Last minute stuff

I found my Faces piece. It was hiding in a bin of delayed projects. It is a photo of Alex at Jens wedding, for which he played the processional. The photo was taken by Jen's friend Julie. I played with it in Photoshop and printed it on fabrics, then fused it to hand dyed fabric. It is not 12 by 12, but it is my April offering. I had done another with more embellishment but found that the embellishment detracted from the photo and so made this simpler one, which I will frame and hang in my house if I can find some wall space.

Also found was the Moondance BOB which is now a pieced top. I had put it away a couple of years back, needing to come to some decision about the applique. It is a Beth Ferrier design, offered as a block of the month in 2005(?!) So today I found it and spread it out on the couch and finished the setting and decided I did not want to add the originally intended extra flowers and dragonflies and sewed it all together while listening to a reading of Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier.
Also sewed the machine part of the binding on the Quilts of Valor donation quilt and will finish that one this week, after work, one thread at a time.
So all in all it was a Very Good Day.
I even ordered Sue Nickels new book on machine applique from Amazon, and hopr to have the Sampler Top ready to applique by the time it gets here at the end of the week. Ahhhhh, what a life!

Journal Swap!

Cynthia sent me this beautiful from her studio in South Carolina! It is collaged and painted on the front and back covers and the inside covers as well.In Cynthia's note she describes her journey and encloses Blessings. I do feel Blessed! I have already started using it. Thanks so much Cynthia. I really appreciate the work and energy that went into it and I would love to hear more about your journal making group! It has obviously worked great for you! Can we join?
...many thanks to Kristine
for dreaming up this swap and I hope to particpipate in many more on the Create a Connection
blog! big hugs and blessings to you...

Ten ways not to start new things

Tilde wants to know how we prevent ourselves from starting new projects. I am the queen of starting new projects so in the interest of seeing if my sub conscious had any better ideas than my conscious mode, I made a list of one to ten and filled it in really fast to see what came to the surface-such as it is.
1. don't buy
2. don't look at books
3. don't unfinish (?)
4. don't put away
5. don't panic-there will aways be more
Here I reached a plateau and had to refuel. Must. Write. Five. More.
6. Delay I can delay just for today
7. Sleep on it.
8. Sleep on it again.
9. Form a Plan.
10. Cut up credit cards.
Now it is clear why I am the Queen, I need your help!! How do you stay on track and Prevent New Starts, (PNS)??? Do we need a Recovery Plan? Do we need Professional Help?
How do you do it? Are we responsible for keeping the online fabric stores in business?
Clearly my subconscious is not co operating. Take this challenge with me. Make a list from one to ten-fill in the ways you prevent new starts-quick! let your inner self use the pen. Then post a link in the comments I will award a fat quarter to the person whose answer Tilde likes the most!

dazzling

I am sitting here in my sewing room late at night, listening to a book on cd and admiring my blocks. So I thought I would put them in this blog and let the passers by admire them too. I am mesmerized by them. I want to turn off the book-The Thirteenth Tale-and go to sleep, but I am unable to tear myself away.
These blocks are part of a swap that was done with a friend and we are each doing a different setting. I know hers will be dazzling as well. I can't wait to see it!
ahhhh, how lovely...

Bailey is Fifteen

Happy Birthday Bailey. We are so proud of you!

pictures and stuff 2

All my children!!! on he same day even.....

plans for a day off in no order of importance

sash some blocks
do some grocery shopping
draw a picture
take some photos
do some writing
drink some tea
wash some clothes
do some more drawing
or sewing
ride a bike

Some flashy sashings

I am liking the pieced sashing altho it is causing some stress in my quilting buddies. heheh. Never fear, more shall be revealed.
In this months Quilter's Newsletter in the Quilting Bee segment on page twenty there is a quilt made by Cheri Branca, and I so like the setting that I am adapting it for my blocks. And that is why I love quilting mags.
So- for the I am not ready to reveal my Face for the month of April. It will be late. It is almost ready and it is a last minute substitute.
I am on Ping #five.....doing most of the sewing at work during lunch...
and I found a book on CD of "The Thirteenth Tale" which has been being talked about in some of my groups so I have something to listen to while I sew during the next week...I do love my ipod and books on cd from the library. Sometimes I do not like the ones that I randomly borrow from the shelves, but other times I strike it rich! Lately I have listened to "Thirteen Moons" and "The Long Night of Winchell Dear". both wonderful. I spend hours at a time listening and sewing and sometimes drawing in my journal. I would like to be drawing some more.
o !! and I mailed out my journal for the journal swap. I confess I did not write a letter. But I did find a nice journal and I hope that Tanaya likes it. There is something about a fresh page, an invitation, that I find irresistable.

Bailey won an award for excellence in poetry from Adelphi

Here is the poem that she read from her manuscript,
to the assembly:

Apart

What calamity is this,
which steals from me my senses?
And what crime have I done,
which leaves me begging for a pardon?
Well, tempests have fallen upon my home
and left only a splintering wooden foundation-
and I have had my body scavenged
by fiends of the night-
but never have I been so lacking,
so exposed,
or so rent apart.
For, when I have lost your hand-
the only one I’ve got to hold-
how am I to wage on through the dark?

Design wall is filling up

In the last few days I have completed one set of swap blocks which is the last for this season. One more Baltimore Elegance block is fused bringing the total to nine. The fourth Ping is ready to baste to the back round and a second diamond group is assembled.
And.....drum roll please...I have decided on a setting for my sampler blocks, which I will not reveal til I have had a chance to actually do some work on it which is going to be VERY SOON. I have the fabric and I have a plan. q=fp squared :) that is a hint.

and a couple more

Inspirations

Some inspirations for future Baltimore blocks. Self portrait Bailey did in second grade, a yard sale bud vase, tiles from different places, cross stitch I did in the eighties, bottles that have been flattened in a kiln to become chimes. These images are part of my own inner iconography and that is what I want refer to in this quilt, while at the same time including tradionalal patterns that hearken to quitlers and images for centuries past.

Bailey bakes

Bailey made Mike a beautiful vegan chocolate birthday cake. We celebrated today, the day before the actual birthday, because the cake was ready and no body wanted to wait til tomorrow when I come home from work. How is that for self control? The cake was divine. Bailey is a talented chef. She gets that from me:)
Tomorrow we can go out to dinner and celebrate again.
I tried to take a photo of Mike but he was not co operating, he was trying to direct, asking me if I had taken the cap off the lens, trying to catch me catch him. So I left him alone. Posterity will have to do with out a picture on his last ever night of being forty seven.
Another Baltimore Elegance block, traced and fused to the back round. Perhaps tonight I will cut out some more pieces for another block. Then on Sunday I can do some stitching around them and some other embellishment? We will see what the block needs.