Life gets in the way

Sometimes life does get in the way of quilting, making art, working. I have not made a stitch for a week or so. Finally, yesterday I even stayed home from from work, a stomach virus took me down. And I needed to rest and take fluids. Try to eat. No stitches were made.

The bag I am knitting is so boring I will not post a picture-knit to be felted, nothing but row after row in the round. It will be a fine bag when it is done, but it is nothing to look upon at present.

I have a package or two to mail and I have not even begun to think of what to get the kids for Christmas. I love Christmas and I want us all to enjoy it-but I am uninspired at the moment. So I will let you all gaze upon the masks, whose picture I took last summer, and maybe we will be inspired by them.

Love and peace to all, m

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my husband and my kids and my job, friends, and the creative spirit that made us and makes us interesting!

I am not cooking, not overeating and I am going to pray for peace and love and healing for the world which surely needs it.

And what about you? What will you be thankful for and what will be in your prayers today?

Beaded Diamonds

I spent a few hours today working on this project, adding some beads, wondering what to add to the alternate diamonds which are photos of our beach. It is a pleasure to spend  a day working on this. It may actually get done! But not today. It is one bead at a time

Works in Progress

Trying to post a picture I took showing my works in progress but Blogger is not cooperating. Ahh there you go! Blogger has some new features which I will try to use! A new OS X Leopard and a new blogger format, hmmmm. Let's see how it all works together on my little macbook.
The quilt blocks on the wall are 'Ping', circles appliqued to the centers, a BOM from pinwheels. I am letting it rest while I decide on a setting. Deviant that I am, I may go with an entirely different setting to compliment the Indigo-which was also not part of the BOM, but sent by a freind and much treasured, and therefore used.
The 'Lollypop' beginnings from gloriouspatchwork.I have cut all of the back rounds and just had to try a couple of circles with my new mylar templates from Karen K. Buckley. They worked pretty well. i just need to be sure to keep the iron temp moderate so as not to melt it! And starch helps to keep the edges nice and smooth. And the Kaffe Fasset fabrics are indeed glorious.
The brown lump on circular needles is a 'nonibag', pattern from nonipatterns. I will add a four inch stripe with natural Lopi lite yarn, which I bought in Vermont in 1997! And I will add leather straps to make it into an overnight bag, or a large knitting carry all, or a bag in which to pack my lunch, a sewing project, a book and a wallet and phone. And possibly a magazine, Burda or Threads, maybe. The brown yarn is Cascade 220 which felts marvelously. I also did a test swatch with the Lopi and it felts into a pelt like density and hairlness, lol, which will be fabulous in the body of the bag.
And finally the book is Swedish Interiors which is a book I bought to satisfy my decorating gene and as a reward to myself for a myriad of good deeds, too long and exhaustive to list. It is a lovely book and I look forward to spending some quality time between its covers.

Keeper

It is hard work
all that forgetting
erasing all the evidence
after getting to the root of it all

saving what is worthy and good
of some use,
and piling what's not in cords
like lumber

empty vessels now incapable of harming
you
but dead ghostly-
you have to keep an eye out
lest one move and reach out and grab you

hard work all of that forgetting
and the vigilance
& the separating & the separating & the separating
hard work guarding all those fissures and renumerations
those piles of bodies like logs like corpses only they are
alive
only just dormant

knowing this is enough to make you sleep light
and dream of coloring in the lines
dream cats and others on the page knowing you are
bartering with your potential
safety equals failure

giving up that vigil
will cost you
consume you
all those fissures filled and
heaving with ghosts
not dead just dormant

lies as widespread as the roots and limbs of of sturdy green ivy
climbing up a wall
finding every fissure
to fill with itself

it is hard work
all of this forgetting
when all of this history is embodied
but not spoken
acknowledged in a dream with a silent nod from a ghost
hard work to be the keeper
ever vigilant
the post is remote
the renumeration is nil

To do list

So many things on my list and only one day off.
I would like to pin baste my DJ project. Knit few inchs on my to be felted bag. Make some blocks for a new DJ. Finish my ping blocks. Finish the machne applique on my Baltimore Elegance. Make another veterans quilt. Paint a closet and hang a painting and a mirror. Hmmm- that should keep me busy for today.
O and I guess I have to take the girls to get jackets for the girls....
Next week on my day off, I have to get a mamo and sono and a follow up with surgeon. So I have not planned any extra stuff for those days. I have some kind of a cyst on the out side of my boob now and have to see if I can get an appt today to get that seen, O the joys of cystic boobs.
And it is holiday season in retail land.

the winner-Saffron

I love this color and I wanted to paint a whole room with it but it looked too orange. How convenient that I received some in the mail to use as setting triangles. Saffronicity?
I have a little more machine applique to do on the middle bottom and the top right and then I can sew the rest of the nine patch together.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX

ALEX WE LOVE YOU! HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A SPECTACULAR BIRTHDAY EVEN THO YOU HAVE TO WORK!
A BILLION HUGS-YOUR MOM (ME) PS MY MAIL IS BROKEN SO I CANNOT WRITE .XOXOX

Road Art

I went to a gallery in Portsmouth, Virginia-the Vincent Hester Gallery, and I bought a painting by this artist, Danny Doughty. In fact, the painting is very much like this one. Imagine my delight when I saw this sign on our drive back to New York. We did stop in at this gallery which was closed. Mike was relieved-I may have bought another painting. He has a web site, click on the artist' name.

choices

Trying different colors. The only way I can do it is to put it up on my wall. I am partial to the lavender one, The green seems to be too busy to me. Any thoughts?