A touch of Amish

I forgot how addictive playing with images was. I am having a lot of fun with these. This photograph of an Amish carriage was taken in Middlebury, Indiana. I was careful to make sure that there were no Amish people around as they don't like having their photographs taken and I well understand that neither would I.

I had a play around with it in PSP. I had thought of buying a sketch filter for PSP but found that you can make pencil or charcoal sketches without it.

I wil play around with more photographs and then perhaps combine one or two to make a collage and then print them on fabric - I am planning on using Evolon and Lutradur to print them onto together with cotton. I just need to get a good collection first to get an idea how the journal will look.

Chicago Bubble

I love this effect. I used the artistic- bubbles filter in Paint Shop Pro with a few tweaks.

This is the original image I took on holiday.

Chicago Journal (Cont'd)

I have been busy playing with more images.

This is a picture of a piece of art we saw in Chicago as part of Art in the Park. This is made from old parts of car exhausts etc.

This is a picture of the reflections of buildings in the windows. I love taking photographs like this.Here they are playing in Paint Shop Pro. It's a good way to play with the program and learn how to add filters and different effects.

I am off to teach class today. Thanks for dropping by.

Chicago Journal

Well I have finally finished my judging course. I will mail it to my tutor tomorrow when I can get to the post office. This has been a long two year haul and I am glad to be finished, well subject to Module 6 being signed off that is (keep your fingers crossed for me).

Now it's time to play. I went to America earlier this year and took a lot of photographs when we visited from Chicago to Kentucky and back again. I want to make a Journal of my journey and so I have started playing with some of the photographs I took in order to incorporate them in the journal.

Here is the first one:

This one was taken from the top of the Sears building in Chicago. I have some wonderful pictures from there. I am going to look through them and follow Gloria's tutorial on her blog as they are panorama type shots.

I played around with the photograph in Paint Shop Pro and then had a further play around with it in Corel Painter Essentials 4. This is the result. I think this will look great printed on fabric. I have treated some Evolon and plan on using that and this image for the front of the journal. I will post pictures of my progress.

Thanks for dropping by.

2007 Journal Quilt home

My 2007 Journal Quilt has arrived home. It has been exhibited at Houston, Chicago and the new show in California.

It is made from my own hand dyed fabric. I then masked, using masking tape, some areas of the quilt and roller painted it to change its colour. I then free motion quilted some areas leaving the masked area unquilted. I added seed beads and little white "rings" which have rhinstones in the centre of them. It's good to see it home again.

New Book - Digital Essentials

I have been waiting for this book for ages. I knew it would be good. Gloria Hansen is an award winning quilter and website designer. I first heard about Gloria when I started quilting 11 years ago when I read The Quilters Computer Companion. That was my first encounter with printing on fabric - my 3D piece for Part 1 City and Guilds was influenced by Gloria's Carousel quilt - although mine was no where as good!

Carousel Box by Carol

This is a must have book for those intrested in Digital images and it covers even more. You can visit Gloria's website here and her blog here.

Quilt top finished

Here's the finished quilt top. I just have to layer and quilt it now. I am delighted with the end result as I think it shows off the lovely fabrics to perfection.

I am teaching class this afternoon and then we have a week break for mid term.

Bakkers, the plant people, delivered my order of some shrubs yesterday and must get them planted. It' s a lovely sunny day here with clear blue skies - wonderful.

Have a wonderful day and thank you for dropping by my blog.

Blog Award

Today is the second Blog action day where thousands of bloggers talk about poverty. There is always something we can do to help no matter how small it might seem. It's quite incredible in this day and age the level of poverty there is in the world.

Apart from contributing to various charities when I can I have been sponsoring a little boy from Djilor, Senegal. Contributions don't go to the child directly they go to help the village where he lives to help with schooling and community projects. If you would like to sponsor a child then you can get information from Actionaid. Every little helps.

My sincere thanks to Susan (Random Blethers) for the above blog award.

I need to nominate seven other blogs so here goes:

Dianne
Tonniece
Sandy
CarolT
Lynda
Shirley
Mags

It's always tough choosing blogs to give awards to and I usually just include everyone as I enjoy reading and am inspired by so many blogs I read. Time at the PC has been scarce but life is good and I am busy in my studio just nothing I can share at the moment.

I was tickled pink yesterday when I visited Kaleidoscope quilt shop. I was asked if I was the "famous" Carol Clasper - how funny is that? Anyway I said I wasn't sure about famous but I was Carol Clasper. I wonder what I am famous for ............ should I be worried?

I am busy trying to get my Module 6 work finished as it has to be handed in by the end of this month.

I was gifted a lovely selection of fat quarters from one of my students in my Thursday afternoon class on her return from New Zealand. I wanted to make something with the fabrics and so I have been busy with a French Braid quilt. I have used her fabrics and added a few from my stash. The piecing is finished I just have the sashing and borders to add and of course the quilting.


I am planning on putting black separator bands and a purple border.

Thank you for dropping by.