15 things to give up to be happy with your art

Hi friends.  Today I'm giving you this link to an excellent blog post by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer that I think is well worth reading.   Hop on over there and take a look. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

seriously?

Hi friends.  I looked out the window yesterday and noticed that one of my lilacs is blooming.  Since yesterday was a rainy, gloomy day, I waited until today to get a picture. 

 

I have a long row of lilacs, several different varieties.  I love when they are all in bloom and smell so wonderful.  All but this one.  This is a late blooming lilac that usually blooms a few weeks after all the others are done in the spring.  It's never had a lot of blooms, and I only saw two other tiny ones besides this one.  But seriously?  August?  I guess late doesn't have a time table.  

Thanks for stopping by.

It's been awhile

Hi friends.  Yes, I'm still here.  I know it's been a long time since I've posted.  I really haven't been doing much crafting.  I guess I needed a break.  I've done a bit of gardening.  I had to replace all my lavender plants that died over the cold winter.  I think because of all the rain we've been having, they aren't doing too well.  Of course, they need to be weeded badly - not something I enjoy and it's really too wet. 

I do have some tomatoes coming on -- little green ones.  And a few tiny zucchini plants are up -  I planted those really late, but we'll enjoy some before summer is over. 

I took my hexagon quilt with me to my lace guild, because I knew I could set up some extra tables and pin the layers together.  So I have that ready to baste and start quilting.  

Last night I made a card for the Rubber Stamp Event contest, but will wait to show that one to you.  I won 2nd place last year, so here's hoping. 

Here are the cards we made in my technique class last week. 

The first is a pop up box card -- a bit labor intensive, but well worth it.  There's a tutorial here. 

The 2nd is a card using inchies.  Little works of art that are only an inch square.  They are great for using your tiny stamps. 

The 3rd is a stair step card.  A tutorial can be found here. 

I used a pretty sunflower stamp that I picked up recently at a rummage.  It's part of a set - one solid image and one detailed image.  The only problem with that is the stamps are mirror images, so they really don't fit together.  But they can be used separately, so that's how I used one of them for this card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

what I've been doing

Hi everyone. I don't have any stamping to show you today. I have something completely different. I've been working on a quilt. I love quilting even more than stamping. However, because quilting usually involves much larger projects than stamping, you don't get the instant gratification that stamping supplies. The first picture is the quilt with the borders on and most of the quilting done. You can see the batting hanging out on the edges. The second picture is the completed quilt.

I did not make the whole thing -- I just did the borders and finishing, but even that was still a lot of work. The blocks on this quilt were all pieced and quilted by hand. The mother of a friend took a class at her church in the early 1980's and made all the blocks and had them all sewn together. But she never finished the quilt and ended up giving it to her daughter. Since the daughter (my friend) doesn't quilt, after her mom passed away, she decided that she really wanted to find someone who could finish the quilt for her. That's where I came in. She asked me if I would be willing to do this for her. I told her yes before I realized how big a project I was getting myself into. I kept track of the time I spend quilting and that was over 60 hours. That was in addition to sewing on the border strips. I estimate that I spent more than 75 hours to complete the quilt -- just the borders, binding and a label. So you can just guess how many hours it took to make all the blocks.


What is really interesting is that I made a quilt just like this one, oh different colors, but the blocks were the same size and patterns. My sister and I took a 12-week class at a local quilt shot and each week we worked on a new block. These are 15" blocks with a 2" lattice strip around each block, so you can see that it was a big project. My friend and I were trying to determine when her mom would have made this quilt, but we weren't really sure.

I asked my sister if she might remember the mom, since we had both attended that church at one time. She said she didn't, but...

Here's where the story gets better. My sister said, "I taught that class at the church and you helped me!" What she remembered is that we took the class on Monday night, and then on Thursday night, we went over to the church and taught what we'd learned earlier in the week -- well, she taught and I just helped her remember all the details. I don't remember doing that, but then at that time I was newly married and working full time, so my brain was probably on overload, and now, my memory is just seriously lacking.

I do remember that for both of us, the border was the hardest part -- and I volunteered to do the border on my friend's quilt - YIKES! I think the border may have seemed more difficult, because by the time we got to that, the class was over and we were now floundering on our own.

This last picture is the quilt that I made. I've made a lot of quilts since that day, but I piece most of them on the machine. Some are hand-quilted and some are tied with yarn. And I know that even now I have several that are partially done. Hopefully, now that I'm done with the quilt for my friend, I'll be able to get some more of my own finished.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderfilled day.

Fun Earrings

Check out these fun earrings by Melanie Muenchinger! So fun and easy.

I should be back later with another card for the backgrounder blitz on Cornish Heritage Farms.

Thanks for stopping by.

loot!

I didn't get to stamp yesterday. I went shopping! My sister and I spent the entire day at the Rubber Stamp Roundup in Milwaukee. Originally, I was going to demo in the Rubbernecker booth, but Dave had to cancel because of some family illness, so instead I asked my sister if she wanted to go with me, and she said YES! We had lots of fun, got very tired and probably spent too much, but it's all for a good cause, right?

I met Gina K briefly last fall at another stamp show, but yesterday, we actually had a chance to visit for a while. She is so bubbly and sweet.

Wanna see what I got? Here it is!

You may notice that there is some unmounted rubber there. I really do not like using unmounted stamps, so those will soon be wood mounted. I also bought some double-sided sticky foam sheets, but didn't put those in the pic.

The nesties are the petite scallop circles. I already have the classic ones.

To add to this, I went out to my mailbox and found three packages of more goodies that I had recently ordered on line.

And then... to top it all off... Fedex showed up with another package. Woohoo!

Would you believe... I'm a happy camper?! *BIG GRIN* Now, to just find some time to play!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful Sunday!