PLAY TIME!!!

I've decided that instead of rushing from one deadline to another - I'll give myself a day to play as a reward for each deadline met. Actually - once I turned in all of my book work I gave myself several days. I sewed up a blouse I've had cut out for a while, turned a couple of dresses into skirts, pants into capris, and made several long overdue repairs. I haven't done any garment sewing in ages and I miss it. 

The best project? Almost a year ago I purchased a box of scraps from Carter Smith's cutting room floor. He is an absolutely amazing artist using shibori as his main technique, and a gracious person too. I spent a couple of days piecing together my favorite scraps and now I have an absolutely lovely jacket. You really have to feel it. Pure luxury. If you see me at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this year, feel free to touch it. Yummy.

Now back to the next deadline. I need to photograph a new class for Quilt University. Screen Printing this time. I think I'll do double duty and call that "play time" too!

Quilting Arts Gifts

Fun stuff again! I just received advance copies of Quilting Arts GIFTS, a fun issue full of quick and easy projects that are perfect for Christmas. It should be on the stands by the end on September.

It's been years since I've had time to make hand-made gifts for people so I don't usually pay attention to projects like this. If I were to do something from this issue however, it would most definitely by Lois Jarvis' Travel Scarf. You'll have to look it up. Here's a sneak peak at my project.

As sort of an "aside" I thought I'd share my Christmas gift philosophy. We have lots of kids in our family. We live in an affluent area of the United States. We love Christmas. I do, however, try my level best to raise my children without that sense of entitlement that seems so prevalent among children today. I think they get tired of my telling them that we are put on the earth to make it a better place, not to be entertained.

The kids get one gift from "Santa" and a small something in their stockings. They love to make or buy gifts for each other. We don't put presents under our tree until Christmas Eve. After they go to bed each child is allowed to sneak up, pull out the gifts for the family that they have hidden, and put on the elf hat and arrange it under the tree. Then we put the rest of the gifts there. 

We give family portraits to our parents every year and among my siblings we have traded names in the past. Lately we have written down our different memories of a common experience instead of buying things. Eventually we will have a family history book that will be a treasure for generations.

We try each year to choose a service project, such as sponsoring another family, and go all out spending a day shopping and wrapping and when possible, anonymously delivering gifts for them. The kids know Christmas is not their birthday - it is Christs'. 

Quilting Arts TV

What an adventure! I spent half of last week taping a couple of segments for Quilting Arts TV. 

What lovely people and what a wonderful opportunity. Patricia Bolton is one of the hardest working (honestly - I don't know when she sleeps) people I know. It has been such a pleasure to watch her add on projects and succeed with every step. I give most of the credit for the wonderful leaps my career has made over the past several years to her.  You can read her blog here.

And I learned some interesting things. The most interesting is that being the Hostess of a TV show requires three brains in one head. Pokey had to make up questions and comments on the fly, watch the crew's cues, listen to the producer in her earpiece, and remember things like who she was supposed to introduce for the next segment. Oh - and change outfits every 30 minutes for a week. Sounds like work to me. Can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll have to order the DVD's though as PBS doesn't hasn't picked up the show in this area. Write your local station and request the show - I have. Didn't work but I keep writing. Hopefully it will happen eventually.

Making Progress

Whew - getting there. I feel like the entire day today was one continuous interruption (that's an oxymoron, I know) with kids needing something every few minutes. I think I've got most of the samples done that I need for the book. Now on to a couple of "step-outs' and a few miscellaneous illustrations. Oh - I keep forgetting an entire sketchbook to fill. And the props to gather. And a few final edits to the writing. That's next week. This writing a book business is looking an awful lot like a lot of work.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to all the intrepid and wonderful friends who were willing to try some design exercises. They are trickling in and looking wonderful. I might actually make this deadline yet. Um - perhaps wishful thinking on my part.

heads down - working hard

I've got some serious deadline issues. All the artwork for the book needs to be done in just the next few weeks. Plus getting ready to shoot a couple of segments for QATV. I'm trying my best to dovetail the two - using some of the same work for both. Here's a pretty picture of my new baby... getting ready to sandwich and quilt a funky color wheel.

I'm averaging six small pieces per day. No time to photograph and blog - barely enough time to feed my children and get them where they need to go. I can't believe I'm missing the Olympics. Hmmm.... maybe it's time to do some of the sketchbook work - in front of the telly? Looking at the list - maybe not. Sigh.

What a ride!!!

Did you think I'd dropped off the planet? Actually - I feel like I've been traversing half the planet. I know we drove half our lovely country! from North Carolina to Washington state. And loved every minute of it!

I've learned a number of things. One is that I still love Chicago! I love tall buildings both from way down on the ground and from waaay up in the sky!

I adore wide open skies and twisting mountain roads! I truly miss watching thunderstorms move across the sky.

I thought the ten days of car travel with three teenagers was easier than one day of air travel with two toddlers. Especially after discovering that those toddlers get carsick on those twisting, winding, mountain roads!

And - for some reason I didn't think I'd ever in my life have the opportunity to see a mountain meadow full of wildflowers again. Why, I don't know. It made me cry for the beauty of it. 

The beautiful mountain passes were tempered by seeing half of the trees dead. One of my loved ones believes it is the environmentalists fault - that they have restricted the spraying of insecticides that would save the forests. (He didn't explain how they survived before the spraying started.) I've read articles saying that the subtle shift in temperatures is allowing the beetle larva to survive and thrive. Sigh. What have we done to ourselves? We did get to see the beginning of a few western wind farms. We need MORE technology and innovations like that to rid ourselves of fossil fuels. This said of course, as I drove and drove and drove and consumed many gallons of fossil fuel myself. Sigh.

Bigger sigh - on now to six weeks of nothing but heads-down studio time to make the artwork deadline for my book.

cheers!

Blue Ridge Quilt Festival

Hello Friends - it's been an amazingly crazy month. June just flew by. I spent a week getting ready for the Blue Ridge Quilt Festival and had an amazing time there. Wonderful classes and students! 

Four fabulous days. Fabulous hosts. Here is the view from driving down from their lovely home.

I kept running down during lunch and after class and playing with the Handi-Quilter 16. The sit down model. I must have spent several hours playing. I quilted through a lot of their sample sandwiches, bought the nastiest, most difficult metallic thread I could find, went a thousand miles an hour, went slow, fell in love.  

Guess what baby is going to show up at my house!?! They could have had it delivered to me in a week but I'm on the road - more on that in a couple of days. It will be delivered a couple of days after I'm back home from our current trip. I would have had it delivered sooner but it will take a couple of days to clear out a spot for it.