Busy Busy...

While Dave has been kept busy with the yard, research and writing, I've actually gotten stuff done in the studio.

At the DAFA art swap (see 6/30 post), it was apparent that Lu was going to get her own piece back and before it actually happened, I said I would do a piece to trade (I've always wanted some of her artwork!).  

Since Lu's house is decorated in Asian motifs (and looks like something that just jumped off the pages of Architectural Digest), I wanted to be sure my piece was worthy to hang in her house! The Asian fabric sitting on top of the pile in my studio inspired me to fussy-cut two of the flat printed motifs and fuse them to commercial fake over-dyed fabric, adding the ribbon at the same time. I then hand-embroidered the details of the motifs, machine-quilted the background and added the pearl button from my stash.  The entire thing is mounted on a stretched canvas I had painted red.

"Lu's Barter", 5"x5" 2016 J. Appleton

Detail:

I'm proud of how the piece came out and I hope she enjoys it.

A few weeks ago, at TAQG Rally Day (see 7/9 post), we received goodie bags that, among other things, contained some pre-cut fabric (strips and squares). So I challenged myself to use them all.  First, I sewed all of the strips into a jelly roll and stacked the squares.

I made log cabin-style squares around each of the precut squares with the precut strips, then cut each of those squares in half and rejoined non-matching halves; Then rotated and cut those squares in half and rejoined non-matching halves.  Giving me a stack of nice, random-looking pieced squares.

I then picked up one of the squares, cut some felt for batting, and machine-quilted the entire square.

After that, since few of any of the materials had any real cohesiveness, I took some Setacolor yellow paint, watered it down and covered the square (there is no such thing as ugly fabric...).

still wet

dry

I think I'm going to quilt and paint a few more squares before deciding what to do with them and cutting them to size.

Also a few weeks ago, one of the elm trees in our side yard was hit by lightning and some of the branches had died.

 But, in hopes that the tree can be saved, we called Daniel to come cut off the dead parts.

He was, of course, heavily supervised by Mr. Raider (from the front window).

We'll know in a couple of months if the tree itself will survive.

At least we feel like we've given it a better chance.

And today I put together a couple of workshop "to go" kits.  At the DAFA meeting each month, we have a small workshop before the actual meeting and we usually need to bring scissors or some other "regular" supplies.  Using two travel mugs (the UT one is too heavy for me when it's full and the Vegas one was beginning to leak), I glued small pincushions to the underside of the lids and then included items I would keep in any sewing kit:

So now there is one for each car.  I even made nametags and put them in each one, so I don't have to remember to take one to the meetings.

And I'm almost finished with scrapbooks.  Down to the last three and all of them are virtual.  Hope to be done with all of them by the end of the year.  It's not easy sorting 1000s of pictures!

And at some point, I need to start cleaning my studio (again).   Guess I'll be busy for a while...

Korean Lunch

Earlier this week I met my friend Haidee for lunch. She's more adventurous regarding food than most of my other friends, so I asked to go to the Korean BBQ.

It was a flat-rate all-you-can-eat buffet (no takeaway leftovers) and the selection was nicely varied. You pick up the raw meat you want and cook it at the table (that's a grill you see in the middle of the table).

 I tried everything that wasn't marked spicy and liked most of it and actually loved a couple of dishes.

The Peanut Sweet Chicken and the pumpkin porridge was well worth returning for, and I even liked the seaweed salad.

Afterwards, Haidee came back to the house and we visited for awhile...

She's moving to Pennsylvania, so I'm glad we got to visit before she left!

Now - back to the studio...

June Workshop

Fortunately, I was able to take a workshop with Carolyn Skei in June - it was a lot of fun and I ended up with a piece that I really like.  Of course, I didn't finish it that day, but now that I have, I thought I'd share it.

we started out with a blank canvas
and an old Encyclopedia Britanica

and I was ready for action!

Carolyn demonstrated some things 
you could do with the techniques

and then demonstrated the steps to make our pieces

I was fortunate to find pages in the encyclopedia 
that contained heraldry for the back of the piece 
so Dave would know I was thinking about him!

It was fun sharing the table with Lu

I think it turned out really cute!

I really like the picture of us that I used

and I managed to preserve the heraldry on the back

On the way back to the car, I was able to enjoy the garden that was attached to the workshop site - it was beginning to fade, but there was still beauty to enjoy!

Another fun day with good friends!

TAQG Rally Day 2016

Had a great time volunteering at the Texas Association of Quilt Guilds Rally Day! Got to visit with friends, help hand out door prizes and listen to presentations by Kimberly Einmo.

Here I am with the mini-quilt (the fish) I made for the silent auction (I'm pleased to say it went for $57)...

The auction made over $2,500 and I had to keep my hands firmly in my apron pockets to keep from bidding on some of them (the goal is getting things out of the house, not into it)!

This pic is while they were setting up - you can see some of the great minis there were - bidding went right up to the last minute!

The attendance was over 500 -

Kimberly Einmo is a great speaker - her morning presentation was about using Jelly Rolls and Precuts with a lot of stories and slides.

and she had a trunk show of her quilts, again with really funny stories, in the afternoon...

She also has Craftsy classes and a website and if I were at all interested in doing more traditional quilts, I would buy all of her books.

All in all, a good day!

Happy 4th!