Can that be true? Already it is the 20th of December? Where did the year go!

The little “Alaska” piece that I showed recently sold on the evening of First Friday at the Topeka Art Guild, and there has been a round of Christmas parties to attend lately. Thankfully the weather has been good for getting out and about!

I did work on changing backgounds on the dogs; the picture in my mind’s eye is a riot of color with a flower garden background. In reality it was a too busy mess. I first tried the red and yellow flowers and then tried white ones for better contrast.

The actual photograph shows the dogs with a mostly grassy background and flowers. I pinned up some green grassy fabrics and that is better, but still too much all medium tones.

I thought perhaps sky would be nice and I do think it sets them off nicely.

This hand dye is one I did myself and used in “Spring Encounter”, but there is not much left. Certainly not enough, so I have been shopping for something to go with it, since I don’t really enjoy the mess of dyeing, myself. I darkened and tweaked the the grays on the dog for better contrast.

In the meantime I developed a plan for the SAQA “This Is A Quilt” collection. This exhibit travels for a period of time and the pieces only need to be 7 x 10″, so I thought this would be a good time to knock that out. I had purchased a wonderful piece of Marcia Derse fabric that was a mottled mix of greens and yellows with some reds and black with the idea that it would work for the winter color of male Goldfinches.

It is so good, I want more in case I decide to make a bigger version.

So yesterday I drove to Lawrence to Sarah’s where I had purchased that fabric, but I guess I was not the only one to love it and it was all gone!! I did score a batik though that I think will do for dog sky, and some more of the border black print that I am using on the dogs. Not all bad news though, because it forced me to go looking on line and I found Meandering Threads which has a lot of the kind of funky fabrics I love, so this morning I found the fabric online and ordered a yard of it plus a couple more that I couldn’t do without!

The last “This Is A Quilt” exhibit has retired and they are for sale in the SAQA store. I purchased “A Lotus Flower” by Chang Hsu-Hsing of Taiwan. It is gorgeous!! My little pieced dog is still available; the sale goes until Dec 31..still good stuff left, check it out!

We are hunkering down for a wintery blast of ice and snow, possible 10″, so I plan on sewing for the next few days! Check out “Off The Wall Friday” to see what others are working on.

Tags: Alaska, Birds, Dogs, Exhibits, Fabric, SAQA