The Willie Dancers

/0 Comments/in /by

We got passes for backstage last weekend, for the Willie Nelson show in Fort Worth.

Thanks to Paul for the photos!
This one is several of the dancers, Willie, and his wife.

more pictures

Prize ribbons

/0 Comments/in /by

This is just the first installment of the prize ribbons.

These ribbons are prizes for the Dallas Handweavers and Spinners Guild show which will open on April 13 at the main downtown library. The title of the show is “Sleight of Hand,” and all the themed materials (brochure, postcards, prizes, etc.) are related to stage magic.

Best of Show is going to say “hocus pocus” and the Student Best of Show will say “shazam!”

“ta-da!” is the intermediate level of awards. The next level of award will be a magic wand, and the lower level will be small twisted cords – mainly because I don’t have the time and the energy right now to weave 20 ribbons!

a couple more photos

Embroidered lotus

/16 Comments/in /by

I learned quite a bit with my first adventure in silk embroidery. Because somebody asked – I’ve done a couple of small stitching projects before, but I’ve never stitched with silk.

For scale, the lotus is just over 2 1/8″ top to bottom, 2 3/4″ side to side. It’s all stitched with flat silk which I reeled, threw, degummed, and dyed. The petals are satin and long and short stitches, the red center also has seed stitches. For seeds, natch! Or, actually, probably anthers, if we’re being picky. I stitched this from a very stylized logo; one lesson that I learned from this project, is to either (a) stitch from natural images, adapting them to embroidery, or (b) stitch from stitchery designs. There were a couple of things that are great for logo design, but make the stitching part tricky. The ground fabric is champagne-colored smooth doupionni silk.

Om, the jewel is in the lotus, hum

Nothing impressive yet

/10 Comments/in /by

I decided, with all the embroidery silk I’ve been making, I ought to try my hand at embroidery.

So this is definitely still a learning experience; I am figuring out a lot of things!


For scale, it’s just over an inch and a half tall. Red and white flat silk on smooth dupionni silk.
My favorite thing so far, is the sheen of the silk as it goes around the curvature. Un-favorite thing so far is accidentally pulling up tiny bits of the “tails” and having to chase them down and trim closer.

Don't touch my Willie…

/0 Comments/in /by

For those of you who haven’t bumped into that part of my life… I’m a country-western dancer.

You know that Willie Nelson gay cowboys song that has been hitting the press lately (at least around here) – you can hear it here:http://www.secretcowboys.com/

The cool part? I’m going to be dancing in the music video. We’re in choreography rehearsal, scheduled to shoot early next week, national release is planned for mid-March.

These are the guys who started out at the first rehearsal; it’s shifted a little, so I’m not sure which ones will be in the final shoot, and there are some new ones not pictured.


I’m in the dark green shirt, upper left side by the Coors sign.