I'm getting pretty good at juggling a lot of projects all at once
doing it with quilt projects and knitting projects is a lot easier than with bead projects, however because I only have one work tray that I can do bead projects in
so the big bead embroidery piece with the watch parts has been temporarily set aside so I can work on this project that has a sooner deadline
I've not done any pure bead weaving techniques for quite a while other than creating "chains" for various bead embroidered medallions that I've turned into necklaces
this piece will be a bracelet, and is entirely worked in peyote stitch
it took me several attempts to get the first 3 or 4 rows worked, but after that it has just flowed along
the deadline for the challenge on this piece is the first week in February --- I'm pretty sure it will done a lot sooner than that
I'm also closing in on having another animal block for that baby quilt finished
moving along!
the original storm door on our house has not been doing a good job for a while
despite repeated reapplications of weather stripping, it still leaked enough cold air that the hallway at the front door was a lot colder than it should have been
and the screen part had long since given up the ghost compounded by the parts being no longer available to repair it
at Christmas time my sister, brother-in-law and nephew gave us a very cool present --- gift cards to our local hardware store
last week we went and picked out our new storm door
this morning it was delivered, installed and the old one carted away --- whoo hooo!
there is a lot more glass in the new one, so the dog won't be tempted to jump up and put her feet on the top panel where the screen is, which should extend the life of the screen a lot!
now I need to get a quart of exterior paint that matches the paint on the door and the trim so I can take care of the rest of the job!
last night I attended the monthly meeting of my local quilt guild
the plan for programs this year is quite different than we've had for a while, and we started off the year with a brief (and very entertaining) lesson on basic color theory
and a challenge
each of us was given a package of 40 pieces of fabric --- all solids
we are to create something using at least 21 of those pieces and have it ready to show at our November meeting
cool
I already have a design in mind!
(yeah, yeah, I know, do I really need another project in the works? eh, maybe not, but since the design came to me so easily, I may be able to use it for some other purpose as well, so I'm going to go with it!)
onward!!
you may remember this piece of jewelry I did a while back
I entered it in a competition, and everyone gets a chance to vote!
you can use this LINK to go and look at all of the entries in the competition and vote for your favorite
Enjoy!
just in case you thought I'd forgotten about this baby quilt project --- not so much!
when I started doing the sewing on the blocks, the fabric I had selected for the grass on all of them was a pretty big piece and it didn't fit in the work box very well, so I decided to do the grass on all of the blocks at the very beginning
which means work was being done, but nothing to really photograph and say "see" about
now that all of that is finished, I've started again working on the individual animals
this is the second finished corner block --- two more of these little ones to do still, but it should go much quicker now 
here's block number 2 for 2013 --- moving right along
heading off this morning to hang a quilt show --- this should be fun!
January is traditionally the time people make resolutions.
Over the years I've made a conscious decision not to do that -- having decided I was much too good at "self guilting" and I didn't need to come up with new excuses to do that.
The past three years I've been part of a couple of different email lists made up of art quilters (there actually is some overlap between these two groups).
One of the recurring themes on these lists this time of year is the selection of a word for the year that will serve to guide and encourage the individual through their personal art endeavors for the coming year.
Let me note here that the membership of both of these lists seems to be closer in age to mine than to my daughter's. (Which really doesn't surprise me as I watch my daughter juggle career, motherhood and home responsibilities, I feel like I'm looking through the looking glass back almost 30 years to when I was doing the same things.)
I was especially touched by an email written by a member who is more my daughter's age as she is struggling to find just a moment or two between the diaper changes and cooking and laundry and hundred other unending tasks to create.
I was equally touched by the calm reassurance of an older member who had been there and done that and who sought to reassure this young mother that she is already creating and that she should hold onto that spark --- the demands of a young family change and time will come.
This whole exchange confirmed for me why it is that so many women are what I call "serial achievers".
For many of us the pathway is similar:
When we are in our 20s we are getting our education, finding a career, meeting our spouses.
When we are in our 30s we are raising children, juggling home and career, wondering if we'll ever find a moment to do anything creative (or feeling guilty when we take a moment here and there for ourselves)
By the time we hit our 50s our children are off to college or homes of their own and we find the time we looked for to begin a whole new adventure.
For some of us that is enough to scare us away from that creative spark -- we've spent too much time putting it of to "tomorrow", or "next year", or after the next ____ (insert important personal event here).
The question that we should ask ourselves then is: "what am I waiting for"?
So I have decided that this year I will choose a word for myself as guidance for the next year.
And that word is BRAVE.
When I am tempted to put off something because it is scary or because that is easier than doing it, I need to be BRAVE.
At this point in my life it's time to stop putting off to another day. I've retired from that corporate career; the children are adults; now is the time to do those things I've been waiting to do
Time to be BRAVE
while I'm slowly recovering from the bug, I have been working on some other things
this set of wool mittens and hat, for instance
finished up last night
I have to say that I'm having some fun with the knitting of these --- complex stripe patterns are not as stressful when the "deadline" for having them finished is 9 months away
I did work on the beading and some quilt work yesterday too --- slowly getting stronger
today we need to do a little shopping --- hopefully I feel well enough after that to do a little work in the studio
seems that the "return" of the bug that I had the first part of December was even worse than the original
on Saturday morning I was fine, by Monday morning I was calling the doctor's office only to find that they were not available until yesterday
late yesterday afternoon I got a new medication, and while most doctors try to limit the amount of time you take an antibiotic, this time she wants to really kill this thing, so I have a two week regimen
I'm looking forward to getting back to being able to sleep at night instead of sitting up and coughing!
I have done a little bit of work at odd times between the snoozing in the chair
this piece, for instance, is starting to take shape -- after building all those bezels, the watch pieces have now been attached to the backing and I'm working on the bead embroidery
the open circles of beads will have some other pieces suspended in the centers after the piece is all finished
current working title for this piece is "Five Minutes to Midnight"
afghan squares are also something I can do in a semi-aware state
here's the first one of 2013!
today I hope to work on projects a bit more
but I need to not overdo -- the medication will take a little time to really kill those bugs
even though I'm back in the grasp of some sort of "bug", I can't just sit and watch TV (although I did nap a bit yesterday)
so while I did rest yesterday, I also worked on some projects
you may remember these two pieces from a while back
these are for the Visioning Project I'm working on, and the point of this exercise was to see the difference in mood that color makes
these pieces are the same except for the color
Blueberry Boulders and Marmalade Mountains!
now it's on to the next assignment
something else that I can do in a semi awake state is knit afghan squares
one more for that box
we were going to go see Les Miserables today and then go out to eat, but both of us are feeling pretty lousy (a rare occasion when we're both sick at the same time), so we're postponing that to a day when we can actually enjoy ourselves (and not disturb everyone in the theatre with coughing!)
hoping for a Happy New Year to you all!
the bad thing:
yesterday was one of those days
the quilt show that was hanging locally was supposed to be up through the middle of January, but our coordinator got a call, and we were asked to take it down just in case the party that is being hosted in the facility for New Year's Eve gets too rowdy
hmmm, well, I'm happy to have my art work out of the line of fire
by the time I got home from doing that, however, I was starting to have a sore throat
throat lozenges and cool drinks have not helped
so it appears that for the second time in a month I'm sick
I am not pleased --- after all, I had avoided all of this sort of thing for a good long time
we'll see how this goes -- my son in law was sick while we were there for Christmas, and was diagnosed with strep, so if this doesn't get better soon I'll be calling the doctor's office again
the good thing: in March I will be 62
according to the Social Security website, you can apply for your benefits 90 days prior to your 62nd birthday
this morning I worked my way through the on line application
after 5 working days (on January 8) I can go to the website and check on the status of my application
if all goes well, I'll get my first check in April
hallelujah!
about an hour of continuous beading yesterday and I have now finished building the bezels around all of the pieces for the project I'm creating right now
the next step here is to start playing with various arrangements until I figure out which piece goes where
today I'll be helping taking down a quilt exhibit in a local facility --- I did not have the opportunity to see the exhibit during the time it was open, so it will be good to see all of the pieces as we take them off the wall
after that some time in the studio -- hopefully
time to get moving
Santa was here!
Pictures to follow ----
Have a wonderful Christmas one and all!!!!!
Silly Ol' Grandma that is
it was my pleasure on Friday evening to watch Mr. Cute while his mommy and daddy went out for the evening for a little "adult" time
here he is modeling the new flannel tractor hat while playing with his birthday present from us -- a Noah's Ark set that includes some of the cutest elephants, zebras and giraffes ever -- and because it is a "Little People" toy, all of the other animals he has from the zoo set and the farm set work with it to, so he has a rather impressive ark load of animals
it was a lot of fun for the SOG to play with him then read him books and tuck him into bed
the sunrises this time of year can be spectacular --- Saturday's was one of those
the weather man says we have a storm coming in this afternoon which means we may have the rare white Christmas here --- pretty amazing since it only happens 6% of the time here
a lot of time spent in the studio yesterday, but no pictures to show for it as most of the time was either cleaning up from the last projects or organizing the materials for the next one
some time was spent on this project however, and I managed to get bezels around two more of the little odd objects that I'm planning to put in this piece
one of them is the brand "button" off the front of one of my small kitchen appliances (it fell off a few months ago and I just put it in with the jewelry making stuff), and the other one is a key off my laptop that got popped off a while back (there are some things that being a pack rat are good for!)
I have more pieces to encircle with beads -- another laptop key, three watch faces and some gears from the inside of some watches
it will be fun to work with all of these different pieces to create a cohesive piece
lots to do today -- time to get to it
I've been thinking about this piece for about a month now, and yesterday I actually started working on it
the rectangular watch face was in a package of miscellaneous watch parts that I got in the local craft store, but the round one is from an old watch that my mom gave me and the DH was able to get the back off of so I could remove all the little gears and the face
since I'm not really sure exactly what this piece will look like, I'm beginning with building bezels around some of the pieces I want to use
these had holes in them that let me just stitch them down sort of like a button, making it easy for me to attach them to the backing and start right in with the bezel work
I have some other pieces that had to be glued down first, so I couldn't do beading around them yesterday, but I hope to be able to start on those today
yesterday it was cold, windy, snowy -- in short, perfect weather to bake
this stack of neatly wrapped breads is the result of the DH and I each creating some holiday bread
my mother asked me this year to made a batch of fruitcake using her recipe (you can see that recipe here)
I hadn't made this for probably 20 years, and had forgotten just how much it makes, so there is plenty for her to have some and there's some for us too
the DH's family didn't do fruitcake, but they did something called gum drop bread (recipe for that one is here)
both of these recipes involve cutting up sticky stuff (either fruit or gum drops), chopping nuts and adding a very simple flour/sugar/egg batter, then a long slow baking process
we managed to keep the kitchen and family room very comfortably warm for most of the day
and here we have the second set of mittens and hat for next year's box --- finished up last night
now that I'm done baking (the DH has one more baking project to do today), I'll be spending some time working on quilts and that piece of jewelry today --- it should be fun!
it was a busy weekend
more sewing projects rolled off the sewing machine, made their way to the kitchen table and got put into boxes and wrapping paper
and like the folks that will be receiving these items, those of you that read here will have to wait to see them (you know who you are!)
except for a couple of small "sock gifts", I'm done shopping, sewing and wrapping for Christmas -- and judging from the bags full of wrapped gifts, it was a busy season preparing!
I spent some time working on this yesterday
there have been several attempts to finish this piece that have been ripped out, but this version is a keeper
it's not what I first envisioned, but I like the contrast of the sharp triangular pieces with the round center
I hope to get this finished this afternoon
and I have already started planning and collecting the materials for the next piece I'll be building
last night we watched some Christmas music specials on our local PBS station, and I finished another afghan square
a quick review of the box that I'm filling with these and there is enough room for six to eight more in there before I mail it off --- might get these in the mail before the end of December --- cool!
also worked on mittens and hat set number 2 for the 2013 challenge --- am I getting too far ahead of myself here?
time to get moving on today's projects
some time in the studio yesterday and another project complete! 
