It's completed ;-)

Well I am checking in to say Happy Holidays to all and a Happy New Year.
I managed to complete Tyler's quilt tonight. Tomorrow is 1/2 day of school/work and then a mad dash to get organized, packed and a good night's sleep. We head to MI Saturday morning bright and early since it will be a 9 1/2 to ??? hour drive dependant on traffic and weather. Pray for no snow till we arrive safely please.
The payoff is great...Holiday will be spent with ALL 3 of my children, their significant others AND my first grandchild CALEB who is almost 10 months old! If I am really lucky I will witness Caleb's first steps since he has been trying to figure it out for a few months so who knows I might just get lucky.
Caleb will fly in with mommy and daddy from Denver and then my middle child will fly in from NY city. Anyway
Here are some pics of the baby quilt I somehow managed to complete this week. What a great feeling and relief. ;-) The chair will wait till I have time possibly in the spring. I want to see if mommy wants trains or martians as the theme for Tyler's coordinating "time out" chair. ;-)

Day two.......

Okay so got home from long day of work..you know how much fun schools can be at this time of year..ha ha....just like a full moon......
but anyway here is day two of the baby quilt...deadline approaching ;-)
But What fun!!!!
Can you believe it is almost Christmas!!

Crunchtime!

So the countdown is here for holiday stuff! Weather has been screwy, I have so much to do yet I took some time to enjoy some mindless but fun quilting today. I'm shooting to complete a baby quilt for my newest great-nephew as a holiday surprise. I also will need to paint a chair to match it since that is what I did for his older sister, Quilt and matching timeout chair ;-) The chair will have to wait till after the holiday. Of course when I made his sister's quilt I had NO idea how to quilt so his quilt should be much nicer ;-)
So here is his quilt top so far, only half completed.

And this is what his sister's looked like. (Notice it was a panel with simple border sewn on.)

Just been plugging away.

So it's Sunday...have you ever noticed how quickly the weekend tends to go?
I did a lot of putzing this weekend, working on too many projects going at once but did finally get my lap quilt done so Bill and I both have one for curling up in front of the fire. We only had one lap quilt so now we each have our own! Oh well now off to clean my sewing machine, want to keep it in tip top shape if possible.

Committed

Okay so I have finally committed to my design for the challenge and we'll see what happens from here. Have worked all morning on the silk challenge (Can't show you since it is a challenge and not due till January so top secret from here on ;-) Thankfully it seems my original design will work so that makes me feel much calmer.
Now a few other items I must work on before I can complete this top to start the quilting and final work. Sooooooooooo back to the sewing machine for me! It's a nice day...hope you are enjoying it!

Snow day????

Well we had one of our famous VA snow days??? About 1-2 inches but you know the roads of VA are definitely not like the roads in MI! So NO school and I got to try to catch up... I got as much done on my projects as I could but of course with about 3 projects going at once, you know what happens...lol and sadly none were my silk challenge. The good news is I have my Christmas obligations just about completed for the guild party next Tues. AND tomorrow is another day. ;-)

I seemed blocked..or lazy?

Well thank goodness for the blog, "my blog"! It's funny a couple years ago I first tried blogging in an in-service class at work. I found it too time consuming to try to keep up and now I am using one as a necessity to keep me on goal. It's a goal I've set for myself so I have a strong desire to want to stay focused but we know how hard it is for women or at least most of us to take time for ourselves? I don't think women were raised during my era to think it was okay to put ourselves or our dreams first? Funny one can go from being a daughter to a wife or/and career, then sometimes a mom, or maybe like me a teacher and single mom for 20 years and you tend to be pulled every which way making it even harder to take time to shoot for your dreams or goals. Heck who even had time to think we had dreams or to be honest my dream at the time was to do a good job raising my kids. Well I've been there, done that and now have some very bad habits formed and sometimes when I find myself overwhelmed I shut down and just plain relax. ;-) I wonder how other quilters break a slump or force themselves to move forward if you feel stuck? I have been neglecting my quilting lately for many reasons? One is just the everyday shit that happens day to day in what we call life ;-) then of course there is my job, it's a busy time of year doing grades, preparing for the annual art displays and just day to day teaching. Then there was the annual drive up north for family Thanksgiving which was wonderful yet is so tiring so we're still playing catchup need energy ;-) (it gets much harder on us as we get older each year, the drive seems so long) still, I remember to be very thankful for my health and family and the opportunity to gather. Then there is the Christmas holiday approaching so one has many things to prepare for. I'm looking forward to the drive back to MI since all 3 of my children AND my grandson Caleb will travel in and gather with all of the family.

Okay so now back to the quilting....I was stuck I have possibly too many projects going at once lol so maybe let that slow me down or dead stop me? not really sure that is the reason ;-) but anyway here you can see a few of my projects laying around...Thankfully today I kicked myself into gear and have completed some more work on my silk challenge.....cross your fingers for me it turns out as I hope? I am learning it is fun to try to design free style but oh so many unforeseen problems lol....especially if you are a new quilter or seamstress as I am.

It's almost turkey day!

Well let's see it took almost 12 hours to tow the Miata back to MI for turkey day!
The good news is we will celebrate with family...blessed to have one set of parents here...83 and 86 and in decent health. Sadly two of my kids will be in other states but we will have Christmas to celebrate!
Anyway sadly no time to quilt! But happy turkey day to all!!!!

Wow it's a holiday week!

Can you believe it's Thanksgiving already? over 1/4 of my school year is over ;-) nice thought........ but oh my, time seems to be flying by....

Well sadly I have all these ideas I would like to be creating and instead I am packing for a 10 hour drive up north! Yep we're going back to MI for turkey dinner..... A sad fact is we're getting older so the thought of working all day tomorrow and then driving 10 hours is not that exciting, just the thought tires me.

Will have to catch up with my art in a few days right now it's time out for family celebrations.......the bummer is one child will be in NY and my daughter and 8 month old grandson are in Denver so we only get to see one of the kids and then some other family members like parents, sisters, nieces....friends!

Sure hope we don't hit traffic or bad weather........

Here is another picture of view from our deck notice how the colors have changed...winter is coming!

Silk Challenge...are we having fun?

Silk Challenge... ;-) Well it started back in ?? gee I've already forgotten..lol... No seriously we got our material on Sept 22 and were given basic rules which really just told us we had to use 50% of each piece and then attend a 2nd meeting Nov 22 to show where we stood on our ideas or sewing and to receive a surprise piece of silk to put a kink in or accentuate our design. End size of art quilt is to be 144 perimeter or less. Well I bugged a fellow teacher who is also my quilting mentor (a position she took out of pity ;-) to do this challenge with me....See I have set goals for us this year to do this challenge and to also to enter a SAQA Art Quilt Show in the spring. She has begrudged me and agreed to venture as She puts it out of her comfort zone ;-)))) I keep telling her we are having fun! Hopefully we are....lol

Anyway here is the fabric we have been given and the surprise kink yesterday was a silk tie. We each received a different tie and must use a recognizable piece of it in our project.

So this is all I can show you till after the contest. Our deadline or the due date is January 26, 2008 at noon.

Tonight I am a teacher...it's conference night

So we have already completed 1/4th of our 2007-2008 school year! Tonight is conference night and usually as the art teacher I do not see many parents so I am using the time wisely to update my school web page with photos of student work, I'm matting items for the county fine art show and setting up new displays. I do want to share just a couple of my student's batik work. I call them our cheater batiks...meaning we do use hot wax, but then we paint with liquid watercolor dyes and only do one color bath. Still for 6th graders and cheater batiks......not bad huh? Enjoy.......

Life sure gets in the way....

So I have had a busy week between work, family and stuff! You have to know how frustrating it is to have a sick parent when you are miles away...MI versus VA! Thankfully it looks to be taken care of and mom is recovering or resting in hospital. Then work is busy this time of year due to class changes and now the art teacher is also teaching a 7th grade math seminar? lol
Heavy on my mind has been my first original painted canvas quilt. I had a design and want to stick near it but my famous leaves really do not fit my vision so I have been adapting and creating. Hopefully I have come up with the solution but now need time to work on it. We're off for the day to do the normal life demands and hopefully tonight I can return to create.
Here are some of the famous leaves.....

A lazy Saturday

Well went to brunch with a buddy quilter and then to GStreet for some metallic thread to possibly help me finish my art quilt. I also sent a teaser photo to my son of some of the future squares of his Tshirt quilt. I actually took up quilting at one of my son's request. He had saved bags of Tshirts from high school sports, concerts, etc. after seeing a friend's Tshirt quilt an aunt had made them and he has always wanted one of his own. So when I moved to VA I joined a local quilting guild. Figured it would serve two-fold purpose: help me meet new people and help me make the famous Tshirt quilt my son desired. Well that led to my quest to quilt. Of course if you're a mother you'll relate it's hard to make one child something without the others feeling where's mine? Well you guessed it by now...I have to make another Tshirt quilt and this time it is for my LEHIGH Grad (who played college football) If you have been to a LEHIGH Game you know their colors are what I used to call ugly Brown and Gold lol lol (must have been the mud from the field) anyway this is one of the no brainer projects I have to work with as I stay on my art quilt journey, gives me a break once in a while. Enjoy the peek..the best thing I've told them no deadline it will be done when it is done. Also thanks to batiks, LEHIGH colors have never looked better. Well off to create, it's a glorious day!

I love to experiment

Problem is when you discover so many neat things it becomes hard to focus. ;-)

Okay so I have been trying out a bunch of surface techniques. I've been having lots of fun.

I loved the bleach stuff and am excited to try more.... tie dye was fun and so many options there and so easy. The sun dyeing was first time attempts for me and proved interesting, I would like to try some more and possibly other colors but hopefully with some control now that I understand the process a little. Then going back to batik has been fun, wow I first tried batik back in college and wow actually high school lol....anyway I've been a busy bee..........

Now to try to focus enough to work with colors that will coordinate with some of my future quilt designs.

Well when you're a grandma....

Well when you are a first time (like me) or I guess for that matter no matter how many times grandma, you know you're expected to make your grandchild a special quilt? Actually this is the second one I made Caleb ;-) the other one is of colors I chose ;-)...This one matches his room. Anyway to jazz it up a little I added the ABC's. Figure mommy can use it as a teaching aid. Thankfully mommy thought it was great.

Anyway I'm still fighting my cold and in the mist of grades at school so not much creative quilting going on, instead I'm just working on some mindless squares for my middle son's t-shirt quilt.

Fighting a seasonal cold?

It's always so much fun when the seasons change and you work in a building with over 400 students full of germs ;-) sadly it's my week to have the achy creaky body aches and sniffles. I am determined to fight this as we all know we never have time to be sick! So sadly I have not gotten to my quilting tonight, too tired, though I did have a chance to add the gold paint to the edges of my leaves today so will be able to eventually complete my newest art quilt. I have decided to have two groupings of leaves one of 2 and a group of 3. Now to decide if I want to put a saying on the quilt or not? Then the question is how? Anyway figured I'd post a photo of some of my other fiber work.

Lovely Fall day...

Well finished up with the art quilt class today. Sadly I did not feel in "the zone" and have to admit I enjoyed day one of class more.

When we tried to critique our little art quilts I don't feel we got constructive suggestions. I was hoping to get some suggestions RE: my thoughts on whether a grouping of 2 and 3 leaves or 2 groupings of 3 leaves looked balanced. My art quilt instructor suggested I leave the leaves out said the quilt stood well alone. Sadly that might be true about the quilt but was not what I had in mind nor my vision and so I'm determined to try to stick with my drawings or design. I need some materials to help complete the vision ;-))) lol so I've hit a wall.

Oh well to each their own.... have to admit though I felt like she was squelching my inner voice instead of supporting or feeding it. Oh well I guess we all have these days.

But then again look at how great today really was? Here's the view from our back deck. I love fall don't you?

I am sooooo frustrated!

Okay so trying to cram ;-) lol class is tomorrow and I had hoped to have my homework completed but have hit some technical problems. This is when I wish I had the sewing background or knowledge! Sure wish I had wanted to learn to sew as a little girl, but nope I wanted to work with my dad in the garage with his drillpresses and grinders. Anyway I am still determined and actually pleased with what is happening so I intend to hang in there!

Art quilt class-

So homework is due this Sunday for my second class with Paula. (It was or is a 2 time class Sunday 1-4 Artful Quilter, VA) She had us do a line tracing from a magazine photograph of our choice to spark us or help us as a starting point to create an art quilt. She's asked us to complete at least an 8 1/2 X12 quilt to share with the class on Sunday.
Well here is mine so far ;-) Can you tell what I have in mind? One thing it will be a little larger than 8 1/2X12.

Stay tuned I will post the finished assignment. ..........

Time to leap!

Well it's time for me to leap!

I know I've wasted enough time reading other fiber artist blog's and dreaming about what could be.

Time to move forward and reach for those stars. Wish me luck and come along for my journey.