Archive for December, 2012

Happy New Year!

Monday, December 31st, 2012

2012 has been a wonderful year for me, and I hope for you as well. Best wishes for a very special 2013 for everyone!

Christmas was a blur from the great Grandson tearing into his gifts

christmas2012

 

to the delicious dinner topped off by this made from scratch cheesecake made by my Grandson. Everyone agreed he can be the official cheesecake baker as it was every bit a good as it looked!

cmaschsecake

With Christmas out of the way and all of the evidence cleaned up, I was able to get started on the newest art quilt. It is always so exciting to start something new. Here is the progress after about three days of sewing.

dogsinprog3

This is going to be pretty good sized, what you see here is about 8 x 12″.  I’ve spent a couple of hours online looking for some more of that McKenna Ryan fabric that makes good fur, but it is too old and unavailable. No problem, I’ll just use something different, and it will be even more interesting! We are expecting more snow today so I will be happy to stay inside and sew.

You can scroll back to see the photo that I am working from, of our dogs in the snow, taken a few years ago .  WordPress has made improvements (?) and I just lost my entire post during the uploading photos stage. I should learn to “save” more often…..

What’s Next?

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

Like everyone else, I have been busy getting ready for Christmas. Shopping, wrapping, decorating. planning as well as trying to do all the usual. With “Who, Me?” finished there has been no sewing, but the next piece is in the planning stages and will soon be ready to go. I have chosen the photo of my dogs in the snow from a few years ago,

T&Ginsnow

plotted the sewing lines and all that is left to do is to project it to the finished size and transfer it to freezer paper. But if I do that I will not be able to resist starting the sewing and right now there is too much on my plate to let myself go there!

Boxer Finished, Local Wins

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

Ooops, it’s been awhile, and I was doing so good!

Last Friday was First Friday and I attended the reception for “Inspirations”, that collaborative exhibit of art inspired by photography. This year we had the main show of new work at the Classic Bean in Topeka and my entry “Prairie Power” won first place in the “People’s Choice” voting. It’s always gratifying when a quilted piece is recognized as art amongst paintings.

prpower450

We also had an exhibit of some of previous years’ entries at another venue, Nexlynx in Topeka and “Majesty” received a Second Place there.

Majesty450

The Boxer is finished and I am happy with how it turned out. I always prewash all of my fabrics because I still do find some that will run, and when I wet this piece to block it one of the hand dyes did run in spite of that. It was a green so any bleeding it may have done on the front is not noticeable, but can be seen very slightly on the back. Luckily it was not a problem, but it does reiterate the need to prewash.

WhoMeFull

WhoMeDet

This shot has too much pink showing, because the morning sunrise was hitting it. Adding green helps but makes the background greenish.  It is nice and sharp though and shows the quilting nicely.

Gardening in December

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

We have been enjoying the most beautiful weather! I know, that is not normal and probably not a good thing. I quilted for awhile,

but it was just too nice to stay inside so I spent the afternoon weeding in the perennial beds after my walk. These are the same beds I renovated after returning from Maine in August but in spite of that and heavy mulch there are so many weeds! At least they come up pretty easily. Surprisingly, the earth is moister than I expected as we are way behind on moisture here. The prediction is for some snow soon so I will have plenty of time to sew. I watered the Hellebores and a few shrubs and roses and called it quits at 4 o’clock.

Boxer Top Finished

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

Here’s the finished top – this was a lot of fun! I started with a yard of the background and pretty much used it all. I love it when old fabric finds  a home because I have more than I will ever use.