I finally went to the Dr and got antibiotics and a serious cough medication and am happy to report that I am feeling much better. I have not done much of anything though so there has been little of interest to discuss here.

There have been a few quilts shipped including two to the MidAtlantic Quilt Fest ( “In The Bleak Midwinter” and “Longhorn Splashdown”) and next week  ‘The Merchant’s House” goes off to AQS in Lancaster. “Harrier Hunting” has been juried in to IQF’s Celebrate Spring and will debut in Cincinnati and travel for a year. I had an email nibble about purchasing it this morning but am not sure how serious it was!

My sewing machine is back from it’s checkup and I haven’t even plugged it in yet, but I get more behind everyday so I have to get back in the groove. Next up is probably quilting the Seasonal Palette piece but then there is also the SAQA 12 x 12 to do…..

In the meantime about all I seem to have the energy to do when I am not sleeping, is reading, TV, occasional bookwork and jigsaw puzzles! Here’s the third one since Christmas:

As requested I sent the finished photo of “Harrier Hunting” to the the photographer, Ashok Kohsia who graciously permitted me to use one of his wonderful photos for reference for this piece. His response was:

Fabulous, fabulous!!!!! A.

FIVE exclamation points! He is a man of few words, but I think he likes it.

Friday I finished the quilting ( I thought!) and blocked the quilt, prepared the back, binding and sleeve so it would be ready to finish Saturday. Ooops! I forgot to quilt the orange areas. legs, feet, beak plus a little bit of the sky. Finished that and by evening I was hand sewing the binding to the back, Sunday morning I took the pictures for entry, even though the binding is only partly sewn, it looks finished from the front. It finished at 51 x 42″. Looking back, I see that I started the quilting on Jan 19, so it took 10 days  to get it done.

Sunday afternoon I met friends for brunch and a matinee performance at Topeka Civic Theater where we saw “The Last Days Of Ballyhoo”. It was good but made me miss entry day for the Topeka Art Guild’s next show. I had planned to get in on Saturday for an early entry but was just too busy. So this will be the first time in all the years I’ve been a member that I will have nothing there for the next two months!

Sunday evening after dinner, I did the online entry for Celebrate Spring, so now it is out of my hands. I had been trying to think up a good name for it, but faced with no more time and an empty line, I typed in “Harrier Hunting”. It will do. It was entry # 48 with a couple of days to go.

This gorgeous Minerva Amaryllis was a Christmas gift. It has been blooming for at least two weeks! This is the second stem and they have both had four blooms. Wow!

This red one is over two feet tall and I have had it for at least three years, maybe four, now. It only has three blooms per stalk, but they are huge, each eight inches across!

It’s lovely to have things blooming when it is so cold and dead outside. Perfect weather to stay inside and quilt. The harrier must be at least half done now, with just some foreground and the sky left to do. I’m finding that I can’t quilt for 6-8 hours like I used to do, 5-6 hours is about all I can take!

Monday morning was busy with preparing and shipping “Watermelon Wine” which was invited to go to Florida for the “Faces of Color” exhibit in Daytona Beach, Feb 1-Mar 30.

Then preparing a backing and layering and pin basting the harrier piece for the machine quilting. That was ready to go at lunchtime and here it is after 5 hours of quilting!

Machine quilting is not as fast as you might think! Other demands kept me from the machine Tuesday and parts of Wednesday, but I managed to finish the bird and get a good start on the background. Today I am looking forward to uninterrupted quilting time; we’ll see…

Good news phone call yesterday from the Topeka Art Guild gallery, “Alaska” sold! This piece was begun in a landscape workshop with Patty Hawkins. It is fused applique, not my usual pieced technique, and though it does reflect my typical fabric choices, I was glad to let it go! It was inspired by a photo that I took in Alaska.

Yesterday I tried to update my blog, but WordPress would not let me in!

Last week was pretty busy and I only found time to work sporadically. Time is running out though and I was determined to finish the Harrier on Saturday which I did!

I was not happy with the way the tail sort of disappeared and it is hard to tell the tail from the wing (which I hope will be remedied with the quilting) The leading edge of the tail feathers are seen at an angle and so they do not stand out as much. I laid in some snippets of white which some Harriers actually have and I thought that it would be worth working another day to unsew and add in an edge of white to the tail feathers.

I think it was worth it!  Love that sky which is a hand dyed fabric that I  got at the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild fall sale.

Today I will start the quilting.

Last summer when I got he books caught up, I had every intention of keeping up. But did I? Of course not! Now here I am having to do 6 months worth in a few days so I can file my sales tax by the 15th. Since the state put me on a yearly basis this past year I didn’t have the deadlines to keep it up, and unfortunately deadlines rule my life these days.

So, there has been precious little sewing time. It took all of Saturday morning just to do his feet! And a few stolen hours here and there to get to this point:

I think changing to a darker color around his face might pop it more:

Still working, still changing, still sewing and unsewing— slow progress!

The redbud tree fabric was in my stash, purchased a few years ago because it reminded me of our back pasture in the springtime.

Harriers are here year around, but using this fabric sets the season as Spring and the piece eligible for “Celebrate Spring”.

I worked most of the day on the Harrier with a little time off to prepare a dish to take to a Christmas party/potluck last night which was great fun! The party – not the prep! The weather reports were daunting, didn’t know if I would be able to go, but as it turned out it was not bad at all. A few snow flakes on the way home.

Yesterday’s progress:

I’m seeing things that need to be changed, it’s an on-going challenge. The underwings are white, but there are nuances and shadings to keep it from looking flat, so it’s tricky.

The People’s Choice voting for the Inspirations show at The Classic Bean in Topeka is over and Tammy and I won again this year with her Rocky Mountain Elk photograph and my rendition of it in fabric, “Majesty”. Click on elk in the sidebar to see that one! We also won the Staff’s Choice award once again. Her wonderful photographs make it easy!

We so enjoyed the visit with our daughter from AZ, had a family gathering on Sunday so she could spend some time with everyone and meet the newest members. Fun! She departed Monday (a week ago) and I got back to work. Spent much of that Monday finishing the transparency, preparing the freezer paper and projecting the image so the finished piece will be at least 40″ tall. Then making all of the tic marks took a long time, there are so many small pieces! When that was done it was starting to get dark but I was itching to cut some fabric – that’s when I realized that I had neglected to reverse the transparency to get he mirror image!!!!! What a bummer. I can’t believe I did that and didn’t even notice til after all those tic marks were done! If I used the pattern as is, the hawk would be flying in the opposite direction, which is not what I wanted. I was too “done for the day” to go on.

Tuesday, I prepared more freezer paper and was able to trace all of the lines in reverse, make MORE tic marks and finally be to the place where I could start to sew. I pinned the “mistake” up on the design wall to act as a base to pin the sewed pieces to. This is a very helpful step, one that I don’t always take the time to do, but is a real time saver when I do. Such a waste though, to have all those tic marks in it! I sewed a few seams to get the eye in, I always like to start with the eye, if there is one.

Very little sewing getting done for the rest of the week as I had to go to town a couple of times for various things including Christmas shopping. Other things that take me away from the sewing are knitting – trying to finish a project before Christmas, doing the cards, late as usual, and a jigsaw puzzle that I have no business working on at this time!!  Oh, yes! And that new Stephen King book on the Nook……..

Yesterday though, I sewed all afternoon – it doesn’t look like much yet, but there’s a lot work there!