Hello,
It seems like this time of year one tends to do a bit of clean out and reevaluation. I found lots of my friends using what they had to make new work this month.
I spent my Saturday last week working as a part of the Bed for Kids project here in town. Sadly there are many children in our community who do not have beds. So this group is working on bedding as a part of the goal to meet this need. I started this quilt and the top is almost complete now. It is made of a project that was passed to me. Many other women worked on creating pillow cases. Girl Scouts and a girls basketball team also showed up and created polar fleece no sew blankets. It was a lively and fun project to be a part of. I also contributed 13 quilts to this worthy project.
Both of the groups that I belong to meant on Tues. At QuEG’s , Sue Ellen showed up this top that she created as she tries to work down her stash. 
Dori is doing hand work on this witches hat to use up some of her trims. 
Victoria is also using up available materials. She is cutting up all her angora sweaters that have small wholes and making a throw with them. 
Susan is going through her scrap bag and building units with raw edge applique and embroidery. She has also set the limit of using red and turquoise as her main colors for this pursute. I think limiting like that can make one be very creative with other tools. 
Liz continues to happily quilt away on her school days piece. 
And Sally is making cards with one of her new sewing machine patterns. She is also experimenting with water soluble colored pencils that she had on hand. I like the directions she is exploring.
At Diva’s, Alice shared her new series. She is experimenting with India ink painting on fabric. To good effect I would say. 
Regina in her wonderful way completed this indigo piece this month. She really challenges herself I think. Both meetings were full of inspiring talk and interesting works. I came home all fired up again.
Progress Report: Forest Flock This quilt is 39” w X 35”l. I have been enjoying doing the thread painting of birds for a while and this time I tried doing them for a quilt. 
It is a bit different type of approach for me but I like to mix my techniques. 
The more I play with this process the more I seem to enjoy it. I keep learning little things with each attempt too. With these birds, I explored not only using the the two layers of wash away but a layer of nylon netting in the middle. I had noticed that the shapes I had created before could easily be distorted in the pinning and drying stage. The nylon net seemed to make the work more solid and helps to avoid that distortion problem. Now there may be a time when that is undesirable desirable
but now the nylon netting really helps maintain the shapes that I am building.
Sandpipers The birds are attached to the shore now and I am doing some intense looking as I am not really happy with the appearance of this composition. It seems to need something in addition. I will study it over the course of the next few weeks and hope that I can find a solution that I am happy with.
3X3 This is blao B-3. The third block in row b. I finished it for the most part and placed block C-3 next to it so I could make connections.
Pressing and a little more work should do the trick. The I went ahead and worked on block C-3.
I have been putting in about an hour every day on this project. 
Label Cards: Tied Up This week I realized how I get myself in worry knots about nonsense. Being away from the studio and such helped me get a better perspective. I hope I can continue to recognize the unimportant things and let them go.
Color Wonder 
In this gray time of year I am always surprised by a sudden splash of color. I could not get the pink nose of my a friends dog’s nose out of my mind so I made this card to remind myself to look with care at the world around me.
This woodcut block was also a part of the show.
