The place to be!

This island in the library's parking lot so reminded me of a scene from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.   Narnia!

 The grand kiddies were skating at the library and Jolina and I snuck through 'Narnia' to get into another magical land- the library.

We had been making our own winter wonderland in art.

 I adapted a bag pattern to form house shapes from cereal boxes.

We then coloured all the buildings for a winter village.

 A chief architect and a village in the making!

 Josh made a skating rink for some of the little figures we have accumulated. God bless those dollar stores!

Joshua and his papa built a snowman.   Does this qualify as art???  Hopefully I'll get back to warmer art before the month is out.

BUT... then I might need to make a return trip to a magical land! 

Not really broken.

I'm not really on a blog break but...

I live one hour from Winnipeg, know nationally as Winterpeg because we can have long brutal winters. 

This past winter was especially long and then spring was just plain cold, wet, and grey.  Then the mosquitoes descended in full strength.  Miserable creatures!  We are now into hot and dry.  lol

But there is also a saying among locals that we have two seasons.  Winter and Construction! 

This is the season I am in right now.  I am not alone as the Rooster has also felt the effects of this challenging year.  We are so behind; bogged down by one problem after another.  And after a meeting the minds, mostly his,  we are making some changes.  Age needn't defeat one but we certainly can't run as fast, as long, nor as hard as we once did.  But we can run smarter!  :)  Yay for the Rooster! We are getting a plan into position.

We are under construction.

wow, its done!

Well, it may be March 20th and the beginning of spring but somebody forgot to tell those winter winds  which bring cold and snow.  Apparently winter is NOT done!

The snow is as high as the top stringer on the fence. And that clear cold blue is indeed cold!  The Rooster doesn't think he'll be finishing that fence as early in spring as he wants.  :(

Another thing not done is the renovations.  The floor is being sanded.  And apparently this little guy isn't getting it done either so they are going to get a bigger sander. 

There is a spot that needs patching and finding some appropriate old fir floor boards has been a challenge.

I have a new gal who joins us for Creativity 101 so we will be getting into even bigger messes in The Coop and Saucer Playroom!

The butterfly books will take a while before they are done but it is looking like a fun project.

But I do have a long awaited finished goal. The wedding quilt top is DONE! woo hoo!

The top was the goal for this quarter of the finish-a-long.  Next quarter will be the quilting.

My own bed is not queen size but this is as big as I go!

I was just one little patch short so I decided to just make that last corner 'flower' in a different yellow.  :)

So glad this wall has been hurdled!

Now to get my machine quilting skills back up to a good flow!  Next...

And it seems the whole of Canada is ready to be done with winter and I think if we check out The Needle and Thread Network we will find this to be so.  All those in favour of Spring, raise their cursor!  :)

Beginning to despair!

Winter has still got a long ways to go. This is a good example of why I like lots of deep rich colour during our winter.

One more load of snow and the Rooster is ready to throw away the shove and hand out snow shoes!  lol

And I am thinking much more stuff on my to-do list and I'll be ready to throw something. ;-)

My Creativity 101 gal and I have a field trip scheduled to the city for supplies later today. A goodly list, a Michael's coupon and a budget!  :(  She got a small art set for Christmas but the tubes of acrylic paint are the size of her little finger so we need some large tubes of primary colours and other important stuff.

The workroom is totally messy and clearing it off for some sewing will be first thing.  We do have storage containers on our list.  My book for storage says " A house without a dedicated utility space is like a toolbox without compartments.  Sure you know where the nuts and bolts are; it is just a lot harder to find them."  This definitely applies to my studio.  I also need to find a spot for Jenn to store some of her supplies.

If I got busy on my daughter's top, I'd have an empty storage container to fill with something else that needs corralling!

The first meeting with our contractor is Tuesday night.  So I need to have all the swatches, papers, pamphlets and questions ready.  We will be talking about these two rooms.

I think I have found a few things to motivate me this Monday!

 We may be approaching the winter season in years but we still have spring in our hearts!  No time to despair.  Time to dance on!!!

Let's start with white

The weather warnings had us anticipating a major storm but it was more like winter weather with the ice making things not so pleasant.  But winter is here.

The first expenditure will be a snow blower.  I knew if the Rooster had to shovel the walk it would move to the top of the list!  ;^)

But we also need to get easily out to the chickens and plunging through snow drifts doesn't have the attraction it once had!  lol

It is time to put away the pumpkins and ...

 bring out the snowmen!

It is time to rev up Nina and get some quilting done.

It is time to dream and plan and get the whole house renovation started.

So a little time for sipping and planning and then ...

Monday will be motivating.

Surely not yet!

Altered Book Lover has done a fabulous tutorial on Magazine Images and Frames.

                                    

My theme book is Leaves and I wanted to do the winter section where the leaves are either dried up and blown away or are evergreen.  This page is just frost on meadow grass and a few dried weeds.  The tape makes a partial frame.

This is a typical prairie winter- snow with a few leafless branches. Again, these are as far as I've been inspired and I'll probably add some more.

The colour of the evergreens is pretty much covered with thick snow but then there is always the decorative aspect!  I'd like to add a big gold circle to repeat the wreath shape and frame it.

The first two pages will be tipped in to the book.  The blue strip is the back half of the two pages that were cut to hold the tip-in in its place.  I'll glue all the tip-ins when the book is finished.

This 2 page spread is just shown with different lighting and an image I haven't quite figured how to incorporate.

I gpt inspired and meant to put the large round tree cut in a circle on the left blue page but I had a brain stall!  Oh, well, perhaps I'll find something better for the blue page. vbsigh  I used markers to make a thin frame.

That should hold winter for a while.  Now back to summer!

In the beginning...

First there was a void and then the light bulb came on!  Aha, "now I see",  says the blind man.

So a first thing to do is clean the clutter and open things up and let the sun shine in.

Next is to grab the new calendar and start getting things into manageable bites.   1 year, 52 weeks, 12 months, 4 seasons.  Ooooh,  that is almost 12 weeks per season. I knew 12 was a good idea!

 
It is fitting that we start with the land at rest.  Winter's first day was on Dec. 22  but I have a few extra weeks left over from  my guzinta's. That is,  4 will guzinta 52  twelve times and some.  
It is a low light time and I'm hoping the January starting gun gives the slower body rhythm a jump start.  This is no time to burrow under the hibernation quilts.

The winter decor is at its most traditional and most cluttered with cozy quilts within reach, books stacked and leaning crazily, candles dripping and hot cups within arms reach.  I luv the richness of the colours and textures that winter evokes.  Plush velvets,  deep cranberry, shiny gold (brass) and sparkling crystal.  I found 3 small runners ready for MQing.  To tweak the decor I added some clear snow flakes and clear drops.

Decorating is not the focus for this season but I did get the Rooster to put together an off white (winter white?) wardrobe for the bathroom.  It was on sale at Canadian Tire and I'm really liking what I got for the price.  I do collect white dishes- pitchers, soup tureen's, bowls, STUFF!  ;^)  This winter white wardrobe is making me think ahead to the kitchen and what colour the inside of the thrift shop hutch top should be since the cupboards will likely be a creamy mellow yellow.  I do need time to consider things because I'm getting kinda tired of redoing things.  :0

I will not be talking about food but in order to be moving instead of musing I need to eat better.  And drink more water which means less coffee.  vbsigh  But that'll translate into more productivity.

The spotlight for the next 12 weeks will be Threads.  I will also be using Nina's manual a lot and wouldn't you know it I see all kinds of opportunities to join all sorts of things to enhance my Focus. Who knew?  They all would help but I'm afraid I'd sink under all the deadlines, fun would flee and I'd not have fine tuned my skills.  Sew...

My main book will be Threads- The Basic and Beyond by Debbie Bates and Liz Kettle who have a site where you can join others to work through the book. That would be a resource if I had a question but I must remember not to type or cruise sites but stitch and stay focused.   I've somewhat divided up the table of contents.  Depending on time and expertise, I may add some of the books that I have that relate to the various sections.  Intro tomorrow and some seriously fun fiber optics!

I'm starting to see the light!

Finding Things

I keep forgetting about this project. It survives my purges. It was a mystery quilt that has to be at least 15 years old. I liked the colours, the block but then I lost steam at the finish. I now know it is because I really don't like borders and this was requiring the typical thin border and then the big strip of wide theme fabric to finish it off. I lost heart.

Time to review my options.

1) It still has an appealing colour scheme and the traditional blocks and colours go well with the winter theme for the dining room. It can hang behind the black stove. Heck, it actually fits in a lot of my rooms.

2) I can stop and use the diagonal squares as the border and use a red binding.

3) Leftovers can be assigned to place mats.

4) I can set the 19 (???) in an entirely different setting. I have adequate fabric as it is mostly scrappy. For every colour I needed I used dozens of variations except for my theme fabric which has leaves and fruit.

What would tradition with a twist look like?