new material = new inspiration

Yesterday morning the DH and I decided to head off to Denver to visit the Gem show that is here this weekend. I had in mind a specific item that I was looking for to start a design that I've been fiddling with for a while
of course I also found a few other things while I was there

these pieces of glass, for instance

hand made by an artist from Washington

she and I talked for a while about bead work and sources of supplies

I already have a design idea forming that will use these three pieces in a necklace
then there were these pieces of jasper

for a while I've been thinking about creating another piece that has open work as well as beading around some stones

I love the colors in these pieces of jasper

and I have a couple more pieces of stone that are similar color that will go with these





these are what I went looking for

actually, not exactly these items, but I have a design that I want to do and I needed focal stones and accent pieces

the stones are very nice turquoise cabs and the two strings of beads are 3mm crystal bicones which will be perfect for the use I have in mind

nice when I can actually get what I went for!

I could have picked up a lot more goodies if I'd had the funds, but not this time
of course going to Denver means some time in the car

and on a Friday afternoon, quite a while in the car

got this afghan square finished and another one over half done






once we got home I did some more work on the projects already in process

the beading on the tiger bracelet is slowly moving along




and I have made some progress on the sweater I'm making for Mr Cute

those are size 2 needles -- and cables are not so easy on those as they are on a size 6 or 7!




as I was taking pictures of the projects I had been working on I noticed the dog

she's laying on the couch -- sound asleep

but she looks like a cartoon of a dog

crazy critter


time to get some breakfast and get busy working on stuff

tiger stripes and redwood trees

a new beaded bracelet is under way

since the orange beads were already out I decided to go ahead with the tiger theme

preparing the pattern took only a little while, so quite of bit of beading got done already

right now this is the only quilt that is actually in process

and after fiddling with several attempts at other ways to put the "leaves" on the redwood trees I did some thread painting last night

much like the feathers I did on a previous piece, this is all hand stitched

I think it's going to work

meantime I'm starting to think about returning to the Out of Africa series -- I'm pretty sure I'm not done with that yet -- perhaps a horn bill and a gorilla need to be added to the collection -- we'll see

suddenly out of projects

a couple of hours spent yesterday afternoon on this piece and it is all done!

this piece took only a few days, and amazingly came out almost exactly as I envisioned it

the vine was added after all the pumpkin bead work was finished, and I used right angle weave with a piece of wire inside so it can be twisted line a vine

this was the first time I had used that technique and I can see some other good uses for it for some future projects

this is headed to the Etsy store

this piece is done now too

everything except the label that is

I can't put a label on it until I come up with a title for it

which just hasn't come to me yet

the working title (view from the screen door) doesn't really fit any more because I so changed the concept of the piece to finish it

hmmmm

well, it isn't going anywhere until November, so I have some time to think about a title and get that label on there


I finished the Christmas hoodie last night too -- yippee -- on to the little hoodie for Mr. Cute next on the sticks

I had been deliberately trying to tie up projects because I had applied to an exhibit where I would be creating a specific large piece -- this morning I received the notification that I did not get in to that, so I now have free reign to go in whatever direction feels right -- not to mention I have 3 pieces in a show in October and solo exhibits going on in November and December -- perhaps not having another external deadline is a good thing
the garden continues to provide inspiration

yesterday I discovered another onion flower

they remind me of the agapanthus that grew so well near where we lived in California

time to get moving

doing a very happy dance

what do these three quilts have in common (aside from being my work)?

they have ALL been accepted in the upcoming Tri-Lakes Center for the Arts Fabric Art Show

I did the application for this a few weeks ago and decided I was not going to talk about it anywhere because I just wasn't sure any of them would get in.

The email came this morning -- two days ahead of when I expected it -- and I'm thrilled -- I printed out the email so I could re-read it -- over, and over, and OVER!

cool, so cool

As we get a bit closer to the actual show I'll be posting more details so those of you that are in the area can come and take a look if you're interested


Finished the bead work yesterday

I really like how this looks

Today I hope to get the backing and the pin attached

then on to the next thing!

finished things and starting new ones

quilting on this project is done

today I will be squaring up the edges and cutting the facing to do the edge finishing

then there will be the sleeve and the label

considering that the beginnings of this piece sat in a box for almost a year, finishing it was pretty easy once I figured out the problems

this is a piece that was donated to the charity auction I'm chairing that takes place in October

the piece is a cute little Halloween wall hanging, but the person that donated it didn't put on any way to hang it

yesterday I went through my stash, found some fabric that went with the back and put a sleeve on it

before the auction we'll get a rod and a wire added to it so we can actually hang it

one auction item done -- many, many to go


more beads added to the pumpkin pin

this has been fun, and I'm thinking about some tubular beading to be little curly tendrils on this after I get the pumpkin itself finished

meantime I'm thinking about the next animal print bracelet

I think it will be tiger -- the orange beads are already out!






Halloween isn't far away

when we visited with my daughter she asked if I would turn this sweat suit that she bought for Mr Cute into a Halloween costume

oh my -- it's de ja vue

I think every costume my daughter wore until she went away to college was the result of something that ran through my sewing machine

moving on to the next generation!

so watch this space -- I'll be transforming this into something interesting



the weather has cooled some (although yesterday it was near 80), so the ripening of the tomatoes has slowed down, but we still had a lot of them to put up yesterday

8 pints of tomatoes -- skinned and a little salt and lemon juice added -- then into the jars followed by more sounds of "pinging" lids

there are a lot more tomatoes out there, so we're not done with this process yet


today's plan includes mowing the lawn and folding the last of the laundry from yesterday before I get back into the studio to get some work done

time to get to that

pumpkin time

nothing quite captures the whole fall thing for me like pumpkins

over the weekend I did a Treasury on Etsy titled "Pumpkin' Chunkin'" -- its a catchy title even if I abhor the practice because I have a real issue with wasting food when there is anyone going hungry

I also started this new piece of bead work -- it will be a pumpkin pin when I get it finished

a lot of the beads in this came out of those 34 boxes of beads that my mother gave me a while back -- there were about 8 different colors and styles of orange beads in there

this one should come together pretty quickly

the last branch of the redwood trees got stitched down last night -- so now it's on to the "leaves" -- I'm hoping to get the sewing machine pulled out and spend some time with the free motion trying some of the ideas I have for that -- and of course there's always the hand embroidery if that doesn't work

you may remember this piece

I finally finished the quilting of the center of this and I was still trying to figure out how to do the "frame" part without leaving all the raw edges that I so dislike

I ended up taking each piece of the framing, turning it with its right side against the right side of the center, stitching through all the layers then turning it back out to the edge

so now I'm working on quilting the frame pieces

moving right along!

this will definitely be finished in time for the November and December exhibits


over the weekend I went and got the buttons for the Christmas hoodie sweater I've been working on, and last night I did the two rows that create the button holes in the front bands -- only two more rows to work, then the bind off and finishing -- WHOOT!

time to get to that huge pile of laundry

in a pickle

and we did it with great relish!

heh

I ended up using only 2 of the 3 baseball bat zucchinis to make up this batch of sweet pickle relish

and the onions and bell pepper in there also came out of our garden

these 6 half pint jars will hold us for a while (the last batch I made lasted 3 years!)

there's something that says "fall's coming" about the smell of spices and vinegar boiling on the stove -- and that lovely "PING" of successful sealing of jars

the last of the pictures from last weekend's visit to my daughter's

great picture of my daughter and her son

I think he looks like her

sweet!

A good thing -- a sale!

the past few weeks I admit I've been feeling a bit miffed by not making the cut on a couple of pieces that I had entered in competitions

let me tell you there's nothing quite like selling a piece of my work to help alleviate that feeling

this morning I got the notice that this piece had sold out of my Etsy store

this one was done as an experiment, so I'm real happy that someone (in FRANCE no less!) thinks it's good enough for them to pay for

YIPPEE!!

time to get it to the post office

about those baseball bats

you may recall that yesterday I was talking about needing to get out into the garden to pick things after our five day absence from home

I was expecting there would be a big zucchini lurking out there

three of them was a bit of a surprise!

later today I'll be dragging out the big McCoy crock and the grater to get that pickle relish started


the giraffe patterned beaded bracelet is finished!

this came out really well -- bracelet number two in the Wild Animal series (the first one was zebra)

so now I'll be doing either leopard or tiger -- at least that's what I'm thinking right now

and this piece will be going out into my Etsy store



last night was my monthly quilt guild meeting

I had some fabric that I took for the put and take table -- the result of my on going cleaning and organizing

and I picked up these two pieces to bring home

these two coordinated shades of teal have a tiny pink print on them and I think will combine well with some pink fabric that I found in the stash as I've been cleaning

these (and all the stuff I picked up over the weekend) will be going into the washer to get ready to use them

and because I sat and listened to a presentation last night I finished another afghan square

it always surprises me when ladies of the guild come and ask me what I'm knitting and how do I get a square when I start with just 3 little stitches in the corner

I'm thinking I should make up a little business card sized thing that explains Close Knit Hugs and how this afghan square works that I can just hand out

this block was sort of self striping as I was using up pieces of yarn and it just worked out this way

nice

and further cuteness from the weekend

Mr Cute discovered that grandpa had left his cane standing against the piano

he had a grand time playing with it

sooooo adorable!!

(give me that old soft shoe!)

Voting Begins Today

If you've being following along you'll remember this piece of bead work that I've been fiddling with during August

It has been entered in a contest that you can vote on, and the bidding begins today

just hop on over to the Etsy BeadWeavers blog to take a look at all of the items that were entered and vote on your favorite

charity quilts and Mr Cute

I was beginning to wonder if I was going to miss getting the monthly charity quilt tops finished

and actually I was only going to do one -- go figure

these two mostly came out of my fabric stash, and they are not quite identical -- but the difference is so subtle that I'm betting no one but me will notice what it is

quilt guild meeting is tonight, so this was working up to the last minute a bit more than I'm comfortable with -- we'll try to do better next month

remember this?

months ago I sent off photos to a competition

this morning I got the email that this wasn't good enough to even make the next stage of the competition

well fine

I'll be taking a new set of photos and putting it out in my Etsy store

along with the giraffe bracelet which I got sandwiched together yesterday and just need to do the final finishing work and the photo shot




here's another picture of Mr Cute from our weekend visit

he's using our big black dog as a place to pull up

she's so patient with him, just lets him climb all over her

such a good dog

such a cute kid!


so today, after two days of cool, cloudy weather (it was all of 60 degrees here yesterday after being in the 90s last week!), it's sunny and warmer -- I'll be heading out after breakfast to pick stuff in the garden -- I'm pretty sure there is a zucchini the size of a baseball bat lurking out there somewhere

that last long weekend of summer

red sky at morning

these (and about 2 dozen more) were taken from the back deck at my daughter's house yesterday morning

since there is not a lot behind her house but rolling fields, the view of the morning sky is amazing

now how do I get that "look" onto fabric!?

while were were there we had a cooking lesson

homemade applesauce

(and since I'm still recovering from having a tooth pulled, this was something I could actually eat!)

I'll be posting the recipe on the kitchen blog soon and I'll put a link here when I get that done





and we spent time with Mr Cute!

who spent part of the weekend not feeling very well -- having picked up a virus somewhere

and when Mr Cute doesn't sleep -- nobody else sleeps

which meant that when he napped on Monday afternoon, we all napped

by the time we left yesterday morning he was almost back to normal

thank goodness!





of course a trip means time in the car

which means afghan squares get knit

these are raw off the needles, still need to be blocked, but they are done other than that

lots of work to do now that I'm home again -- time to get to it!

a garage workshop project

the DH has been busy in his workshop too

our little grandson, aka Mr Cute, is cruising around and grandpa thinks he needs a wagon

this wagon is about 40 years old, and has been through a couple of kids already

and when he pulled it out of the storage shed, it looked terrible -- rusty and the supports for the wheels were bent

it looks like a brand new wagon now!

we're hoping Mr Cute will enjoy it

finished the bead work on this item last night

YIPPEE

time to pull out the box of leather and get it put together as a bracelet



I'm thinking about a new art quilt

the leaves are falling off the trees here already -- at least off the very stressed cottonwood trees

even the DH has been carefully picking them up and bringing them to me

yup, I definitely not done with this whole leaf theme

time to get moving -- need to go pick in the garden before it gets hot