Some Rain at Last...Thank Goodness!!

Whenever I'm on the road I always have my camera at the ready...just in case. On the way into Charlotte for an appt yesterday it was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road, the sky was absolutely beautiful, it looked like a piece of cloth that had just had fun painting. It was heavy with clouds that were bursting with long overdue rain. This little bit we get will just have to tide us over for now.

I wish I had a better shot of this next photo. I forgot to roll down the passenger side window before I took it so you can see the messy glass I shot it thru.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Picture of the Day

So I'm driving along the road and and I stop at a traffic light just turning red. I know this light will probably take a while to change to green so I thought it a good time to take out my camera to check some recent photos I'd taken (make good use of time my mother always said). I turn the camera on and look to my left. This is what I see.


Hurriedly I take a picture before the car racing up to break beside me cuts off my view. Maybe the people who hung the sign can be excused for being dyslexic or...

.......maybe they forgot that we don't live in Japan where things are read from right to left or...

.......maybe the credit union thought it was a good advertising idea and asked for the sign to remain thus hung or...

........maybe they were pissed at their boss for making them work...yet again darn it!

No matter the reason, me thinks someone is gonna get in BIG, BIG trouble for this one.
We'll file this one under picture of the day.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

I'm Still Here

Bet you thought I got lost somewhere, never to return again. WRONG! As I mentioned when I started this blog, things (read LIFE here) will get in the way but........I'm back and eager to fill you in on happening things.

First I had such a fun time with Karen Stone this weekend. She came to visit our guild (Charlotte Quilter's Guild) this past week and she was a real hoot...warm, funny and very generous with her knowledge and time. We had so many members sign up for her workshop that I had to ask if she could do two instead of the usual one workshop to accomodate all those who wanted to attend (that was 40 ladies all eager to be near Karen). Sent her off on her merry way on Sat so she could prepare for her daughter's 18th birthday. Happy Birthday Chelsea!

News about my wayward foot...I will eventually have to have surgery done. Remember I told you that I was SPECIAL because I have all those extra sessamoid bones on each of my toes (the nurse still insisted I contact the Guinness Book of World Records to report this). Well apparently the original X-ray (taken in June!!!!) was mislabeled and when my new Doc looked a bit closer last week he could see that one of the small round bones was broken. The only thing with that was it showed I should be having pain in my right foot and not the left.

Got new X-rays done that same day and YUP...one of those little teeny tiny bones cracked right down the middle. That's why I'm still limping darn it, they were all looking at the left foot X-ray which really was a wonderful picture of the right foot with no problems!

So, in the end, Doc decided I should just have those little culprits both removed, hence the surgery and six weeks convalescence for healing...3 wks on crutches and 3 with a boot. Would you believe the best time for that is Christmas??? It's only then that I can almost guarantee that DH will be home long enough (Business Trips'R Him.com these days) to let me recuperate without too much getting up and down.

That's all for now. Will have some pics of new work next time including the new ones of the last piece I posted with the Sonji-like bundles I added to it. Cool stuff those bundles.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Progress

I'm quite estatic this early morning. I finally have my 1st web page done...well... not really...I have set up a, uno, one page and now need to tweak some images so they show up better. Boy am I happy (can't you just see me doing the happy dance?).

I bought a couple of books (see previous post) and found four more at the library that I thought would help although you know those are really out of date at 3 years old. I considered for a millisecond purchasing DreamWeaver but my budget just ain't there. I decided to go on the web and see if there could possibly be anything else a teensy tiny bit cheaper (like $200 cheaper) and would you believe I found it.

I FOUND THE ANSWER TO MY FRUSTRATION! Yippee!!!!!!

I came upon a little HTML software editor called CoffeeCup. They have been in existence for a while now, since '96, but I had never heard of them before. I downloaded the trial software and two days later....did you hear me, I said 2 DAYS LATER...I have a web page, of sorts.

Tomorrow I will purchase the software (now that I know I can use it.) Next step...to get the other 150 pages finished. Oh people, I'm just kidding, I really only have about 10 or 15 more to do to be able to upload it to my server. Half the battle is over. Yippee!!!!!

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

New Small Piece

I have not had much of a chance to get into my studio lately and sorely miss the action that happens there. So, last week, instead of working on a big quilt I chose to cut up a piece of fabric that I hand dyed last year with my group, Pandora's.

I like to work small sometimes cause it gives me a chance to keep my fingers and head busy with some creative stuff but it doesn't take a ton of time!

I've always wanted to work with just one fabric but I always thought it would be with a commercial fabric, finding some way to try and make each piece I used look different. You know how hard that can be.

For this piece I just cut strips from the yard of fabric, then cut those into smaller rectangles. Because it has a nice mix of toned down blues and purples it worked quite well as a one fabric piece. I wanted to work quickly and not think about things too much so I fused the rectangles to a large piece of fusible web. Next came a frame for it.

My daughter helped me audition the border and we settled on a cool eggplant batik. I cut a rectangle to include the borders I wanted, fused a piece of fusible to the back then...beleive it or not, I cut a whole in the middle for the hand dyed center section. I told you, I really didn't want this too take long. I then fused the two to a larger piece of batting. Top was done!

It's not quilted yet, been testing out some ideas and I still have to add some embellishments, thinking about beads or bundles. Got that last idea from Sonji Hunt (June 25th entry). You have to take a look at her work, the colour is what drew me in at first. Ooohwee!!

Gotta run, you may have not noticed the time of this post but I really should get some rest. I have an early day tomorrow.


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

On Being a Pandora

Today was a good day. Today was a good day to be a Pandora. We four Pandora's hadn't met in a while, not since we had such a blast dyeing fabrics back in July. So it was a good day for us to get together and talk and relax and just be with each other. Don't get me wrong, we see each other quite regularly (all belong to the same guilds and talking constantly by email and phone) but it was nice to come together as the group we formed, Pandora's. We are not, by the way, the Pandora's, we are just...Pandora's.

One of us, Lushorn, had just finished building a pool in her backyard and she invited us over to christen the pool. It was such a hot day that a cool dip in the pool was just what was needed. She, in fact, spoiled us today, us Pandora's.

We all arrived by 9:30 and Lushorn had a small breakfast of fresh fruit waiting for us...smooth cantelope, juicy watermelon and sweet strawberries. We sat outside on her pool patio and got business out the way while we munched on all that gorgeous fruit. When it got to hot to sit still, those who brought swimsuits geared up and went for a cool and refreshing dip.

Thirty minutes later we were called out of the pool to a beautiful lunch of baked salmon and pasta (didn't I tell you we were spoiled today?). Another member, Susan, brought her version of Tiramisu, the fantastic coffee liqueur dessert. Yummy, yummy, yummy. By this time it was just after 1 pm and we all needed to head back to normal life, picking up kids and feeding dogs, etc.

No matter what our daily lives brings it's always really good to be a Pandora. Thanks my friends.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Art Dolls with a Twist

A friend told me last night at our guild meeting that she likes to read my blog but thinks I should update it more often. Well...me thinks she's right. I have been amiss and will make every effort to keep it better updated. Thanks RM, I really appreciate your honesty. It's not that haven't been in my studio working, I just haven't had a chance to post and let you all see that I've been working on.

It didn't help that my modem got fried (3 days without internet) in the brutal thunderstorm we had last week. The rain came down in sheets and blew patio items all over the place, couldn't see out the windows because the rain was so heavy against the glass themselves. Anyway I am back online and love the new little dolls I made.

Growing up I really didn't play with dolls much, at least not the cuddle up kind. I loved making paper dolls though and all their clothes . I use to forget sometimes to cut out the little tabs that helped the clothes stay on their bodies...whoops! My sister and I had a whole set of them.

I saw an article in the magazine Art Doll Quarterly, summer 2007 issue, and knew I had to make one...okay....I kinda got carried away. I decided to make 6, one for me and a couple of quilting friends.

I painted a large piece of 90lb watercolour paper with Pebeo Setacolour paints in a rainbow effect. I knew that some of my friends liked certain colours and cut out each card with their colour in mind. Then it came time to embellish...yummy! I wrote, painted some more and stamped. To get the charms to stick to the heavyweight paper I use heavy gel medium. These are a few of the finished cards.

Each doll has a different personality and as they sat on my worktable for a couple of days, I contemplated whether I should add more. Alas..........no. In the end I decided just to add the arms, legs and the head by punching holes thru each part and connecting them with square brads (found in the scrapbooking section of the craft store).

I was going to mail them to each person but thought not, even though they fold up quite nicely on themselves (see back of doll below), It was better in peson seeing them unfold their special dolls. I wish I was still as agile as the picture shows.

Here they all are, kicking up their heels in joy at having been created!

The 1st and 4th dolls are obvioulsy way too cute to kick up too much in their pictures but that's not their real life personalities though. Those two really kick _ _ _ sometimes! So watch out for all these girls, they ROCK baby!

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",