of new puppies and grandsons and making art at odd moments

aside from working at cleaning out my mother's house, life has had some other adventures the last two weeks

one of the good things about living so close to my daughter's family is that I sometimes get called on to step in as day care for a day

on Wednesday of this week he arrived bright and early and we spent the day together

one of the projects for the day was playing with a new set of stamps that includes trucks and buses and earth movers

of course stamp pads are their own special hazard -- both of us had inky hands by the end of the project,

and I told his parents he would need a bath for sure

my son in law's comment to my daughter -- "this won't get her fired for watching him" -- I'm really glad to hear that!!

she's growing!

in just two weeks she looks less like a ball of fur and much more like a little dog

yesterday we had our first puppy obedience class where she got to wrestle with a 5 month old German Shepard mix puppy and had a grand time while mom learned new tips for helping her learn to be a good dog

at the beginning of the class she had begun to respond when we called her name, by the end she was doing it really well

this week she has her first vet visit where we'll hear about any issues we should watch her for and we'll talk about spaying

the giraffes have been stamped!

this project threw me a curve -- when I went to my paint stash when I was ready to start on this I discovered that I didn't have a single bottle of blue paint

I guess this is just not my normal color palette!

a trip to the local craft store fixed that in short order and now I'm ready to start thinking about how I'll set these together

this is the center block of the wedding ring quilt I made for my daughter and son in law for their wedding

I learned a good lesson here -- the light blue letters were originally hand embroidered satin stitch -- which had begun to wear out

she brought me the quilt for repairs and I covered that embroidery with needle turned appliqued letters

and while I was examining it for other issues, I notice that the batik of the original dark blue here had begun to disintegrate in places -- weird!  so that piece has been redone too

this quilt has gone back to her house now

another piece of bead work completed last night

I had picked up these resin mother and child pieces somewhere and decided to put them in a bracelet

I like the way this came out

the picture on the left was where I left this piece a week ago, thinking I was ready to move on to the background

uh, not so much

I like the changes I made in the right hand picture much better

NOW I'm ready for the background

finished one sleeve of the sweater I'm knitting for my daughter

I made it a bit wider than the pattern calls for so it will be more comfortable to wear over something else

after all, she will want to wear this to work, and since she has just been promoted to the position of Risk Manager for an entire school district here in northern Colorado, she needs to look sharp!  (and as a mom, I'm SO PROUD of her!!!)

the quilting has begun on this piece

I visited in my local quilt store and picked up several spools of  variegated King Tut thread to do this with and find I'm really liking this thread

I had used Sulky for most of the past pieces, but I like the "no fuzz" factor on this even better

the next couple of weeks promise to be as busy as the last couple have been --- I hope to get as much done!