You would have thought I had known where this pillow was going to go and made it to match the room.  But I didn’t know and was so surprised when Paula and Pam sent me this photo of my pillow on their couch. ( I love the pink walls!)

So if you like horses, dance and movement, then check out Paula’s website: Horse Dancing.  And if you like horses painting and photography check out Pam White.

one of Pam White's prints

Here’s my second try at my Wild Woman Within pillow almost finished (I ran out of pillow stuffing so it’s not quite done).

As I was stitching in the last donkey, (really the first donkey, but I stitched her last) the obvious idea of a path came to mind.  Then, I felt the  anger rise in me.  I was suddenly annoyed and angry at the idea of following the old path, of doing things the way they have always been done.   Find your own way, I almost shouted, but started stitching instead.

It wasn’t until I got to the “o” in “own” that I realized I was writing  backwards.  It was so strange, and I’ve never done this before, and once I realized I was doing it I had to really concentrate on how to continue writing backwards.

I still don’t know what happened, but I’m intrigued.  I wonder what will happen next.

The words are:  “The wild woman within walks the woods of my soul, before my heart could sing I dreamed of love, The snake of my spine is an arrow of confidence, find you own way”.

find your own way, written backwards

This pillow is for sale.  It’s $85 + $10 shipping.  If you’re interested just email me at maria@fullmoonfiberart.com or go to CONTACT ME.

The first piece with the mistake

I started this streaming piece this morning and after I stitched the words the wild woman within walks in the woods of my being I realized I forgot the in on within.  One of my streaming rules is that I don’t remove stitches because there are no mistakes.  But it was different with these words, they came to me and I just wrote them wrong.  (I have corrected words on other pieces when I’ve misspelled them)  I was so happy with the piece and the words looked  good, so I stared at it  for a while, hoping it might suddenly make sense,  before taking my stitch remover to it.   As I pulled out the stitches I saw that they left tiny  holes in  the fabric. I tried to flatten them out, but the fabric was unforgiving.   I stitched the correct words anyway, hoping they would cover the holes.  Then I stitched over them.  But it was not use, it just got worse and worse.

So after 3 hours of work I got another piece of fabric and started over.  Once again I’m learning how the mistakes are all apart of the work.  And that you can’t continuously be creative hour after hour, day after day.  Some days I just don’t have it and it’s best to know when to keep at it and when to stop.

But today’s mistake was really just that, a mistake, not “one of those days”.  As I searched for a new piece of fabric I thought, this one will even be better.  I didn’t get to finish it today, but it’s stuck in my head and I’ll be back at it in the morning, picking up where I left off as if I never stopped.

The second piece

The Daily Egg

Well, I finally did it.  I now have paypal and have set it up so it’s easy to purchase Jon’s Note Cards.  I thought I’d try it out by offering The Daily Eggs cards, perfect for Easter.

So if you’d like a pack of The Daily Egg Notc Cards  (Or one of the other packs on my For Sale page) just click on  Pieces For Sale. 

The note cards are $15 per pack + $5 shipping (click the BUY NOW button for  further shipping details and to purchase note cards)  or you can still do it the old fashioned way and email me at maria@fullmoonfiberart.com or CONTACT ME and pay with a check.  Don’t forget to let me know which pack you want.

There's A Butterfly In My Eye

I woke up last night from a dream yelling “HELP” ( I woke up Jon too)  It was the second dream I had where I was being chased or attacked.  So before falling asleep again, I told myself that my next dream would a good one.

I woke up in the morning from a fun and colorful dream.  I was riding  a strangely shaped unicycle on a busy sidewalk through a small city.  It was sunny and warm and I stopped by an old man who was sitting under a tree with a short legged dog with a human face.  The man had one eye closed and there was a small iridescent spot on his eyelid.  When I asked him about it the spot turned into a butterfly and flew away.  The old man said, “I have a butterfly in my eye”.  He explained that it had been caught in the fold of his eyelid.

When I told Jon the dream he said, ” That sounds like your next piece”.

I started with an old yellowed and lacy handkerchief over a pink flower print.  Then I pulled out my suede butterfly fabric that I must have gotten just for this piece.  Then the blue butter fly print and I was happily surprised when I came across the bicycle print which I didn’t think to use until I saw it in my cabinet.

When I first stitched the girls mouth it looked like she was horrified.  So I got out my stitch remover (eraser) and changed it so she looks like she having fun, which she is.  The little dog-like creature comes from the human-faced dog which was just too ugly to recreate.

It’s definitely as busy, colorful and happy  and incomprehensible as my dream was.

Butterfly Eye  is  for sale SOLD.  It’s about 12 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ and is $60 + $8 shipping.  If you’re interested just email me at maria@fullmoonfiberart.com  or go to CONTACT ME.

Thread residue

Last Friday was so warm I didn’t have to light a fire in the studio, I just opened the windows and let the warm air in.  So I wasn’t wearing my slippers either. When I came into the house, I looked at my sock, and this is what I saw.  Well, I was just delighted!

Jon was good enough to take a picture, although he wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was.

I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can explain to anyone, ( I certainly can’t explain it)  they either get it or they don’t.  Is it just me, or does the idea of the threads of a days work randomly and rather beautifully stuck to a sock, strike a cord of wonder and delight?

Izzy in my studio, he doesn't care about Pay Pal

Yesterday I decided instead of going through my web designer to get Pay Pal on my site, I’d try to do it myself.  So today, I visited Connie at Battenkill  Books and she helped me figure out what would work best for me.  ( Connie recently got Pay Pal on her website so I consider her an expert and she was willing to give me advice) I’m not usually  good at this kind of thing, but I figured so many other people do it, why couldn’t I?  Connie was so helpful ( and spoke in a computer language I could understand) that by the time I got home I knew just what I wanted to do.

I would have a BUY NOW button for Jon’s notecards and my patchwork potholders and use Pay Pal invoices for everything else.  This means if someone want to purchase one of my pieces using Pay Pal instead of a check I’ll email them an Pay Pal invoice and they can pay online.  (I’m sure everyone but me already knows this)

Signing in and getting Pay Pal Invoices was easy.  (I’m still figuring out the BUY NOW buttons) It was so easy, that when I had successfully done it, I didn’t know I was finished.   When I sent my first test invoice to Jon, I was surprised it worked.  I still don’t think I’ll really believe I have Pay Pal until I make my first transaction.

So next week, when I get my BUY NOW button working, I’ll offer some  of Jon’s  Spring time notecards and try it out.

My desk at the end of the day and the next morning.

I never read Virginia Woolf’s   A Room Of Ones Own, but I quote the title often.

When I was fixing up the Studio Barn, making it mine, I found I couldn’t stop crying.  I cried when I cleaned it out, I cried when I vacuumed the ceiling,  I cried when I  painted the walls and floor, I cried when I washed the windows, I cried when I moved my loom and fabric in.

It wasn’t just that I had a space of my own to work in when I chose to and to do with exactly as I pleased.  It was as if I was finding a part of myself that had been hidden, even from me, my whole life.  It seemed I had tucked the artist I was, safely away in a deep pocket within me and now it was re-emerging.  My whole life I had given pieces of myself away, and moving into the Studio Barn was my first step in becoming whole again.  And Jon was the one who offered it to me, not just the space, but the gift of seeing, through someone else’s eyes, who I really was.  And I took that gift and ran with it.

And now, at this point in my life, I couldn’t imagine not having a studio. Someplace outside of the house, (I’m not strong enough to resist the pull of a sink full of dishes or a dryer full of clothes.) Where at the end of the day I can leave the scraps of fabric on the floor and the half finished work on my desk, cover my machine, turn off the lights and leave in a moment’s notice.  Then come back the next morning and find everything exactly as I left it.

What a gift, and I take it gratefully, every day and every night.

This pillow came to me pretty easily, it’s all about moving and movement.

“Migration of being, Heart move my feet while my head sleeps, wake up to stillness, wisdom is slow”

This pillow is already sold.

First day of Spring