Blog Redecoration

Did you all notice the redecorating I did on the blog???  I felt it was time for a new look, so I went ahead and made some changes.

It seems like I've not had any time lately to post here what I've been doing lately.  It must be that time of year.  Anyway, here are a few things that I've done.  First up is my latest progress on The Girls.  I've now got all the borders on and did you notice???  They're green!  I found a second green fabric that was sort of similar and at first I thought it wouldn't work, but now that it's on there I'm finding that it works better than I imagined.  The right and bottom borders are one green fabric and the remaining two borders are another green fabric.  Both of these fabrics were actually dyed in the same dye bath, a parfait style dyeing session.  So they have a lot of the same dye colors in them, but just in differing mixes of colors

I have the top and bottom borders quilted.  I just need to quilt the two side borders and add a binding and then this one is finished.  I'm thinking I will go with a black with white dot binding fabric.

Next up are a couple of composition notebook covers I made.  These were made from the same fabric that I had painted/stamped/stenciled/screened.  Whew!  That's a lot of techniques all rolled into one.

I crocheted that little doily for this cover.

This notebook cover was given as a prize to the 3CS color palette challenge winner.

Here's a close-up of the doily.

And the final two photos are some doodles I've been doing in my sketchbook.

Have a great Thursday!

Border Auditions

I've been in the process this week of trying to figure out what direction to go with this quilt.  First I tried this fat blue/thin black border idea.

Next I tried a warmer toned fat border.

Then I auditioned the addition of a border that is the same style as the inner sashing strips.

Then paired that with a fat blue border.

And finally, I auditioned a light green fat border. 

The last option was my favorite and I proceeded to add the sashing strips to the quilt and then came to a screeching halt.  I don't think I have enough of the light green fabric to do all four borders.  I will check again and see if I can make it work or I might have to move on to plan B.  I'm not sure yet what plan B is, but hopefully I won't need it.

Wall Cats

I finally got my Kitty Litter grouping up on the wall.  These are hanging in my bedroom.

And they look great with my new quilt that I finished this year.

Making Progress

Slowly but surely I'm getting some work done on the girls. I've now got all the vertical sashing strips attached and quilted and the upper horizontal sashing strip as well. Next I need to add and quilt the bottom horizontal sashing strip. I plan to do that today. I also hope to decide what I want to do for outer borders.  Not only is this a "quilt as you go" project, but it's also a "decide as you go".

And I'm finished with my holiday greeting cards....YAY!  They are now ready for stamps and a trip to the post office.  I even ended up with a few extra cards.  Hmmm, what to do, what to do.

Now I need to start thinking about some holiday baking.  The boy loves his traditional favorites, so I'll need to see what I have on hand and make a list.  What is your favorite holiday treat?

I'm a Hoarder

A neutral fabric hoarder, that is!  Okay, maybe I don't have quite as many as some other quilters out there, but lately I just can't seem to stop looking and buying.  Is there a cure?  Do I want to be cured?  NO!

I shared some photos recently of neutral fabrics I've purchased lately and I've now added to that.  This photo shows all of the neutrals I've purchased within the past 30 to 40 days, so there are some you've seen.  I've been acquiring more fabrics with text on them, thanks to some concerned readers who knew of some that they figured I'd like.  The stack of whites on the left are not plain white, but white on white prints, which work wonderfully for the way that I like to use these neutral fabrics.

And here's a photo of all my neutrals in my cupboard.  See, that's not an obnoxious amount, right???

Christmas Card Progress

I'm making progress on my hand made Christmas greetings.  I've finished with the creation of the card front.

I found some red scrap booking papers in my paper stash and used my deckle-edge ruler to trim the paper to the size I wanted.  Then I used my handy dandy taper thingie to adhere everything together.

Now I'm trying to compose a greeting for the inside of the card.  I haven't yet landed on one I'm satisfied with, but I think I'm getting close.  Hopefully I'll have that decided by this evening so I can sit and write the greeting text into the cards.

As I'm typing this, my house is beginning to smell wonderful.  I'm baking an apple pie for hubby.  He tells me he can't get enough of it lately and if he could, he'd change his middle name to Pie.

Quilting As I Go

I'm back to working on these girls again.  I've decided to combine them all in one wall hanging. 

I'm trying out a new technique, a quilt-as-you-go method.  I learned this technique from another blogger,  MariQuilts over at The Quilting Edge.  MariQuilts generously provides a fabulous tutorial on her blog for this technique, so if you are so inclined to give it a try, I recommend her tutorial.

You can see in the photo above that I have two vertical sashing strips to add yet and then I will move on to the horizontal sashing strips.  And then the borders.

It's That Time of Year

It's time to make the holiday greeting cards.  This year I decided to make a somewhat traditional holiday greeting card.  Last evening I sat in front of the TV and drew these trees onto 90 lb. watercolor paper.  Next I added some light washes of green with watercolor paint.  Now they are ready for the next step.

Here is something I started working on over the weekend.  Mending.  Mmm hmm.  You know, the only people on this planet I will consider mending for is my family.  The boy had three pairs of jeans with lots of holes.  Evidently his "holes in the jeans are cool" days are over.

before

after

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Are you making holiday greetings this year?

Spirit Muses

I've drawn a couple more of these fun, wacky characters recently and now I have three of them.

I've sort of started thinking of them as spirit muses and while I'm not sure if there will be more of these coming out of me, I might think about creating them into art quilts.  We'll see, not sure on that yet.

Early Christmas for Me

Every year, about a month or two before Christmas, hubby always asks me the same question..."What do you want for Christmas?"  Over the years we have come to realize that we really don't need anything since we usually just buy what we need when we need it.  And we've also learned that it's better to get each other something we know the other wants, and have totally stopped buying gifts that are surprises, only to end up not being something not wanted.

So our ritual is to tell each other what we would like and we usually then go ahead and get it.  We don't wait for the official date to exchange our gifts.  This year, I knew a few months in advance what I wanted.  I usually don't desire jewelry, especially since I'm at home on a full-time basis and I don't wear jewelry at home.  But this year I wanted jewelry.  My friend, Martha, has a silver ring that I had been admiring for quite a while.  I asked her about it and she told me she had a jewelry artist friend who made it.  She gave me the information on her friend and I contacted her about making me a similar ring.

Jamie Santellano was a pleasure to work with and quickly made me a ring in the size I needed.  I love it and find I want to wear it all the time, even at home.

I had it made to wear on my right hand, middle finger, but have you ever tried to take a photo with your left hand?  Just. Can't. Be. Done!  But of course, now I remembered that I purchased a wireless remote for my camera...duh!

I also had this ridiculously cute kitty pendant "favorited" on Etsy.  And one day, hubby saw it on my computer screen and declared I must have that.  So needless to say, I didn't argue.

This cute silver pendant was purchased from Etsy seller Mark Poulin.  And Mark's photos of these bright silver objects are totally better than what I did.  He's got more cute jewelry too and I may just have to innocently leave images of those on my computer screen in the future.

Hope you had a great week!