Hello,

The flowers really seem to brighten my days  so I am sharing them with you too. Daffodil’s   really are so bright!  The sun shine we have been enjoying the last few days really pulls my spirits up.  The buds on the trees are starting to get really fat too so I am sure the young leaves will pop out in the near future.    This last week has been as full as they all seam to be for me.  Friday I went to the Turquoise Studio- that seems to have become a bit of a habit that I do enjoy.  I shaving cream printed a second layer on some of the work from earlier in the  week.  Every thing is all pressed and sorted in my “starter basket” now- ready to server as a jumping off point for a new quilt.   The same problem is still a part of me- more ideas then time.  But I will keep trying to master that.   Both Pat and Beth were at the studio  this week.  They are both working on pastels for a show that is coming at the beginning of next mouth.  Beth was working on her project upside down so she could really see the colors and shapes she needed to add to her work- that is why she ended up on the floor.

Progress Report:  Baby Quilt  This work is also coming along nicely.   I have not done a baby quilt in such a long time I sort of got carried away with the creatures.  I think it will fit the jungle theme of the nursery.    I enjoyed doing all the zig zag work even though it is very slow.   I did the  machine binding step yesterday and it will take about an hour plus  to do all the hand work to attach it to the back.  Then only the sleeve will remain and the off to wrapping and a new home.

West Window Quilt  This quilt is all done now.    I enjoy using up some of  the extra blocks that remain from Scrap Happy quilts in these projects.  Matching color is not an issue for me either so when I start the next one I will only keep the blocks and strips as unifying factors.    One down and three to go and this project will be complete.

Blue Bugs  This project is the result of two playful experiments.   I had read about putting paper on fabric with matt medium.  So I did that with a torn  dictionary page.  The text was too strong so I painted color on top to obscure the words.   The second experiment was the blue  turquoise and purple fabric- that has the bugs on it. (  More about that step later.)  That fabric was created from whipping up after other work and then scrunching the fabric  into a cup were I poured  a mixture of turquoise and water on top of the fabric and  into the cup.   That is why there are darks and lights in it.  Both fabrics have been shuffling from one pile to another for weeks when they ended up one on top of another.  They looked like they could work together so I started pulling fabric to go with them.  I ended up  seeing that it need  more light and my eye fell on some of the stamp printed fabric from earlier this year, so it got put into the mix as well.   When I started putting the bindings on I realized that the two big units needed some embellishing.  The work hung on the wall for several days until I was tiding up and one of my stencil notebooks fell out on the floor.  The book was open to the insect.   Problem solved!   I got excited by the insect stencil and drew two more- both too large to use here.   They will appear in another work.

Three Pooka   This is the last work played with this week.  It grew out of that  Starter Basket that I mentioned before.  I had spilled it and was putting things back. I selected figures for  this piece first.  I stenciled them about four years ago.  I had been to a Donna’s Creativity Retreat  and I was experimenting.   All the others that I had created had long gone into pieces.  These three were weak by comparison until I got out the squeezie paint and added hand drawing detail to them.   The canvas- the two big blue green rectangles,  are also very old-from a class I took with Elizabeth Bush  over ten years ago.  They seemed to go together too- so I was off and running in a new direction.  It is spray basted and all ready for quilting.  I will start with stitch in the ditch and then do free motion around the pooka’s.  The  last bit of quilting will be to “draw” pooka in the canvas areas in thread.

I hope spring is filling everyone’s heart.

Keep Creating

Carol