Valentines Day

Remember this past summer at one of the workshops I overdyed some red fabric in the indigo bath. I was totally copying Laura Kemshall. I cut little hearts out of wood and used it with clamps as a resist. 

This was the time to dig that fabric out and make three valentines for my partner Brian, my sister Susan and my friends from Milwaukee who always send me a handmade valentine each year. 

For my friends

For my sister

For Brian

My sister and I are making a quilt together

As you probably already know I found my birth family and I have a half sister who quilts

Although we live about a thousand miles apart we are both making the same quilt. Pretty cool. I am NOT a pattern/traditional quilter but my sister is. This will be a stretch for me but you can follow along and witness my frustration. It will be child's play for my sister.

Although I am not a farm girl, my sister is so this quilt will celebrate her farm heritage.

The book that goes with the quilt

All the fabric in a larger bin and each block cut in the tiny bin to take to the machine.

Improv finished

Wrapping up a few projects and here is the improv done. I had three machines threaded with green, lavender, and pink. Made the quilting go faster. This was my first free motion experience on the two Necchis.

Here is the entire quilt close-up on YouTube

Click link

It is mounted now but not framed yet

sewing for the pleasure of it

Just today I mentioned that sometimes I just like to sit and sew for the pleasure of it. That Necchi really invites usage. What a dream machine. Now that I have a "real" foot pedal (like on a car), on the Mira and I am enjoying both machine.

Jean came over and of course I took NO photos at the time. Marcella came as well and we worked on making rope bowls with fabric outers. We used 100% cotton clothesline and cut 2.5" wide strips and folded them and ironed them like bias tape. The clothes line went in the center crease with the two sides (also folded) criss crossed over and stitched in place. Mine came out very sloppy.

Then I started the bottom circle and you can see from this photo how bumpy and awful mine was.

When I stitched a bottom the size I wanted, I flipped the bottom up and continued to sew - still sloppy.

This is what your bowl will look like if you are sloppy and careless. I took scissors and literally cut it even.

I then applied a binding to try to hide the botched job. All in all, it was fairly successful. It is certainly good enough for me to use.

The binding is hand sewn down and the bowl is much sturdier with the cloth cover as compared to the bowl just with rope.

My sorry shape shifting rope bowl from earlier this year.

Jean's bowl she gave me as a gift. This is what it is supposed to look like. She makes awesome bowls. 

Thank you Jean!!!

Second 8 page spread

in my sketchbook. The accordion sketchbook arrived and this was mt first spread in the new sketchbook.

Second Spread

Do one a day

I have been trying (and succeeding) in doing "something" creative every day. Here are some of the things I have done:

An online sketchbook class

I was sending out energy to help me get unstuck and jumpstart my creative juices. I saw a note I wrote on a post-it about a woman I wanted to look up on YouTube. Her name is Karen Stamper and I think she lives in North Yorkshire, UK. It was very expensive ($100.) and I completed all 6 lessons in about an hour but it did the job getting me going.

While awaiting the arraival of supplies like the actual sketchbook, I rigged up two sheets of paper and folded the accordion style and started to work. Here is the first attempt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RoHgdFOXsA