Pillow from Fabric Collage Class at Fabmo

Finished pillow, 2 1/2" squares of silk with machine quilting.

Took a class taught by Luanne Seymour at Fabmo. Very fun, I like to call it finger painting with thread.

Pillows & Curtains

Curtain panels before they are lined.

Finished curtain panels hanging in my sewing room.

Squares cut from fabrics for pillow one.

Squares cut for pillow two.

Details after quilting.

Top of pillow one.

Details with "dog-eared" corner.

I like that you can see the needle holes.

Finished pillow two.

Finished pillow one.

Back of pillow showing.

Testing Yellow

Wanted to work in some yellow into the curtain. This is too bright.

Folding that I did. Wrapped with rick-rack that I found at an estate sale.

All wrapped up and ready to dye.

Most pleased with the rick-rack which took the dye well.

More Dying . . .

Loved the way this looked.

Double pattern, hope to use for the living room curtains

Peaking into the backyard.

Hello shadow.

Dyeing Fabric

Cullen and Tory asked me to make curtains. For those that don't know, my son was married September 1 of this year. Of course I am thrilled to work on a project for their first apartment together. I purchased 108" wide white muslin from Joann Fabric at half price. Mark cut out four 8" isosceles triangle out of wood to use for dying process. Below you can see the fabric clamped between the boards. This dying process is called Itajime, or board clamping and is used in Indigo dyeing. I used procion dyes purchased at Dharma Trading in San Rafael. It was a nice fall day and I was happy to be dying.

Setup in my backyard, used my camping stove to heat the water.

Drying in the sun on this fall day.

Make-up bags with Fabmo Fabric

Featherweight Freemotion

Bold Butterfly

This pillow was designed to sit on a brown chair in my front room. The four circles shifted position from center during the wet felting process, so I decided to turn it into a butterfly. The antennae were applied with needles.

The wool fibers are from Judith Colvin's lovely sheep. I just love the way the end product feels, lumps, bumps and all.

Prefelts drying in my backyard, such a nice blue. I plan to make a second pillow. This butterfly needs a friend.

We worked on my mom's pillows also. Paco needs to be apart of the day.

Caterpiller Race Pillows

These two felted pillows were designed to sit on my purple couch in our family room.  I designed the one on the left first in the class that Judith Colvin taught in February at Sue's home. Below is the layout for this pillow, prefelts were white fiber and purple/brown.

Eastern European Wedding Scene

Handmade by Beryl Meuli, Bill Meuli, & Kim Meuli Brown

On October 1, 2011 we took a class at Castle in the Sky in Berkeley on how to create miniature food out of polymer clay. The plan was to create a Polish wedding scene to surprise my son Cullen and his new fiancé, Tory. My sister's had borrowed a Ukrainian wedding scene that was displayed with the guest book at their weddings. So my Mom, Dad and I set out to create one of our own. Everything you see is handmade, with the exception of the figures, silver vase, and candlesticks. A great deal of love and research went into this project.

We presented it to Cullen and Tory at their engagement party on January 21, 2012. They will hold on to it until the next grandchild of Beryl and Bill Meuli choose to use it on their wedding day.

Close up of food, even the candles we made. The silver vase was part of a collection my mom had as a young girl. She also created the table cloth which is linen with embroidered cross stitch.

We wanted the scene to appear to be in the country, and went to work researching what a Polish barn might look like. Anything made of wood, Dad constructed.

Here is a close up of the bride and groom. The musician in the back is in traditional costume you would see in Krakow Poland.

The hanging flowers in the back were hand cut out of paper in a stylized polish design, we created. Embroidery thread was braided to create the garland.

In the background you can see a photo of Cullen and Tory on 11/5/11, the day Cullen proposed in Central Park. Look closely and you can see braided rolls, the Meuli family has a tradition of making these at holidays and weddings. My Dad made the table and fashioned it after a doll house table that Holly played with over at Grandmas.

Here is a shot from the party, which gives you some idea of the scale of the barn at least.