I’m just not sure which one.  

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Too much fun

I was having way too much fun to take any pictures at the Madison Print and Resist.  It used to be the Zinefest but there was way more than Zine’s available so they changed the name.  It was a great time.  Here are a few pictures I took with my phone:

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My impromptu sign, in case you couldn’t tell where you were from the…

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…Inviting mess.

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Here’s the only completed project I took a picture of.

And I felt proud to know that I have all the goods to throw together an art table out of my stash of collage materials.  Who said hoarding was all bad.

The Zine’s and prints were amazing and I came home with a big pile of gorgeous work and met some wonderful and inspiring artists.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat!  Even with all the lugging and impossible construction going on all around us.  It was a blast!

 

 

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Mail Art This Weekend!

Hi all you local folks!  This Saturday I am hosting a table at the Madison Print and Resist (formally the Zinefest) as part of the Madison Book Festival in the Helen C. White Hall at 600 N. Park.  Print and Resist is in the College Library.  That’s the library on the first floor in the cafe area.  Here’s the Print and Resist’s awesome fancy poster.

ClairePoster

My mail art table will be (as all mail art should be) entirely free.  I’ll have art supplies and resource for you to play with so make sure to come by and check it out.

Never made mail art?  Well, you totally should!  It’s fun, free and awesome!  If you send me some mail art (with a legible return address) I will totally mail something back to you.

Jennifer Falkowski  
PO Box 6691  
Monona WI 53716-0691
USA
 

I hope I see you there!

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Liebster

I was just nominated for a Liebster Award.  I’ve seen similar things around town…blogging town that would be…and I think it’s awesome.  Here’s a helpful post that describes the general idea.

Kirsti(K)nits nominated me and sent me a great list of questions to answer.  So, here I go:

What is your best advice for a new crafter?
Make mistakes.  They can’t hurt you but the fear of making them can block you like crazy so screw up now and get used it.
QUOTES
What is the strangest thing you’ve ever made?
That’s actually super easy to answer.  I had this dream recently of a mobile out of dried fruit.  Specifically watermelons and cantaloupes.
Right?  I hear the crazy there.  We all know what watermelon is made of.
But I woke up with  such a strong image in my head that I went out right away and bought a dehydrator and got to work.
Mobile
Nope, the watermelon never really worked but I loved the cantaloupe.  I’m really thrilled to have put the energy into it.  They were just for me.  I couldn’t gift them, I couldn’t sell them and they attracted flies and bees.
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Both flies and bees, people.  But I really loved the process and the pointlessness of it.  It gave me a great feeling of freedom around the creative process for process’s sake.
Who is your favorite knit/crochet/sewing/crafty designer?
Yikes, this is way harder to answer because I love so many.  But, I’ll put the first person who jumped into my head, though there are so many talented people out in the world who I so love to follow.  I love India Flint, the natural dyer and dreamer.
Why did you start crafting?
Before falling in love with my husband and having kids, I was an actor. I was recently out of a strict acting conservatory training and feeling very disgruntled with the life in the theatre (I’m ignoring you, spell check, it is so theatre with an RE and not, as you suggest, boring old theater).   It was creative but very demanding and competitive.   However, I was very satisfied (gruntled, you might say) with being a mom of little people.  But after a short while I was hungry for that old creative life.  A good friend of mine taught me how to bend wire to make jewelry and I haven’t stopped obsessively making stuff since.
O-ring Earring
I think we all need to, in whatever way fills us up, create.  Maybe it’s cooking or gardening or fixing electrical circuits, but it’s the creative act and, as humans, we need it.
What is your best advice for a new blogger?
Post more pictures.
Indigo Blue
There are never enough pretty picture to look at.  Oh, and one font will do just fine.
DSCF2145
Why did you start blogging?
To only connect.  That’s just another huge human need.
As part of the Liebster Award dealio, I am going to link to 5 awesome blogs with fewer than 3000 followers and send them some fun questions to answer.  Thanks Kirsti(K)nits!
Here are your questions:
What is your best advice for a new maker?
What is the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Who is your biggest inspiration?
Why did you start making things?
What thing have you always wanted to try to make but haven’t?
What is your best advice for a new blogger?