A Modern Romance finished

piecAt 620 a.m. I awoke from a dead sleep with my neck being bitten. It was a sudden , intense burning-itching, pain. I knew instantly I either had a very small vampire biting me or it was a SPIDER! UGH! UGH! UGH! I am SO-o-o-o-o ARACHNIPHOBIC! I think I would've preferred the vampire! I was so FREAKED OUT!!!My reflex was to grab it's little round BB sized body & fling it away from me. Of course, now I will never sleep well again, thinking it will be crawling into my bed every night to try & suck my blood again!

It is spring break-up here in Anchorage. My car looks like it has some sort of pox, from mud & water , the usual road mush we get this time of year.

Mount Redoubt continues to blow it's top, & we had avoided the fall out until today. Our white snow is now shades of grey.
Not so pretty.

We went to the movies this afternoon & saw "Monsters Vs. Alien" in 3D. It was GREAT! What a fun movie, & the 3-D effect was just amazing! The best 3-D I've seen since our trip to Disney World.

Thanks for all of the nice comments on my clock!

I finished working on "A Modern Romance" today. My contribution for the "Alliance for American Quilts".

I added lots of beads to the center embroidered piece.

& colored some of my quilting.

I made this flower from thread,

& several little flowers too.

I also made a feather, using a wire & a variegated rayon thread.

This little bundle of flowers are some that Allie sent me a long while ago, & she's the reason I made this quilt!

In The "Twilight" Zone

Friday's mail had my copy of "Twilight" on DVD in it, so I spent most of the weekend watching the movie. First just the movie, then the extended scenes. Can anyone explain why they just don't put those scenes into the DVD movies. I mean, who cares if the movie is longer. When you're playing it on DVD at home, you can always push pause if you need to!

I listened to the full commentary (which is a first for me, I've never watched a whole movie with commentary on). Most of it was silly, but fun, & I learned that 2 of the songs in the movie were actually Robert Pattinson, written & performed. The first was the restaurant scene in Port Angeles with Bella & Edward, & the second near the end, when Bella is hurt & near death's door after being attacked by James.

While listening to all this, I spent several hours making bunches of fabric beads in preparation for my next class, which is tomorrow. Some, I made for the clock I had started a week or so ago, & embellished with a bunch of wires, then I finished the clock.

It works just fine.

Spring, Happy Birthday Corey, Vacation on my Mind

This is the card I made for my youngest son, Corey, whose birthday is today. He 32 now. The picture that I transferred on to fabric for the card, is one I took when he was about 5. This is how I always see him in my dreams, not the big strapping man that he is today.

Thursday evening, I spent over 6 hours arranging for our next big vacation, outside. By "outside", I mean, out of Alaska. That's how we refer to any place other than here. We had to wait until Warren got his new schedule, so it is all very last minute for our reservations. We usually book a full year ahead to get where we want to stay. As it is, our vacation is the end of August, & NONE of the places we really wanted were available, so we had to take what there was. Instead of Newport, Rhode Island, we ended up with a place in Great Barrington, Mass., called "Wind In The Pines". We'll be spending a week there.

The same thing happened when I tried to book on the West Coast. The only place we could get was Deer Harbor, on Orcas Island. The agent gave me 2 cottages, which have been recently renovated, & they are supposed to be nice, but not the usual Westmark condo with full kitchen.

I also booked airline tickets, & in order to use our mileage, & spend less, we are flying to Washington DC, staying the night at a Holiday Inn, & taking the train to Windsor Locks, CT, where we will pick up a rental car to drive the last 41 miles to Great Barrington. After all that planning, we got this in the mail:

Have you ever been inspired by junk mail? It was an offer from American Express for Delta Sky miles. I took the paper & used it for a pattern.
This is what I made. Front,
& back. I used Angelina fibers, some of the black Misty Fuse, which I painted with copper paint, the fused Glad Wrap with paint, inks & more Angelina fibers. I made cloth beads for the front.

Here it is opened up.

& inside, I used clear vinyl for 2 layers of pockets, to carry ticket/boarding passes, & ID in the smaller pocket on the corner.

Helen Suzanne had emailed me recently, & asked how the yard was looking these days. Even with it being "Spring" on the calendar, we will still have snow on our ground until at least May. I went out & shot these this afternoon.

I think the temperature is above freezing, it feels warm, though my thermometer isn't registering at the moment. The sky is clear, & lovely, & this is the way it has been for most of the past week. Our house is high enough on the mountain, that it takes a while for our snow to go away. We also have a lot of trees, which shade it too, so it melts slower. Those are bunny tracks in the snow. (Arctic hare, to be more precise).

So happy Springtime!

A Good Day Here

I want to tell you all about the great customer service I got from www.shoppellon.com.

I ordered 5 yards of black Lutradur from them, & they sent white by accident. I let them know, & they are sending the black & told me to keep the white! NICE!!

I promised Kathy that I would post a couple of pictures of the wall treatment in Warren's bar. We used 2 different glazes over the base paint color to get a leather look.
I must love those colors, because I have used them a LOT!

I finished up the book cover. I put a vinyl layer over the top to make it more durable, & more comfortable to hold.

The feather is the backside,

& here it is open, with the built-in book mark.

We went to the Glacier Brewhouse tonight for dinner. We were going to take my youngest son, Corey & his girl Tasha to dinner, but Tasha came down with the flu. We stopped by to drop off his birthday card (he'll be 32 on Saturday), & she was pretty sick. They missed a good meal. I had Caribbean Jerk Prawns, & Warren had Shrimp Jambalaya. We shared a Peanut Butter Pie for dessert. It's the best dessert in town.

When we got home, I started another small project. This is only 5"x7". It is multiple layers. First was Timtex, then a painted cloth, topped with fused Angelina fibers, then a painted dryer sheet, Sliver thread bits,black tulle, another piece of Angelina fused in a swirl pattern, then quilted with a variegated metallic thread. I anchored it on a framed canvas, & did thread-play to hold the 4 fused glass pieces down. Then I started scattering glass beads across the surface. This is as far as I got tonight. I worked on it for about 5 hours. I intend to turn it into a clock, & will call it "Dream Time". It will be one of my pieces in my show in July.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Sunday we had Mindy & John & the girls over for dinner. I made our favorite Strawberry Salad, a pot of Salmon Chowder , Jalapeno Cheese Rolls (the Double Musky recipe), & for dessert a Mixed Berry Shortcake. The berries from Costco were wonderful this weekend.
After dinner Hope & I went down to the studio to make Sleep Masks for 10 of Hope's friends. The rest of the family were watching "Australia". None of them had seen it yet, & Warren just bought the DVD. I gave Hope & Christy each a copy of my DD Michelle's calendars. They loved them.

The other thing I worked on this weekend, was an idea for a book cover. This was the beginning of it.

Just Black fabric, quilted with a metallic thread.

This is the prototype. I am playing with ideas to make it better, but I'm reading my 2nd book using this cover, & I really like how it feels with the book wrapped in this, & the bookmark built in is handy, since I can't keep track of a book-marker otherwise.

I decided to make another, with some of the stuff from my embellishment classes.

I layered painted dryer sheets, Angelina fibers strips of painted, Glad Wrap with more Angelina inside & fused together, some painted Lutradur, & painted leaves, plus a found feather, under black tulle with some glitter dots on it (I would have used plain, but couldn't find any).

I quilted over it all with metallic Copper thread.

The leaves will be the front cover, the feather the back, & the plain black area quilted with a feather design will be the inside back cover fold.

This last is just a close up of the front.

Today my Calendar Girls Quilt group got together at Jean Ferguson's house. Jean introduced us all to her new baby Mitzi.
We had a nice pot luck lunch. It was more about the food than the quilting today, (though I did work a little bit on my crazy quilt).

Mitzi was the star of the show today though.

This evening I did the Embellishment class that got cancelled on Tuesday. We had a good time. The gal on the left just got back from Indiana, & she said she met someone at the quilt show there, that asked her if she knew me. Apparently she met another blogger out there, who reads my blog.

This was done by Rene,( the gal on the right above), it is actually black Misty Fuse on black fabric, with bits of Angelina that had been fused then chopped up & fused on to the Misty Fuse. It was so much prettier in person than it shows in the photo. The Misty Fuse really is black, not gray. She will probably layer a sheer black organza or tulle over it when she uses it in a project.

This class is divided into 4 parts. Parts 1, 2, & 3 are about trying lots of different techniques & materials, then in class 4 we're going to put them together into things like ATC's, small wall hangings, books, or postquards.

Nightmare

Have you ever had a nightmare that came true? I had it happen this evening. The phone rang, & it was "Seams Like Home", the local quilt shop where I teach. ''Deb, this is Sue. Did you know you have a class right now?" YIKES!!#@! "NO, IT WASN'T ON MY CALENDAR!"

Well, when I looked at the e-mail that Diana had sent me with my class dates, it wasn't on there. I asked Sue to apologize profusely for me, & I would call each student & reschedule with them. It took about an hour of phone calls, & everyone was very nice about it, & I have the class rescheduled for this Friday. In talking to one of the students, I found out there were 3 other classes scheduled that I wasn't aware of! What a mess.

Today I had finished up 3 ATC's, this 1st one, I tucked it into the front of a card, & it will be heading to Mags soon. The background on the card is black Misty Fuse, that was painted with copper paint.
I added copper beads & wire to the ATC's. I think I'll make a few more & give them to my students as a thank you for being so understanding.
I also made another threadplay flower. This one I used Oliver Twist hand-dyed cotton thread for the flower, one of my friend Mindy's fused glass blobs for the center, & a trilobal Polyester variegated thread for the leaves.

This evening I went out & bought myself a present. This red CD player. I have several CDs that have been given to me as gifts, mostly from my DD Michelle, & my DF Kathy. I can finally play them! I wanted to be able to bring some music with me for one of my classes. A design class. I think music can be very inspiring, & I've been longing to listen to music lately. It's funny, but for several years after my divorce, I couldn't listen to music without feeling sad. I guess I'm finally getting past that. It only took about 20 years!