Tag: textile art

It’s about time

Hi Everyone!

Did you notice that I’m back on schedule this week? Woo hoo! I was determined to get a post in before the weekend starts.

Is my To Do list caught up? Not by a long shot but I’m pretty sure it never will be. I finished a knitting project and a commissioned project this week. I don’t have photos of either of them yet though. I will be starting two small portraits soon. Stay tuned for those. 

In my “spare” time I started a new pair of socks. My sock knitting is getting faster. I started these on Monday and am almost to the heel already. This is just squeezing in 10 or 15 minutes here and there, often waiting on an email or supper to finish cooking or waiting for an appointment. Aren’t these the most beautiful colors. Pure joy to hold and knit!


I did a little of this knitting while waiting Tuesday evening for Miss L to be inducted into the honor society. We are so stinking proud of her especially considering the vast numbers of changes that have occurred in her life this year! 


This week I also pulled out several textile art unfinished objects and plan to finally finish them up and put them in my Etsy store. Here is the first. Not quite finished yet but close. I will post them with a link when I get them finished and in the store. 


Muffin had the last of her shots this week and became the celebrity kitty of the day when she willingly sat on EVERYONE’s shoulders at the veterinarian’s. Here she is with two of the doctors. 

We have had more barn drama this week. Something tried to get to Muffin one night and pulled her kitty condo off the table in the barn. She has a spacious large dog crate for a condo so we suspect a coyote. NOT GOOD. Luckily the door latch held and Muffin was safe but everyone has been a bit jumpy this week especially the horses who were the silent witnesses ensconced in their stalls and none too fond of coyotes either. Last night something knocked over Sweetie Pie’s (Muffin’s Mom) crate.  SP doesn’t get locked in because she has excellent barn cat skills and is safer with an escape plan.  She came cruising out to meet me this morning showing no sign of being terrorized. Whew!! Whatever it was decided that the honey racks stored in the feed room (we still need one more door…SOON) would have to do for a midnight snack. Now I have a sticky mess to clean up. Insert bad words here. 

We have a rare and wonderful unscheduled Saturday tomorrow. I have a goal of starting the kitchen remodel that was supposed to happen LAST Spring. Now if I can get the painting and repairs done BEFORE the garden planting and bee season begin I will be doing a happy dance! To accomplish this I must go dig the paint out of the closet in G’s room before she gets here this evening. Gotta go ya’ll. 

May time be on your side this week!

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by Categories: art, commissioned, connecting, creativity, farm life, garden, life, productivity, sewing, simplify, wildlifeTags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Glorious Saturday 

Hi Everyone!

I have no idea why I missed writing this post yesterday other than I was enjoying the fine art of lollygagging through my Friday. I survived a high level deadline for a job on Wednesday, a day full of deliveries Thursday and only had one low level deadline yesterday that evidently numbed my brain.

Today is the first Saturday in MONTHS that I have been able to stay home and do neglected domestic stuff and work on my commission and just enjoy a no deadline day. Glorious!

I think I am almost done with my commissioned drawing. I need to just spend a few days looking at it and seeing if there are any touch ups to do. I can’t show you the whole thing but here is a little sneak preview. 


I still have a logo to do for my daughter. I’m so glad she is distracted by her anatomy class right now and not needing the logo right away. The hours and hours I have spent on the computer the past few months seem to have made me reluctant to focus on technical creativity. Normally I enjoy creating logos but it requires a long time on a computer. I get a little squeamish thinking about it at the moment. 

What I am looking forward to is soon having the time to start work on some projects that have been percolating in my head for a VERY LONG time. I’m sure you have had the experience of thinking about something you want to do, a place you want to go or a needed solution to problem and out of the blue comes the exact “thing” you needed. Call it what you will, God at work or the universe, but it happens often and it has happened to me.

Without the long explanation that I will probably cover in the future, I have a fascination with textile art. In the past couple of years I have also developed a fascination with quilts, especially art quilts. For most of my adult life I had a sewing machine that only sewed a straight stitch…when it felt like it and too many other things on my plate to really spend the time or money working with fabric. 

Take a wild guess at what I have wound up with during all this cleaning out of the husband’s family stuff. Better yet let me show you just a drop in the bucket. 


I now have boxes and boxes of supplies to work with. Hobby Lobby may not have the inventory that I do. I’m pretty sure I am being told that it is time for me to get to work! There will be a learning curve and I have no idea where this is going but I’m itching to get started.  No, I’m not going to give up the drawing and painting. Somehow I think it is all going to work together but we will have to wait and see how. I have been playing with ideas for years. 

That’s it for this week. I had planned to spend some time cleaning a lovely antique piece that is moving in here but it’s a little damp and windy today for me to take that on. Miss L. is away for the weekend visiting friends and making up shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I told her I was going to work on reorganizing her room while she is gone. There is chili to make for dinner. D. is heading out to the woods this afternoon for some time in his deer stand. Not a bad Saturday at all!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

by Categories: art, commissioned, creativity, learning, life, productivity, sewingTags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My current crushes

Hi Everyone!

Hope you are having an excellent week.  Mine has been fairly calm and a little disappointing. I have been on a bee watch, hoping for a swarm of bees to move into one of my swarm traps.  For several days it looked very hopeful with lots of scout bees, then suddenly the activity died down and it turned cold here again. The next several days will be warm and I will be back to watching my hives. The rest of my week has been very busy with work and I have put in long hours on this computer.

I thought I would share a couple of my latest obsessions with you in case you would like to check them out.

In the past couple of years I have become very interested in quilts. Making them to be exact.  I have never made a quilt and have no idea where this sudden interest came from.  I lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for many years and always tried to go to the Amish community’s annual quilt auction.  I would walk around amazed at the skill and artistry of their quilts.  Often these quilts would sell for thousands of dollars and well they should.  I have a Pinterest board called If I ever make a quilt if you would like to follow it or just see what I have been pinning since this quilt thing started happening.

A while back I ran into Sherri Lynn Wood’s book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously.  It now resides on my wish list on Amazon.  It appealed to me because, try as I might, I rarely am able to follow a pattern.  Not that I can’t really, but because my brain will, somewhere in the middle of making something, go “what if I tried this” and that will be the end of the pattern.  I have always suspected that any attempt of following a precise quilt pattern would end badly for me.  Sherri’s book throws out the precision part and let’s you go off on your own, but at the same time seems to give you the skill set to not wind up with a wadded up mess.

Back to the obsession part of this post.  I ran across Abby Glassenberg’s podcast While She Naps (same name as her blog) and she had an interview with Sherri Lynn Wood and that led me to Sherri’s blog Daintytime and I have been binge reading ever since, starting at her very first post.  I am especially interested in her bereavement quilts.  I think that is an amazing way to work through grief.  They are very different from other quilts and bears I have seen using a loved one’s clothes.  I am also still very much in love with her improv quilts and foresee the day when I will attempt one of those.

We have had a sudden cleaning out of old jeans here and I have decided to start a quilt with the fabric.  Here is what I did last night.  After hours and hours on the computer I needed to do something more hands on so I cut up jeans.  Don’t expect to see a finished quilt anytime soon, but I’m moving in that direction.

The jeans are worn out, but what is left is going to find a new purpose.

 

Any ideas of what I can do with the leftover bits?

Also interviewed on Abby’s podcast (yes, her podcast is an obsession right now as well) was Ann Wood. Oh. My. Gosh.  I love her work.  Go to Ann’s blog and see what she does if you like textile art.  Really, I just want to sit in those lovely rooms with her and touch all that gorgeous fabric she works with.  I’m not a cutesy person. I don’t do cute hearts and fluffy animals. Her birds and animals and insects just make my heart sing.  They are rough and royal all at the same time with the simple and ornate fabric.  Her boats make me want to take a journey with the cat.  Just go check it out.

I have no affiliations with any of these people or their products.  I just found them and thought I would pass them along in case you are looking for some new visual candy or creative challenges.

So, my work load is calling and I must go.  Have a awesome week and if you have some cool current obsessions please share!

by Categories: art, creativity, learning, podcasts, sewingTags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment