Finally, some news!

Let’s face it; I’m not cut out for daily/weekly blogging. I have been away for so long I’m sure you have dropped my site from your sights. If not, thanks for sticking around.

I have been very busy this summer and a lot of things have happened, but I won’t bore you with most of them. While almost everything is good, they are important to me but probably not to you.

Number one:  We adopted a stray mini-schnauzer/terrier mix about six weeks after we lost Windsor to illness and old age. His name is Geordie (like Georgie with a "d") and is a real sweetheart. He’s about two and a half years old and has a warm, loving, and mellow personality – very much like Windsor. He likes to bark when he gets excited, and we are working on that, but other than that he’s a perfect fit for our family.

Here he is in the birdbath.  All new members of the household get their first picture taken in the birdbath.  This is right after I gave him a trim – he’s been on the groomers table before, so well behaved!

Number two: I continue to serve as the president of the Denton Quilt Guild and lots of activity has been swirling around that. The biggest activity for me is that I will be a tour escort for the International Quilt Festival of Ireland next June and have been recruiting travelers to join me. Let me know right away if you are interested, space is limited! Here’s the link

Number three: The company I work for, Reaper Miniatures, was able to raise nearly $3.5 million in funds to start a new line of plastic gaming miniatures and bring the production to Texas. It was a wild and crazy month of watching pledges roll in and the enthusiastic comments from our supporters.

Number four: I just finished some contract work with University of North Texas -- UNT on the Square. I was asked to attach rod pockets to over a dozen beautiful African textiles to enable them to be hung. It was a joy and privilege to handle the amazing ceremonial cloths from Ghana. The exhibit opens this week

Thanks for sticking around.  What have you been up to lately?

Still here and something to show for it -- a reveal

Okay. So you may have thought I fell off the edge of the world since I haven’t posted anything for two months. I am still here, but I have been so busy.

My dad is doing great, my mom is super, and my new sister-in-law is a sweetheart, so the year has had a great start.

The really great news is that I have been challenged by some of my quilting friends to actually QUILT – what a concept!

I have started a portrait quilt that I hope to enter in show next year and will update here along the way. Most recently, though, I have completed a small quilt that will be incorporated in a large quilt that will be in the Welcome Center at the first International Quilt Festival of Ireland. The theme of the Welcome Center is Céad Míle Fáilte which is Gaelic for “one hundred thousand welcomes”.

The hand is made of heavy ivory silk, the other fabrics are cotton. I wanted the background to look like irregular Irish fields bordered by deep green hedgerows of decorative stitches. All I have to do to finish it is put my name and greeting in one of the light green fields and send it off.

The other thing that has prompted me to post today is a small blog hop with my mom, Sandy Richardson at Sandy's Coloring Box, Norma Truvey at Moonlitfantaseas and Alice Craddick at Alice's Beads And Baubles. Please check out their websites to see what they have created. My swap partner is Norma Truvey and here is what she sent me. Yummm!

Take a look at that pendant.

And look at the back – gorgeous! I was really inspired by the copper of the beautiful pendant and the beautiful colors in the painting detail on the front (I am pretty sure it is a detail from an Italian Renaissance painting, but I haven’t had the time to research which painting it is.) Norma sent beautiful earthy pearls and beads and tiger’s eye flat faceted ovals – I am crazy about ovals, don’t know why. She also sent two kinds of chains: a large linked gold-toned chain and a fine copper chain. This is what I created.

Click on any of these photos to enlarge

I added some lamp-work beads I received in a past swap (I don’t recall from whom) and some root beer colored seed beads, everything else was sent by Norma. Thank you, Norma.

Now, go over to Norma's, my mom’s and Alice’s blogs to see what they have been doing.

There's an App for that

In 1991 Hersey's had a Valentine's promotion where you could send chocolates and tulips to your sweetheart. My husband and I were to be married just two months later and we were separated by half a state, so I did it. I sent him chocolates and tulips. The message on the card from me said: "Tulips for now, two lips forever."
Yeah, I know, kind of cheesy. But now, every time my husband sends me flowers, there is a tulip or two included -- and our florist loves it!

The little quilt (17"x17") below has been accepted into a juried exhibit at our local art center. The theme is two-color quilts. It is called "Tulips for Now". If you have a smart phone, you probably know what it is. If you don't, it is a QR code, sort of like a SKU code read both directions. Guess what this one says.

I will be offering patterns for different short saying to be made into quilts or cross-stitch pieces in my etsy shop really soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE: I have a listing for custom orders HERE Please check it out.

My New Camera

After a couple of false starts, I received my new camera in the mail -- actually, "Brown" (What can Brown do for you?) attempted to deliver twice and my sweet husband went to the local depot to collect it on the second day. I was away at a four day quilt retreat and picked it up later.

I still have to learn the tips and trick to this new camera -- it is kind of like my old one (may it rest in peace), but I will just have to play with it. This is the first photo I took with my new camera -- a two-color quilt I started and finished in the last four days at retreat.

It is for a National Fabric and Craft chain's challenge and all will need to be completed by December 18th to be considered. I was a semi-finalist in a similar contest for the same chain several years ago. As I get closer to completing the work I will give more details. And here is a detail of a photographic nature:

The block pattern is an off-centered square in a square called "Happy Hour" but I drafted it myself to be an 8.5" block. The setting and borders are of my own design and I wanted two of the squares to have "runaway centers". I will need to applique these in place.

.

Speaking of running away, my husband and I will be going away to the gulf coast for a few days. I will not have internet and so will probably get very far behind in my reading of blogs and certainly in my writing of them. I will post photos and details when we return, but I sure am looking forward to quiet walks on the beach and hours spent reading and beading.

.

If you were to run away, where would you go and what would you do?

My Little Landscape Quilt is Featured

My "Older Than Stonehenge" applique quilt has been included in the Etsy Team Blog: Quilts and Heirlooms . The image links to my Etsy Account. I am thrilled!

The post is the second in a series -- check it out.

Retreat

Retreat!

I love the word, not because it means, among other things “flee quickly" from conflict, but because its other meaning is to “get away from the ordinary" and "get in touch with oneself”.

The past three weeks have been very difficult for me. When I was teaching, I always had a few weeks after summer school when I was mentally counting the days until school started again. I thought I was doing really well this summer, mentally preparing for NOT going back to the campus, but I was wrong. It hit me like a ton of brick two and a half weeks ago. Since then, there have been more days than not that I would get up in the morning, make breakfast and see my husband off to work, then lay back down “for a few minutes” only to awaken 5 hours later. Some mornings I would not even get up until nearly noon.

This is not like me – this is depression at its most insidious. It eats up my life and saps my energy. And, quite frankly, I resent it.

The good news is: I have been looking forward to this past weekend. I just returned from four days and three nights with my dearest and best artistic friends. Every year, twice a year, I look forward to Quilt Guild retreat. This time I paid for retreat right after I found out I lost my job. I knew I would need the spiritual sustenance that it gives me, and I was right. I took my jewelry to sell, and while I did not sell everything, it was worthwhile. I also bartered jewelry for a 30 minute massage from the on-site massage therapist. Yes, it was very good to go on retreat.

While I was there communing with my best gal-friends, I created two small quilt-tops that I will quilt as soon as I can get my best sewing machine repaired. (Have you ever noticed? Everything costs money!)

Saturday morning I left retreat to attend the first meeting of the Dallas Area regional group of Studio Art Quilters Association (SAQA). I met some of the local big names in art quilting and felt a bit intimidated. They were as nice as they could be so I am glad I joined. I look forward to tapping the collective resources this group has to offer.

Here are the two little art quilts I designed (but have not quilted) while on retreat. This one is Castlerigg, a Neolithic stone circle in the Lakes District of England.

And this one is of Maes-Howe and the Hills of Hoy on the island of Orkney way north of Scotland.

And here is my Etsy shop. Now, please go over there and buy something. I will give a 10% discount if you mention my blog in a convo (to me).