Interpret This!

You are invited to follow along with myself and 10 other quilt artists. Watch through the blog where we will be documenting this yearlong challenge each month. Artists will be asked to interpret a photo with fabric and threads. Each month the finished work will be shared with comments from the artists and viewers. Click the link and watch the reveals!http://photothreads.blogspot.com/


Contributing artists are:

Barbara Strobel Lardon

Beena Singhal

Beverly Hart

Debra Spincic

Jdemilo

Karen Christensen

Kay Scheidt

Kim Cambell

Libby Fife

Nellie Durand

Rian Ammerman

So much to post about!! A special meeting with a fellow blogger, a new group blog, a finished Girlfriends page, and more! I will do this in bits. Today I just want to thank everyone who reads my blog. Thank you! And a special THANKS to those who leave a comment here and there. It just makes my day to see some feed back. Tomorrow will be the start of a new year. I don't make resolutions but each flip from the old calendar to the new always feels so special. A new start a fresh outlook. A time to reflect and pause on where one is and where one wants to be heading. With wishes for everyone to be healthy and happy in this next year!

The chores are done, The gifts unwrapped, The food cooking away..
Put away the snow shovel. Gather up your wits...

Prepare to be blasted with snow!!!

But most of all just enjoy the beauty around us. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.

the finished pillows

took a quick photo before stuffing them into a box to send them on the way.
Looks like we are having a white Christmas here. At least thus far. It may rain later and turn all this into a mushy slippery mess. Tis the season...fa la la la la .....

season of busy

It is December. A birthday month for me. It is a month of busy. It is dark too soon . It is light too late. It is a month of two full moons....
We all have much to do. Holidays. I love the festive lights. The songs of the season. There is much I simply enjoy about this time of year. I will not dwell on the negative.

I find time to stitch a bit here and there on this and that. Snow fell. It looks so serene in the early dawn light. It is raining now, more snow to come...

Once in a blue moon I find time for a blog post...

Girlfriends page done!

Bad photo but since I nearly sent this off before photographing it tis better then nothing! This one is for Cathie's book. http://www.clevelandgirlie.blogspot.com/ I had the toughest time with this as she had a request to use a quote we liked and go from there...I don't have favorite quotes. Its not that I don't think them worthy, I just rarely remember them. But, I love music and when listening to the radio the John Lennon song was playing and I just really liked the line " We all shine on, like the stars and the moon and the sun" So that line fostered this page. Everyone shines in some way.

I talk to myself when I stitch

Do you talk out loud as you stitch? Even when there is no one else around? I do. And here is a sampling of the mutterings uttered while working on the pillows and baby quilt...

mistakes are a learning experience.mistakes ARE a learning experience....I am learning waaay to much...
RIGHT sides together dammitt....
uh oh.....cut the wrong edge...
that wont be noticeable...
RATS, it sticks out like a fur coat in august...
where did I stick that needle...
How did THAT happen?
the ruler must be off...
OW! found the needle, good idea putting it in my foot....
expletives deleted..
It is relaxing, its just that this one part is a bit off....a teeny tiny bit...off...wheres my needle again..( this last said to husband when he questioned my claim of stitching relaxes me)

Photos coming as soon as I get home when it is light enough out to take them!

pondering

copying..or influence.. My current work in progress, well one of the three anyway, has me shy to show it as it is similar in some ways to an artists work I much admire. No, it is not a copy. There are marked differences. It is the subject matter. That being one that I closely associate with her work. I drew the design with no thought to her work conscious in my mind, played with it for days, committed it to cloth and fiddled and fuddled with it. Now I look at it and see the influences. Is it my work? Did I unconsciously copy?? Yikes! I know I drew it, started stitching etc. Is it 'mine' enough to really be mine? I know it is but the question niggles at me and has me insecure about this one. I look at it anew. No it is different. the similarities are in materials and subject matter . I am sure there is influence here in my approach to the workings of it. I will send a post to my influential artist to see what she thinks. ...In a cosmic coincidence as I was pondering all this I see Arlee has posted a similar bit about this sort of thing on her blog. http://arleebarr.squarespace.com/designjournal/2009/12/1/etheror-an-interim-post.html I wonder if we all face this from time to time. Especially when attempting something a bit out of our usual realm. What do you think?