Princess Bubbles Creates

 I like dogs.  Golden retrievers in particular.  This photo is of me with my beloved Farley and Trinity.  Farley was our first Golden. He was utterly perfect.  Trinity was also excellent.  We now have Banksy who might possibly grow into perfection.  We will see.  In the meantime, I am growing my doggy daycare and boarding business.  I am hoping that it helps Banksy settle.  The bonus is I get more doggies to love and cuddle! Our prompt this week from  Lee Anna  was to tell about a favourite movie.  The first two that came to mind were Princess Bride and A Knight's Tale.  In Princess Bridge, the protagonist always answers his love with the phrase,  'as you wish'.  I love it when my sweet hubby says that to me!  A Knight's Tale is about dreams coming true and doing the right thing.   And then there are animated flicks.  Oh, how I love an animated movie.  I watch them all.  We just...

 I am loving it so much!  This is the length of fabric that my family has painted spots onto.  Even my three-year-old grandson enjoyed adding some marks.  Granted they aren't circles but I don't care about that.  My granddaughter wanted to add more but I think there are enough spots.  I am thinking that I will stitch a mandala onto the light blue spot in the middle.  It isn't actually the middle of the fabric as I couldn't get the whole length into the photo.   I wonder if working on such a long piece of fabric will be a bit unwieldy.  I am pretty keen to get stitching into it and find out!

 Playing around with paper collage mandalas is so enjoyable.  I am thinking that adding some marks with markers or glitter glue might be good as well.  This one already has a lot of glitter so more isn't needed.  Something is needed though.  Not sure what just now.  

 It was a beautiful week here in Southern Ontario.  I made the most of it and enjoyed some stitching time on my deck.  Who knows how many more times I will get to do that this year.  I am adding this mandala to the finished pile.  Well, finished the fun part.  There are now 7 in the stack that still requires the finishing off of the back.  It isn't hard to do but it isn't fun so I do it assembly line style.  I was curious as to how many I had that were totally finished.  57!  57 mandalas totally ready for my show is amazing to me.   I have two that I am still working on and are close to finishing.  57+7+2=66 Originally I thought I would have 50 for the show.  The ideas have kept on coming and I feel confident the space will be full of colour.  Not only will there be 66 of my stitched mandalas but an installation of 400 of my paper mandalas.  I am also working on two collaborations with hopes of a third....

 With this mandala finish I am ever so close to being ready for my solo show.  When I first put this one together I was thinking I would treat it like a crazy quilt.  My concern was that all the stitching would be lost in the busy fabric.  So this piece waited for the right idea.  I can be patient and know that the right thing will always show up for me.  That happened this week.  While at a thrift store I found these wonderful trims.  They seemed perfect for this mandala even if it takes it a bit over the top.   Time and the weather cooperated and I was able to sit outside to stitch.  Always a treat!  I hope there are more days like that yet.  It is getting cooler though.  I have three mandalas waiting in the wings.  Two of which I feel certain I can get finished.  The third may not happen as I am collaborating with some seniors on a project that will require me stitching a mandala.  I think it will be...

  Lee Anna  has prompted us to discuss crafts that we like.  The first one that came to mind was crochet.  I learned to crochet maybe around the age of ten.  I still crochet on and off.  My shawl project has been going on for far too long.  I only work on it during the winter.  It languishes the rest of the year.  It is a free-form piece and I make it up as I go along.  Of course, I do.  It looks rather odd to me and I am not sure how to pull it all together so it may languish some more. I feel like I have done all the crafts over my lifetime but that's not true.  I never got into stained glass even though I love the look of it.  I have done card making, scrapbooking, calligraphy, stamping and more.  I do love them all and use the things I have learned from often.  One idea will cross pollinate with another and interesting things to start to happen.

 I noticed the word maven the other day.  I liked the sound of it but was unsure of the meaning.  I looked it up and means an expert.  Hmm, expertise is a good thing to ponder.  I am not sure that I consider myself an expert at anything.  Yes, good at some things but an expert?  I am not sure I feel the need to be an expert.  Even after making hundreds of mandalas I am not sure I would call myself an expert at that.   I needle felted some roving into some black wool fabric that already had some embroidery on it.  More needle felting is necessary and I want to fix the N.  I will likely add more doodle embroidery to this as well.  These word a month journal pages have been a good challenge.  I need to start pondering a cover for this journal.