Frosty Day

I'm a typical Canadian obssessing about the weather... only -10 today! It was -44 on Monday, so I am glad to get outdoors again.

I am posting Trevor's quilt today. I have been working on the quilting of it. I traced some music into the panels and will begin quilting and painting it this weekend. I'm excited to see the results. I think Trevor will like it no matter what happens. The music idea was suggested during a critiquing session at the Fibre Art Network retreat I attended in October. As did a suggestion of music... Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. I found a few bars that appealed visually and in they went.

The rest of the photos are from a walk this morning. What a great day!

And these are some Angel Prints I found...

Brrrr

It is early afternoon and has warmed up ten degrees to -20 Celcius. Rosie and I are cheered by this and went for a wander through the forest to take pictures of the frost. It was not long before Rosie was lifting her little paws and heading back down the trail toward home. Short walk!

Sunflowers - Sunshine

It is a sunny winter day today and makes me think of summer. I made some sunflowers this week and here they are to share with you.

I've been using grosgrain ribbon as binding and it is working like a charm! I've also been tackling some machine quilting and having a little success at that... pictures coming soon.

Busy Week

I have been busy creating this week! I just haven't blogged for a few days. I will put some pictures up on the weekend. I've been working very hard on thinking that machine quilting larger quilts is fun... but really it isn't. I almost started having fun... but then my thread kept breaking. I changed my needle to a larger one, but that only delayed the thread breaking by a few stitches. Back to reading up on machine quilting...

On a whim, I made more sunflower quilts tonight. I will take pictures of them tomorrow and list them on Etsy. And I think it is time for more snowflakes out of wool... can't get enough of that needle punching, even though I've given myself tennis elbow!

Exciting news about Inchies! I participated in the Inchie Exchange and today I received some Inchies in the mail. They are absolutely beautiful... Christmas red with beads and sparkle. They came all the way from South Australia! I'll take photos of those tomorrow too.

Hope everyone is taking time to relax during the rush of Christmas. Creativity is a great way to take time out for yourself.

Creative November 2009

I have enjoyed AEDM so much and I want to visually share all that I accomplished this month. I know I will sign up for Creative Every Day so I can keep the momentum going. Thanks to all my fellow artists participating in Art Every Day Month and other friends and family who have stopped by with a kind word of support. Special thanks to Sam for joining in on the fun :-) Enjoy the pictures... and I'll post again soon.

It worked!

I don't have much to say, except it worked!! The wool inside the lava chamber glows and bubbles and boils. Keep in mind this little quilt is about 3 feet high. Cool, eh?

Now I must put this project aside and work on another more pressing deadline... Christmas! Keep you posted :-)

Bubble and Boil

AEDM. What a great activity Art Every Day Month has turned out to be for me. I have been working hard on my projects. Being able to share my little accomplishments every day has enabled me to get a lot of work done. I have only posted half of the days of November, but I have worked every day on creativity and definitely been more focused on staying on art task than ever before. Thanks for the inspiration Leah!!

Today I'm working with lava :-) I've got the volcano cone appliqued to my quilt base and I'm trying to liven up my wool lava a bit. This will probably involve some beads or other embelishment at a later date, but I am starting with the wool.

I have also been looking over a pile of little sunflower quilts that I would like to finish and get up for sale on Etsy. So little time... 

Where has my time gone the last few days? To good causes in our area and afar. I volunteer a lot of my graphic design services, and every now and then... everything comes at once. Ads, posters, tickets, etc. Most of this will be finished today, then I can get back to the sunflower fields and lava beds :-)

Layer by Layer

As quilts do, this project is coming together a bit at a time. I have a tendency to layer with other parphenalia, such as fabric, beads, and in this case stones.



The beauty of these beads is that they are made of real stones. I will list them when I am finished. There is real pumice shaped into round beads! I am very excited to find them and even more to incorporate them into a quilt about earth's layers. These stone beads won't go on until the fabric has been quilted... it is really difficult to machine quilt over stones (or beads), and of course this knowledge has come hard-earned as usual :-)

Underground

It is a beautiful winter day here. I was intrigued by finding this in our yard...






















So Rosie and I decided to follow the tracks. During winter, the sun hovers low on the horizon. This nicely highlighted all the trees and wild rose bushes in the forest. Although we never did find any deer, we did see these...

Of course, the purpose of this blog for November is to participate and record my creativity... Art Every Day Month! I did spend some time in my studio after our walk and constructed another part of a quilt that might be part of the FAN GeoPhysical Exhibition at Quilt Canada in May. This part is the underground layers... the wine needlefelting will be incorporated into this eventually.

Hope you all have a restful Saturday!

Inchies are Donesies

Well, I'm glad I tackled the Inchies early rather than waiting until the deadline! They are done and I am happy with them. I can send them off to their new home later today or tomorrow. I took them outside and hung them from my Linden tree in the sunshine for you to peruse.

The idea to use the inchies this way comes from a book by Nadine Ruggles. A link to her book is here...

This is the mess that created the Inchies... my mother will recognize this and how my bedroom used to look like this (and still does on occasion) :-)

Anyway, all cleaned up now and beginning on today's creativity. On with the wine project!

Sleigh Bells Ring...

A dusting of snow made the forest near our house a winter gallery of wonders. My quilting pal, Rosie, and I ventured out with camera in hand to have a closer look at all the details. Here are a couple of things that we found...

The snow had settled gentle frosty outlines on everything in sight. For a change, there was no prairie wind and the snowflakes had been allowed to gently float and land on whatever was nearby... even on tiny lichen on a poplar tree.

Of course, I wouldn't have enjoyed any of this if it wasn't for Rosie romping and investigating :-)

Back in the house, I found my other trusty quilting pal helping with the needlefelting.

And finally, the creativity for the day... a little sunflower quilt for a friend. A surprise!

Tomorrow it is back to the Inchies...