I like #289

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  We had off and on chilly weather this week with a little bit of snow and a lot of cold rain.  No bad roads but lots of muddy backyard.

One thing I really liked this week was the book Siren Queen by author Nghi Vo.  It was a wonderful fantasy-imbued story about a chinese actress in the early days of hollywood.  Beautiful writing and wonderful world and character building.

I actually heard about it via something else I'm really loving this week, the Imaginary Worlds Podcast.  It's all about all different kinds of imaginary worlds and I've been listening constantly.  So so good.

Other things to like this weekend, my friend Brett and I went to the OKC Philharmonic this past weekend.  the headline was the Rite of Spring (which was great) but they also played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number 1 which is just such a gorgeous piece of music.

The pups are good and just as snuggly as ever,  Blue never seems to realize that the bad weather happening in the backyard (which makes him not want to go out to potty) is also happening in the front yard (where he wants to go on a walk).

I liked getting to spend some time in my studio this weekend, I worked a little on my ongoing wheel of the year embroidery project (I'm working on the borders) and also painted a bunch of fabric (of which these are just a couple) for some upcoming art quilts.

And finally, I took down my Christmas lights.  I love seeing them in January as I come home after dark, but it really was time.

I also blogged this week about a new tote bag I made using some embroidery bits I had hanging around my studio.  I didn't really need another tote bag, but using up the embroidery bits made a nice excuse! Read about it here.

LeeAnna's prompt this week was Valentine's day.  I don't have any particular Valentine's day foods or traditions, this year I'm going to have a virtual movie night with a good friend who lives in NC.  But I do love making crafty valentine's cards for my family.  I always have fun picking or tweaking a new crafty idea.  This year I made little pom pom google-eye monsters.

I hope you all have a great valentine's day, and that there are things to love and like in your world amid all the crises that are happening around us.  Click on over to LeeAnna's for some more things to like!

Clydebank Tote

 A long time ago I snagged the Clydebank Tote pattern from Sew Sweetness, but never got around to making it.  A lot of times, I draft my own bag/purse patterns, but I really liked the shape of this one and especially liked the integrated handles.  I finally got around to making it this weekend.

I made the large version, and it's a really nice size, big enough for my choir music which includes a three ring binder.  It has nice foam interfacing so it holds its shape really well. 

 I had the bear embroidery pinned to my design wall just waiting to be made into something, so I added it to the front panel at the last minute as a front pocket.  I love using up some of these bits and bobs.

The back just has this fun print I snagged at my mom's hometown quilt show last year.  So bright and colorful.  The red side panels actually came from a pair of my pants that wore out but still had lots of useful fabric in it.

It has a nice zip-top closure that still opens wide.

I didn't really need a new tote bag, but I like this one.  It's going to be my new choir bag.  And now I think I'm done with side projects for a while and am going to focus on some new art quilts!

I Like #288

 Welcome to another week of things to like!

It's been a cold week here, and we kept having a little bit of ice or the thread of ice or a little more ice this week as part of the large storm coming through the middle of the country.  It really wasn't bad at all here, just mostly lots of general worry it might get bad.  Luckily it didn't.  I hope you're all safe if there's winter weather in your neck of the woods!  This was a little bit of the frozen hail? ice? snowy stuff? we got.

Before the cold snap came, the weekend was reasonably warm so I left the studio door open.  The dogs love that, they love to be able to go in and out at will and they love snoozing in the sunny spot.

Other things to like this week included this stout.  Winter always feels like the time for dark beer and this one my friend Brett brought over for us to try was really good.

I spent a fair amount of time sewing this weekend which was great.  I finished up a couple of art quilts that I've been struggling with which was great.  I hope to get blog posts up about them soon.  Of course Spooky and Blue had to help by crawling underneath the sewing desk.

I'm really trying this year to use up little tidbits I have lying around from different experiments.  Last week I made (and blogged about) a cute purse out of some silk paintings I did in a workshop at Houston almost ten years ago, you can see more about that project here.

Then this weekend, I decided to make a few little zip purses out of some test prints I made from some stamp carving experiments.  I made these stamps in a Jean Wells Keenan workshop back in 2017.  It was fun to carve them, one was Christmas themed and I used it for my Christmas cards that year, but I never knew what to do with the others.  I'd made some prints with them on this scrap of grey fabric, it had a weird sort of wannabe suede texture and ever since then the prints have just been pinned to my wall.  So finally I decided to just sew them up into some little zip pouches.  I'll give them as gifts or use them for something.  They're each lined with a different fun scrap of fabric.  I like using up these little experimental things, but there are a ton more waiting in the wings so we'll see.

I hope everyone is staying warm and finding things to like this week!  For more things to like click over to LeeAnna's!

Silk Painted Purse

 

  Back in 2016 my mom and I went to the Internaional Quilt Festival in Houston (Houston 2016) where, amonth other things we took a short (half day? two hour?) silk painting class with Ginny Eckley  I hadn't ever really done any silk painting, but it was fun to try something completely new-to-me!  Even though the class was short I made two little ~12x15 silk paintings which I took home and promptly stuck in a drawer.

Fast forward more than 8 years to last week.  I've decided this year to use up some of the doodads and small bits of things I've made over the years.  They're all over my studio, little bits of piecing, little bits of embroidery, little bits of felting, little bits of random experiments, and yes, little bits of silk painting.  They were just the right size to make into a small frame purse.  I didn't want to start some big new project, I just wanted to turn them into something useful.  I had two 8x3" purse frames that had been lying around since 2012 when I bought a three pack.  I made one small frame purse (Previous Frame Purse) and never did anything with the rest of them.

I didn't really have a pattern, and I didn't want to put any pleats in the middle of the panels because I didn't want to obscure the painted fish.  The silk is interfaced with SF101, and then the whole thing has a thicker layer of  foam interfacing which gives it nice body.  The strap is one I kept when a very old store bought purse fell apart.  I didn't have any small D-rings, so the straps attach through a grommet.  It's a little janky, but I was determined that this should be a fully stash-based project.  I think it turned out super cute and it was very satisfying to use up two pretty pieces of painted silk and a purse frame and leftover strap all in one go.  It's one of the simplest purses I've ever made, no pockets or anything, but is plenty big for all the basics and it came together in about an hour and a half!

Three cheers for using things up!

I Like #287

Welcome to a short week of likes!  It's been a good week, just not too many things to take pictures of!

Things I'm liking this week!

The Library Lover's Mysteries!  I picked these up after seeing them on LeeAnna's post, they've been the perfect accompaniment to cold afternoons and evenings in the studio.

LeeAnna's prompt for this week is favorite colors.  I love bright colors- my off the cuff answer when people ask me this question is either rainbow or pink, but I also love green and turquoise and bright intense red orange and all the dusty New Mexico colors where exquisite blue skies are complemented by dark green brown and yellow and red and orange covered with a light layer of brown beige dust.

I bought a six pack of (what turned out to be) gross peanut butter stout this week, and while usually I've discovered that if beer is too gross to drink it's too gross to bake with.  But I thought peanut butter beer might be ok for baking, so I made up several loaves of beer bread and it turned out very tasty.  Such an easy quick recipe.

I was excited to make this piece for the upcoming SAQA Spotlight Auction that coincides with SAQA's annual conference in May.  The little feather/scale things are used coffee filters I've been washing and saving.  They give a fun texture!  The whole thing is mounted and matted before the auction, so the lumpy edge won't be seen.

I love my pups!  I got this great picture of them snuggling up to me this week.  They look so sweet but I think really they just wanted me to stop sewing and feed them dinner.

Also, I blogged this week about Christmas Crafts from this year.  Click here to see more!

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

Christmas Crafts 2022

 Now that Christmas is past, it's time once again to share crafty items I made as gifts. 

The best crafty item of this Christmas was a fantastic Christmas Tree gnome my sister crocheted for me, but I forgot to take a picture of him and he's now in the attic with the other decor.  I'll share him next year when I get the Christmas stuff back out.

I didn't do nearly as much as in some past years, but I made a few star ornaments out of the selenite crystals we collected while digging in the salt flats earlier this year.

It was fun to try to pick out coordinating pieces to put together to make the stars.  I love that in the one on the far right, the sand is far blacker than the rest-  I think it had more organic material in it. The ornaments look much prettier in the sun- you can see the way the light highlights the hourglass formation.

I also knit two pairs of simple mittens, one for my auntie who moved to Canada and one for my mom.  They all came from the same ball of Noro yarn which made some interesting color changes.  They were a fun knit, and my first mittens.  The pattern was Mountain Hiker Mittens from ravelry.

Finally, I made a little pencil pouch for my cousin Sage.  She lives in the UAE now, and her mom was gathering up a Christmas package to send her!

I  love making small crafty projects at the holidays!

I Like #286

Welcome to another week of things to like!  I did a 2022 wrap-up post this week, you can see it here if you like.  

This weekend was the first post-holiday weekend after our big 12th night feast so I finally had time to work on non-holiday stuff.  I spent part of the weekend piecing this bookcase topper for my geology friend Brett-  it's long and narrow so it was hard to get a good picture.  The central geology fabric was one from spoonflower, I loved the various geological illustrations and the surrounding topo line pattern.  It was fun to piece, quilt, and finish something that had been on my to-do list for months.

The puppies are doing well-  Spooky will never understand that he and Blue can't both fit on the footstool at once, but they're both as snuggly as ever.

I also worked a little bit over the weekend on my latest sculptural project.  It's been in the works for months, and has been a struggle for me but I think I'm making progress.  This weekend I mostly was working on building a frame for it so it could be supported.

Lee Anna's prompt for this week was whether we make lists and how.  I am definitely a list maker.  Although I use an online calendar (in my outlook), my lists are all on paper apart from my grocery list which is on my phone.  I usually keep work and personal lists, and carry a small notebook in my purse for the personal lists.  It's always fun to get new notebooks when the old ones get full, I usually get them at TJ Maxx or Ross or something, and I love using them to jot down all kinds of stuff.

I hope everyone is having a good week, and don't forget to click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

2022 Wrap-Up

It's time for a look back a 2022.  These are mostly for myself-  creatively 2022 feels like a really off year.  Blogging wise it's about the same as 2021 and 2019 (2020 was an uptick), and the majority of posts were I like posts, thanks to LeeAnna's wonderful community.   Where it really feels off is in the amount of time I was able to dedicate to art-making.  That also feels like a continuation from 2021, again down from a pretty productive (artistically) year in 2020.

I lost Bentley this year, and my mom lost both her dog Jordy and her dog Shooter who'd lived with me for several years before going to my mom, so it was a tough year on the dog front.  It was a good year for flowers, lots of dahlias on these pages, and a hard year for work.  I'm here though and doing just fine.  Really really grateful for my family and friends.  Another good thing this year were travels with my family, and on the art side, I sold a few older art quilts.  It always makes me feel better about making when old pieces find new homes!

This came from my 2021 wrap-up post:

"My goal for 2022 is not necessarily to make more, but to hopefully just spend more time working on things (like my art quilts) that are positives in my life, rather than running around constantly feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and negative.  My goal for 2022, articulated by LeeAnna, but resonating so much with me I decided to adopt it, is to promote goodness.  I feel in need of an attitude adjustment, of reframing to not necessarily always see the bright side, but to work toward something good.  I'll try!"

I don't feel like I really succeeded on any of that, but I still like the goal, so I'm going to hold to it for 2023.  I'm starting the year optimistic which is a step in the right direction.  We'll see if I can translate it into action.  

A few other goals for 2023, not all craft focused but I'm writing them here so that they can be written somewhere:

1. Use up some of the miscellaneous crafty bits.  I don't tend to accumulate UFOs in the traditional sense, but I do accumulate little crafty and artsy bits here and there.  They pile up in my studio just waiting for the day I will use them in something.  They all tend to be put away, and some might be suitable for art quilts while others maybe should just be pieced into baby or charity quilts.  In any case I want to use some of them!  I think I'm going to write a post cataloging some of them just to bring them to my own attention.  

2.  Visit 12 National Park Service Sites in 2023.  I want to challenge myself to visit 12 new NPS sites this year.  I got off to a great start with Alibates NM, but it will be challenging to hit 11 more (there aren't that many around here) but I figure maybe I can get to an average of one per month if I make a point of visiting ones near where I'm traveling.

Since part of the reason I like to do these wrap-ups is to remind myself I really did make things, here's a quick list of art and other makes for 2022.

For the first year in a long time I didn't complete any large (by my definition, which is less about piece size and more about the overall magnitude of the project) work.  I did make several medium sized art quilts, many of which I really liked. 

I Will be Grateful

Ice #2

Phase Diagram: Ice

Alleluia, Alleluia

Boxelder Bugs

Finally, this is a 3D sculptural piece I made this year,  I hated it so much (all the color washed out in an unhappy way) that I never even blogged about it, but I'm determined to make it into something I like better in 2023.  I like the shape and form, but the colors make me want to curl up into a ball.

Smaller Things:

SAQA Auction Donation

Embroidered Pincushion

Cash!

Ribosome Sweater

Black Flame Candle Socks

So here's to a good 2023!