Me? An Artist?

A chance meeting at church on Sunday led to a fun class on Monday.  The class was painting silk scarves.  I am the first to admit I am not an artist - can't color, can't paint, can't sculpt or draw.  If you give me a quilt pattern, I can usually follow it and I'm pretty good at picking out colors that go together.  The teacher of this class said NO Sewing, so I knew I was out of my element.  She gave us a brief explanation and demo of the process and showed us many samples of her gorgeous work.  Since I was a beginner (and not an artist, remember?), she recommended that I try the simplest technique and design.  Works for me!

We each received a blank white silk scarf which we ironed to freezer paper to keep it from wrinkling. We picked colors and painted on a paper towel first, then a silk swatch, and finally we were ready to create.  I started by putting some black and silver lines using a resist type paint, then went to town with the fabric paints.  To get some watery special effects, I used two sizes of salt.  We dried our scarves, ironed them to set the paint, washed them in a fixative, and ironed once more. And

TA DA!  Here is my gorgeous scarf!

The most fun part was painting the fringe.  Isn't it fun?  Now I want to make more, more, more!  Maybe I CAN do art!  I'm wearing it out today for lunch.  Can't wait.

I also saved my little swatch.  It's about 12 inches square.  I am thinking I might be able to make a little rosette pin if I can figure out how.


 We had company for the weekend and they left us this beautiful bouquet and a bottle of wine as a thank you gift.

You probably didn't know I have my own vineyard and wine label, did you?

Well I do have a vineyard that consists of two grapevines, but no, this I haven't tried winemaking yet.  I do think it is pretty cool to have a wine named for me!  LOL!