Spring Break draws to a close

One more day until I go back to work. Spring Break is over. Where did it go is what I would like to know. I did enjoy 4 days with my parents....in the ice and snow...which made me glad to get home again to where the snowdrops and crocuses are showing their colors. I finished the vegetable quilt for Dad and it turned out really well.....but I forgot to take a picture of it! My cousin is going to send me one and I'll post it when she does that.

I have now cleaned my studio after the vegetable project, and am ready to start quilting a memory quilt that I did for a friend to give to her son. He is obviously a Calgary Flames fan! It will be nice to get that done. Not my favorite kind of quilting, but it's for a very good friend.

For now, here's a picture of my dog sulking while I was gone!

Art Trading Cards

Have you done, or do you trade ATC's? These little gems were the inspiration for my book coming out April 1st. "Embellishing with Anything". You can read that story in the book. My best friend and I got into making one for each other every month one year. We made two the same (but they're never totally the same). We then kept one and traded the other. It was fun and we ended up with a great collection of really special pieces. Here's pictures of two that I did for Judy. If you are interested in trading, contact me by private email and I'd be happy to exchange with you!

Absorbed in Beading

Have you seen the book by Maggie Grey called "Textile Translations"? It is fantastic. Not only is the book content wonderful, but there is the added bonus of free classes on-line. I'm working on the first of three and this is a portion of the project. I have dropped my vegetables for a few days and have been completely absorbed in beading this project. It is amazing how something that didn't look great becomes intriquing with the addition of embellishments. I've really been enjoying this, to the point of ignoring other things I should be doing! The only trouble is where to stop! I strongly suggest anyone interest in textile art/mixed media/surface design get this book. It is SO much information and incredibly inspiring.

The Garry Oak

This is a picture of the tree by the school where I work as a secretary. I absolutely love this tree. My Dad (age 94) did a needlepoint of it last year, from a photo. It is a Garry Oak and is protected species, but thrives in the Comox Valley and a few other special areas on Vancouver Island. Our school has an Environmental Group, which is doing a display to garner interest in their activities. One of the students took this photograph and emailed me to print it in color for their poster board. I thought I'd share it with everybody, just because I love it so much. It's spectacular no matter the season.

An Acorn Squash

How DOES this happen? I don’t know what I did wrong! I know that precision piecing is not my best quality, but today’s experience really brought that fact home! I pieced the acorn squash today. I spent the best part of last evening laying out all the freezer paper patterns on the selected fabric and cutting. I went to bed feeling happy that it was all laid out and ready to sew today.

This morning I did sew. Happily, all the pieces went together beautifully. Until I went to sew the final two halves of the block together. It was missing an entire wedge. It wasn’t actually missing…..all the wedges were there…..it just wouldn’t fit together unless I made one more wedge, or scrapped the whole thing and started over of course! So….I made a new wedge. It’s not quite perfect, but I’ll leave it until I have all the blocks done. If there’s time, I’ll try re-doing this one. But for now, I’ll make some corn and tomatoes….I have some already and they are more encouraging!

Vegetables for Dad

When my parents moved from the house they’d been in for 57 years, to a condominium, Dad had to give up his garden. It was a huge sacrifice for him as he loved growing vegetables. Not flowers….vegetables! He was 89 when they moved and is now 94. I wanted to make him the quilt from Ruth McDowell’s book “Pieced Vegetables”. I’ve talked and talked about it and finally realized I better get going on it or he won’t be here to enjoy it! So I’ve now got most of the blocks done. I plan to fly in to visit them for a few days during spring break and hope to have it finished for that visit.

I have paper pieced most of the blocks, but the lettuce, the star of the quilt, I decided to do with the curved piecing pattern. It was difficult and I ended up hand basting it and pressing before I sewed it, but it turned out well.

The lettuce is the star of the quilt because when I was born, first child, all the other women in the ward got flowers. My Dad brought Mum his first head of lettuce from that year’s garden. She still hasn’t forgiven him! I’ll post a picture of the quilt when it’s finished, but here’s the lettuce.

Charmed I'm sure.

I'm lucky enough to belong to an on-line group of textile artists headed up by Patti Culea, a well known author, dollmaker, textile artist and teacher. At the moment we are having a charm exchange. Since it's a fabric art group, the charms are textile ones. 1 1/2" in size, anything goes. I've been working on mine and enjoying every minute of them. My joy is in the doing of these projects, but when done, I'll have one of mine and 43 from on-line friends. We're all exchanging ideas on how to use them...bracelets, necklaces, chatelaines, mobiles, boas etc. Today while sorting out colors of beads for the next one I'll work on I spilled beads all over the living room floor. The hardwood I love had beads bouncing all over the place. I think the Dust Buster got about half of them....I resented the time taken away from my preparation to clean up but you know how husbands are when the walk in beads with bare feet! Here's a photo of the first few charms I've done.