enigma necklace

It's been too hot to do much other than hang around the apartment. Owing to the incredible temperatures, amazing even for summer in central Virginia, we have been forced to limit our activities to quick runs to the grocery store after dark, hasty doggie pee pee's outside in the front courtyard, and household chores and laundry. In essence it has been rather nice, other than our AC blitzing out for several hours last night (thankfully repaired running constantly now). I have had time other than household tasks to take a few well needed naps, put things away in our new place, make some little quilted bags, work on needlework and also make some jewelry. Here is the first piece I had time to photograph just before dark tonight.

This is such an amazing bead, I have held on to it like a lucky talisman for a while, not sure what to make with it. Another necklace was taken apart, added to and re-worked to include this inscrutable double sided face as the focal piece. Enigma can be found on my shop page http://jenniferstumpf.etsy.com (SOLD 7/25/10).

Each side of the face is ever so slightly different. It is quite extraordinary, handmade by sweet relish charms, which you can find on etsy.

Details of lovely faceted stones and pearls. I do so love a jangly necklace. :) Keep cool and have a creative weekend!

new published work, be-dazzled bezels!

I have a new published piece. It is a necklace called "sticks and stones" and you can see it in the August/September 2010 issue of Step by Step Wire Jewelry. Two of the components of the necklace, I thought, might not be something everyone would want to bother to tackle, so I am offering these two components as a package deal on etsy. See the finished necklace in the magazine on page 18. See the components for sale on my etsy site: http://jenniferstumpf.etsy.com.

I've been enchanted and consumed with the idea of creating hand stamped bezel pendants. These are my first efforts and are also for sale on my etsy site. There may be an easier way to make these buggers but I did it the old fashioned way, entirely by hand. Hand saw the copper, rounds and tubes, cut a bale. Then solder. And perhaps re-solder. And in several cases, reposition the entire piece, add more solder and end up with too much solder evident on the finished piece. Ah well. I had fun making them, with minimal flung curse words.

Each bezel has a stamped word or sentiment that is dear to me... "home" is one of my favorites.

I found this gorgeous piece of weathered red painted board on the beach last visit home. It works fabulously well as a jewelry prop. My husband is used to me dragging large and unusual props home, usually dropping sand, dead bugs and other unmentionables with them.

Lovely texture and patina. I love copper. It's so wonderfully earthy. We are moved again to a nice modern small apartment, and even in the midst of the rubble, I feel fabulously back in the game again. :)

tambour bead embroidery

Last week I drove from Richmond to Lexington, Kentucky to attend the University of Kentucky School of Costume and Design class in tambour bead embroidery, an ancient technique that is almost an extinct art form. Today it is taught almost exclusively at Ecole Lesage in Paris, an haute couture embroidery school that teaches day classes and professional classes in many forms of embroidery, including the above, which was worked with a tambour hook. A tambour hook is a needle sharp, tiny crochet-like hook that is used to work chain stitch on the reverse of the piece (stretched taut in a slate frame), utilizing a glorious array of threads, sequins, beads and fabrics to create dazzling purses, dresses and other garments. The photo above is a bead and sequined flower in progress, worked in such a way that it is three dimensional.

My class piece in progress, above. Black bugle beads, gold and purple sequins, lame and gold seed beads are worked in slow progress with the tiny tambour hook.

Wracked with nerves at first, I have my organza stitched onto and stretched across the frame before calming down to begin the learning process of holding the hook properly (over and over and over again!) so that it does not snag either the delicate fabric or thread as it pierces and loops a chain. Here I have almost all flower outlines complete, day two of the class.

Our utterly charming and incredibly talented instructor, Bob Haven.

The costume design classroom at University of Kentucky School of Fine Arts, hard at work on our projects.

Fine Arts Building where our class was held. Now that my love of this technique is confirmed, I can't wait to become more proficient with the hook, finish my class project and move on to other works of art. Lesage, here I come! (someday....)

Holy cow, more than a month flew by!

My gosh, I have been bad about posting. Working, getting ready for a move, working magazine articles (!), sewing, housework (blah...) and making jewelry again has really occupied my days from morning til fall-into-bed time. The earrings here were a custom order, sterling with green sparkly fine aquamarine stones and overwraps. I had such fun making this pair, I already made another pair to put on etsy. Being freestyle wraps, they look a bit different but still, same idea.

Such lovely beads! So pretty.


And another custom order.. black spinelle rondelles and Peruvian blue opals. Gorgeous opals! The nicest quality I have ever been able to find. These are truly dazzlers.
And last weekend Michael and I attended the grand opening of the newly opened renovated Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Great looking guys (see above), beautiful artwork, free food and drink and wonderful live bands made for a charming evening. We walked from our apartment to save the environment and the parking fee, and the museum was quite huge so we really got our work out for the day. I'm sorry I cannot remember who painted the magnificent painting above but it was Michael's favorite.

My favorite painting in the 21st century art section, Self Portrait in a Coral Bed, 2003 by Julie Heffernan. The plaque on the wall said she has painted mostly self portraits in recent years but none of them really look like her physically, it's the meaning behind it of which she was conveying herself. Hmm. I need to look back at my notes to see what she was conveying here but it was most stunning and I spent quite a while engrossed in studying this piece.

Close up head shot of Self Portrait in a Coral Bed.

The museum opened at 10 a.m. last Saturday, after having been closed for renovations since at least a year ago (don't quote me on that). A group of Tibetan monks came and created a sand mandala. This is the mandala in a stage of completion. I wanted to see them finish it and then sweep it all away but alas, we missed that part.

There is a small room of incredible stained glass from the 14th and 15th centuries. This was my favorite piece.

Me in a moment of repose, taking a break from my flat, tired feet.

This wall divider was all needlepoint! The middle panel was more realistic, if you can call mermaids realism, but compared to the opposite panels, you get the idea. Again, stood here a long time and analyzed the workmanship. Quite stunning. We were so engrossed in all the artwork (and three wings of the museum have not even opened yet, still under construction...) that I neglected to write down many of the artists or even the time period. Pens were not allowed out in the museum so that hampered my efforts a bit. I can't imagine defacing a painting but I suppose it happens.

Family Portraits, 1944, by Robert Gwathmey. I am particularly fond of African American folk art. This piece spoke to me.

And who waited at home, contemplating his revenge while his tuna bowl lay empty? Hmmm. Sorry, Mango!

unfinished objects

I know... What the *!#$! is it?? Looks like an oven mitt, yes? Well, daylight is running out and I haven't posted in forever so here you have my current work in progress, my soon to be finished unfinished object.

The inside has a lovely zip purse, two bill slots, and four credit card slots. Reproduction 1930's fabrics with cute Valentine endearments on the inside, mixed bag of pretty colors in my favorite shades of yellow, blue and pink...

Blurry shot of a closer view. My camera with the macro has died and needs recharged but I can't find the charger.

Use some imagination, fold it over, pretend it is all sewn up (it will be tonight) add a real vintage button, and I swear it will look something resembling this. It's supposed to have a strap but I hate little bags with long straps, so it is an oversize wallet instead, gifted to my cousin in Florida soon as it is all done up just so! I'm also selling a few of these on etsy that are also still in the UFO status. I have tried doing these on a production line, cutting out all the fabrics, interfacing and batting at one time for all the bags, then turning out all the credit card and bill flaps, then sewing down all the zippers at one time. Well, you get the idea. Anyway I ended up with a big pile of I-don't-remember-what-goes-with-which-bag so maybe it's not a good idea for me. I think all these parts are what is intended. Oh, there are side pieces to this bag, too, that keep your stuff from falling out the sides. I have to sew them down yet. And so on. I have a bunch of days off in a row now so I am sewing most of the days away, in between walking doggie, reading blogs, reading books, trying to drum up business for my husband, and running to WaWa for coffee breaks. Tonight my husband, who has been away for four days, comes home again. So I am looking forward to him coming home and making the best of the rest of my time off as a wife with no one to look after.

*sigh*. I see so many wonderful things online I want to try now. Fabric sewn buttons with stitched embellishments, stitching projects, more purses. And believe it or not (don't anyone gasp too loud...) I have a pile of jewelry waiting to be drilled, filed, finished and listed, soon as my husband comes home and fixes the blasted drill that won't work properly.

Books I am reading right now-- Frances Mayes' Every Day In Tuscany, which I am finding to be a surprising chore to get through. Very disappointing. And reading Tolstoy Anna Karenina, one of my all time favorites. And for magazines my very favorite Australian embroidery guild's Stitch magazine and an excellent current copy of SewNews. Not enough time in the day...

Liberty at Target finds

My husband and I went to three places this evening trying to find a certain super glue he needed. Lucky for me the first two hardware stores didn't carry it and we headed for Target. Walking inside, I was bedazzled to suddenly remember that today is the day for the launch of the Liberty of London for Target line! Lucky me!! Not only did they have pretty sun-dresses but they also had wonderful huge scarves, such as the one I chose above, which is three different fabrics sewn together. Beautiful! I may use it as a scarf and I may cut it up and use it for project fabric.

I never thought of Liberty boxer shorts but here they are. The little cars are one of my favorite fabric from Liberty. My husband will not be wearing these. Instead they'll be put to the chopping block for project usage. I thought I was smart to get the x-large pairs for more fabric!

So cute!!

A new one of a kind purse from Get Real Purses & Pouches, now available on http://jenniferstumpf.etsy.com.

Red variegated carpetbag material with colorful cotton florals and stripes.

Underneath the flap- a hand appliqued piece of dyed muslin with birds. I call this one "postage due".

Quilt show pics & my first quilt in living color

The Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest was held at the Hampton, Virginia convention center last weekend and I went with my friend and colleague from work and her good natured husband. These are some of the quilts that caught my eye in the display section. Although I know there are larger quilt shows, this was my first so to me it was quite something. My apologies to the makers of these wonderful quilts as I only snapped some shots of my favorites and did not write down the creators. The intricate use of applique on this lovely quilt above stopped me for a while.

Having lived on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for years and also in the Richmond area with the James River proximity, Great Blue Herons are a favorite bird and a familiar sight. I love the mariner's compass on this quilt as well as the vibrant colors.

I stared at this quilt for quite a while. A view of the cosmos, although that was not the title of it, tiny starbursts and galaxies were very beautifully machine and hand stitched. This was my favorite quilt of all that were displayed.

Interesting design feature of ribbons at the bottom of this art quilt.

I so love sock monkeys. I have been stockpiling sock monkey fabric when I find it and then, I saw this quilt. Adorable! This is a close up shot, of course, but the whole quilt was equally whimsical. I love it.

The last week I have been taking my first formal quilting class from my friend and colleague extraordinaire, Cheryl Schenck, who has her own fabulous blog http://myfeeddogsaredown.blogspot.com/. Pictured above is my pieced and finished quilt top, which when set down for a moment was immediately appropriated by big kitty Mango. I actually made it with him in mind since it is a baby quilt and my babies have four legs and fur. They may as well get a head start on it. Tomorrow is my last day of class and I must hum ding to finish it. I pieced the back in strips (not shown). Photos of the finished product when it's a finished product.

Mango on his quilt. It suits him, don't you think?

And my blog posts of late wouldn't be complete without a photo of one of my little pouch creations. This one features a cute little elephant machine appliqued on wool. It went to Charlotte, NC a few days ago. bye bye!





What have we been doing these prolonged winter days of late? Why, we have been studying history. Richmond, of course, is a treasure trove of Civil War sites, museums, trails and so on, and this one is a freebie we have never hiked before. Gaines Mill, near Cold Harbor, was the site of a battle that took place in June 1862. 15,000 men died here. This day we were the only ones on the 1.5 mile trail. It was still and eerily quiet. As we walked, we tried to imagine the spectacular battle and we stopped now and then, in spite of Lucy's pulling on the leash (you'd never know she was 14 years old) to read the historical markers and consult our map.

Near the end of the trail, Michael is happy we are in the 21st century, and so am I (most of the time, anyway).

Dusk at Gaines Mill, Virginia.