Haiku Art Group

I'm participating in a Haiku Art Group this year:
http://haikuart.blogspot.com/

Our challenge word for January was "Beginning."

My little quiltlet (9" x 12") is called "START":


Detail of alphabet beads and root:


Detail of leaves:


Overall, I'm happy, and I learned some new things.

PIGS

a.k.a. Projects In Grocery Sacks.

Jill's first questions is how do we store our PIGS?

Why, in grocery sacks, of course!

Seriously, I have a sad obsession with those reusable grocery sacks. If I see one I don't have, I usually buy it. I have them in all sizes and colors. While I DO use them for groceries when I remember to pull them out of the trunk, I also use them for projects in the craft room.

Crafty goals for 2011

1. Shop the stash - I've put my first post in for Judy L.'s Sunday stash report; this should at the very least keep me honest.

2. Haiku art quilt group - commit to doing the best work I can do, but be willing to go out on a limb

3. UFOs - Three challenges combined should give me some progress in this area :)

4. Try something new - I have a gift cert. from Dharma so I think surface design supplies might be on my wish list

5. Organize, organize, organize. I think I'm better off than last year, but not by much. At a minimum, I want to:
a. find all of the UFOs and put their parts in separate bins
b. figure out where the material needs to live. I'd like to have it all in one spot, but I'm not sure that's possible.
c. spend some time every weekend in the craft room working on stash management.

6. Draw more.

Stash Report Week 1

This is easy :) I've been working on this month's UFO, which unfortunately starts with lots of ripping. BUT, I packaged up two FQ to mail off for the stashbusters UFO challenge.

Used this Week: 0 yards
Used year to Date: 0.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2011: 0.5 yards

First UFO - and it's Mom's 9-patch!

There's the one big part, and one strip. I need to rip out a couple of the vertical sashings that have holes or tears, and I think only one of the horizonal ones. There are two or three blocks that will need to be replaced.



I may have enough of Mom's original fabric to do the replacement blocks, but if not, I have suitable material that's of the right vintage.

At my house, if you leave things lying around for more than a minute, stuff like this happens:



Don't they look comfy?

UFO Challenge - top 12

For 2011 I've decided to join a couple of UFO challenges.

Judy Laquidara's is to finish (or concentrate work on) one a month. Not many photos, I'm afraid, since I'm about a thousand miles away from the stash.

1. Amish Diamonds. Started as a guild challenge, until I realized it would be too big. Needs another round or two, borders, quilting and bound. These photos don't show it as far along as I got it before I had to set it aside.




2. My husband's Christmas quilt. I gave him squares in a box!


3. My black/white/red 9-patch & snowball quilt. This one is for me :)


4. The Karate Kid's chess quilt. Hand quilting is in progress.

5. The Lovely Daughter's cat quilt. Needs enlarging through either borders or more squares, plus cat applique. ALSO needs input from TLD, which is even more difficult.

6. My mother's 9-patch. This is an inherited UFO that dates from about 1957.

7. Love's the Only House. A small art quilt that I just need to work on.

8. Halloween wallhanging. Needs some Timtex on top to make it hang correctly, then finished quilting.

9. Christmas wallhanging. Very cool Laurel Burch panel that needs to be finished.

10. Cat/kitten quilt. Flimsy finished, made in pinks, browns, with cat and kitten pre-printed panels.

11. Memaw's flying geese. I have flying geese blocks my grandmother made that need to be made into something - most likely a wallhanging, based on how many blocks I have.

12. Wonky flannel quilt - something else inherited from my grandmother. I've had the flannel for sashing it for YEARS now.

That's the top 12 that don't have some other deadline :)

Fun in the Florida (chilly) sun

It's been pretty cold here, so no beach play for us :( Looks like swimsuits will go home unworn.

Yesterday, the Lovely Daughter and I went with my mom to the next town over to go thrift store shopping. I scored a major haul of work clothes, with 6 pairs of pants, three vests, and a cardigan. The Lovely Daughter found a couple of really nice sundresses, and of course some other stuff. Also a quilting ruler, of all things!

Today the plan was to go to the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium. On the way there, TMOTH pointed out that we'd get there about 11, and what would we do about lunch?

I thought about other things to do, so turned into the Manatee Park. This is a little park just outside Ft. Myers whose only claim to fame is that it's next to a canal that picks up the warm wastewater from one of the FPL power plants, which attracts manatees in the cold months. I'd never stopped, but since there's been such a cold snap, I figured we'd stop and maybe see one or two, so we paid our $2 and parked.

Well:


It was amazing. Probably at least a hundred manatees, lots of babies. I think you can see a mother and baby in this next picture:


Kids had fun:


And then we went and had super pizza, were joined by the Brother, and on to the nature center. That was also fun - nature hike:


I love the palmettos:


There were also animals - natives and invasives. These included an albino raccoon, who clearly wasn't happy about being caged :(

The planetarium was actually really good - their fancy computer display wouldn't start, so they used the old-fashioned one narrated by one of the people that run the planetarium, and it was WAY better than the computer one that came after.

Burgers for dinner, and Transformers II on video for the evening. Ah. Life is good.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Greetings from sunny Florida! We're at my brother's and mom's house.

Pre-Christmas bounty:








And this morning's present-opening frenzy:


The Lovely Daughter in her new rain boots:


She also got some blank canvases that she's supposed to paint:


The Small Man with his stocking:


And with a wolf hat:


The Karate Kid with his Swedish Fish:


And getting ready to open another present:


Brother (in green) and TMOTH:


TMOTH opening something:


and me in my Stitcher Secret Santa gift, a beautiful scarf:


Dinner was great, mostly cooked by the brother, and I got to have a nap today!

Composition book cover

A quick project I made today; a quilted cover for a composition book.

The front (or back, if it was flipped):


Inside:


Open flat to see the whole bit:


I'm really pleased with it, but have a bit of a dilemma. I originally planned to have a button closure - some sort of elastic or bias strip loop to go over a button on the front. BUT. I'm not sure that I don't like it better without a closure.

What do y'all think?

Christmas Sweatshop 2011

Lots still to do here before Christmas.

This is a Secret Santa gift:


It's quilted, and just needs the binding finished and a label before I can mail it off. Yay!

I made a top for a friend that still needs quilting, but don't seem to have a picture of it yet. It may be an after- Christmas gift! It's black and white with blue and teal and green bits.

The Lovely Daughter said that she'd prefer purple and yellow if I made her one:
Front:


Back:


The Karate Kid wanted blue and purple and red:


and Small Man likes "rainbow" colors:


I woke up yesterday with a vicious headache. I didn't go to work, but just laid around on the couch and watched TV all day. Pizza from Julliano's (yummmmm...) for dinner. Work today, and hopefully quilting tonight!

FINALLY some quilting time

I got some work done this weekend on a couple of works in progress.

A snippet of a Secret Santa gift - I won't be able to show any progress until after the gift's been delivered.


And more string quilt blocks:


I wound up buying another yard of Moda Marbles to make the center strings. It's a little lighter than the brick color I originally had, but it was all Capital Quilts had that was close, and since the quilt is overall so scrappy, I believe it will work out fine. I'd already used a couple of other "close" marbles for strings, but really didn't have anything else in the stash that I would've been happy with.

Annual Halloween Sweatshop

Actually, this year the costumes weren't all that difficult.

The Small Man wanted to be "the Moon."


And the Karate Kid was "a shadow."


While The Lovely Daughter went as a s'more:


The s'more costume was the most work, but wasn't all that bad and was kind of fun to make. And it actually looked like a s'more!!!

On Halloween we carved pumpkins, after I found some of the LAST pumpkins in Montgomery County.

Carving:


Getting ready to light:




The Lovely Daughter's jack'o'lantern:


Small Man's jack'o'lantern:


I didn't get a picture of the Karate Kid's jack'o'lantern, but I actually liked it the best - just a traditional scary face!

Roller coaster month

It hasn't been the best of months.

Just over a month ago, we woke up one morning to find Cletus, our coonhound, dead.


Then just last week, the Man of the House found Kona, our Golden, unable to move. He rushed her to the vet, but she had fluid around her heart and she died shortly thereafter.


Buddies:


Losing either one of these guys would have been a blow, but both of them? Less than a month apart? Yikes. It's a sad house lately.