Wildlife

Last Sunday, we had a second birthday celebration for Vincent at the Noodlemans. Sun, swimming, running with the dogs, good food too, of course. We saw this critter in the carport.
  On Thursday, I met with the people who are putting together a fun project for a local extended stay house.  More on that at a later date--with photos.
  This week I will be finishing the wedding dress and gearing up for more graduation dresses.
AND Project Runway starts on Thursday evening!!!! Yah!!
 

Back to the grind

Vincent was here for 17 wonderful days. He celebrated his birthday twice and ran us all ragged. I already miss him, but need to get back to some serious income generating.
  I have a couple of projects coming down the pipeline that are giving me a more positive outlook on the future. One of them could be a big change that would propel me in a new direction. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it all works out to the benefit of my good friends as well as myself.
   I found time to work on a few art quilts that were banging around in my head looking for a way out. I am pleased with them, for the most part, as they have added to the pleasant feelings I've had with Vincent's visit.  Not that I'm dancing amongst the unicorns in a field of flowers with rainbows overhead. There are emotional setbacks, but I'm learning to move on and get my life under control. (TMI??) So I must focus on the positive prospects on the horizon.

Vincent's birthday cake(s)--yummy

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my baby boy today!!

Summer Holiday

running with a sparkler--fun!

The Fourth of July was great. Spent Sunday with my brother and sister in law, bought fireworks on the way home from there and blew them up with the neighbors here Monday evening. Vincent, my grandson has been here since last week and that is a very good thing. His birthday is Sunday and I hope he gets to stay till then.

Other quilt stuff

The outgoing president of the guild can request blocks to be made by the members and I usually try to comply since being president is a labor of love and it takes a real woman to step up to the challenge.
The most recent past prez wanted tulip blocks and was graciously accommodated by the web mistress in her request with a pattern to be paper pieced. My hair stood on end at the thought since I am THE WORST paper piecer EVER!

looks pretty good

But duty called and I jumped right in without reading the instructions (not my strong suit either) and actually did a pretty good job. Thanks to Mrs. Smith for letting me copy her pattern, since my printer is broken (grrrrr). As it turned out, I used the proper colors, even though I had not read the instructions for color choices provided by the recipient of the blocks. whew! Notice that I sewed the side strips on with out the paper, because I knew I would screw up sooner or later with this block and did not want to push my luck.

Art Quilt

Since this blog was supposed to be about my adventures in art quilting, maybe I should share some recent work.
A couple of weeks ago I played around with the discharge paste on dark cotton fabrics. I had an idea for something with hands after seeing a post on one of my favorite blogs. Inspiration is out there in the world when you keep your eyes and mind open.

  Bravely, I ignored the warning on the jar of discharge paste to avoid prolonged contact with skin and painted my palms. Then I used them like stamps on the black and navy fabrics. After the paste dried, I ironed according to instructions (I did wash my hands right away between these steps) and was very pleased with the results. There are two small wall hangings so far and others are floating in my head right now begging to be created.