Pinterest Power

Through my Pinterest forays I found these wonderful artists and followed up with their sites.  I'm so grateful to Pinterest for alerting me- that is the power that is uniquely theirs.



Louise Gardiner is a textile artist who uses machine embroidery, applique and other techniques to create wonderful original pieces.
I watched her video Stitch and Shine that is at the head of her site and was so impressed.  She shared her techniques and chatted in a casual way about her work.  So creative!  Please check out her site, Lou Gardiner here.  You won't be disappointed!
 Don't you just love this work behind her.  It is such a pretty colour palette and of course, the needle and scissors are so meaningful to us stitchers.

 And another wonderful artist...

                                                

Gillian Bates uses free motion embroidery and regular embroidery to create her works of art.  As someone who could barely "write" a barely ledgible 'Jocelyn' in free motion embroidery, you can imagine how in awe I am of this piece above.



I know I said no more foxes but isn't this wonderful.  I can't get over the eyes.  I know from my needlepointing days, eyes were the hardest to get looking realistic.  Gillian's gallery on her site, link is here, is a wonderful showcase of her work.  I am drawn to her birds in particular.

BTW, I've heard from several of my UK friends and foxes are a big topic for them, causing problems for some and prompting the need for Fox Protection groups by others. One in particular is The Fox Project that was established to humanely deal with foxes in urban and rural areas.   I did go to their web site and it was interesting reading.

Besides being an accomplished knitter, Kaffe Fassett is famous for his use of brightly coloured fabric for quilt making. I don't have the stats but he probably has the largest following of all quilt makers around the globe.  From my visits to various blogs, I come across people making this pattern of Kaffe's, Hatboxes.  They are finding it a fairly easy pattern to paper piece. Getting the rounded rim bit is the trickiest part.  Some have chosen to use vintage style fabrics to match the subject matter and are achieving a sweet sort of nostalgic looking quilt.



This one, made with Kaffe's own signature brightly coloured fabrics, has a vibrancy all its own.
 The quilt fair glows, doesn't it. (As my grandmother would say.)  The pattern is featured in one of his books, Passionate Patchwork: Over 20 Original Quilt Designs.  It is  Available here at Amazon.com for about $11 which seems like a good deal to me.

Here is my copy from the library. Lovely to look through and read about his process.

Just about every day I'm grateful to the power that is Pinterest.