Loose Threads Cancer Cure Raffle Quilt

Hey Folks,
This is a raffle quilt, made by the Loose Threads Quilters in Arizona, the proceeds of which are being donated to the American Cancer Society.If you are interested:
"They can send me a check made out to The American Cancer Society, and I'll
send them a scan of the stub if they enclose their e/mail with the check so
they know this is 'true blue'........."
Dian's email is
eless1@ix.netcom.com
The tickets are $l.00 or $5.00 for 6 tickets
CHECKS GO TO:
Dian Moore
843 Scenic Pointe
Prescott, Arizona 86303
Thanks Dian!! I hope you sell alot of tickets!

The Bear

My husband gave me the silver medicine bear many years ago to protect me. I have worn it every day for ten years. The design is by Ray Tracey a Native American artist who makes beautiful jewelry. I look at the stars and see these constellations: Orion, The Hunter, Pleiades, the Seven Sisters and Ursa Major, the Great Bear. All of these constellations have appeared in my poems and I have memories of learning of them from my young father, the sailor, who could probably navigate by the stars. Maybe someday I will dig up the poems and share them here.
For the last few days as I was mentally preparing for the meeting we had today at the school, I put togeher these bear paw blocks. My plan is to make a quilt for me. I love the dark blue backround and the bear paw pattern has many layered meaning for me. I have a Roberta Horton book on Amish quilts on loan from the library and I am in love with the colors and the quilts. I have been buying beautiful hand dyed cottons and tucking them away for just such a project. But I was vascillating between a double nine patch and the bear paw and I guess I needed to borrow strength from the Great Bear.
And I got it. I was a bear today in the meeting and Katy is back in school as of tomorrow. We will still have home tutors in the afternoon so she can make up credits and next year she can attend the alternative school full time. So Mama Bear made an appearance and the day was good!

Job interview

Today I took my daughter for her tutoring session which ended up being at Starbucks by default. The library was on its late opening schedule, closed when we arrived, and the Starbucks is right next door.
Well It turns out that they were interviewing so on an impulse I filled in a application and interviewed. I have a pretty stacked resume- former aviation exec, kitchen deigner corporate facilitator vendor contract manager maintenance resource positioning manager housing commisoner blah blah. But I left all that behind because I did not want to sell my soul for a job and now when I want to get a job to have extra money for the cookie jar(and hand dyes and oil paint and beads and seeds....)(and shoes) and start a retirement fund(better late than never), I wonder if I can even get a job at Starbucks-which, by the way looks like a nice part time place to work if you like coffee- which I do. At least I will not be getting calls from grounded a/c crews looking for a part that can be delivered to a remote spot in the southern hemishere, like yesterday.
Funny though. Interviewing is a good way to re-look at your work history, which I have not done recently, since I had no intention of actually getting a real job. But having a real job has its advantages. As one former colleague put it"you can't spend money while you are working." And you get to talk to people whose only need from you is a latte and thank you very much have a great day.
Just yesterday I was thinking I should study for the LSATs and go to law school to become an advocate for disabled kids who are getting sidelined by out school systems which only want to extrude a bland mediocre plain old homoginized cheese product kind of kid. What abot the hot peppers? where is the blue cheese? no passion, no guts, no glory. Sad. I would be a great advocate. But I am not going to law school and I have to advocate for my very own hot pepper kid. Which is a job in and of itself and the only job for which I am truely irreplaceable.

Swaps

It occurs to me that three of the five tops that I have finished in the last couple of years have been made of swapped blocks. Two of them have grown up to become quilts. I have three other sets of swapped blocks that live in bins on my fabric shelf. If I am not mistaken this is not a phenomenon that happens in many other artistic communities.I consider fabric post cards an offshoot of the quilting community. And the internet has made the opportunity to swap fabric and finished blocks and postcards and artist trading cards much more widely practised. Cool, Huh?
And my daughter's wedding quilt will be made of swapped blocks as well. I have really loved being able to trade blocks with other quilters. I get to enjoy a wider variety of fabric. I get to have block combinations that I would never have thought of myself and I feel like I am part of a world wide community.
Right now I am participating on a siggie square block exchange with the Dear Jane internet list of quilters. I am sending out 122 blocks that I have made and stamped and signed and I will get back the same amount from quilters all over the globe, To me, this is thrilling!! And when I do get back my blocks from this third swap I have done I will have enough to make a quilt. And it will be a thing of beauty.
I am not involved in any other swaps right now. I am trying to focus on the works in progress that I have in my space. Th down side of swaps is that you can spend all your energy on these dear little blocks and forget to use them in any final project.

Quilt Show LIQS 2006

Well I am here to tell you I did need to get out and have some fun. The quilts were great and it was so much what I needed to see "the Girls". Linda and Claudia and Gay-I am so glad we did this and I hope to see you in Somers in May.
And I was weak. I did buy fabric. And I have to say it did feel like an injection of cheer to make up for recent days of disaster. But isn't it gorgeous? Now I will be back on the wagon. Maybe I need a 12 step group?
And I had a stowaway.
Gay's Applique in greens and lavendar was lovely.

The Round Robin's Gay's and Claudia's are divine, are they not? They are part of a round robin group that is doing red, green and cream and they are all so talented! (Linda aka Hersheybar is behind there somewhere.)
Altogether we did not harm our budgets too much. Claudia had to go paint her garage with her hubby, Gay had a long ride home and Linda had a job at one of the tables so I giddy yapped on outta there at about three. Still had a little cash in my pocket and did not abuse the plastic so I am content.

Blue paint

Today was a good day to paint. We had a tutor so I played some music (I am a Joni Mitchell fan from the seventies) the Blue album and squished some paint around a piece of plywood. I love paint. Soothes the soul.
This week was full of bad news for us. The school district will not allow my bi polar daughter to go to the alternative school until she is 16 or has the credits which they screwed her out of in the first place. They want her to be schooled at home by tutors until next year. And I had to wait three days to hear this. I told the principal that when I ran a million dollar business, I always returned phone calls. I hate the celebrity status these adminstrators give themselves. It is just a poor excuse for bad manners.
My daughter is crushed but she is bouncing back and has assured me they will get a piece of her mind next week when we have a meeting. I will let her, because I feel very angry myself and she does not deserve to be excluded from school. I have been told that I should sue, that they are out of compliance with state law and I have a good case but why should I have to go to all that energy and expense? I am thinkin on it. real hard.
But things could be worse eh? I am going to a quilt show tomorrow and a birthday party tomorrow night and I am going to spend some time sewing tonight and not think about any more educational issues til Monday.Today Mike got quesadillas for lunch and I bought Katy new sneakers. So I am actually doing ok here. And besides maybe Katy will become a lawyer and take up the cause for the disabled. It is a family tradition.

WOBQ Miriam Block - a photoset on Flickr

WOBQ Miriam Block - a photoset on Flickr
Here is how I made this block. I have received permission from Judy Mathiesonto share this technique.You can click on the title to go to the pictures.They are sort of out of order but I hope you can get a general idea.
I love to paper piece and using freezer paper makes it easy because you don't have to tear the paper off and pick the little pieces out of the stitching lines and seams. And it is re usable. People in my Women of the Bible group have been talking about different ways to do their blocks so I decided to try and photograph my process. Thanks to Judy for granting permission. She also said in her email that QNM has an article this month on this freezer paper foundation method.

semi contour

I did not like this picture at first but it grew on me. It was tucked away in my notebook and after it was out of sight for a while, I liked it better.

Bathroom Renovation

This project has been ongoing for a couple of years now. Mike has been doing it solo in his "spare time". It is so pretty that it makes the rest of the house looks seedy in comparison. Except for the kitchen which we also made beautiful. I used to think that making beautiful things and rooms was shallow and unimportant. I am happy to report that I am not so mean to myself any more and I think it is important to bring beauty into the world..
I am going to tackle our room next. I am going to make a walk in closet and get rid of the old dropped ceiling and indooroutdoor glued down brown carpet((????!!!)) and maybe a small skylight too. All in good time.

my hat

At least I amuse myself. It actually does look a little like my hat which is a soft brown knitted cap. I used a ball point pen and then added ink with a water brush and then changed the whole thing to sepia in my photo editing program.
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old/new project

Upon my wall is a compiliation of projects that have been waiting patiently in different parts of my sewing hiding places (some say storage, but I am hiding them from myself). So I have rescued them from their obsolescence and pinned them on the flannel which serves as my 'design wall'. In my mind, it is a sliding barndoor sized mechanical wonder. In reality it is a piece of white flannel stapled to the wall. (I even have an electronic staple gun. How cool is that? )It will do for now. I am contemplating this work in progress and I think for the next round I will make my first ever applique border. The flower will be borrowed from Connie Sue Haidle's BOM . To me it appears to be a Clematis, which is one of my favorite flowers. It is a late bloomer like me. Intensely blue, likes to stay in the same location and requires alot of patience.
Sometimes when I am at a point in a project which stumps me I abandon it and often do not re visit for years. Often I could skip a step and keep going but usually I just leave. So now I am at a point in this personal round robin and I am here to say I will finish it, with applique-which is my weak link-and so there it is.

Live Giraffe Cam at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Live Giraffe Cam at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
Bonnie posted this giraffe cam on her website and I was really looking forward to seeing those giraffes walking around but I think it was too cold for them to come out, see and be seen, so I drew the little guy on the left. I got my copy of Danny Gregory's "the Creative License" and one of the excersizes is contour drawing so I did it.Then I filled it in. I bought myself some colored pencils and a waterbrush to use with my watercolor pencils. I also tried to do a drawing of my sewing machine but it was not as much fun. The giraffe was more humorous.
Why does it feel silly to draw with no purpose? Silly is useless? Am I too old to play just for the sake of playing? I should be doing something more important, more momentous! serious literature or something, politcal commentary, deep cradling poem rocking the world to sleep on its rythyms, changing the world. Can't you see Rome is burning? Why are you doodling????

Journal quilt for Else

I made the cross stitch in the eighties, the linoleum print in the ninties and the journal quilt today! Just thought i would share:)
The cross stitch was from a design which was not mine but I can't remember where. It was a while ago. The linoleum print was made for a friend with a full heart! And the journal page is for my husband's mother Mike.
And I have to go and ice two cakes and hop in the shower and get ready for the birthday celebration!

pencil drawing

Ok this is my self portrait drawing for the EDM challenge. The original was done standing in front of my bathroom mirror with a number two pencil, however my scanner would not pick up the pencil marks very well so I played with it in Adobe Elements.There is a certain ironic likeness and I don't know if thats good or bad, lol! I also drew some bugs todayfor the Friday Illustration topic. Not very convincing but buggy nevertheless. The big guy looks hungry.

This is my Jen

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This is the bride to be, Jen. She says she is so glad that the internet has saved me from my argorophobia. I can talk to people all over the world with out going outside:)
No entirely true, I traveled alot, all over the world and love the city, NYC and Boston mostly, and going to Vermont and visiting with friends at Starbucks and artshows and quilt shows. But I do like to stay home. Yes I do. Home is where I sew and paint and read and draw and from whence I do draw my inspiration, such as it is.

This is Alex's graduation quilt. He will get his BA in Performance Arts in May.The design is from Bonnie Hunter's site. www.quiltville.com, in the leader ender section. The blocks were from a nine patch swap I did on the yahoo group DJretreats. I was short a few rows from the swap so I made a bunch at the end very randomly.The wonderful quilting was done by Becca Olson and Shiela Jaurez in Alaska. They quilted musical notes in the white squares! The hairy kid is my son, Alex.

My Katy

Modeling her bridesmaid dress for Jen's wedding.