I Like #234

 This week has been a back-to-routine week, after some late October travel.  Mostly I've been desperately trying to catch up at work and in the evenings haven't had the energy to do anything except snuggle with the dogs.  But the dogs are such good snugglers, it makes everything feel better!

Cash and Brett came over last week, and Cash and Spooky rumpused for hours.

I've started sitting more on the armchair than the couch (since Spooky has unstuffed a bunch of the couch. However, that means both Spooky and Blue sit right on top of me.  

Bentley is good too, he's just hanging in there. 

I'm so pleased that after a dreadful summer in the garden and the loss of all my dahlias, the fall flowers are really nice.  All annuals, but so lovely.  I have zinnias and salvia and petunias and marigolds and begonias all just blooming away.  So nice.  I don't get to see them very often since it's dark when I get home and leave for work now, but today I'm working from home so its wonderful to look out the window at them!

There were two audiobooks I listened to this week and wanted to share.

One is Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson  I learned so much from listening to to the author talk about her experiences in a society in which people with disabilities are still excluded from so much and ableism is so entrenched in our worldview.

And the other is The Light Ages, by Seb Falk.  I'm still in the middle of it but am really enjoying it.  It's about the history of science in the middle ages.  Super cool.

I recommend both of them!

I hope there are things to like in your weeks, and for more good things, click over to LeeAnna's!

I Like #233

 This past weekend was the Quilt Festival in Houston and my mom and went for a couple of days.  It was really wonderful to see some of our SAQA friends in person, see tons of beautiful quilts, and stock up on some supplies.  People in general were really good about wearing their masks, which was good.  

There were way too many great quilts to share them all, but here were a few favorites of mine:

I loved this exhibit of eyes put on by Sacred Threads, each pair of eyes was from a different artist, maybe about a hundred in all and all deliciously different. 

Artist Timna Tar had a solo exhibit of her wonderful animal quilts.  They were all wonderful, but my favorites were these two: 

The Hare Apparent, Timna Tarr

The Duchess of Dirt, Timna Tarr

Traditional Hand-drying Noodle Maker, Hsiu-Pei Hsieh


I absolutely loved this dimensional piece by Bob Mosier in SAQA's show Microscape.  

All the dimensional white is thread work.  So amazing.

Xylem Plant Cell, Bob Mosier

I was very pleased that my quilt that was hanging in Houston as part of SAQA's show Connections was sold!  It will travel around for three years with the show and then go to a new home.

My sister's kids wanted to be a washer and dryer for Halloween so she made them these super adorable costumes.  So fantastic!  It was wonderful to see them when I dropped off and picked up the dogs, even for just a few minutes.

Spooky loves being at my sister's, but he was also very snuggly with me when we got home.

And finally, I managed to blog about my recently finished SAQA trunk show piece this week.  See more about it here.

Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

Gourds #4, SAQA Trunk Show

There was recently a call out for the SAQA Trunk Show, and I wanted to make a 3D piece for it.  The SAQA Trunk Show is a collection of small art quilts (divided into trunks) that anyone can check out for a nominal fee and then share with whatever group they're interested in.  Common examples include quilt guilds, local SAQA pods, etc. but this year we're hoping to have a broader audience for the trunk show.

Since the pieces have to be small, many of my 3D approaches wouldn't really work.  However, a few years ago I made several small 3D "gourds" loosely inspired by mariner's compass and other star blocks.  Here are the original three; they're too big for the Trunk Show, but I thought it might be an approach that could be shrunk down.

I started with some leftover bits of painted fabric, made a quilt sandwich and then marked my star lines.  After quilting, I cut out the star and started sculpting!

Here is after just putting in some stitches to help hold the main parts of the form.

To help it hold its shape and not collapse, I coated it with fabric stiffener and used pencils to create little curls.  Here's the final piece, it's about 9x10x4 inches.

Now I just have to pack it up and get it sent to SAQA!  If you're interested in getting a trunk to present to your local group, you can find more info here: https://www.saqa.com/resources/saqa-trunk-show