Winter's coming and we're getting ready

if I had any doubt about fall being in full glory and winter on it's way, I'm reminded every day when I look out my office window at these two trees that are across the street from our house

beautiful color!

because that is true, we've been getting ready for winter too

last week we moved everything off of the deck and I put on a fresh coat of stain/sealer on the floor and the top of the railing all the way around

we thought we were going to have to buy the stuff to do this with, but found that the previous owner had left about half of a 5 gallon bucket here after that did this in the spring -- YEAH!

when we do the process next spring I'll have to pay for it, but that was a savings of about $65 and I'm happy to do that

this was a big accomplishment for last week too --- the van being parked in the garage!  

there are still a few items that we have yet to decide where they will go, and all 35 plus boxes of Christmas items are out there in the garage, but it's nice to put the vehicle inside

we turned the last of the garden's tomato harvest into 6 pint containers of pasta sauce that went into the freezer

we used some of it the night the DH created it, and it was really good stuff

I'm looking forward to the taste of summer in these containers during the winter months

this is the last big thing that needs to happen in my studio

the piece of soundproofing board that will be my design wall is all covered and ready to hang 

I used an old white cotton blanket right over the soundproofing board and a layer of white flannel over that -- oh look!  it's a quilt!!

we'll get this hung this week and the new secret project I'm working on can be worked on more extensively

right after we moved here I joined the local quilt guild

I love this group -- they are diverse and interesting and welcoming -- it's a wonderful thing

last weekend was their annual show and boutique at the local fair grounds and each of us was invited to enter 3 pieces in the show

these are the 3 that I entered

it was pretty exciting to see pieces from this series all hanging together!

even with all the around the house work, I still managed to get some art time

the edge beading of this piece is moving right along -- as I suspected, using the tiny size 15 beads is a lot more time consuming, but the edge is beautiful!  

this week I hope to get to the fringing

even though I don't have an updated photo of this piece, I can report that the quilting is complete and yesterday afternoon I cut the edges so I can put on the binding

running right up to the deadline on this, which makes me really nervous, but it is going to be amazing

and then there is this

the beginning of a brand new piece that I'm working on the design for

I've been fiddling with the idea in my head for a couple of months, and now that the  Tsalagi piece is close to finished, it's time to start putting it on paper

looking good so far

cooking and sewing and beading -- Oh My!

last week's activities involved some canning, and this week's involved cooking with a vegetable that I had never tried before

my daughter's garden produced a bumper crop of spaghetti squash, which we had never eaten, but this recipe was really good

if you'd like to try it for yourself, I've posted it out on Hattie's Kitchen

we had another little home improvement done in the garage this week -- these three steps from the garage floor into the house originally had no hand rail

on Monday the same contractor that did my studio came and put up this amazingly attractive rail for me

Yeah!

this piece is ready for the backing -- I tried one type of material and it just was not up to snuff

so I ordered a piece of suede to take care of that issue, which arrived yesterday -- I'll be getting back to this piece soon

in the mean time, I started on this piece

my plan for it will involve doing some bead woven parts to create the necklace --- but I've set it aside for now while I finish the blue one

the quilting continues on this piece

and I've decided to use the tear drop shaped beads off the edge of the trail as part of the "finish" on that bottom edge

 

and the costume for Mr Cute is finished!

he loves it, and while there will be other Ninja Turtles out there trick or treating, there won't be another one that looks like this one!!

Yahoo!!

it's fall!

we moved into the house when the trees were bare, and I still have no clue what some of those trees are, but one of them is celebrating the change of the seasons by turning it's leaves this glorious color

WOW

fall also means lots of pumpkins and apples in the stores

so we took a day off from other work and put up applesauce

it was a lot of fun to have my daughter here working on this project too -- 9 pints for us, 6 and almost another for her

yummy

 

the DH has been busy in the garage workshop

each of my stereo speakers now has a lovely solid wood stand -- gets them off the floor and really improves the sound -- nice!

this is a little project he's building for a friend of mine that spent several hours teaching me some new techniques that I believe are going to make an enormous difference in my art work --- this is a little "thank you" gift -- a stand to sit under her work table that has a lip around 3 sides so the sewing machine pedal doesn't scoot off the edge

we emptied 3 big trunks and 2 little foot lockers this week -- and most of the doll and bear collection has been found and installed

I have a few more little pieces that I want to put in cases in my bedroom, a few for my office and a few for the studio, but we're mostly done with that part of the unpacking

this picture could be labeled "future home of the design wall" -- we got the space all marked with blue tape yesterday, ready to hang it up as soon as I finish getting it covered

got these hung on the wall yesterday too

yup, there is a little space there for growth in additional spools of thread, and this does not include the hand quilting threads -- just the ones that my sewing machine will play nicely with

this is a lot easier for me to see at a glance what I actually have available

the week wasn't all about house work, however

the "suit" for the Ninja Turtle costume is all stitched together, so now I'm working on the accessories

I finished the bead embroidery on this piece -- I need to dig through the tub of leathers and upholstery velours to find the right material to cover the back of it

and yesterday I finished quilting around each of the figures walking on the trail and started quilting on the trail itself

I need to keep working on this every day as we are now in count down mode on it -- only 27 days left to finish the quilting, do the edge and get good photos before the deadline to enter

Must.Work.Faster!

another week has flown by!

the garage workshop has been very busy!

our daughter asked her dad to put this Ikea chest together for her

what she got was not only a chest put together, but one with a nice stain, several coats of sealer and a wax job on top

lovely!

and that's not all he's been up to

he built these two "park benches" for me so I can display my doll and bear collection on the ledge in our living room

I hope to get those installed in the next couple of days

meantime, I've been working on projects too

the beading is coming along on this -- stitching down bugles in concentric circles is pretty time consuming, but this piece does not have a time deadline, and that stitching has a sort of meditating quality that is good at the end of a long day

another shed door is done!

there is still one thing I'm going to do to this -- ink the edge so the white batting doesn't make that white halo around the edges

one more little design change got made here, but I'm now happy with it and ready to get serious about the quilting

but to do that quilting I needed a specific color and type of thread

which I found at the quilt show that was held right here in my home town on Friday

of course I also did a bit of shopping for another project that I'm working on (and can't show you pictures of yet!)

yesterday our SAQA region hosted a workshop by a local (awesome!) artist who did a workshop on hanging textiles in dimensional ways

I volunteered to take one of my pieces to be experimented with

what an amazing impact hanging this piece that way had -- WOW!

made me think about doing something like this for a future piece too

putting the rubber where my mouth is

I know, it sounds like a really mixed metaphor --

last year at this time my friend, Barbara Beasley, was part of an open studio with Heidi Kummli

at the time I was still living at the other end of the state, and making that trip just was not in the cards, and I did a lot of moaning about not getting to go

this year was a whole different story -- I had no such excuse -- and it was a huge adventure!

you see, Heidi lives off the grid -- up in the mountains on a dirt road that Google Maps doesn't even recognize exists

and I'm a city girl -- yes, I grew up in Colorado, but I didn't go off driving the hills on my own, and then I spent a lot of years driving in freeway traffic -- a whole other kind of scary

so the drive there was one of the more nerve racking I can remember --- but the open studio was awesome!

I got to spend a lot of time talking to Heidi, one of the bead embroidery artists that got me started doing that work as well as enjoying conversation with Barbara and other folks that had made the trek up the mountain

and I came home with some goodies from Heidi's stash, a new book, and 60 photographs of the leaves turning gold here in our mountains -- and those photos will no doubt result in a number of new art quilts

it was great to go and "fill the well" creatively after a week that had included

putting up tomatoes from my daughter's garden

finishing another shed door piece

(and entering 3 of those shed doors in a quilt show that will be held in October)

completed the inking of the ghosts on this piece, so now it is ready to be quilted!

did more work on the Halloween costume for Mr Cute -- and had him here for a "fitting" which he was very excited about

worked on the piece of jewelry that is currently in process --- several of the items that came home with me from the open studios will be used in this piece

 last night I went to one of my art group meetings and was treated to this amazing sunset outside the windows as the meeting was going on

and had another friend drop this little bundle of goodies into my bag during that meeting

WOW

it's been a great week!