Summer's over -- back to serious work

I know, the calendar says fall begins on September 22, but Labor Day has always felt like the end of summer

time to go back to school -- which always meant new pencils, notebooks -- and CRAYONS!!  -- I do love me a really big box of crayons -- or pencils, or markers, or beads or new spools of thread -- guess it's all about the color

at any rate, this time of year has me thinking about those final projects that need to be done around the house before the weather gets nasty and getting Christmas presents done along with the other art projects that are on going in my studio

on Saturday of our long holiday weekend, my daughter came and got us and we all went off to the fabric store

there's not one of those in our little hamlet just now as the Hancock's store is gone - so we have to drive about 20 minutes to one

this is the annual journey we make to get the fabric for the all important Halloween costume for Mr Cute -- this year I'm making a Captain America costume, which will be fun

along with that fabric, Mr Cute picked out fabric for a new pillow case -- with farm equipment on it of course!  and his mom picked out fabric for a new pillow case for her DH --

these took me about 20 minutes to put together after we ran the fabric through the washer and dryer

so some utilitarian sewing complete -- I'll be working on that costume soon -- and making me some blouses (I picked up some very colorful fabric for that too)

the quilting on the background for the truck is moving right along

I finished the sky and the mountain, and now I've started on the field and the fence

I really like the way this piece is coming out -- it's one of those "did I do that?" moments

and I'm thinking about how I will quilt that road so it looks like parched earth

work on this piece is continuing

after fiddling with the small sample piece long enough to work out the details, I'm pleased with how this is going so far

and this piece is ready for the layering and quilting

but first I need to dye a piece of silk organza gray to be the top layer --

the bead work on this piece is progressing too -- there has been quite a bit of "put it in, take it out" on this as I am working with bugle beads, rectangular beads and square beads and those don't go around curves the same way a row of seed beads does

I think it's going to be a very cool piece in the end

time to get to work!