It's a "Return"

I know -- it's been a long, L O O O N G time between posts out here.

The time between mid-October and Thanksgiving was extremely challenging as I was dealing with some issues that are now pretty well under control, and then I was playing "catch up" to get ready for Christmas!

So in today's blog post, we're going to play "catch up" out here!

Let's begin with the great Christmas reveal.  I work on Christmas things beginning in January, but I do keep pictures of things as I go along so I can show them all off at the end.

for a month or so my studio became the workshop for Mrs. Santa Claus!  and this year there were a lot of things that got cranked out

like these six aprons -- each one with it's own matching bias binding for trim

and seven pair of pajama pants -- two of which were made by stitching together the scraps from a number of past flannel projects

and there were six outfits for my great grand daughter's Barbie doll (I hadn't made Barbie clothes since I was a teenager --- yikes!)

and there had been knitting all through the year too -- a sweater for my daughter, a shawl for my sister and thick (double strand) mittens for my grandson to make snowballs with

then there were the hats  ..... for the great grand kids, and the DH, and the brother in law, and the little boy whose name we pulled off the Giving Tree in our local grocery store

not everything made of yarn was knit!

there was a hippo, a raccoon and two penguins (one of which was over 3 FEET tall)

and the half dozen hot pads for a friend

meantime, this piece, titled "The Silos" was accepted and appeared in a show titled "On the Street Where I Live" in a gallery in Saint Louis, MO

and this piece, titled "Headwaters" was accepted for a show titled "Life Along the Rio Grande" in New Mexico --- it is on the way there now

this piece is nearly done -- I'm working on the hand embroidered grasses along the bottom edge and then it will be ready to be faced

this piece is slowly coming together

after a long time being worked on in pieces, I'm now stitching all the parts together and filling in the blank spots

and a bit about the word of the year

I don't make resolutions for the new year

but for the past several years I have chosen a word to work by in my art for the year

last year's word was "Plan" --- and it became very clear as the year went on that sometimes even the best plans can be derailed by circumstances that are out of one's control

so this year I decided that my word is "Open"

the idea was to be "open" to new ideas, new projects, new approaches

and about three days after I decided on that word, the chance to take on a commission project that I might not have considered before was presented to me

using that new word, I stepped up and accepted that challenge

yeah for OPEN!!

hoping for the rest of the year to be as interesting