In just two days I will be leaving for Houston for International Quilt Market! It’s been a busy week getting everything ready to load into the car. I didn’t go to Houston last year because I was in Atlanta teaching, so it seems like forever since I was there. I will pick up Rose in Wichita and we will have another excellent adventure!

The weather is definitely beginning to feel like fall, so yesterday afternoon I re-potted the plants that over winter inside and got them moved into the studio. It’s hard to find room for them all!

I tried to update my website but ran into some trouble getting it to accept text in places – I don’t know why that happens sometimes but I will try again if I can find the time. One thing that I did discover is that I never did get a finished photo of “Colorado Kids” after it was quilted and bound! And now it is gone to be in the exhibit that it was made for. “Inspirations”, art inspired by photographs. “Colorado Kids” was inspired by a photo by Tammy Patterson that she calls “Playground”, I believe. It’s an amazing photo and I was really anxious to do it in fabric. You can click on Mt Goats in the side bar to see in progress shots of the making of it. And if you are in the vicinity do stop by the Classic Bean in Fairlawn Plaza,Topeka to see the whole show. It will be up the months of Nov and Dec and it will be wonderful!

Two quilts made it safely home last week, “Spring Encounter” from AQS Des Moines with it’s gorgeous blue First Place ribbon and “Burlingame Fire” from PIQF with a lovely pink Judge’s Choice ribbon! It’s been a good year in spite of not getting into Houston’s judged show this year. I will still have two things there in special exhibits.

It’s been a busy week! last night was the First Friday Art Walk and the reception for my Artist of the Month Exhibit at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery. As usual, I forgot my camera and will have to rely on the pictures of others at a later date. There was a very nice turnout, though, and even some sales! Great to see old friends I haven’t seen in a while. The small Iris sold (thanks, Jill!) and quite a few of the note cards.

On Thursday we discovered a small tumor on the Komondor which was thought to be malignant and was removed Thursday night. He is quite uncomfortable, but recovering now at home.

We have had over two inches of much needed rain in the past few days, along with cooler weather so I have been able to get outside and do some work in the gardens. it has been a brutal summer for the plants, especially the new ones and I have lost that gorgeous Hot Papaya Coneflower and probably the Black Lace Elderberry.

In amongst all of that I have been quilting on the Mt Goat quilt whenever I can fit it in. It will have a LOT of quilting on it and is coming along nicely. It is slated for an exhibit in Nov and Dec, so needs to be a priority.

The painters came yesterday, painted the living room, dining room, kitchen and hallway and were gone in three hours!! It would have taken me at least two days. In my defense no one has ever moved all of the furniture out of MY way and removed the baseboards for ME! The color is Desert Tan which looks yellow to me, sort of a light golden shade which will lighten and brighten the space, I think. The rug and pad that I ordered arrived already and I can’t wait to unroll it and see how it will look, but must wait for the tiling to be done. That starts Monday morning. I cannot believe the amount of STUFF that we have moved, the house is in upheaval and we are living out of the studio with the refrigerator moved into the utility room and the range soon to be in the garage! The dogs are very confused. Me too.

In addition to the above spaces, we are also having the main bathroom floor tiled so today I am going to paint that room while the baseboards are out.

In between all of this, I have layered, pin basted and am in the process of quilting “Colorado Kids”. It’s coming along quite well.

Yesterday was the postmark deadline for PA National and I had nothing available to enter there this year except for “Longhorn Splashdown” which can’t go there because I have it pegged for Pacific Int this year. So there’s two shows where my work will not be on display this year, Houston, and PA. Bummer. Well actually, I will have work at Houston, just not in the contest.

Thanks everyone, for the comments!

First thing yesterday I cleaned off the cutting table and put the fabrics away. The empty table makes the whole studio look bigger! The design wall is empty too, makes me want to create something new to fill the void.  Or I could just hang my “Colorado Kids” back up…..

When all of the fabric was sorted and folded, this is all that was left of the rock fabrics – good thing the piece was not any larger!

Most of these pieces were too small to keep and went into the trash. In a few weeks when I go to PA for the AQS show, I’ll be shopping for rock fabric.

I did get a nice start on the taxes yesterday afternoon so maybe it won’t be too long before I can mess up that table again!

The top is finished!! I scrolled back to see when I started and it was Jan 25 that I posted the photograph I would be working with. It has been a long process but I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. You can click on the tag Mt Goats to go back to the beginning.  At this point it measures 39 x 45″.

Several hours were spent yesterday just removing the freezer paper from the back. I am eager to get started on the quilting which will change and enhance it, but realistically, I must put it aside for now as it’s deadline is not until August and I have more pressing things to deal with – like taxes!

Thanks all of you who have hung in there throughout the process and especially those of you who posted. It’s been fun!

I was really hoping to finish yesterday and it was an intense day trying! Lot’s of unsewing takes too much time. I changed out six rocks, altered sections to improve hind legs on the middle goat and added a leg to the front goat. In the photo his fourth leg does not show, but I decided it needed to. I also gave him a highlight on the chest which was blending away into a rock. The middle goat got a nose and a lighter shadow for his neck and some of the smaller units got sewn together.

I should be able to finish today!

I only got to work a couple of hours yesterday, but I got the eye enlarged and the sections of the upper half sewn together. Also a few of the units in the lower half.

Today I need to go to town so may not accomplish a whole lot! It’s time to get “Burlingame Fire” off to AQS for the Lancaster show.

Here it is the first of March already and this little snowdrop, that I think emerged in January is still looking good.

It is only the second year for the snowdrops that I planted and they have not yet multiplied as I had hoped but at least they are hanging in there.

The ice is melting on the fish pond. Here is a glimpse of a big Koi, two of the goldfish and a Golden Orfe.

As I worked yesterday it became apparent that the upper rock ledge was actually distracting,

drawing attention away from the babies, so I lopped off three and a half inches. Good! Now there is even less to work on! I thought the right upper brush border was too dark but I liked the idea of it so I re cut another from a lighter section of fabric and sewed it in.

By the end of the day, I had completed the units and sewn together the sections of the upper portion as well as the lower ledge.

This required some un sewing which is time consuming but necessary. Since I had to take apart the rock area below the back kid’s face I took the opportunity to add a smidgen of white to define his chin. Unfortunately while I was in there I forgot that I also wanted to enlarge his eye. I pinned up a bit of fabric to his eye and I really do think it is worth doing. I could go in with a Pigma pen and make it a little bigger but then there would be a seam line right across his eye. Not good. I will most likely take it apart again and fix it.

For the lower right border that was questionable – dark foliage, fern?- I ended up with neither, using instead some of the flower fabric that is in the hillside, with a bit more on the right edge of the rock ledge.

I sketched noses on vellum and pinned those in place on the two closest goats for an idea of how they might look.

At this point the piece measures about 40 x 46″. Quilting will take it up probably a couple of inches. I had intended for it to finish at least 40″ so I’m not sure what happened. I think I had planned to cut the edge pieces bigger and forgot!

Tomorrow I will start to address all the little bits I have pinned up and do my tweaks. It is nearly done! But I know from experience it will take longer than I think.

I replaced the “borrowed” piece back to the lowers section and cut some pieces of the new fabric for the upper portion. Completing the section at the upper left required subdividing some of the units in order to use those small bits of fabric that I have to left work with.

I cut the two right border strips, making the fern one shorter and recutting the ledge rock to extend out to the edge. I pinned a bit of the fern fabric over some light rock fabric behind the front goats back leg that has been bothering me. That whole section of ledge should probably be darker.

Now that I am not distracted by the recorded Olympics Figure Skating, I feel like I made pretty good progress yesterday!

More cliff base pieces. I’m really liking how this dark accent seems to compliment the goats and puts them in perspective within the scene. While still the focal point, they seem to look smaller, more like the babies they are, against the vastness of the mountain.

I need to work into lighter areas and you can see my problem:

I love this old fabric and have it in three colorways. It has served me well over the years, but now I am down to the dregs! I have too much fabric to fit on my shelves so it is nice to use some up, but also sad, when it is such a favorite!

By the end of the day I have placed some of the lights and pulled a light piece from the lower rocks to try up at the top. It is a piece of the Stonehenge fabric that is still available, so I got another yard of it. I think I will be able to finish, now.