Advent is here!

As always I went to my family's place in southern New Mexico for Thanksgiving this year, and had a blast celebrating with my mom's cousins as well as my sister and her family, and my parents/grandparents.

As always we hiked up into the mountains to cut down a New Mexico Piñon Christmas tree, and I hauled it back across the plains to OKC.  I love this tradition, and it was especially fun this year, the cousins and my sister's little kids came with us, and they did so well.  Anna, who is now 4, hiked along with me and pointed out all the cool things she found; cacti and sticks and tall swooshy grass.

After getting home, I set up the tree, and then got out the decorations.  I love seeing them all every year, it brings up lots of happy memories.

The dogs were so uninterested.

One of my favorite ornaments which I don't think I've ever shared, is my crocheted angel tree topper.  I crochet a fair amount now, but I didn't used to, and when I first started, the only thing I did for the first few years was string/lace crochet.  Many years the top of the tree is smushed up against the ceiling so she doesn't actually fit on top, but she goes as close up there as I can get her.  I still haven't decided what ornaments I'm going to make this year- I've had a few ideas but haven't settled on anything yet.

What are your favorite Christmas traditions?

Miscellany!

It's been a while since I've been here, but I guess that goes without saying.  I'm working on a couple of larger projects but wanted to pop in today to catch up on a few smaller things.

My mom and I had a lovely time at IQF in Houston, it was great to see so much fabulously inspiring work there.  I came back geared up and ready to go.  We only took one class, a three hour introductory silk painting/resist workshop with Ginny Eckley.  She paints fabric and also does screen printing (another technique near and dear to my heart.  One of her collaboration quilts with Susan Ennis was in the IQA show, and was a personal favorite of mine.

Splash, by Ginny Eckley and Susan Ennis, IQA show, 2016

The class was a lot of fun- I've not really done much silk painting before and all the supplies were provided.  We used some salt for the background and worked with water soluble resist rather than wax.  I struggled with the resist- it clearly takes a lot of practice to figure out how to apply it without getting globby but enough to actually resist.  It gave me great appreciation for the skill of other silk painters, especially my friend Judith Roderick, whose work is amazing.


These are the two little panels I did in the class.  A very gloppy goldfish, and a slightly better rainbow reef fish!

I've also started to attend biweekly knit night at my church with some of my friends and it's given me a scheduled place to work on my crochet projects.  After finishing my black shawl, I've started crocheting a brown cardigan.  It's the first thing I've ever made that has to fit, so wish me luck.  Recently one of the knit night regulars moved away, and we all whipped up small projects to send her along with good wishes.  I love my crochet dishcloths, so I made this one up with her favorite colors.

Finally, my friend Liz gave me this fabulous t-shirt a while back- it's printed (front and back) with the artwork of one of her local artist friends, Rick Sinnett.  I loved the colors and pattern and everything, but it was way too small, so I slit up the sides and inserted some panels.  Now it fits nicely and is super wonderful. 

Yeah, so a total grab bag of nonsense, but hopefully I'll be back with more fun stuff soon!