Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
26 April 2024
19 January 2024
18 January 2024
Ta da!
The ugliest digital quilt I've ever created is done! Boy, it felt good to be done with this one. I stuck with it the entire year and finished it even though I didn't like it. The layout isn't so bad, but I really dislike the color scheme. So I will be altering my stash of fabric charm squares; I will NOT make this quilt with real fabric using this color scheme. So, so thankful I did a mockup rather than ruin my beloved leftover charm squares!!!
I'm trying a different digital layout with the same color scheme to see if that will make a difference. I'm also trying a new digital color scheme because I like the way my 2023 crochet temperature project turned out. But I think I've already learned I cannot make a daily fabric temperature quilt until I retire. I've got plenty of breathing room before I dig into the charm squares. And I'll probably be adding more to the stash as I get started sewing and quilting again... Yes. It WILL happen!
Speaking of my 2023 crochet temperature project... also done!!! Yay! Yay! Yay! It's my most favorite crocheted project ever. While I was using the pinks for hot weather, I began to not like the project or the color I'd chosen for the hot temperatures. Once I got back into cool temperatures, the pinks really began to grow on me. One of my dear friends, Mrs. Micawber, commented it looks like the Northern Lights, and that really turned my attitude around. I love this work of art so very much now!
This is just the most beautiful thing! I guess it will be a wrap; but as long as I don't do anything to it, I can change my mind at any time and use it for a different purpose. I'm certain it will be quite versatile. It probably get used in lots of photography!
And my digital snowflake temperature quilt... Ta da!!! I DO want to piece, appliqué and quilt a fabric version of this some day (with real crocheted snowflakes). I love my digital snowflake temperature quilt more than words can say. This might be one of the first things I begin quilting again when I finally get to crank up the sewing machine again. I've printed 11 of the 12 segments via Spoonflower, and I don't need the last segment to get started. I will need it to finish. But I can play to my heart's content until then. Boy, do I ever have some ideas for the fat quarter remnants!
01 November 2023
09 March 2023
Mercury Rising
I had planned to stop three of my digital temperature quilts the day I finished the January/February segments because I've become bored with them. I was exploring color palettes so I could engage in a genuine fabric temperature quilt next year, and I wanted to make sure I loved the color scheme I chose so I could stick with it all year.
Less than halfway into the project, I wasn't that impressed with any of the three HST versions. Yet, in all likelihood, HSTs are exactly how I'd piece my first real temperature quilt.
The January/February digital segments were finished earlier this week, and I initially was relieved because I don't have to do them anymore.
The following day, I found myself creating new HST templates to do it all over again because I'm still curious how warmer months will look.
brand new color scale for March
I have two fabric options next year if I decide to pursue this in real life. One is my beloved batik fat quarters...
And the second is a scrappy collection of leftover charm squares (and charm squares I've cut from scraps) I've been organizing since December. I based my new March digital HST temperature quilt on this color scheme.
I really do want to have an idea of how both of these fabric collections will look if I commit to a real fabric temperature quilt. So I'm continuing onward with digital mockups to make sure I can live with the color scheme I ultimately select. One of the things I'm learning from my digital expriment is that I like snaking rows much better than monthly or bi-monthly segments.
I'm also loving my spiral HST digital temperature quilt. It starts in the center and snakes around and around clockwise through last Tuesday.
I may stick with the snaking rows, though, because that's what I'm doing with my 2023 crochet temperature project, which incorporates my own hand-dyed threads. I'm snaking the rows back and forth because I liked the digital mockup so much.
I'm SO in love with how it's turning out! I cannot wait to make each new day's motif!
Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.
28 May 2021
09 March 2021
Snowcatcher Mountains
I neglected to take a "before" photo, so I can't really show in detail why I built a mountain range, but I built my very own mountain range with our leftover flagstone!
The builders did not amend the soil in our neighborhood before building homes. The homes are built on clay. The front and back yards of each home (unless homeowners have amended) are clay. We have replaced about 18 inches of the clay in our front yard, and last year I terraced the steepest part of our backyard and coated it with dirt, landscape fabric, rocks and/or sand to prevent our basement from flooding. Mission so far accomplished!!! We have experienced no window well leaks since the dirt for the terraces was placed!
The back of the house had about a one-foot overhang, which my father-in-law said is often done to add square footage to (and thereby raise the price of) a home. That little overhang made a great hideout for snakes and skunks and other undesirable backyard pets. My neighbors helped me fill that overhang as best we could last fall with rocks. No critters can live in there anymore.
The porch on the front of the house has been slowly separating from the ground ever since we moved here. One evening, our neighbors informed us they saw something make a mad dash into that dark gap. They couldn't tell what it was, and it may have been just a bunny, but it put us on alert that we needed to act once again.
Many of our neighbors have dealt with this problem (the porch separating from the ground) by adding a wall of bricks, either curved or rectangular, around the front section of their porches, then filling the wall-to-porch opening with soil and flowers or xeriscaping. I thinned out my irises last year and shared them with neighbors who built such garden "boxes."
Some neighbors have piled rocks across their openings. A few are like us and haven't fixed the problem yet.
I had a bit of flagstone left over from my backyard project, which actually isn't done yet, but I can't do too much more on it until the rock shop opens on weekends again or until winter is mostly over. I decided the odd shapes of the remaining flagstone would make a great mountain range across our porch gap.
One day, we will have the driveway, steps and porch re-poured or stabilized because they need it. There are many home repairs awaiting our attention. They will happen as we can finish them. For now, I'm so tickled red rock with my newest artwork!
16 February 2021
Feeding America
For many years, the company for which I work has offered a monthly charity jeans day. All employees vote for 12 charities to receive the donations, and once a month, we donate $5 for the privilege of wearing jeans to work.
Last year, and so far this year, we aren't in the office. We've been encouraged to donate to the charity of our choice each month independently. But it just wasn't the same.
Late last year, the company came up with a new charitable challenge to help food banks during their leanest time of year. All employees were encouraged to get outside a few times a week from Thanksgiving to Christmas and to share stories and pictures of healthy actitivies. The (nationwide) company would make a $25 charitable contribution to Feeding America on behalf of each of us who participated.
Lizard and I walked outside every day we could, when it wasn't too icy for him. Not only did we feel good about doing something good for us, but we knew what we were doing would help feed others in need. Plus, I could see the tiny progress Lizard was making on relearning to walk every time we went out.
We recently learned the company made a $5,700 contribution to Feeding America at Christmas. Things were pretty lean for us last year, so we weren't able to do as much charitable work or make as many charitable contributions as we typically do in better times. I'm so thankful to work for a company that gives us options that allow us to do things for others, even when it's difficult to do even for ourselves. I'm also very grateful to still have a job. I know there are many who do not have that luxury. I'm glad we were able to help out in a small way!
23 November 2020
20 November 2020
24 September 2020
The Best Things
Some people have come up with some of their best work during the turmoil of 2020.
The Great Wisconsin (virtual) Quilt Show
Minnesota State Fair Virtual Cookie Decorating Exhibit
Minnesota State Fair Virtual Quilt on a Stick Exhibit
Minnesota State Fair Virtual Crop Art Exhibit
New Mexico (virtual) State Fair Cake Decorating
Colorado (virtual) State Fair exhibits
02 June 2020
Ninja Squirrels & Renegade Mice
If I was creative enough, I wouldn't mind doing this for the squirrels that raid my bird feeders!!! I'll be trying walnuts to go along with the corn cobs I put out specifically for them.
The mice, however, are quite another story. I don't want them in my garden, in my yard, under my house or, heaven forbid, in my house! Nothing I was doing had long-term effect. I decided to get serious about cats.
One of my favorite kitties of the past, Banzai
I submitted kitten adoption applications to two different agencies. I knew kittens would not be effective mousers for perhaps a year or more, but I figured I could get lots of great photos between now and then, plus, purrballs would put adventure back into knitting and crocheting, right?!?
I thought perhaps I can just learn to co-exist with the mice until the future kittens grow into finicky human owners. Then another dahlia bulb disappeared. Grrr!
At wit's end, I was ready to dig up the entire raised-bed flower garden and move it far from the birdfeeder. Then the doorbell rang. Door-to-door sales people are not supposed to be in our neighborhood, but I suppose the pest control company knew my neighborhood was fed up with the mouse/wasp problems we've been suffering the last few years.
For the record, I don't mind the wasps at all. We have not had very many bees in the last two to three years, and wasps are good pollinators. Our wasps are not aggressive and pretty much leave us alone. So I didn't ask for high-traffic wasp areas to be treated.
Mice, again, are quite another story. I have wanted to avoid doing anything inhumane, but I also don't want to contribute to hantavirus risk. This one is every bit as nasty as what's currently plaguing our world, and mice are carriers. Colorado has experienced 116 cases of hantavirus since 1993. Back in about 2016, the husband of one of my co-workers, who both also live in a rural area as we do, contracted the hantavirus. He survived, but was very sick for a very long time. So I'm just a bit oversensitive to potential. Plus, I like my flower garden. I don't appreciate mice or bunnies eating my bulbs!!!
It's now been a week since the pest control guys did their stuff. I saw one mouse in the raised-bed garden the day after treatment. I've seen no mice or signs of mice since then.
I'm still thinking about getting kittens. I've missed having cats!
My Three Kitties in the 80s
28 May 2020
Still Green After All These Years
I got SO excited about this scrappy quilt-as-you-go project I started last week to use up the tiny green batik pieces leftover from my still-not-finished green batik leftovers dress, I haven't finished the dress!!! In fact, I haven't touched the dress since the second block from this new WIP!
This project is teaching me I really like using up scraps as I go, as opposed to pulling scraps from a box. I'm using up small batting remnants that have hung around for years. I've re-learned I crave designing as I go. And this project is teaching me that I can make time for quilting, even when I have no time. When a project is this much fun, it's hard not to put other tasks aside!
Every time I'm forced to pull away from my sewing machine right now, I can't wait to get back to it. I needed sewing, piecing and quilting to be this much fun again.
When I began the first block, I was trying to figure out why I had so many solid green Kona leftovers. It took me a few ticker-tape pieces to remember the rainbow quilt I put together because I had so many colors of the rainbow.
After cutting the first two solid green blocks, I came across a solid green I wanted to use that wasn't quilt wide enough. I decided to incorporate one of the tiny scrap stash-burners I learned from Crazy Mom Quilts. I had clippings from the skirt of the dress that started this journey that would be perfect for a birch tree block.
I had a ton of little half-house shaped scraps leftover from the Dresden plate I'm appliquéing to the dress bodice.
I've always wanted to make a scrappy house/village quilt, and I thought these odd-shaped little pieces would be perfect.
I tried several different layout options, and I just really didn't like any of them. As I was putting the pieces away one last time, I realized I could create half-hearts from the half-houses with a few simple cuts, and then perhaps I could use up those scraps on this new, nifty quilt.
The resulting hearts are so inspiring, I might have to do another heart quilt!
Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.
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