A Great Way To Spend A Monday

time off from work - ya gotta love it
after sleeping in and a late morning smoothie at 11 AM
(thank you Ross),
a day of sewing followed

in between top stitching on the "blue" quilt (and loads of laundry)

i was cutting endless triangles

for an "Optical Squares" curtain panel for the doorway between the master bedroom and bathroom (i'm not sure if 'doorway' is the right term - there is no door, thus the need for a curtain panel)

 

what was i thinking? this is not going to be a quick little project . . .

Cravings Satisfied

i've been craving some Macaroni and Cheese for a few months now
so I finally made some - it was yummy!

we had a quiet Christmas day and evening

it was a beautiful day

Peace on Earth

Merry Christmas - may the birth of the Prince of Peace be ever-present in our holiday celebrations and may His love be the most precious gift that we could ever receive.

A Blue Quilt . . . A Really Blue Quilt

Hmm, okay . . . so I'm off to make a quilt to snuggle under in the living room . . . here are the fabrics that I will be using . . .

How did I end up with so much blue?  I went on and on in my last entry about my love for color (and desire to learn more by experimenting with bold colors and prints).  This one is definitely going to be a challenge for me.

Will these colors go with the direction I hope to take the living room? 

This quilt needs a border - even though my attempt at a "fussy" cut for the black border is pathetic!

Hmm . . . here is the quilt top shown in a bit of the living room (with the first quilt I ever made, same basic pattern, temporarily hanging on the wall) . . .

I'm starting to like it more and more . . .

Two Weeks of Bliss

The much anticipated holiday vacation is now upon me - finally!  I've started a list of things I want to do over the next two weeks - but first . . . I finished two projects recently.  I thought I'd make a rainbow quilt in honor of my new quilting studio and to symbolize my current journey to learn more about color.  For the time being I still continue to be completely satisfied with purchasing fabric packs online - esp. fabrics designed by master colorists such as Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs.  I am a huge fan of their work - first discovering Kaffe and then more recently Philip Jacobs.  I feel like I'm learning about colors by working on projects that they have designed.  I have all of Kaffe's quilting books as well as his knitting and mosaic publications.  I was buying his books way before I actually ever made a quilt or learned how to knit.  I'm not sure if I'd be so into quilting if it wasn't for their work.  I'm somewhat younger than most quilters I've encountered to date and I've learned so much about the subjectivity of color and fabric design preferences - yet when it comes down to it we're just drawn to what we're drawn to.  I know a lot of people don't like my quilts because they are so busy and so full of so many different colors and patterns.  Yet I don't care what people think - I'm doing this for me.  Most of my fabric purchases are ordered online and when I open up those packages my heart just soars with happiness and excitement.   I decided to not keep the "Raindow" quilt in the studio - currently it's hanging from the upstairs landing.

Then I decided to finally tackle quilting the pink and red quilt top that I finished awhile ago - the one my husband and I affectionately refer to as the "Karen On Acid Quilt".  A very, very colorful quilt!  This one ended up having a lot of problems - log cabin squares cut on the bias that had a lot of "issues".  This is the first quilt with a lot of free motion quilting - still a tough for thing for me and have decided that this will be the quilt for office/studio snuggling.

So, for the two weeks of bliss list . . .

quilting - make a quilt to snuggle under in the living room; take quilt top used in old house as a curtain and make a quilt for the family room; make bedroom striped curtain panel; if time, start Inin's quilt.

read, read, read

redesign and organize blog - and make entries.  read through new book purchase:  "Blogging for Bliss - Crafting Your Own Online Journal" by tara frey

work on garden landscaping plan

breathe, stretch, breathe, stretch

work on the pansy needlepoint

sleep in and go to bed late

go on a walk every day

bake

make soup and learn how to make curry

pray, plan and think about how to take appropriate actions - re: fragile job situation

Quite a list - I wonder how many of these things I'll actually do.  Or maybe I'll just sit and look out the windows like our two new cats . . .