Ho Ho Ho

Can you see the cat laughing at Blue??? He is so not happy with this situation!

Almond Roca. Yummmm

Cookie time

Missing Hawaii

This was yesterday. It snowed all night with wind, so have drifts a few feet deep today. Burrrrrr it's cold!

Hawaii

Aloha

Crow Barn

A few of the fabrics from my week at The Crow Barn. I will post the rest as soon as I find the camera.

Karen

Daline

Kathy

Kate

Andi

More of mine

Karen F with her finished top

Beautiful

Prisilla with her tops

Mona with her to dye for fabrics

Petra. Lucky girl was staying on for a second week.

Brenda working on her soon to be queen size top!

Daline. Her's was so nice I had to post it twice.

Jump start

The countdown has begun. I leave for the Crow Barn in less than 3 days. I am so looking forward to a full week immersed in creative endeavors. Over the last year my creativity has stalled out due to family obligations which seemed to snowball to a general inability to get excited about doing anything. I look at my supplies sitting on shelves and feel guilt not anticipation. I believe this coming week will jump start my creative engine. I so much want to wake up every morning excited about getting into the dye room.

I think I may need to have some deadlines to keep me motivated. My local guild holds a show each year that I have vended at in the past. I think I should begin building inventory for that or maybe put together a few classes. I also need to research online venues. eBay frustrates me, Etsy is not easy to use for volume listings and all the other sites are too obscure to invest time in. Having my own website would be my choice, I just need to find someone to put it together.

The first thing I need to do is put together a list of all the things I was to accomplish, then prioritize it. This is a real problem for me. What I call extreme multi-tasking. I start one project and think "what if" and off I go in another direction...........

Catching up & New Things

 

These beautiful things came off my very own peach tree. These are what inspired me to try a few new things.

This year seems to be the year for me to try new things. This summer I am learning to can and freeze the fruit from our trees and all the beautiful produce at the farmers market. Preserving fruits/veggie always intimidated me. I was terrifired of the food poisoning thing. Think I have that whipped now (hope so, these will be X-mas gifts)!

I went on a diet to drop 25 pounds. 10 down, 15 more to go. It has been a real struggle to stay away from all the fresh fruits available right now. No carbs, no sugar, no fat. I'm giving this another week then I'm going on a low carb eating plan. I can't live on a liquid diet. I love food too much.

I am really looking forward to a Shibori workshop I am attending in October. I am taking my mom so she can visit with my brother. I will meeting a wonderful cyber friend for the first time. I am so looking forward to seeing her in person. 

Plums cooking for jam. Must try to capture this color in my dyes.

Some of the jams and the canning kettle steaming away.

 Bings. One of the perks of living in ag country. We have fresh cherries, apples, asparagus, sweet onions and many other wonderful things.

 Yep, it's lemons. I made lemon jam. I know it sounds terrible, but it really is wonderful.

We took a quick trip to Portland a few weeks ago. The following are some pics I snapped from the truck. 

Columbia Gorge.

  John Day Damn.

Kite surfers & wind turbines. Kind of go hand in hand.

Multnomah Falls

A few of my roses. I think I may have to print and frame a few of these.

Sunsets, Grand-baby & the 4th

Catching up

I am eagerly packing for my trip to Ohio for the Shibori class. I know, I know it isn't until October. Can you tell I'm excited? I have never taken a formal class. Everything I've learned has been through trail & error. We'll see how well I learn in a classroom situation. Here are some pics of what I am going to learn. I think I have everything on the supply list gathered. I plan to ship the required supplies in advance. The cost is about the same as checking them, but I don't have the schlep them through the airports.

Above is Jan Meyers-Newbury, it is her workshop I will be attending. The piece next to her pic is done using the technique I hope to master.

I am also going to finally meet a wonderful online friend in person. I have been dyeing fabric for her unbelievably beautiful and complicated quilts. She does awesome work. She has a piece entered in Quilt National. I am impatiently waiting for the unveiling.  This is one of her Knot Quilts.

Awesome! There is NO applique or fusable here. All seamed.


And now for the "real life" segment. Our oldest son has a new baby on the way the end of October. They recently found out it will be a boy, but I had already decided I wanted to do a screamingly colorful quilt. I wanted something the baby could lay on and be entertained. My year old nephew was here over the weekend and helped validate my choice. He spent hours playing with the fabric I used, so the actual quilt should work as intended. Here it is.....

Close up. Bright enough?????

I will of course do an heirloom quilt for mom and dad to put away. Something a little more traditional in blues and whites. Something like this maybe......