Friday, March 31, 2017

Wuuf!!

Hi folks!

I've been here in the studio with mom since the end of January, and this morning she is letting me write the all important blog post (I'm not real sure why it's important, but mom says it is, and we know that Mom Rules!)

We've had a very busy week here

Last Thursday I got visitors

These two little dogs are my cousins or something like that -- and they came to stay here with me and mom and dad while their mommy and daddy (and Mr Cute) went to someplace called California

(which seemed to mean lots of pictures of them around water and bridges and stuff I really don't understand)

While my cousins were here, we played together a lot, we had the "daily chase" as mom calls it where we would run from the kitchen through the living room and mom's office, then down the hall back to living room until mom would yell "All Dogs Out" and open the back door to send us outside to continue our chase.

After the chase and our dinner, we could all nap on the couch (mom is still muttering something about the bad planning of dark furniture and blonde dogs for some reason)

Mom says we all got really silly, but the only silly picture she got was of me because I fell asleep this way (really mom, do we have to show this one?!)

Anyway, it was fun to have company, and I would be okay with having them visit again.


So for now it's back to normal here in the studio.

Mom is making art, and I'm keeping an eye on everything.

And mom will be back to blog the next time!


Sunday, March 26, 2017

progress is being made......

I'm serving as the co-curator for an upcoming SAQA show titled Under the Western Sun.  The show opens at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum the end of April, then will travel to New Mexico and Salt Lake City.

I've been the curator for shows before, but let me tell you, the whole business of TRAVELING a show is a whole other kettle of fish.

For instance, about three times the paperwork!! (And it's well know that wrangling artists can be like herding cats)

 
I have managed to get some work done in the studio, however.

The stitching of the flowers has begun on this piece

I've been doing some hand embroidered grasses and weeds on the surface of this piece, and it is now ready to be cut and finished --- whoo hooo!

I've started adding the shadows and the mailboxes to this piece, and I'm pretty please with how it looks
Work at the design wall on the dog continues too --- this one amazes me every time I work on it

This is the design idea for a small piece (9 inches by 9 inches) that is for a call for entries from the Quilting Arts magazine.  I don't think this one will take very long to put together!

And this week I learned of a call for entries that is titled Life Along the Rio Grande.  I've started doing some research for this piece, and admit my knowledge of geography in the state I grew up in is pretty limited to places I've actually been.  I learned in my research that the headwaters of the Rio Grande River is right here in Colorado -- cool!


Now and then I do a utilitarian sewing project.  Mr Cute likes to draw and color when he is traveling in the car, but in warm weather, crayons are a bad idea.  The solution to that issue is the new colored pencils that are in plastic sleeves and don't even require sharpening, they just roll up like mechanical pencils. 

And of course a new box of colored pencils means they need a snappy new pencil bag -- we know what the fate of the cardboard box is!

Mr Cute had picked out this fat quarter fabric when he went to the fabric store with me last fall.  I was happy to make this (LINED!) zippered bag for him (and the zipper came out of my stash of random sewing supplies -- cool)

And no blog post is complete without a picture of the canine member of the household!  Mr Benson got a BarkBox in the mail this week (these come once a month and are full of toys and treats to keep him entertained for a month) --- this squeaky bouncy ball is a real hit --- he takes it to the top of the basement stairs and drops it down so he can go after it --- over and over again!   What a character!!




Monday, March 13, 2017

getting back to "normal"

I'm healing, and slowly adding more activity

and learning some new ways to do some things -- like using a chair in the kitchen to sit down and put things away in bottom cabinets or scoop dog food out of the container instead of bending over (which puts more pressure on those little blood vessels in my nose)

it's a slow process (and I'm already impatient with it!!)

there has been some real progress on projects in the last week, however

the columbine piece is ready for the stitching, and I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks

 

I've been doing the stitching on this piece

there is a layer of silk over the top of this that I am stitching through right now

the plan is to finish stitching the background, cut away the silk that is over the wheel, then stitch or paint the tall grass over the top of the wheel and the bottom edge of the piece

so far so good

which means it's time to start working on the "map" for the big piece

the background for the mail boxes is coming along nicely too -- it's been worked down far enough now that you can actually see the outline of the boxes

one of the days that Benson and I went walking, it felt like we were in a cut from the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds"

the bare trees in our neighborhood were full of robins!  I had never seen (or heard) so many robins in one place

I know sighting one robin is supposed to mean spring is coming --- not so sure what a huge flock means

Benson thinks working in the studio is all about him hanging out with mom --- with the occasional posing for a photo op!

he has a new friend that he met on Wednesday -- the lady that runs the service we hired to come and pick up the yard each week so I don't have to do that (more avoidance of activities that require me to repeatedly bend over!)

on the whole, we all had a better week last week!



Sunday, March 05, 2017

learning to be flexible

when I wrote last week's blog, I had big plans to finish a couple of pieces and to be deep into another new piece

sometimes making plans is just a waste of time

because on Monday morning I ended up taking an ambulance ride to the Emergency Room to have a nose bleed taken care of

which also meant I was instructed to take it easy, not bend over, no lifting, no stairs, etc., etc., etc.

so some of the things I wanted to get done just didn't happen

this morning I can say I am slowly recovering -- the packing in my nose was removed on Thursday and a liberal dose of silver nitrate was applied to cauterize the area and I'm to continue on restricted activity this week then I can slowly work my way back to "normal" (like we have any idea what "normal" is!)

this is what I had been working on until "the incident"

the beginning of the background for the columbines

and this week I got the call for entries from the International Quilt Festival (the Houston Quilt Show) that includes a category titled "In Full Bloom" , which it would be good to enter something in -- but there's one tiny issue -- I had not planned for this piece to be as big as that category requires -- and since the flowers are all done but the background is not, I might be able to change it so it is

maybe

I need to think about that and about being able to get all of that done by the entry deadline of April 12

 quite a bit of time was spent this week doing hand work, so the sky for the mailbox piece is coming along nicely

this is the first piece I've done that includes so much color in the sky, so it feels a bit odd -- hopefully it will look good when it's finished

Benson has had a tough week, watching over mom -- which requires a lot of sleeping on the couch!

we ended the week on a lot more fun note when Mr Cute and his parents arrived to watch the CSU basketball and share dinner with us last night -- and we let them take over our kitchen and create dinner for us, which I greatly appreciated -- nice to have such great kids!!

hoping for a better week this week