Down Time

We're headed on a family trip today so I won't be posting for a few days. Take care all.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

I'm Back!

Grace is ready (well, almost ready) to get back to ART.

Gotta catch my breath first. It's been a whirlwind week with a couple of hiccups but, all in all, I think everyone had a good time.

They all left today and the house is somewhat back to normal. The kids, hubby and I have decided to take the rest of the day off. We'll start putting the house back together again..... tomorrow. As a matter of fact today, I've decided, is a pajama day. Laundry can definitely wait.

We had a lot planned for the visit, didn't get to all of it but that's usually what we do. Have a whole slew of things we want to do and pick from that list each day.

Believe you me getting 18 people ready to go out in 3 cars filled with 5 car seats is a job in itself so pinning anyone to a definite schedule is just asking for chaos to happen.

Some of the places we visited was Lazy 5 Ranch, Carowinds, US Nat'l Whitewater Rafting Center and Discovery Place. And of course, because they all live in the Bahamas, shopping is always a big part of our time together.

Tomorrow I will get back into my studio (which I truly have missed). I have to first clean up, put away to sleeping equipment then put everything back in place so I can find things readily again.

With the little ones around I thought it prudent to put away the really dangerous stuff and the things I wanted no little fingers messing with or breaking.

I've also been pratically hyperventilating about getting back to my lastest addiction.........Dyeing fabrics of course! Can't wait to get my yellow gloved hands back into the pots again and see the magic of colour I produce materialize right before my eyes. That feeling is just something that cannot be bottled.

Also, I've started a new blog but it's under wraps for now. The big reveal will be much later after I complete a few pieces for their deadlines.

Hope everyone had a good week!


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Family Fun

Every year my sisters and brothers, my mother and I gather somewhere and celebrate for a week the fact we are a family. With all the kids and husbands this little group numbers 19.

This week they all descend on my house for the next week as we celebrate a couple of milestone birthdays. My older sister turned _ _, (I'm not getting in trouble for mentioning her actual age), I turned 45 (btw, she is 5 yrs older--she never said I couldn't mention how much older that me she is and I'm sure your math is not that rusty) and my younger sister turned 40 this year.

Also my daughter turned the the BIG 16 yrs old and she decided she wanted to have her big blow out I-am-16-and-I drive-and-have-a-car party when they were all here.

So with that said you can imagine the cleaning and preping I've been doing to get the house ready for 14 people who all arrive today.

I'll be back online and back to my art (I've got to put some of them where ever they fit and my studio is being sacrificed...boo hoo) after they leave.

Have fun whatevever you are doing this week cause I sure will!


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Stash Quilt Finished

I've been told that my "blog needs some loving" (podcast by Alison Stanfield ), that I should pay more attention to it and treat it like a baby.

You know the kind...they pee and poop (on automation) but can't really do anything for themselves. Why I would take on another child I don't know but I do enjoy talking to y'all (you'd think I was feeling my southern roots with the "y'all" thing. I don't have any southern roots in me at all......I'm a tropical lady at heart).

Anywho, I was going good for a while then....poof.......it stopped (I know it really was me that I stopped but I gave this baby life I can give it all the blame too).

So today's post is called catch up. I've been getting ready for my daughter's 16th birthday party and preparing for the Sheppard tribe (my family) to decend upon my house. Plus I am hosting my annual Dye Party next week and still have a couple of pieces to finish for deadlines that are looming. Okay, that was catch up, now on to the good stuff....ART.

Here's the lastest pics of one of things that has taken me away from you. I'm still doing the TIF Challenge and did finish my June piece but never posted about it (yes, shame shame you say). If you recall, June was about stashes. I showed the literal pics of my stash and below you'll find my interpretation of it.



My stash started out real large (the bottom stone) because, if you remember correctly, I went thru my "greedy" phase as if the fabrics manufacturers would run out of fabs at any moment. As I climbed this ever fantastic cairn of stones I've created I realize that my stash did not (yes I said "did NOT") have to be THAT big, especially as I've resigned myself to now making smaller pieces. This one is measures 13" square.

I have not yet reached the peak (come on now......you ever think I'll have that little bit of fabs that represent the cairn's peak????). I don't know that I ever will or, for that matter, want to but I'm getting closer to finding the center, MY center, the comfortable place, the reasonable phase where fabric obsession is not necessary any more. I'd say I'm somewhere between the middle red stone and the gold one.

I am okay with having what just what I need instead of what I think I ought to have.

Have you had a stash redo recently or planning one? Have you made a "stash" piece to represent your "rack of fabs"? Leave a comment and let me know where you are in your stash phase or, for that matter, anything else on your mind.



See you next time "In the Hayloft",

Thanks Mummy...you're special!

.....is what my son said to me today. I had gone out to take one of the kids to her PT appt then came back and argued with 18 yr old (again...grhhhh!!!!!) and my youngest comes up to me about a half hour later and just says that to me...out of the blue.

Oh can't they stay their sweet selves all the time?

Hugs to all the special people out there

...oh my...that includes YOU!


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Every Little Bit Helps

Just a short post today about conservation. The county we live in is in stage 3 water restrictions. Been that way for a while now. So to do our part one of the things we did was to find another source for water to water out plants.

For a while now we have had a bucket in the shower to catch excess water. I fill up my watering can and my son and I go around and water all the plants we have around the house (he loves to help me do this). Easy no brainer thing to do, right?

Connor, who just turned 7 this past Monday, took a shower one evening this week as he usually does. Early the next morning when I went to take my shower...this is what I found and I just had to capture it:

I was so overcome with gratitude and love for that little guy, that this little thing we are doing to conserve water he has actually paid attention to and wants to do his part as well. I am so very pleased to know my role modeling is working. Now if only I can see some of the stuff I taught in "The Teenager" (yeh, right!).

Oh......

and another update on the newest member of our family.

Do ya think he's a bit spoiled right now........

his own blankie???????

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

A New Addition

No people, I am not pregnant (oh no, no, no!), no more baked goods coming out of this oven. But we have the cutest thing just join our family. His name is Logan, he's a 4mth lab mix and he's just way too adorable. I say he's lab/boxer mix, DD says lab/german shepherd mix and DH's is going with lab/retriver mix.

We really don't care what type of dog he is because he is as cool a character as cool can be, real laid back. Just take a look at that face. Our neighbor has fallen in love with him as well and is promising to kidnap him but the kids have made a plan to head her off at the pass.

I have a new friend to keep me company in my studio. Aren't you jealous?

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Deadlines

Deadlines are good for me. They have a purpose. They keep me on track. They help me finish the things I tend to put off.

Procrastination, on the other hand, is an even better friend to me sometimes because I get to delay something my mind can't settle on in the moment. So the question becomes how to not let procrastination take over so much so that the deadline is compromised.

One thing I've found that works for me is to work in small sessions...I mean really small. In those small sessions I might do some prep work (like fuse sheets of fabric) or doodle in my sketching journal (with no pressure to create any one thing) or organize my studio (oh no, I said the dreaded "O" word). This way I let my muse figure out she can come back from her mini vacation and help me out a bit before she saunters off again. I swear she must think we head south for the winter or something.

Procrastination can be good sometimes. Like when you really want to throttle your teenager for doing (or more likely NOT doing) whatever it is they are not supposed to do (see, I can find the good in anything).

With that said I have decided to start a new creativity club for us all . It's gonna be fun. It'll help us overcome all those pesky little obstacles to creativity.

I'm sorry to report though that the first organizational meeting has been put off till next week.

Smile today and give your face a break.


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Mummy-ism

My mother called me to wish me a Happy Birthday today and, as usual, we started talkin 'bout other things. My mother is West Indian and every once in a while she comes up with these sayings that she heard while growing up.

Let me recap, my husband loves the fact that hes is 7 months and 2 whole days younger than me and relishes the next few months cause I am, in truth, the older and much much wiser of the two of us (he just doesn't realize that part). I told my mother about this and, without missing a beat she says:

"Better to be an older woman's honey that a young woman's sugar daddy!

Well said Mummy!


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Christmas Has Reached Our House

We finally finished decorating the tree! After we strung all the lights and plugged them in, the lights in the middle of the tree simply would not work. No matter how much we twisted and jiggled them. It took an extra trip to the shop to get four more sets of lights and no...we did not take off the ones that weren't working, just wrapped the new ones in.

Needless to say taking down the tree this year will be a bear of a task. Only after I took the picture did I notice that Connor jumped in the picture to show off his truck.

Below is the view as you enter our house from the front door with the tree glittering in the sun room in the back. Again, did I notice Connor jumping into the shot from the stairs? But he was too cute to reshoot it. So here are the pictures of the Christmas in the Howes household and one member who refused to be forgotton.

See you next time "In the Hayloft",

Cleaning is Overrated...but necessary

It must be getting near the end of the year because I seem to be in a cleaning frenzy. My mother has this thing about bringing in the new year with a clean house and I guess I've adopted it (don't we become just like our mother's in the end anyway?)

I cleaned my son's room last week and what a major reshuffle that was. Whew!!! Let me explain something to you...he is just six yrs old but happens to be one of the biggest hoarders I know. He wanted to throw away nothing, NOTHING I say! His pile for keep was gi-normous compared to the throw away pile. I must say though that he was generous with his give-away pile (alright so he has outgrown most of those baby toys but still couldn't bear to throw them away, but giving was okay).

He absolutley loves to draw and draws this superhero he made up, KAP * W (pronounced KAP-STAR-W) all the time. HE IS KAP * W, the stongest superhero in the world! So do you know how many pictures there are of this superhero? I'll tell you...a small laundrey basket full and none could find it's way into the largest garbage bag I could find.

I was even told at one point "you're killing me Mum" to which I said...Okay hon, but only KAP* W pictures we are keeping. I know, I was a sap, a sucker and now have to come up with an ingenious way to store all these papers and probably thousands more to come.

So we are sitting there in a clean room where we could finally see the carpet and he tells me "now we need to paint". I might add that it is not even 5 minutes after we finish heave-ho his room! Do you think Santa can handle that job? No, I mean the real Santa, the one that swoops down the chimney and all.

So now I am finished with his room and will start on the next cleaning job, something I've been putting off for a long time................my studio! It needs a complete overhaul-----new storage (yummy), lots of dusting/sweeping (cough cough) and replanning where things go for easier retrieval. Wish me luck!


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

p.s. will post picture of "before" when I've taken picture of the "after". Will not embarras myself w/o showing the bee-u-tiful results.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hubby and 6yr old with my first poinsettas of the season

Hope everyone had a gobbly good Thanksgiving. It was nice just having the family around but it felt strange as well cause we usually have friends over (they also have no other family near them) but this time they chose to have a quiet day themselves. Got a call from one of them and he said he missed being at our house! Ohhhhh. So me thinks we'll end up together again next year as was our tradition for over 12 yrs. Ya live and ya learn.

Yesterday, because we didn't have guests I got to do some of my own thing (which I promised myself to work on) and I finished the look of my website...the struggle with that had more to do with being content with what I produced enough to like it for the long run.

I have a few pages to fill out...one being the "about myself" page, aaagrrh (waxing on about my accomplishments is something I'm still not very comfortable doing) and secondly I need to take good pics of my large quilts to post on my gallery page. Have to set it up outside to get good pics cause I don't have a studio wall big enough.

Wish me luck that it works the first time around so I can finally upload it to a server so that the whole wide world can see me. Yikes! Just the thought of that gives me the heeby geebies but...I WILL NOT GIVE UP, I WILL PERSEVERE!!!! .

I know, I know you're probably thinking"she got a blog for goodness sake, how's that for worldwide" but having a website is somehow different in my mind. Here I'm just enjoying "chatting" with friends.

By the way I usually end my nights just before I go to sleep by finding something everyday to be grateful for. But this Thankgiving I am more grateful than you can imagine for having my family, all my children at home to celebrate the day with. We've been in upheaval for such a long time it was good to just appreciate them all. Of course my 6yr old kept telling me, "Mummy you're staring at me again". What can I say, they make me smile and those tender feeling just rise to the surface.


See ya next time"In the Hayloft",

Living Rainforest Finally!

I know I promised the photos of the Living Rainforest that we visited near Pangbourne in England. Here are just a few. It was facinating walking around because every corner you turned was another interesting and sometimes rare species of life that exist somewhere on this planet of ours.

We'll start with the Pitcher Plant. Its leaves form pitchers that lure insects inside. The insects are attracted to the nectar that is produced at the bottom of the pitcher.

There the insect is trapped and digested by the plant.


This second photo came at great peril I might add. Someone had to hold me by the waist as I leaned over to take the picture of the bug struggling near the bottom of the plant. You can see his poor spindly legs in the middle of the photo. I think he knew he was done for by then.



This next photo intrigued me. My daughter came running to me telling me I have to come see this. Well since the whole environment was like that and I took my time going over. She came back pulling my arm over to where she was and this is what I came upon. I was no more than one and a half feet away from this "flutterby" (as my 6yr old calls them) when I took this photo. There we at least 5 people in the area and the flutterby did not move a muscle to fly away.

The Swiss Cheese plant is aptly named. It's large leaves resemble swiss cheese, duh! It's upward climbing roots are used for ropes in Peru, made into baskets in Mexico and boiled to treat snake bites in Martinique!! I loved the way the leaves formed a canopy over our heads as we walked under them.

These roots were about 2 ft wide by 3 ft high.


There were so many different varieties of plants it's hard to show them all here but I thought the swirl one was way cool...my kids hate to hear me say that, they say it sounds "so not cool Mummy"... so I say it all the time anyway, hee, hee. Anyway, enough about embarrasing my kids. The leaves swirl in bunches so there would be 3 or 4 of them on a branch.

Can you imagine a few of these trees in your garden and the leaves just swaying back and forth? How magical it would look especially when lying down on a large white hammock with a cool drink nearby and someone feeding you grapes...oops, sorry I got carried away there for a moment!


One thing that was not very pleasant was learning the facts about a particular flower, the Madagascar Rosy Periwinkle. I'm sorry that the photo is not a better one. It's a native plant of Madagascar that has been horribly exploited because of the discovery of its anti-cancer properties by western pharmaceutical scientist.


Unfortunately the majority of the profits never made its way back to the country, one of the poorest in the world. Organizations are trying to rectify that but think of the millions lost so far (75 million pounds in profit for that industry) that the people of Madascar will never see. Shameful!


To end on a better note the other photo I have I really couldn't post here on the web. If you want to see a picture of it you'll have to email me and I'll send it to you. As soon as you see it you'll understand why. Whoa johnnie!



See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Family Art

I had planned to upload pics of my latest project then thought you might enjoy this better. It all started when I said to the kids let's make birthday cards for Daddy this year, whose birthday was a few days ago. This is what they came up with. The red is by my 15 yrs old...can you tell she is into drama? Here's the front of the card. And lo and behold, this is the inside of her special card. Her Dad cracked up when he opened it (BTW, Git is a loose English term meaning jerk or sillyhead but in a fun loving way.)

Our 6 yr old loves to colour and draw...right now it's all about Superheros (that's his made-up superhero on the front). I speak "Connor" language so translation of the phonetically spelt words is "Daddy I love U (see inside Love) I am happy that you are turning 44". He had to pause at after he read it too. Ha ha ha ha ha ha...

What a gift...kids!

(Front cover and inside of card)

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Back and Going Again

Oh my goodness!! It's great to be back home at least for the next few hours at least. We got back in Thursday afternoon all safe and sound and I got to sleep in my own bed!! What a blast that was! Even after all that traveling and time change can you believe my body still got me up at 6:45am on Friday. It caught up to me though b/c I was in bed by 8pm last night totally konked out.

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to fly to NY to attend the Quilting by the Lake (QBL) workshop I signed up for. It should be so much fun not doing anything but qulting for the whole week and having my friend DeLane along for the ride. Whoopee!! I am busy packing supplies (and obviously still online) and machine and clothes and all those things I think I shouldn't forget (but probably will anyway and will have to beg to borrow from DeLane or any other poor soul who happens to sit next to me in class).

One quick story...the day before we were supposed to leave I had hubby drive me to a quilt shop I found and afterwards we stopped at a pub he remembered frequenting way back when for a drink. (The English love their pubs and there are plenty of them around to be able to stop for the proverbial drink). Anyway...everyone sat down at a table overlooking the River Thames and what was next door but a beautiful garden...so I proceeded to take out the camera and take some pics (BTW, my daughter accused me of having more time for the camera than her this trip...uhm, so what if she's right this time?).

I am busy clicking away trying to get all sorts of shots of flowers and foliage and water and experimenting with certain views, that I took no notice of the barman come out to ask me to please come back to the pub's side of the area because I was trespassing on private property (cheeky girl) until hubby stepped in to get my attention. Oh the shame of it. NOT! I did returned to the pub side and continued to take pics, with my hubby just smiling and shaking his head. I had informed him when we first started the trip that my focus, including being with his family, was to look at the English world for ideas for all sorts of things depicting line and shape. I came back with almost 700 pics that I now have to sift thru and sort.

It was a good trip and not at all as long as I feared. I promise as soon as I get back from QBL to post some of the pics I took while in England, especially the ones from the Living Rainforest that I promised.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Visiting Friends

Today we drove to Bournemouth to visit a mate of Dave’s from high school. Craig is as solid a guy as he ever was and Rachel hasn’t changed either, still a happy-go-lucky sole and a lot of fun to be around. They have a 5 and 4 yr old. Together we all prepared a barbeque lunch and sat in their lovely garden under a wide, wide umbrella to eat. So very relaxing that it seems like we sat around and chatted for hours afterwards. Tomorrow it’s off to Bath and Bristol where Dave grew up. He's so excited to show us around.

See ya next time" In The Hayloft",

Our Vacation: Part I

Tha family and I arrived in England on Thurs morn to visit the in-laws and have a bit of a holiday. Yesterday we went to a place called "The Living Rainforest" which is a little hole in the wall place but with quite an oh-so-facinating set-up. You walk past double hanging plastic sheets (like vertical blinds only heaivier) into an atmosphers that hits you immediately with its temperature change...humidity up the ying yang!! But, the first thing that greets you is a beautiful pink orchid growing off the bark of a tree. What a welcome.

As you walk round and round the area, on planked pathways, you find yourself looking over barriers into pools of water below and while gazing overhead to make sure you're not runing into overhanging plants that jsut beg to be seen. I just went around clicking photo after photo of the most amazing plant life that sometimes took my breath away and animal species that I wouldn't ordinarily want to meet up with at any other time.


We picked the wrong day to go though because 3 charter buses (yes three) full of middle school students had decided to decend upon the rainforest as well and since the paths were very narrow it was harrowing at times walking thru, with everyone trying to take pictures and oohing and ahhing at all there was to see.

To put all the pics I took would take me a long time and you a lifetime to look thru so Ill post them as I post updates. If you ever get a chance to go...it is definitely worth the effort.

Finally Done...Yeh!

Been trying to catch up with paperwork and do get some studio time to finish up some pieces but with kids out of school interuptions abound. Connor, my six year old, just wants to go shopping for Pokemon cards. Will have to indulge him soon to get some peace. Thinking of making a DO NOT DISTURB sign with a timer for my studio door just for these "special" interruptions.


My first child, Andrew, graduated from high school this past Sunday and that was a lovely feeling to experience since it almost didn't happen. As late as two weeks ago he came to me to prepare me for the fact tha he might not graduate but things worked out in the end, thank goodness gracious.


I finally finished an applique piece I had been working on for the past few months. I know, I know...it is small so why did it take so long? It's hand applique people! I just started getting into it so the going's a bit slow...machine work has always been my speed (vroom, vroom).


This one and the other one below are an applique design a friend, Susan Knapp, wanted me to test for her. She did hers all in pink batiks. I told her I'd do four of them but so far have only got 2 of them completely finished. Not bad for a newbie to hand applique, huh? Now for the quilting...hmmm.

See you in the Hayloft,