Now that Quilt Festival is over for this year and Seasonal Palette has had it’s grand opening everyone is free to post those long awaited pictures! My entry is called “December Dawn”.

Click here to see them all.

The process began with submitting photos of existing work from which 37 artists were selected to produce seasonal works measuring 78 x 32� each. The working styles of the selected artists are vastly different, coming together to stage an amazingly cohesive body of work. The exhibit was staged in an enclosed, hard walled space with a tranquil gallery feeling that was so calming amid the crowds and bustle of the show floor. In progressing around the space, one walked through the seasons. In the center of the space was a table where artists journals of the making of each piece was displayed, with benches so you could sit and spend as much time as you wanted with the journals and the actual artworks. I wish I had had enough time to read each and every one!

There is a lovely catalog of the exhibit available for only $20.00 showing each piece with a more in depth view of the making of some of them, including “December Dawn“ at the end.

At this premier opening, already two pieces were sold!  I have been enjoying the posting of the making of some of the pieces as they are posted to blogs, so starting tomorrow I will begin to publish entries from my own journal.

As much as I hate doing it, I am making good progress getting the books caught up. There is always such a feeling of satisfaction, mixed with chagrin at having let it slide once again.

I’m disappointed at not being able to see very much of the equestrian events in the Olympics this year. Well that is not a surprise as they don’t usually cover it very well, but it does leave me plenty of time to work on those books!

This is McLain Ward of the US Team, I believe.  My internet coverage timed out before the event finished so I don’t know how it ended. How unsatisfying!

The highest I personally have jumped a horse is 3.5 ft and it felt like flying. I can only imagine how this must feel!

When I shopped on Friday in two different shops, I found three possibilities for the sky binding on the Turbine piece one of which just might work! I have sticker shock at the current prices of fabric and am glad to have a huge stash to rely on most of the time. Neither shop had the fabric that I was looking for for the Ks scene so I ordered that online.  The shipping was more than the fabric which was pretty expensive already – as much for a half yard as what I paid for a whole yard when I started on this crazy quilting path!

Oh, goody! Tangerine Tango is Pantone’s new color of the year, and it is IN my new Seasonal Palette top! How’s that for luck and serendipity!

Our daughter from the Phoenix area came for a quick visit so I have not been doing any sewing lately. Yesterday I finished up the drawing for the Harrier piece and started to transfer it to the transparency film for projection to enlarge for the pattern. Then I got sidetracked and had to go to town.

Cindy is an avid reader and had brought with her a Nook. I had dismissed the idea for a book reading device but after her demo, decided that it was going on my Christmas wish list. My husband decided what’s the point of waiting, therefore, the trip to town and now I own the Nook Color and  a download of the newest Stephen King book which I started last night. It has many settings for text color and brightness so I am able to read in bed with no lights on to disturb the husband! I was amazed at the vast possibilities of reasonable, even free, books available and things it can do that I don’t even know about yet!  There will be classes after Christmas.

new color of the year

I finished the Stephen King book in two days! The weather was perfect for laying out in the hammock with a good book so that’s what I did. Summer makes me think of raspberries and Stephen King. I was at Sam’s the other day and there was his “Just After Sunset”, another collection of short stories that I had somehow missed for only $4.66!!
I’m half way through it. The first of the black raspberries are ripe; it’s summer!

Yesterday I updated my website. I knew I was behind but I didn’t know I was THAT behind! I added SIX new quilts for sale. And updated the rest of it. Check it out…….

We’ve had several days in a row of hot, hot weather and drying winds. This happens every year; plants are accustomed to plenty of rain and cool then they get hit with just the opposite. I gave everything a good watering yesterday evening. This weather puts a damper on me too. No energy to do anything. I picked up the newest Stephen King book, “Full Dark – No Stars” yesterday at the library and now I just want to read it!

A while back I submitted some quilts to a new book by Mary Kerr, “Designs in Art Quilts” And mine along with 47 others were accepted! Not sure when the book will be finished, but it looks like there will be a nice mix of styles and techniques included with lots of pictures.

Yesterday I settled in to get serious about learning to do a Keynote presentation on my new MacBook Pro. It is so different from using a keyboard and quite frustrating! A couple of hours in, I got a weird error message that I couldn’t take care of myself, so, having paid for support, I called the Geek Squad number. My impression of the lady who answered was that she didn’t know about Macs as she insisted that my installer should return and take care of it. That is scheduled for Wednesday so I can’t do much til then.

So we went to town and got a couple of books that should be helpful when I do get back to working on Keynote!

And 10 more bags of mulch which I AM qualified to work with!! For the past two nights we have had frost so have been covering certain things that I am especially concerned about. Most things, however have to fend for themselves. The new peach tree has ONE peach – I hope it survives!

Well, I haven’t been doing so well lately with this blog!

I recently decided that I should get an iPad – it sounded easy – NOT!! Turns out my computer operating system was not right, so I upgraded it. Then had to upgrade other programs, til I came to one that said I needed another operating system upgrade! That’s when I took the iPad back and returned it. It wasn’t til a few days later that I discover QuickBooks with all my company data wouldn’t open in the new system and I can’t upgrade QB without an Intel processor, which of course I don’t have! Now this morning I discover that I can no longer access Photoshop!!

So I can’t show you what I’m working on.

More snow, more coming; enough already. I know it could be worse, but this is bad enough!

I’ve managed to get a little quilting done this past week, but I am just not really into it right now. The parts with no pins is done but you can’t see the stitching very well.

The 2000 piece puzzle is maybe three quarters done, and has been a focus along with getting the books caught up to file sales tax, and some knitting. I have not been outside to walk and get some fresh air and it makes me unmotivated!

This week I have had an inordinate amount of spam on this blog, which is VERY time consuming. Some to enlarge parts I don’t even have, etc, that are easy to spot and delete, but mostly posts that are phishing for something. They will be full of compliments that are so ambiguous they could just as easily apply to golfing as quilting. I have spent hours this week dealing with this and I don’t “get” it. If you have sent me a legitimate post that did not get approved please be more focused, I don’t want to ignore YOU!.

The Chicago show is on now and you can go here to see pictures. Click on Exhibits in the side bar. All of the entries for “Celebrate Spring” are shown with the winners noted. Nothing for “Spring Burning” this time around, but it looks like a nice show!

Meanwhile, I got the books to a point where I could do the sales tax yesterday, planted four azaleas (Conversation Piece) and worked some more on the Houston entry.

I’ve never had good luck with azaleas, but these were on sale for a good price and healthy looking, and now that I have a shade garden I thought it was worth a try.

It’s been so long since I submitted to this book, that I forgot what I sent them, but my complimentary copy arrived yesterday and I am blown away by the quality of this book published by Lark Books.

There are over 400 pages with every sort of art quilt presented by many well known or emerging artists, juried by Karey Bresenhan. I was fortunate enough to have two of my quilts included!

The glossy pages are not the greatest for photographing, but you can also see my images on the website gallery of large quilts, where you can also read their stories. Click on Gallery on the left of your screen.

Watermelon Wine, 2006, 69.25 x 55″ page 231
This image is a little dark, but that is my fault as it was sent before I had my monitor calibrated.

Bittersweet Memories,2005, 62.5 x 49.5″ page 335
It’s neat how they coordinated the facing pages to compliment each other.