fun photos, jumble puzzle

Once in a while I attempt the "Jumble" puzzle in the newspaper. This morning I had figured out all the mixed-up words except one: FACTRY. When I finally figured it out, I had to laugh out loud. (answer at the end of the post for those who need it)

Here are a few photos I took on Skype on Monday.

That's the little elf cap I knitted for Samantha, with thick/thin yarn. Doesn't she have a cute smile?

Here Samantha is holding a small quilt that I kntted for her. Darn, I forgot to take a good photo of this before I mailed it. I'll try to take one when we go to New York next time. It's a simple flannel quilt, just tied instead of quilted, but it's fun and colorful.

She loved ripping up the wrapping paper. Yippee, who needs presents when you can play with wrapping paper?

The answer to the jumbled word is: CRAFTY!

more stuff I made recently

I've got my crafty working on overload these days.

I've made several of these cute little bags. They're great for gift bags. The designer originally conceived of them while thinking up an alternative to the little plastic bags for produce in super markets. Got the pattern from http://www.daisyjanie.com/

Also I recently finished these fingerless gloves for me. This is
another of those fabulous patterns from More Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.

This is how they look on. I used an alpaca sport weight yarn instead of what she suggested. It's a tad snug, but okay on my small hands.

Front view. I can't wait to make more!


I have started planning my Beneath the Surface quilt, not much to show yet. I'll get more serious about it in January.

holiday cheer

The holidays are here and it's great to have family around us. Our son is home, and this morning we went to my brother's house for a family brunch.

Here's our son Warren with his cousin Alex, working on their respective flying objects.

This is Xavier with her mom Amity, and they are showing the sweater I made for him.

This is a better photo of it.

Couldn't resist showing this scene with Xavier clutching his dad Scott's glasses and not letting go.

Of course we miss those who could not be here this Christmas. Hope we can get the Skype to work at some point.

Its Your Fault in IQA catalogue

Jamie gave me a heads up that one of my quilts is in the Cincinnati IQA class catalogue. Yippee! This is "It's Your Fault," part of the Beneath the Surface exhibit, which has already toured in Long Beach and Houston. Not the best photo - for some reason this quilt doesn't photograph well, in my experience. 

Alzheimer's Breakthrough thanks to quilters!

Ami Simms has announced that one of the studies funded by the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has yielded positive results!

According to Ami, "Scientists that we financed basically created a molecule that is able to break up the plaques in the brain that may be responsible for cell death in Alzheimer's. In smaller pieces, it may be possible for them to be removed. Much more work needs to be done, but this is certainly promising."

Go to the AAQI Update blog for more information. Here's the blog address: http://www.aaqiupdate.wordpress.com/

I am so proud to have been a small part of this. I had a quilt in their travelling exhibit that was called "Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece," which wound up its run recently at the Sherbourne Museum in Sherbourne, Vermont.

Matilda and what's for breakfast

Here's Matilda in her annual climb-to-the-top-of-the-ladder photo while I decorated the Christmas tree. She is pondering how she is going to get herself down, as she always does. When will she ever learn?

What's for breakfast? Cold leftover apple-cranberry pie, which I made for last night's Cut-Loose party. Yum. Life is good!

Also I had the first homegrown grapefruit from this year's harvest. You can see I was reading the "Craft Inc" article in this morning LA Times. They're talking about the popular local craft festivals, juxtaposed against the foreign-made handcrafted ornaments being sold in places like Crate and Barrel.  I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand, it's good to support women who are making their lives better by making crafts in developing countries, and I do buy things like that from time to time. On the other hand, it's great to support local crafters and artisans. It's not only patriotic: buying local crafts is more eco-friendly than buying things that had to travel from many thousands of miles away. Support your local crafter!





Holiday Gifts

Deepest apologies, it's been ages since my last post. The tree is up, shopping has been started, projects are still underway. Many projects cannot be shown, but I still have much to share, dear reader.

This is the gift I received at the ornament exchange, a casserole tote with matching hot pad. I love it! It will be perfect for carrying my dish to the Christmas brunch.  Darla Cox made it. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the scarf that I knitted for this exchange. My dear friend Carol McDaniel received it - it was so nice to see her.

I made these bags, with matching flower pins, for my Cut-Loose friends. We had our holiday party last night at Joanell's. Great food, fun conversation, wonderful friends!

Three of the bags were made with fabric I painted or printed. The red and blue came from Rayna Gillman's workshop on deconstructed screenprinting. I think the other one was a paint rag from that class. Sometimes paint rags made the best fabric! The pins were made with multiple layers of fancy fabrics, blasted a bit with my heat embosser. I've seen similar elsewhere and wanted to make my own.

The rest of the bags are made with Ghana batiks. I just love these fabrics - many of them also appear in my "Tie Dyes and Dyed Ties" quilt. I let my friends pick the bag they wanted and was surprised by what they chose. Which confirms my inclination to let 'em pick their own!

fall color

This is my "Fall Color" quilt, submitted to the Noble Seasons Autumn special exhibit.  It will debut in January at Road to California.

Here's a detail. I figure that I ought to post it, while it's still fall! I was inspired by the fall color we saw on our trip to the northeast almost two months ago.  I made "positive" and "negative" leaves, similar to earlier projects that involved hearts and arrows. .

Samantha, super model

Samantha is modelling some of the things I have made for her. Here is the blue sweater I had been working on while we were visiting there (late Sept-earlyOct), with the buttons from Mood/Manhattan. The sweater pattern came from More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. This is the same book I've been using so much for fingerless gloves and other items I can't talk about just now. (Shhhh)

This is another sweater I made, from Natural Knits for Babies and Toddlers by Tina Barrett. She looks like she's about to whisper a secret.

Now she's wearing the matching hat, too!

She seems to really enjoy that ball!  (Be sure to watch the video, on a recent post in case you missed it) This is an original design made by yours truly with flannel, some hand embroidery and ribbon tags.

Welcome Home patriotic house quilt project

"Welcome Home" patriotic house quilt project coordinated by Jamie Fingal on behalf of Furnishing Hope, a non-profit organization specializing in interior design for Habitat for Humanity, Wounded Warrior Battalion and this current project, Veteran's First. We are making welcome home patriotic house quilts for the Vietnam vets that are housed at Veteran's First in Garden Grove, California. http://www.furnishinghope.org/ http://www.veteransfirstoc.org/

Here is a grouping of four of the welcome home quilts turned in so far. That's mine in the upper  left corner and Jamie's on the bottom left. I'm not sure who the artists are on the right - I'll let you know if I find out.

little flag quilt and gloves for me

I finished this little quilt recently.  It's a donation for Furnishing Hope, to give to soldiers coming home. I liked how it turned out. I purposely chose an unpredictable color scheme. The "hills" are batiks from Ghana, the house is dupioni and the flag is Japanese silk.

Here's a detail.



I've been working on several knitting projects, but most of them cannot be shown for now (Christmas is on its way!). I can show this pair of fingerless gloves, because I made them for myself. I love how they turned out! I made similar pairs for my daughter and son-in-law for their birthdays in October. My pair is assymetrical, with one plain side and one cabled side, and I like it that way! This is the first thing that I've knitted for myself, in this go-around.



weekend at the Bowers

This past Saturday and Sunday were spent at the Quilt Faire at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. Stacy, Peggy and I shared a table. It was fun spending time with old friends and making some new ones, too.  I sold patterns, note cards, pincushions, and business card holders.

They put our names and examples of our work on twin screens above the crowd. Nice touch! Thanks to Stacy for taking these photos, which I have shamelessly borrowed from her blog.

Peggy convinced me to give a demonstration on English paper piecing on Sunday. I brought all my hexagon quilts, large and small, handed out sheets of hexagons, gave a little demo, etc. I'm happy there was a nice turnout, and people seemed interested and asked good questions. I feel pretty good about it. If I'd been smart I would have announced this event ahead of time, but I was being lazy. Anyway, it went well. There is an ongoing quilt exhibit at the Bowers, featuring some of the quilts from their collection.

Quilts out and about, and finished projects

It's been a couple of weeks, but this is my "Summertime Cat" at PIQF, taken by Terry. It's part of the travelling exhibit Noble Seasons/Summer. My "Mille Fiore" was also there.

My quilt "It's Your Fault" is currently in Houston at Quilt Festival, as part of the "Beneath the Surface" exhibit. You can see it on the far left of this photo taken by Jamie.

I'm almost finished with a small donation quilt, featuring a house  and a flag. I'll post it when it's finished. I'm also working on my Noble Seasons "Autumn" quilt.

I sent this off recently for Samantha, and I hear that she is wearing it. Hats are fun!

Ditto on this little alpaca number. The yarn was hand-dyed; I purchased it at the farmer's market where Martine and Jack sell their wares.

Here is the hat in progress, with a peek at what the yarn looked like before it gets knitted up. It's a mysterious melange in a ball, but it transforms into neat little stripes. Cool, huh?

pretty cute video from NY

I made the ball that she's playing with.

What I've Been Working on Lately

I've started a new art quilt! It's for the Noble Seasons challenge for Fall. I have found that I've missed art quilting, even though I've thoroughly enjoyed my knitting and other projects. In this photo I'm just playing with shapes, color and texture. It was fun to pull out my Misty Fuse, silks, chiffons, and home dec fabrics.

I recently finished the thrift shop challenge that I'm in. I began with fabric from a black wool skirt; I added fabrics from three pairs of old pants (I'm never going to be a size 4 again). The buttons were covered with silk from old ties.

Here's the view from the back. I made bias strips from an old pair of pants. The jacket turned out a little shorter than planned; I'm still getting used to current-day pattern sizing AND my current-day size. The blouse is an old Faconnable blouse my husband gave me in the 90's. It was super long and too big for me, so I downsized it for a more stylish fit.

Here's a detail of the blouse pocket. It was the first time I'd used a handy-dandy yo-yo maker. It's not perfect but I hope it's good enough. I zigzagged seams to purposely make the blouse a little rough around the edges. I don't pretend to be a grand couturier!

Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece exhibit

The Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece exhibit has been touring the country for over five years, winding up this month at the Sherburne Museum in Sherburne, Vermont. I am proud that my quilt, "Gaps," was part of this exhibit. As part of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, over $421,000 has been raised and donated to research for a cure for this horrible disease.

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative lives on, through monthly quilt auctions and another travelling quilt exhibit. I donated my quilt to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative so they can auction it off at some point, along with other quilts. I hope that I will be able to give a heads up when it is auctioned off.

Ami didn't want us to display photos of our quilts while they were on tour, but now that it's over, I'm assuming it's okay. I will download a photo of "Gaps" as soon as I track it down. For more info on the AAQI, go to http://www.alzquilts.org/

notleymere and horned dorset

During the second leg of our visit, we stayed a couple nights at the Notleymere in Cazenovia and two nights at the Horned Dorset in Leonardsville. It's tough finding places to stay near the kid's farm, especially when it's homecoming weekend in both Cazenovia and Hamilton! I have a few photos worth sharing:

You may recall that the Notleymere B&B is the place where we stayed in April, that had a lifesize cow outside our bedroom door.   We were in the Teddy Roosevelt room last time; the room this time was decidedly more feminine.

The main colors were brown and pink. Loved this chaise lounge, with the pink pompom blanket.

We were visited frequently by the beautiful house cat. What was his name - Sprinkles?  We were pretty sure he was part Maine Coon - his paws were enormous.

I liked this artful "head" arrangement on our window sill. On this trip, we got to meet the owners. The wife did all the decorating. She gets an A plus from us! And the husband can cook a mean breakfast. (delicious)

We definitely saw fall colors from our window, looking out on Lake Caz.

We saw pumpkins everywhere, on everyone's doorstep. I though these bumpy ones on the Notleymere doorstep were especially gnarly.

It rained really hard one day, so we got this spectacular photo of the Chittenango Falls not far from Cazenovia.

This is the Horned Dorset Inn in Leonardsville. They also have a fine restaurant where we dined one night. People come from miles around to eat there, and it was very nice.

There was a great old barn on the property, which had several round windows. I had never seen that before. You can also see our rockin' rental Prius in this photo. We loved this car!

Row of round windows on barn.

Fall leaves at the Horned Dorset.