A friend just reminded me that she hadn’t seen any updates on my website for a while which means I’ve been really busy with quilt projects, Stitch Camp, grandkids and life! This month, I’ve been gearing up for a new class I’ll be teaching in April: Artistic Quilted Jackets. How many ways can one convert a basic jacket pattern into something that says a lot about themself. Whether it will be painted on denim, patched like the Dolce&Gabbana fashions, demos an explosion of free motion quilting or has a carefully integrated panel design with embellishments, it will be fun to see the results! This will be a trial preliminary set of workshops dealing with fitting the pattern to each participant with the sizes ranging from “Awesome, Bodacious, Curvaceous, to Diva and Fabulous”. After all, who wants to be known by their actual size? Most people will be using a mixture of sizes to create a final sloper that fits them perfectly with adjustments for length and ease. After the fitting, they will be designing the looks of the jacket and wrapping it all up with a third gathering at a restaurant for fun, food, and “show and tell”. (Saturday, April 2 from 9-12, Saturday April 9 from 9-12 and Saturday, April 23 from 11:00-?) Location TBD and Cost: $15.00 to cover supplies used to create pattern/base of jacket. After “tweaking” the class, it will be offered through the Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild later this year or early 2023. (Limit: 6 participants initially)

Normally I would be posting art quilt projects here but this year, to end out a most unusual time in our lives, I would like to share a video of our family. We love seeing all your photos in cards and thought a short clip of our crew including the wiggles and giggles might be fun as they each share their gift to you this Christmas. We had just finished Thanksgiving together when we made this and I think some were a bit preoccupied with foods. Ha ha. We’ve all been sticking pretty close to home base during this pandemic and, living really close to one another, we’ve been able to be with our kids and grandkids as they homeschool, work at home, etc. Jim and I continue to remodel this old River cottage and are enjoying getting lots accomplished. My art quilting is slowed down but should pick up after the holidays more so stay tuned!

And the 100day project continues with four more little art quilts. They’ve been fun to create as I start them quickly each morning then finish the handwork and embellishment in the evening. It’s been a surprisingly warm January and the start to February so the backgrounds have been in the blue ranges for a good while. No purple in sight!

Have been waiting for this day so I could start my projects and now, Day 1 little gem is finished and up on the design wall! Hooray!! Secret Places is the official theme so I thought I would do something with windows, windows in all kinds of habitats and houses. What do we see through them that frames a special spot? What do we see looking in that makes us wonder? Not content to do anything simple of course, I’m using 3” muslin squares that can be put into a quilt maybe in the end. Oh yes, and the background color is based on the low temperature for the preceding day. In the years to come, I’ll remember that January had lots of purples since these are used for subzero and lower teens. I thought the idea might be called “It Takes whole town to get through a Port Byron Winter”. Or a Midwest winter or a village . . . .
So,  for the first habitat, it ended up being a church with a stained glass window, bells, a cross and sitting on a hill. A good way to start the challenge. As a group, they should have lots of bright colors, uses of complementary hues, interesting imagery in the windows, lots of embellishments, some new embroidery stitches I haven’t tried before, new fabric combinations, mixed media, hand dyed fabrics and trims, photo images, or whatever hits me spontaneously that morning. So . . Here’s a picture of the first one.  Anyone have any ideas to try with this project? Always love to hear because coming up with 100 mini gems will be interesting and a stretch at times I’m sure.

Have to admit that creating art quilts has consumed me these last months (along with kid and grandkids activities, helping to remodel our fixer upper, etc) so house cleaning has taken a second place. But, check out these really fun small gems! Created with fabrics and glitter netting, embellished with buttons and tyvek beads or flowers, these are attached to painted 8×8” canvas  so much fun to create! Click on each piece and see my comments.

Several Canadian Geese couples are swimming outside in our backyard while the sun glistens on the swiftly moving Mississippi River. Yup! Flood season has arrived and we are gaining more waterfront  access than normal. The sandbags are in place at the lower doors, all benches and the woodpile are moved to higher ground and there’s not much to do but watch the water rise and sew.  Of course, did you think that my sewing machine would cool down this time of the year? It’s been pretty busy in the art studio as a Chinese baby quilt, a Floating Tile Quilt, several miscellaneous pieces, a slipcover for a couch and the Chocolate quilt shown here were under creation. I wanted to design a “count down” quilt from Ash Wednesday to Easter using chocolate in the 40 pockets  but it kept saying “Valentine’s Day” with the colors and how it evolved. Used a lovely chocolate candy base fabric underneath with a dark red tulle for the pockets. The idea was to “Be Kind and Love one another every day of this time. Funny thing . . .I realized that from Epiphany (The last day of the 12 days of Christmas, January 5/6, there are actually 40 days until Valentines Day too!) Guess I can use this for two time frames, can’t I? Notice the wrapped Easter Eggs in the last row . . . The grandkids keep wanting to eat them but I remind each that those are for Easter Week and they can only have one piece of Hersheys if they promise to doing something kind. I smile when I look at this artquilt because I think of the kids but also remember that I put some of the lace from when I made our oldest daughter’s wedding dress in it as well as the youngest daughters. Along with some antique lace from my stash, an extra pocket to hold more chocolate for kind deeds, and its a fun piece for my house these days.

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This month was just full of artful activities! December 1 had us hosting over 100 people as our home opened for the Traditions Christmas Tour of Homes. You can check out the slideshow with photos from it. With the house still being remodeled, it was fun to show before and after views but there’s still much to do. Jim and I had just returned from Williamsburg/Virginia Beach, Virginia for the opening of the Cherrywood Fabrics Prince exhibit (and an autograph session for the artists 😁) before Thanksgiving and then the Tour were upon us. Lots of doll clothes to sew, a quilt to create for Scott, a giant Christmas stocking and more…Jim kept busy laying foundation blocks for the new attached shed on the detached garage plus lots to do with the grandkids: concerts, programs, parties, etc.  next post, I’ll share more on the quilt projects.  For now, best wishes for a wonderful New Year to all of you!