Monday musts

I want an art wall and the best place for it is the stairway.  Putting the new shelves up I can already see that the last two were way too piddly.  Gotta think big!

My stairs are actually fairly roomy and a chair on the landing doesn't compromise safety.  When we get the woodwork painted white it'll be better yet.  So I'm thinking a lighter chair and a fun seat cover.
I got two letter drawers at a closing sale to mount.  I have the Sprutt ready to fill and the playroom to tackle because the grand kiddies are coming for an art day on Friday.   I must get on with Monday's plan! 

Where is the target?

 I have not had a lot of productive work this week.  But I'm excited to have a start on my fall fibre art.

It'll be about 40 inches square and the two pieces of canvas art are to remind me not to stray too far from that colour palette. 

Once again I have discovered that if I have no general target, I barely get my arrow in the air! 

Will they remember?

This page worked out serendipitously.  I have already lost one poppy so I have to get one more.  And then we'll see if they remember the new rules for less is more!  

The Sampler box

I never thought I'd make another after that first sampler class but I didn't count on my new quilting buddies.  They were raring for more.

We began with four of us and as time went on we grew to seven with some coming and going in the middle.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if we all did our houses.  Four colorways so four blocks.  :O  I have to admit we learned so much because we always underestimated what we thought we knew!  LOL

By the time I got around to machine quilting it we had a few more members so I free motioned each ones name in the border.

Of course the new gals wanted to be part of something so we agreed to send a box of our chosen fabric around.  Each one made 3 different blocks! 

 I did  Windy Wendy,  an applique tulip and a pieced windmill.   I sent thirties fabrics around and when they all came back I was stumped on how to put them together. Mine are on the right and of course I contributed to the mish mash of colours!  So I decided to divide them into colourways- pink, green, blue.  I had to add blocks of course.  :(

This is the green one.  I went for a  masculine farm feel. 

 The grand kiddies sent me a picture of the more feminine pink/red one.   

But the blue one is in my UFO pile! .  I know NOW I could have done that a whole lot differently. yikes!

I think next we tackled a round robin.  Where angels fear to tread...

I learned lots about myself from this quilt.  To tie it all together as it had the look of a bulls eye, I appliqued something in every round and actually made our reveal deadline.  I didn't like it much at the time but it has wonderful memories now!  A keeper for sure.

My last sampler was from a virtual red hat group (20) that I joined through Yahoo.  The whole joining was my first attempt participating on line.  I almost missed the join as I wasn't 'getting' all the advice.  lol  But we went for a few years and decided to exchange blocks.  So again I appliqued away.  I was The Keeper of the Teapots!   I added the three blocks at the bottom for design sensibilities.    I LUV this setting and had to really fiddle to get it to work as I only had so much yardage.

I do really need my head examined!  But for the backing I decided to use up all the Red Hat fabric I had 'needed' for this project.  It was almost more labour intensive than the front!!!

Never say never, especially now that I am looking at these after the fact. :{  But I'm still not sure if it is my favourite style.

What'll it be this week?

Flying, and I do mean moving fast, by the seat of my pants this week.  We'll see what happens!

Figuring it out

A good week!   The grey is being chased away by the white stuff.  This is good.  I like white and bright!   ;^)  Of course this is showing dark and rich.  What can I say- I'm a Gemini!!!  lol

The grand kiddies' smash books needed some fiddling with.  I cut all the calendars and got them all placed in the book.  Phew, we'd used up a few too many pages already.  :(   Then I realized I need to set some guidelines and limit the choices.  So going with the story of the three bears idea ...

1 focal point (papa)
2 friends (mama and baby)
3 chairs for them to sit on- coordinating shapes, colours, theme
4 words
5 fun pieces of something (for Goldilocks to look at as she strolls thru!)

And some of these can come from Art 101 where we can save doodles and add personal handwriting.

The kitchen remodel will continue through the winter but I can tweak the accessories and picture placement. The hutch was way too busy so I tried the new 5 thing plan on the shelves!  oye!  I'll tweak until the bears find Goldilocks!  lol

 I got a bit more purple into the kitchen.  I'm asking the Rooster to figure out how to hang my art on the side of the fridge.  He not entirely convinced it is a good idea. :(  Something about screwing into coils!  :O

I have sewed a round place mat for the lazy susan to sit on.  The lighter wood helps link the chairs to the table but the table needs a bit of warming up.  And that means I'm back at the sewing machine.  A bit of handwork started!  :)

The sitting room needs a new lap quilt and I will be starting a more modern square in a square quilt with- wait for it- purples! 

So that means pedal to the metal for the first one in the queue.

I awoke this morning with an idea for my fibre art piece which will again help the handwork ambitions.

Now for this. Can I hang stencils?   Might work!   But the work plans for today have all changed.  See what a sunny day does.  It inspires!  I suggested a new plan for the Rooster who needs some long johns for the winter.  We are off to the city for that 'one thing' I left behind at Michaels 'cause the coupon is burning a hole in my pocket.  Of course, goose bumps on chicken legs don't look so good either! 


Since the snow is showing up I need to finish up the fall decorating which means leaving the main floor and heading up the stairs to view the art wall!  :)  I'm kinda excited about next week!  Especially with the new gotta have from Michaels!!!  Ha, My Rooster's name is Michael!!!!!

Urban outing

Field trip day!  We had a list, an agenda and a good time.

We hit Michaels and got some necessary supplies.  Gee, I like all the home deco stuff they are carrying.  The adult colouring books are all the rage.  Two of these are actually stickers and have lots of possibilities and not all are related to the grand kiddies.  I had seen a video on making a hardcover colouring book into an art journal.  very cool!

We did a whirlwind walk through of the Market Place in Ikea which is good for saving money.  Or so I thought.  I had two shelves on my list for the art wall when I saw a 'now or never' sign.  HMMM!  I'm always looking for organizational items and I stood in front of it for five valuable minutes!  He who hesitates is lost!  So...  

Then we were off to catch the opening doors for ArtsJunktion!  This is in an older section of Winnipeg, right downtown.  I was kinda hoping that all the rain would yield us a good parking spot but there is an extension of a college nearby so I had to use my old parallel parking skills! 

I had grabbed some stuff to contribute.  You record the cubic quantity of what, if anything, you brought and as you leave you record again what you left with.  I'm not sure I gained on the exchange as I did carry away a bit more than I brought.  There is no money involved.  It is all free.  What a concept!  I also got some free organizational ideas!  :) 

If you need bits and pieces this is the place.  I found game pieces for the grand kiddies smash book page.  I think those cardboard tubes will be great on the gelli plate.   Half way home I thought of a use for the cobalt blue tiles I'd passed up!  :[

They displayed some art and these rotated.  There were more metal sculptures put out outside after we had entered but my phone had switched to selfie mode and I am still learning how to make appropriate changes.  :(  I did learn that you can't do anything with gloves on!  LOL

Now to finish up this weeks to-do list which hopefully includes time for me to figure out how to get the 'Sprutt' together!  

When work is play

This week's colour palette challenge.

First let me back up.  This is our ninth day with no sun.  Kinda tough on us as we are 'Sunny Manitoba'.  :O   I have also been doing a few darker palettes the last two weeks so it was time to change things up.  But first...

When my gal comes we do some work.  We start with a drawing warm up and I decided to do mine with a dip pen because I want to incorporate the ink into my art more frequently.  Gee, I wonder where one gets blotter paper???   It is all coming back to me.  lol  Then we are to do a self portrait every time.  Joshua took this photo of me on our trip.  My eyes are kinda closed and it looks like it could be doable.  In fact, I have found a good reason to be thankful that I don't have lips.  ;^)   Anyhoo, it can only get better. :)  Speaking of eyes closed,  this class is all about the blind leading the blind.  And actually we kinda learn from each other!  :)

Then keeping with dry we worked on our own version of the grand kiddies smash books.  I am finally going to document the trip I took to NYC back in 2013.  It was actually work related and was a 5 day conference.  I have a drawer full of stuff and I don't remember if I chose the orange book specifically but purple and orange are the theme colours.  I was so tickled when the page I worked on fitted so nicely alongside the orange trim on the cardboard starter page.   I'm reading about synchronicity in the Artist's Way and the big purple paint chip was right handy! 

After lunch we tackled the wet stuff and the challenge.  I was still into scrap booking paper and  chose a clean page.

 We kinda felt like these colours were tropical.  I matched papers while my partner mixed up custom colours.  Nice, huh!   I picked a travel paper for the brown rather than go for the beach scene.  

 I'm starting to feel somewhat comfortable with the whole arting process. 

No multiples this time but I did use up gel medium and paint on some tags and an envelope.   Nothing too taxing just a fun playtime.  A little away time if you like!  A gal can't be working ALL the time. 

In the chest

I didn't just strip.  I learned to chop!

I call this one my lemonade quilt and it is a popular summer quilt.  Again I used the cotton quilt batt.

This one is called Couples Only.  ;^)

Another part of the learning curve; and this one included experimenting with straight line quilting.  I really must confess that I am so over the whole heart motif!

When I made this one I had begun to understand that I like low contrast.  And I dared to try a six patch instead of the four patch.  I also learned that presewn patches have their limitations if one is looking for variety in each block.  I began to appreciate the process.

This lap quilt is most often found in the sitting room where it is part of the 'soothing the soul' experience.  :)  

Monday moves from moody to...

Very foggy day and as I am making plans I'm thinking of making a move from mixed media to fabric.  :O I'm starting to feel like stitching rather than sticky fingers!  lol  First I need to finish up the kitchen and the stair wall.  Because the upstairs will be less about the walls and a bit more about the beds I need to indulge that motivation a bit more this week so I'll be fully motivated for the next week!  Everything in its time.  :)