A New creative year! 2018!

We are almost thru the first month of 2018.

Our day today was sunny and wonderful, high in the 60ms.

Just like last Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018 when the weather gave us a beautiful day for the local women's March to the Polls!!! Getting ready for mid-term elections this year!

 

 

  

My friend, Kathy made hats for us! 

Some of the posters were great!

 

 

Marchers of all ages, we must teach our children our values!

 

We couldn't hear all the speeches but it was great to be there and feel the goodness!!!

Snowy weekend! Still sewing...and dreaming...

Last week I made small quilts using natural linen lattice and background.....I love the zakka look!

 

I am hand quilting this lovely pink and taupe quilt with pink perle cotton, and sashiko needles. As much as I love pink, this is one of my favorite!

It is too cold in the sewing studio this morning, so I have set up one of my machines on the breakfast table. This is a 3/4 size Kenmore 1040 which is a little workhorse! And cute too!

 

 

Some natural light from the snowy world outside will add to the joy of working here! This is what I will be making, a crib quilt from a charm pack, plus more 5" squares from my stash.

Of course, I may add borders if I need to enlarge the quilt top!

I am really trying to get lots of my sewing and quilting projects well underway. It is discouraging to see the fabrics and patterns stacked in their bins. So much more fun to see them come into "being"!

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I have always made things! And I come by this trait from my mother. She is gone now, but she left this quilt top which she pieced from a Kansas City Star pattern in the 1940's. She was in college and probably pieced it in the summers at home. It is no small undertaking, lots of small pieces, using purchased lavender and gold cotton along with family scraps.

I have now taken it to be quilted. Then perhaps it can be a wedding gift for her namesake great granddaughter...when that day comes?

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For a while in the late 1970's, I was learning to weave. I took tapestry classes from a wonderful teacher...... we had a shop in Little Rock with many fibers and yarns to chose from.

I still have this wall hanging from those days, and am delighted that my daughter now wants it to hang in her newly painted dining room!

And to think, I almost donated it to a thrift store in my decluttering!

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A couple of knitting projects I would like to do....this sweater!....and this one...madelinetosh "Creature Comforts Cardi", pattern available on Ravelry.

A show I have enjoyed watching....it can be streamed onto the iPad ...

Of course it makes me want to bake instead of sew, paint, knit ......makes me very hungry indeed, LOL!

 

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A book I have on reserve at our library....so there is no end to what can make life enjoyable!

[not to mention a granddaughter's first track meet, and a grandson's first soccer practice!]

 

 

Now to post this and get back to making things!

 

Stitching....primitive but charming!

Remember the random rectangle free form piecing with the romantic florals?

Well, it has grown only a wee bit and is now ready for big stitch quilting! I am using a chenille needle and size 5 perle cotton in a deep rose color!

Helpful information from Carolyn Forster's book on this type of quilting!

I'm only just starting on the hand stitching. It will go with me as I go visit a friend at another of my favorite places... St. Scholastica's Monastery in Fort Smith, AR. Spending a day and a night with Benedictine sisters!

For dirty laundry, which collects when living out of a suitcase, I am stitching some laundry bags....while drinking tea!

Hmmm....I wonder that I'm not painting this week?....

 

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More about stitching....

“To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.” ---Louise Erdrich

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Hand sewing or machine sewing, both are centering and sometimes meditative. When things are going well and you aren't having to rip out a lot, sewing can help lower blood pressure!
In spite of what Louise Erdrich says,  I think there are men who understand that too!

 

These photos are of my mother recently stitching.  She loves doing it, and finds it harder with advancing age.....yesterday she had a set back, a stroke brought on by not drinking enough water.....so, remember to "sip as you stitch".....and not on alcoholic beverages!

"Queen of the Ranch" fabric collage project

“Queen of the Ranch” cigarette card, date unknown.

An excerpt from the back:

--Such a girl, as she goes out to the round-up dressed cowboy style, and carrying a smaller edition of his weapons, is the idol of every man on the ranch. The cowboys are a rough lot, but no class in the world has higher regard for good women. Their one dread is if their employer has a daughter who is a local belle, that she will grow up and marry some “dude from the East.”

Courtesy of the NYPL.


At our last Q.U. I. L.T. quild meeting, our vendor was The Bead Ranch from Stillwater, Ok. I found this small cowgirl already printed on fabric and ready for an art quilt experience....she has led me to hours of fun already!

Above you can see the things I have gathered for this collage....including part of a pair of Levi's left over from making denim tote bags.  i think I will add some bandana print and some more lace....

It will be stitched together using acrylic felt for support and stabalizing, the felt is easy to "needle" and fibers don't come through to the top when I stitch.

I'll keep you posted on our progress with this art piece!

I'm a natural.....

lover of natural fibers, that is! I cannot "abide" (as my grandmother would have put it) polyester!

So I was delighted to find wonderful 100% linen shirts at the local thrift shops! They even have pearl buttons and each was less than $3.00! My "inner hippie artist" wants to embellish them a bit more and make them uniquely "mine"!

While I was at the large fabric store where I work part-time, yesterday, I checked on threads to use for this. I found LINEN embroidery floss!!!! [It is being discontinued...so I may need to buy it all--Ha!]

There were only a few soft natural colors, but the green works perfectly, I think, on my green linen and the taupe is great on the natural linen. I am considering using the cotton crochet thread to further embellish and make the sleeves of this former natural linen "camp shirt" a bit longer...we will see!
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I have also enrolled in another class with Jane LaFazio! this one is on experimental art quilts...and will have more fun opportunities for embellishment and stitching!

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this is a landscape quilt, about 8.5"X11". It is called "Morning Mist in the Ozark Springtime".

Off to stitich now!