January Journal Quilt (Better late than never?)

Since I came a little late to the Journal quilts, & my intention for these little pieces is to use then on a perpetual calendar eventually, I wanted to get a January page done. I've been wanting to do a little tribute to our nights in the hot tub in the backyard for a long time, & still want to include it on a big quilt some day, along with a poem that I wrote a few years ago, but this is a much simpler, more cartoony version of what that will some day be. I also had a new toy I wanted to try out, Xpandaprint. I have black, (it also comes in white). I painted it on with a toothpick, then used my heat gun on it, & had fun watching it swell & become textured. I dabbed a little Lumiere paint on top of the Xpandaprint for color. I also played with my Angelina Fibers again, along with the Bo-Nash to fuse them in place, for an Aurora effect on my hand-dyed fabric back ground. The only commercial fabrics are the hot tub, & people in it, & I bordered it with an bit of my vintage silk, that came from my Ebay pal Pilgrimhands.This really was a lot of fun! I'm naming it "Fire & Ice".

ATC & Thank you card from Kathy

What a nice surprise arrived in the mail yesterday! An ATC from my friend Kathy Jolman & a very cute thank you card. The card is reference to my cat Broccoli, who loved to sit among Kathy's things when she was here. If anybody else wants to trade an ATC with me, let me know!

Em's got her own Blog!

Hey I got my big sister blogging now!

Big as A Barn

I think I'll live now. The all over body aches have subsided to minimal. The throat is still quite sore, but a little spritz (cough, gag) of Chloroseptic helps that. I think if my body can hold up to it, I should work on the Barn Quilt some more. It is a group quilt, from my Calendar Girls group. It's a fun group of ladies, (I'm the baby in the group at almost 52!). They originally started up doing a Piecmaker Calendar pattern years ago, Times & Seasons, & now we've done the Barn quilt as a group. We will probably donate it to our guild for raffle when I get it finished. I had lost it for almost a whole year (in a bag under my bed) during the construction. I thought I'd given it to Jackie, she thought she had given it to Mary. We all thought we'd lost our minds. It's fun hanging out with older folks!!!

I do minimal marking with Dixon washout cloth markers. I just mark the stem line, then free-motion quilt off of it. I made the December block, I painted the northern lights in with Versatex paints. I have a lot of quilting yet to do on this quilt, so I better get going. I won't have much time today, because we have to take Auntie E for her "well Granny" check up today.

Sick Day

I called in sick to work today. I hate doing it because I know they're going to be busy & I feel bad for my coworkers, but I really am sick. I ache all over & have a low grade fever, & my throat feels like someone has torched it. What's worse is I don't even feel good enough to quilt.
sigh... maybe I'll go doodle.

I've napped most of the day away. What a waste of time!But I did figure out how to get my archives listed by title. I had to chose a different template entirely. Other methods didn't work.

March Journal Quilt

After the terrible night we had at the hospital, I decided I wanted a guardian angel for my journal page. I cut her out of one of my hand dye scrap rags, a single shape, fused on to a dark Batik background fabric surrounded with Angelina Fibers. I sprinkled a little of the Bo Nash under the fibers to help fuse them to the fabric, & layed a piece of parchment on top to iron it for just a few seconds. The Bo Nash disappeared & the fibers fused fairly well. I freemotion quilted with Sulky Holoshimmer, & aside from her rather sad expression I'm fairly satisfied with her.

Life & Death moments/ WARNING! THIS IS REALLY SAD

Tonight I worked at the hospital until 2 AM. There was a gunshot wound that came into the ER & was rushed to the OR. I work Recovery Room, but the OR nurse asked me to wait to see if I would be needed. I went into the OR to help run errands. The guy was still being worked on when they finally let me leave. His insides were laying outside while 2 great surgeons dug around in his gut trying to figure out where he was still bleeding from. At the same time, both Docs were getting calls from both ICU's in town, with nurses worried about patients with low blood pressures, & while they were working on keeping this guy alive, they also had to think about 2 other critical patients & what they could tell the nurses to do to keep them alive. I was the relay person on the phone between the Dr & the other nurse. I was amazed at how these guys were working, minds & hands to each task.

I'm still so wound up I can't think of going to sleep, but my cat is calling me, he says I should be in bed. It's not going to be easy with such life & death images in my head. In the morning if I can function, I will try to do my journal for this month. I haven't had time to even think about it before this. I think I know now what I want to say on this page, one of my favorite sayings..."Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

POST SCRIPT 854 AM. Warren got home from work (he a respiratory therapist in the same hospital) this morning. He said the 17 year-old that was hanging by a thread when I left had died. & it was the 3rd time he had been shot in his short life. Another boy of 17 was killed last night too. He was the son of one of our co-workers, & I had just seen her 1/2 hour before I left work & asked her how her 12 yr/old son was doing. She had smiled & said he was doing great. I had taken care of him on Thursday, because he'd had a surgerical proceedure. Apparently there was a tragic accident, the big brother was at a friend's house & a group of teens were passing around a gun, it went off & hit him in the head, killing him instantly. There was also a large fire in town, 50 people left homeless. & some poor transvestite beaten to brain death. Has the world gone mad? The whole night seems like a nightmare. I've had 3 hours sleep & now all I want to do is cry for these poor families.

Angelina Fibers

My work schedule is all mixed up this week. I was on call last night & had to work until midnight. Today I ironed fabric & tried to get the rest of my Fiber Fest mess in order, though I'm still not finished. I went to my friend Sue's little shop in her house today, she called me when the postman dropped off a big order of Angelina Fibers. I got first crack at it, & bought 15 colors plus some Bo Nash powder & a little jar of Xpandaprint, an item I'd never heard of before, but it looks like lots of fun. Now I want to go play.

The Quard on the left is one I made as a thank you for our Fiber Fest Board to give to Janie Odgers. We also pitched in & gave her a Poppy lamp made by Mary Hertert.

My Favorite Ebay Seller is Pilgrimhands!

If you ever want to shop on Ebay, I have had the best experiences with one seller over & over & it's Marci from Pennsylvania, Pilgrimhands. She is the BEST! Look at all the goodies she sent me, when all I was buying was the one piece of fabric on the upper right. Somerset Studio collage' fodder for sure!

Does anybody recognize this block?

These are from a quilt a gal at our guild brougt in & wanted to know if it had a name?

Monsters Inc./Quilting Arts Spring 2006

Have you ever seen Monsters Inc. ?I love that movie. It makes me smile just thinking about it. In it, Mike, the round green monster with Billy Crystal's voice, gets all excited when a commercial comes on, that he participated in, & he has been obscured by the company icon as it comes on the screen. All you see of Mike is his legs & an arm, but he's thrilled to be on there, & later, on the cover of a magazine with the same picture. I thought of this today, when my friend Jackie came into our Alaska Fiber Festival board meeting, & congratulated me. I said, "Thanks, but for what?" She told me my purse has been published in the spring issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I'm tickled pink, but wonder, is it going to be like Mike? Hidden in a big pile of other pieces, more exciting & more beautiful. Of course my copy hasn't come yet, & it's driving me crazy! Here it is. My Reverse-a-purse. Both the purse & matching small purse are reversible, made from raw silk, that I dyed (shibori methods) & over dyed to get the colors. I made the strap on my sewing machine with yarn & threads & silk rovings. I embellished with lots of beads, & threads. I made the polymer clay forest face button. Well, even if it's like Mike, I'm feeling pretty blessed.

Bonus Wednesday

I Usually work Wednesdays, but my schedule was changed this week, so I'm home. I've still been trying to get things put in place in my new studio, as my girlfriend Kathy is coming next week for the Alaska Fiber Festival . I took the ribbons down from upstairs in our new living room (it was our bedroom before), & put them in the studio. I also strung the dragonfly lights that I'd bought for the studio nearly 2 years ago. It's a bit like sensory overload when you look around my room now. I still can't figure out where I'd put all this stuff when we lived in the 700 sq. ft cabin alone! Since we've added on about 1000 sq. ft. I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff, & I still need to get rid of some of the excess. Where did I put it all before?
Auntie E has been enjoying the new wood stove, though she doesn't get much of her letter writing or reading done when I build a fire.

Winter Journal Quilt

Here is my little journal quilt for January. We were experiencing a beautiful Hoar Frost when I made this. I'd had the yarn for years, just saving it for the right project.
The woven background of black & gray have random winter words written on them with gel & Pigma pens. The greenish Aurora running through the borders is actually "Whisper", a transparent cellophane-like fiber that is supposed to be for making big bows for packages & floral arrangements. It looks clear by itself, but became iridescence against the black snowflake background fabric. I made the 2 ravens from polymer clay. I love the ravens up here. They cavort & chortle. I can't help but smile watching them . They're such funny fellows.

Oh! to Dance With a Dolphin!

This quilt is my biggest winner to date. It won Best of Show in Husqvarna's "Feel Free" contest. All machine pieced & quilted. Even beads were put on with my machine.

Aussie Challenge

Here's my Aussie Challenge quilt. It won viewer's choice at the Queensland Quilt Guild in October 2005. It's made of hand-dyed batting with random bits of the challenge fabric among others, bits of metal mesh (this was the first time I sewed on metal), & lots of thread painting & hand beading. I'll have to photograph it again on a dark background when it comes home, it'll show up better on black.

I named it "Why?", because so often I've looked at an abstract piece of art, & wondered "Why?". My answer to that question in this case was, "I just wanted to have some fun!"

Red Satin

There he is, my little furry, 4 legged child, Broccoli (don't ask), he was very interested in the little felted wool egg I made. I wonder if it smells like sheep. Today is a RED SATIN PAJAMA DAY. It's working into a blizzard outside. I've built a good fire in the wood stove for Auntie E. & it's a Saturday, my favorite day to turn on PBS & sew along with my friend Sue Hausmann, & Nancy Zieman, & Fons & Porter. The red satin is my uniform for working on a big quilt. It lets the quilt slide instead of hanging up on my clothes as I do my free-motion quilting. Of course being in Alaska means I also have to wear my long-johns underneath the PJ's. I find that this is a better choice than quilting naked. I've often thought that would be a fun title for a book, "The Naked Quilter". So now I'm going to go down to my studio & work on "the Barn Quilt". It's as big as a barn, & makes me wish I had that Longarm machine that I'll get someday. (sigh) At least I have a studio now. I am very grateful.

Quards

I Googled to see if Quards was an original word that I made up, or if it was out there somewhere already. Well it was, but not in the context that I intended it to be used. I'm calling the Quilt-Cards that I like to make "Quards". I just finished a series of 10 of them like these for Thank-you notes for our Alaska Fiber Festival. They were a lot of fun to make. The salmon color background is Warm & Natural cotton batting that I hand-dyed. The background fabric was one of my paint clean up cloths (from fabric painting). I played with some Shiva Oil Paint sticks to add a little texture to the cloth, then when heat setting with the iron, I used the "Creative Opportunities" page from the local paper to iron the fabric on. Some of the paint colored the paper, making it quite pretty, so I ripped pieces of the newsprint & glued it to the top, then drizzled on a sliver of pretty colors, & framed it with bits of a black print. Pure creative FUN!

My Thread & fabric Collage Lamp Shade

Here it is, a little damp yet, but all finished. It's my "Jammin' Salmon Lamp Shade". When I rinsed the stabilizer out of it, it looked like a lump of slimy seaweed in the sink.

Beauty Shop

Here she is, Auntie Ethel, post playing beauty shop. She's so easy to please.

Last night at midnight I heard her opening her closet doors, so I went to see what she was up to. She was lost . Isn't that a little scary!

Think I'll go work on my lampshade I'm making for my living room.

Blog Kindergarden

Here I am, wishing to journal, & I've decided to try & join the cyber age by blogging. I am a 50+ grandma, quilter, fiber artist, & working full time RN. Don't I have enough to do already?

My daughter inspires me though. I am so proud of my Michelle. My heart is so full of love for her & my grandgirl, & my 2 sons too. I wish I could do more for them. I think if I were one of those meatpacker people who just won millions, I'd be paying off the student loans, & buying each of them a good car & a nice home. Then for Darian I'd set up a college fund.Thats what I'd do if I could win millions. Nice to dream about.

Today I will give aunt Ethel & perm & cut her hair. She is 92, & beginning to have bouts of confusion. You never know when it'll happen. She goes along just fine for hours, then all of a sudden she says "Can you take me home? I can't find my keys". It's so sad. My heart aches for her. She has lived with us for almost 3 years already. Sometimes she's a pain in the rear, but when she's like this, I just want to cry for her. Will Warren & I end up like that? Will someone want to care for us then? That million would help then wouldn't it.

Tonight while warren works I'll work on the Calander Girls Barn quilt. I have got to get it done!