Wait ... What happened?

Two days of no blogging???  So much for the 2012 goal of blogging every day! Well - it's a goal, not a mandate. Tuesday I fell asleep on the floor while stretching the kinks out of my back. Carpet. Padding. Concrete. Definitely not the most comfortable place to sleep - I must've been awfully tired! Wednesday - I simply forgot I was suppose to blog!  So here I am on Thursday!

So where was I? Oh yes. The top is together, waiting for borders/backing/binding. The house is still being ripped apart at the seams, but is looking good! Nothing like a nail gun going all day to keep you awake!

Yesterday I spent the vast majority of the day planning travel - California/Seattle, and France/Italy. That was fun! I'm going to dive into Rosetta Stone Italian and see if I can converse while we're there. Anybody know anyone I can practice with? If I pick up Italian OK, I'll give French a try.

So I've been listening to music (rather than books) on my walk for the last few days and wow did my time decrease! I went from 2:20 for 7 miles to just under 2 hours!!! I'm amazed! (and happy). I thought I was walking faster, but was shocked to see how much faster. So I went from a 20 minute mile to a 17 minute mile just by changing what I listen to. Lesson learned!

And that's pretty much what I've been up to! Thanks for stopping by!

My life as a disorganized mess!

No, not really a mess. And really not all that disorganized, although sometimes things start to bug me.  I think the right way to phrase it is that blogging hasn't made it to the top of THE LIST until this moment. I've been too busy doing STUFF!

On Monday, a group of us took a Batik class with Wendy Tatter (of St. Augustine, FL).  Here's all our stuff, drying yet again (many drying cycles when batiking!).

Wendy holds classes at her house, which is charming in an indescribable way!! I think the most important lesson I learned that day was that it's ok that my priority is "There's art to be made!!!". I learned this by being so charmed with Wendy's "messily endearing" house. I'm sure some people need everything "just so" - but I rather enjoy the unexpected! The collection of Pez dispensers in the crazy kitchen was ever so fun! No more fretting for me - there's art to be made!

Gretchen and I were very early for the class, so we went to a Veteran's sculptural memorial for a quick visit.  I love this bird ...

...and this view

Ah, Florida! I sometimes wish we had cold weather, but .. not on this day. It was glorious!

Here are all the pics from that day - all with the Ipad. I kinda like what the bright lights did to the photos. It's funky! I'm a Flickr newbie (and certainly no photographer!!)  but hopefully you can see everything.

More to come this morning, but enough for this post.  Thanks for stopping by!

Friday

Progress continues on the jacket. One of the sleeves is on so I'm just about done.

I've decided to take a leap a day for the rest of the year by trying something that I don't know how to do.  I tried a couple of journal pages - just adding color so they'll be ready for journaling ....

I have a lot to learn but at least I gave it a try! :)  I spritzed the pages after adding the color, but didn't get much movement/removal of the ink.  Ah, sooooo much to learn!!  (I DO enjoy the learning part!!)

I've started sewing together rows for a red tumbler quilt:

These are just tossed up on the design wall & will be getting shuffled a number of times, I'm sure.  Earlier this year I cut up all my red scraps using my GoBaby.  I was going to add another color, but decided to stay with just red (for the center) for an "all reds clash beautifully" sample.  The tumbler blocks finish at 3".  There will be lots of dups, but not next to each other in the final quilt.

This will be a small piece - just about 30" x 42" (or maybe just 36" or 39" if it gets too out-of-proportion) before borders. This is another thing I want to do ... work smaller.  These smaller pieces will be experiments, practice, sample pieces ... and at some point in their life, they'll be just the right size for wheelchair quilts.  So far I'm liking the red tumbles!!!!  I can't wait to see where this little piece goes.

And that's my day!  Thanks for stopping by!!

Shooting Blanks

I've been doing the hand stitching on small-works blanks today. It's incredibly satisfying! I feel like I'm accomplishing something while sitting on my duff listening to audio books. Of course I AM accomplishing something, because the handwork must get done and I don't always feel like doing it. I also did some sketching of ideas coming into my head as I stitch. Learning to sketch at age 60 is going to be a challenge but I have accepted that there are no mistakes; just learning.

It's very exciting to be retiring in a few days. So many new worlds are opening up to me! I'll be sketching, doing journal quilts, doing a whole series of small works, making a series of jackets, and the thing I'm looking most forward to - working on whatever quilt strikes my fancy on any given day! I'm excited that I'll be able to head downstairs to the studio, open the cabinet doors and see what strikes my fancy that day.

I bought Lyric Kinard's book "Art + Quilt" when I was at the World Quilt Show in West Palm Beach a couple of weeks ago. I've read the book and am so very thankful for Chapter One! The timing is perfect and the words really sank in: I'm not suppose to be perfect - I'm just starting!! Thank you, Lyric!!!! I highly recommend the book for anyone wanting to stretch a bit. No affiliation - just an appreciative reader.