Winter Is For Making Jewelry

 These new earrings are fresh with flowers.  The backing plate is a rectangle that is curved forward to shelter the domed and petaled flowers.  The flowers are attached to the backing with silver wires that have their ends melted into tiny balls, so that the flowers move as the wearer does.  This style is available and in stock with two widths of backing plates and in many lengths.  There can be one, two, three, or five flowers on each earring. 
Just one of many new jewelry styles by silversmith Karma Grotelueschen.

Felted Landscapes

These felted landscapes are interpretations of my own nature photographs, constructed by wet-felting the background of the photograph, then needle felting in mid-ground and foreground details.  Most are ready for framing.

This woodland landscape features layers of trees and a forest floor pattern of leafy groundcovers.

Hollyhocks stand against the stone wall of a Mineral Point building.

Poppies dance in the sunlight.

Detail from Poppies

Yellow coneflowers wave in a summer breeze in the prairie garden.

Crabapples reflect from the still early morning surface of a lake.

An aspen woodland of contrasting white and green.

Bloodroot is a spring wildflower of the woodlands that is beautiful and fascinating.  Green-blue leaves hold water droplets in a shower, delicate flowers attract pollinators, and the sap of the stems and roots is a brilliant orange, giving the plant its name.

Detail of the flower.

The diversity of a prairie flowers from a photo taken at a restoration  in late summer.

 A nest in the branches of an orchard tree.

Fall colors in a mixed species woodland.

A birdnest nestled into the stems and leaves of a vine.

Septermber 25 and 26, 2010

Next weekend, La Bella Vita yarn and fiber shop will be hosting a Fibre Arts Faire, and I will be there demonstrating felting. I will be demonstrating live at the show at 109 Commerce, which is block downhill from my gallery, while friendly helpers run the shop! These are examples of the felt scarves I will be making at the show.

New Felted Scarves

Sometimes the drive to play with materials leads to a new product and this is one of them. I finally made it to Esther's Place, an amazing felt studio in Big Rock, Illinois, where Natasha Leherer teaches classes and workshops in a wide array of felting techniques and sells some amazing products. She has yarns for local producers, from bison to alpaca, and one of her most fabulous products is roving from her own sheep that she herself hand dyes. The colors are just beautiful. I purchased a palette of colors to use in my felted landscapes and florals, and then got the itch to make something right away. I had watched her teach a class on nuno felting where thin layers of fleece pulled from the roving are laid down onto silk chiffon scarves, but having no scarves at hand, I tried making a scarf from just the fleece, with my own floral designs. What you see here is from my first batch, made on the bathroom countertop at the lake house.

Three Trillium - Nine

This print is the result of an argument with a customer. I had a felted trillium in the gallery for over a year, and a man came in and told me he had seen it last time he was in town and wanted to purchase the picture with the three trillium in it. I showed him the felted picture of the single trillium, the only felted trillium I had ever done, and he argued, saying it had three flowers in the picture. Well, how do you respond to something like that? I am sure he left thinking I had sold 'his' picture and was trying unload this one on him. Fortunately to my ego, another customer called a week later and had me mail it to him as a surprise for his wife's birthday. But that set me on a mission to find a nice composition of three trillium on my walks, and photograph the bejeebers out of it, so that I would have photos to work with so that I COULD felt a picture with three trillium. Okay, I never did get that felt done, but here is a linoleum block print of them. I call it Nine.

Karma's Leather Flower Pins

Karma's leather flower pins are hand made one at a time from real leather. Some of the leather is scraps from upholstery industry, some is leftover from Karma's bookbinding projects that require that rectangular pieces be cut out of irregularly shaped hides, and others is purchased specifically for the flowers to certain colors or textures. Wear these pins on a lapel of a coat or jacket, the collar of a blouse, on the strap or body of a purse, handbag, or briefcase, on a headband, or on an elastic band ponytail holder. Can you think of anywhere else to wear these beautiful leather flowers?

Felted Flower Pins - Karma Grotelueschen

The parts of these pins are hand felted from wool fleede using traditional wet felting. Then the parts are assembled using contemporary needle felting. This is the process used by the artist to construct her felted landscape and floral paintings.

Karma Grotelueschen's Yellow Flower Paintings

Painted with water-soluable oils, these paintings are 12" square and designed to be hung vertically as a set.

Notecards from Carrie Auwerter Watercolors

Carrie Auwerter's Watercolor Paintings

Carrie paints nature scenes from her garden and beyond, with meticulous realistic detail in clear rich colors, and lets the white of the paper glow through for rich contrasts.

Colors of Scarves

Scarves are available in Yellows and oranges, oranges and reds, pinks and purples, purples and blues, blues and greens, greens and yellows. Tones can be bright and vibrant or more muted and dusky.
Each scarf is painted with several tones in the range of colors and has a white resist line that features a leave or flower along it.