Keeping My Toes Warm

Lately we've had a handful of days where the weather was spring like. All the rest of the days have been very cool, windy, and/or drizzly. Oh spring! Where are you???

It's a good thing I'm still knitting wool socks. Here is my recent completed pair. I shared a photo of this pair in the works a while ago here on the blog. I think this one is my favorite to date.

And here is the next pair that I'm working on. Another lovely yarn in mossy greens with a touch of bluish purple here and there.

I was reminded about sharing my socks here with you when I saw Deb share a pair here that she recently finished. Love the colorful, stripey yarn she used in hers.

Blog Anniversary Appreciation

Thank you everyone for helping me celebrate five years of blogging this month. I enjoyed your visits and comments. I'm so happy that you took the time to stop by.

You may remember that I said I would give away a copy of the Twelve by Twelve book to a commenter on my Blog Anniversary post earlier in the month. Well this morning I used the random number generator to choose a winner.















Here is the number that came up:

Number 30 corresponds to the comment left by QUILT RAT.

Congratulations Quilt Rat!

Color Palette for May

The 3 Creative Studios May Color Palette is a gorgeous one and it is called Summer Sunset.  If you would like more information on how to participate in the 3CS Color Palette Challenge, click here.

I've been making a composition notebook cover each month with the current color palette. Here is the one I made with the Summer Sunset colors. As I look at the colors in the photos here, they don't look the same as in the color palette photo above. I think my lighting when taking the photographs must have caused this because when I pulled the fabrics from my stash, they seemed to match.

Front - Closed

Full outside cover













Each month Vicki creates a hand dyed fabric palette to match the current color palette. You can see the beautiful fabrics Vicki created for the Summer Sunset palette here. I just love the gradient she did with these colors.

Vicki is also running a special in her Etsy shop for pattern kits. The special includes my pattern for Growin' Flowers.

Vicki's special will last through May 31, so hurry on over to her shop to check it out.

Blue Lagoon Handbag

Well here's the final result of what I started creating the other day. I shared the sneak peek with you in Monday's post. It became a handbag. It's a larger sized bag so it could also be considered a small tote.

I guess I was influenced by my recent new Laurel Burch handbag that I got last month. Funny thing also is that the limey green cotton duck fabric that the cat is painted on is scraps left over from another project that have been around for a couple years or so. I love it when I can use up scraps.

I've added this item to my etsy shop.

I Picked a Flower for You!

Yay!  I've finished this quilt.  I'm thinking about doing this design again in a fused collage technique.  We'll see.  This one measures approximately 25" x 25".

Monday Sneak Peek

This is something I started over the weekend.  We'll see where it goes.

Journal Quilt #18

This is my journal quilt for this last week. I finished it yesterday.  You might recognize this design.  It's from my sketchbook and I shared it with you a few posts ago.....here.

Mistyfused cottons, free-motion quilting, thread sketching, water-soluble crayons, couched fibers

AQS Blog of the Week & More

I'm very excited. My blog was chosen by AQS (American Quilter's Society) as Blog of the Week.

I also just learned that AQS has an online quilting community...My Quilt Place.  So I joined!  Hope to see you there.

Another thing I'm very excited about is this:

 Art Quilting Studio - Summer 2011

I received my copy in yesterday's mail.  I have an article in this issue.  The article focuses on how I create backgrounds for some of my quilts.

I'm not sure if this issue is out on the newsstands just yet, but it will be very soon.

Working on My Girl

In a Painting Mood

I've been working on my Spice 12x12 quilt for the next Twelve by Twelve reveal on June 1. I'm unable to share that with you right now, but here are a couple of things I can share with you.

While quilting, I was also painting. I would paint a layer and let it dry and while it was drying, I would quilt. Multi-tasking....works great when you need to let something dry.

Spotty Dotti - 6" x 6" canvas panel/board

Acrylic paint, charcoal, Neocolor II crayons, ink, satin varnish

Whimsical Garden - 8" x 8" gallery wrapped canvas

Acrylic paint and satin varnish

I'm going to be adding these paintings to my Etsy shop within the next day or two.  But if you are interested in either one and I haven't added them to the shop yet, email me. 

I want to shout out a big THANK YOU to everyone who has stopped by so far and helped me celebrate my blog anniversary.  I'm having a blast and your visits have been so enjoyable.  

My Blog's Anniversary

Wow, it's hard for me to believe that five years ago, this month of May, I started blogging. I remember that I was apprehensive about blogging and I really didn't know how much I would blog or if I would enjoy blogging.

Today, I'm very happy that I started blogging back then and can honestly say that I've enjoyed it immensely. I think the top benefit I've gotten out of blogging is "meeting" so many lovely people who have stopped by my blog and making wonderful cyber friendships.

To celebrate my five-year anniversary, I am giving away a copy of the Twelve by Twelve book to one lucky reader. Please leave me a comment here and you will be in the drawing. I will pick a winner on the morning of May 30.

When you comment, please make sure I have a way to contact you.  Thanks to all of you for stopping by my blog.  I enjoy your visits very much.

Must Accessorize

Last month (April) was my birthday and I received this fabulous handbag from my parents for my gift. I have always been a fan of Laurel Burch art and have a few items around my home with her designs.

The handbag is large, like a small tote and I love it's roominess. I find that the older I get the larger I want my handbag to be.....what's with that? But I had to have matching accessories for it. So I got busy.

A few years ago I had another Laurel Burch handbag, one that was quite a bit smaller. It was similar in color as this new one, the indigo blues. I wasn't using it anymore and I knew I wouldn't, so I cut out the design panels from it and used them to make that small pouch you see on the left side of the photo above.

You will find the tutorials for the four accessories on the righthand side of the above photo at the 3 Creative Studios free projects page here. The Checkbook Cover and Mini Wrapfolio were written by Sue Bleiweiss and the Business Card Case and Easy Eyeglass Case were written by me.

Journal Quilt #17

Waiting for the Tulips (Journal Quilt #17)
Mistyfused fabric scraps, free motion quilting

Well WOW!  Today is Friday.  I woke up this morning and could hardly figure out how this week slipped by so quickly.  When really the week was very very dark and gloomy and should have been dragging along.  Really, our weather has been dark, gloomy and cold all week and I'm craving sunshine.  The weather report tells me I won't see any until Sunday probably.

My journal quilt this week is inspired by the tulips out in my garden.  Yes, those would be the tulips that have been growing like crazy and all have lovely colorful flower heads on them that won't open because we've had no sunshine.   I bet they are getting depressed too.  I sure hope they get a chance to open and shine before they croak over for the season.

So I guess Blogger had some big issues/problems the last few days.  For a while, the post previous to this one was totally gone.  And it appears that the last two posts have lost their comments.  :(  Don't know if those will come back or not.  Hopefully they have it all fixed up now.

Have a great weekend everyone!

What's In A Name

I was in a doodly/sketchy mood last evening so I pulled out a sketchbook and pen and played.  As I was drawing this make-believe butterfly I got to thinking about the word "butterfly".  Why are they called that and who decided this?

I wonder what the world would be like if they were called:

• Jellyflies
• Cherryflies
• Flowerflies
• Floatyflies

It's all pretty silly huh?  But fun!

My friend Diane recently created some fun and colorful butterflies.  Check them out!   Diane recently took Alisa Burke's online class Sketchbook Delight.  That looks like a great class.  But I decided to try out Alisa's newest online class Watercolor Bliss.  I haven't played with my watercolors for a few weeks and while I feel like I was getting to know them a bit, I think this class will be a good way for me to explore them more.  So I'm looking forward to the start of that class in June.

It's A Red Kind of Day

I spy lots of red in my studio today.

And here is my latest progress on my dryer sheet quilt. Verna G. commented in the previous post, asking what a dryer sheet quilt is. Well this is it. Pretty much a string quilt.

I've been working on this quilt for several months and the last post I shared with you on it was back in January here. At that time I had two sections completed. Now I have three. It's getting harder to find floor space to spread it out for photographs. And getting a good photo around here lately is tricky as our days have been very overcast and gloomy. In this photo I have it spread out on the floor by our wood burning stove, which thankfully we aren't using anymore this season.

I wrote a tutorial on how I'm making this quilt and you will find it at the 3 Creative Studios Free Projects page here. Look for the project titled Dryer Sheet Quilts.

My goal is to make three more sections and then see what size it is.  As it is now (if there was one more section in that top left corner), I think it would be big enough for a full size bed, but not positive.  So I'll just keep saving my dryer sheets and working on it when I have a bunch saved up.

Happy Mother's Day

My Garden Hat (Journal Quilt #16)

Mistyfused fabrics, textile paint, thread sketching

I'd like to wish everyone a very happy Mother's Day today.  The quilt above is my weekly journal quilt and I'm a couple of days late with it.

I've had a somewhat busy week these past few days and I don't feel like I've accomplished a whole lot.  My friend was over to my house on Friday and we spent the day sewing on projects we have been working on.  I worked on my dryer sheet quilt and I think I'm lucky if I got 10 blocks completed.  We seemed to spend a lot of the time chatting away.  But it was very fun even though I didn't get much done.  I will try and get the dryer sheet blocks done over the next few days as I have a bucket full of used dryer sheets that I need to get working on.

I also didn't get any more quilting done on my silly girl quilt.  Hopefully this week.

Swirly Fill

I started quilting on my little girl quilt yesterday.  I completed the fill in the white background area.  I love this swirly design.

On the Needles

Here is what I currently have on my sock needles.  I am totally loving this color.  I got this gorgeous variegated skein of sock yarn from this etsy seller...Fireweed Dyeworks.  She has a lovely selection of beautiful colors available.  Of course this photo doesn't do justice to the colors in the yarn.

This color palette is called Spice and is the current challenge over at Twelve by Twelve.  So far I have been unable to come up with a quilt idea using this palette.  Helen chose this palette for us and shared a photo of the actual spices here.