What is it about life getting busy?  Is that a good excuse?  Honestly, no.  But it was real including I totally forgot I had this site.  Life truly can get away from you.  

I am still quilting and designing and and.  I have done some rug hooking and some experimentation with mediums both fabric and paint etc.

Here are some photos.  This is the beginning of using up scraps.  And no, I did not design the blocks.  They are from 'A Quiltersmakers 100 Blocks' Volume 8; Winter 2013.  The magazine surfaced from a pile of magazines which I occasionally dig through.  I am now in the process of adding other rows.  What the finished product will be is a guess although I have added some blocks but they are not sewn on and might not make the cut or will be altered.

I did not stop quilting in the long interlude since I last posted but life does add things that are unexpected and keeping this up to date was sacrificed.  If no one sees this then I will remove it but if it does get looked at I will continue.

My quilting machine has been busy though for others and I have done some experimenting.

This one below is paper pieced and was intended to use scraps.  Carol Doak sent a pattern a month and this was so much fun to do.  It was a block every month.  One of the great things about this aside from the fantastic designs was that quilting each one differently was a great teaching tool to broaden my quilting.  It was also such a lesson in using scraps.

This photo below is not a quilt but I taught a class in using different materials to create a design.  This is an embroidery done on my embroidery machine and then the use of simple childrens' crayons to colour the fabric inside designs.  For many being able to preserve those precious early designs done by grandchildren is very important.  I did use a machine to create the embroidery outlines but it is not necessary. It could be done by hand.  The actual fabric is simple a piece torn off an old sheet.  To use crayons, first experiment.  To make the colour stick on the fabric, use a paper towel on top and iron,  The paper towel will absorb the wax but leave the colour.  It has been hanging for quite a while and has not faded.

Quilting is one of the most flexible and creative mediums.  

Bye for now.  I left in the old links to sites that might not still be active but if there is still information on them it would wrong to unlink them.

 It has been a long time since I did a posting.  I have not stopped quilting for others and above all keeping happy with having it to do.  But like for everyone, life sometimes interferes and turns our priorities upside down.  My house makeup has changed.  I have lost the last of my beloved goldens and the hole remains large.  So grateful to have had them to make my life richer.  My Siamese of 22 years also left us.  A little quilt on my wall reminds me of the many cuddles and rubs and purrs.  I also lost my Himalayan but unfortunately do not have any pictures readily accessible.

But the house has been enlivened by two standard poodles and I mean enlivened.  One black and one white.  1 year old and 3 years old.  Like children, poodles are not grown up until about 3 years old and also like children, one child eggs the other on.   It is impossible not to smile with them around although sometimes patience is tried.  Strangely they are quiet when I am quilting.  

For a while I was not quilting.  I had problems with my long arm when they upgraded the software and related parts and that is a tale best left off the page.  I was ready to give up entirely when I resolved the problem without the advice of the technicians.  YAY!!!! I had felt as if I was losing my best friend.  Hortense is working with updated software and she has kept pace with me as I have learned and designed my own quilting motifs.  

Experimentation has been fun both in creating quilts and in quilting them.  I finally finished a French Braid that languished and taunted me.  I hate to say how long.   Sometimes it has to be the right time to do something.  When I was finished quilting I realized I did not like how the back looked so I put on a new back and quilted it again.   No, not over the previous quilting but added more.  

I have tried techniques such as metallic paint to represent an old dead oak tree.  This has triple batting behind the trunks and double batting all over.  A bit bulky but adds to the feel of a very old trunks.  Metallic paint is fun.

Quilting for my self languishes at times with client quilts a priority.  But a few art quilts sneak in when a challenge is issued for a show or just fun to try something.  For example the postcard challenge in 2019 for the CQA.

This was a chance to play with Inktense pencils I had purchased in Australia.  They are fun and I added some new Inktense sticks to my play things when I was in Scotland where I found a fabulous shop in a small town.  

And just look what a fabric panel can do.  The flowers were cut from it; the vase was inspired by a serviette in the local coffee shop.  The light shines from a window through the back fabric found in my stash and gives the appearance of watercolours. 

Enough for my first post in such a long while.  Now back to creating a back for a large bed quilt for myself.  It too has been hanging too long on the design wall.

Thanks for reading