12/30/17

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2017


The last quarter of the year was light, mainly due to minor illness, but we managed to have good times.

October 2nd was our 24th anniversay, so we celebrated on the 5th at the Texas State Fair!
Dave had a great shirt to wear!
You can, of course, get almost anything fried at the food vendors!
It was nice seeing Fair Park all clean and spruced up
The arts & craft section is visually over-stimulating, but you can see beautiful handwork and that's where they keep the butter sculpture...
There is also too much to see outside of the buildings as well...
Creepy Big Tex - I think he gets creepier every year...
The midway is bright and loud
and there are pirates...
and wizards!
It was a great time!

On the 21st, Blaine was in the area and we met for dinner -

NOVEMBER -

Very little got done in November (due to illness) but we had a nice quiet Thanksgiving and the DAFA meeting was fun with our UUUGGGLY Holiday Outfit competition.

DECEMBER -

We mostly ran errands and I had doctor appointments and we are getting ready for the kitchen remodel in 2018.  Again - nice quiet Christmas -
and we're looking forward to a nice quiet NYE.

We are blessed and grateful for our lives, our family, and our home.

10/1/17

SEPTEMBER 2017

Started the month off right by catching up with a former Blue Cross co-worker...Jerrie and I hadn't seen each other for 30 years!  It was wonderful to see her again!

Then, of course, on the first Thursday, I joined my friends at Quilt Guild to hear Frieda Anderson - she was entertaining and so talented! Click on her name to go to her website, it's worth the time.

The following weekend we went with friends to see Shiloh Rules, a play about Civil War reenactors - amateur, but relevant to today's current issues regarding the conflict...

The 13th was Dave's birthday - we started out at IHop and then went home and watched whatever movies he wanted to see for the rest of the day - no working on projects!

On the 15th, I went with Reid to the Stitches Texas show - fiber and accessories - the budget took a hit at this one! We had a great time shopping and talking to the vendors.
The next week, Dave built me more shelves in my studio - I realized I had boxes of fat quarters that hadn't seen the light of day in months (maybe years), so I needed to get them out and in front of my face...there's a bench in my studio that can't come out because it encloses duct work and there are doors there into the crawl space over the bedroom, so we couldn't block them...so he built the shelves around the doors and on the bench:
Cool, huh?
And as you can see, I NEEDED them...
I love them! and the top shelf holds a small collection of stuff (not looking to have more, so this is sufficient).

Toward the end of the month we were lucky to get Norm over to help Dave replace 1/2 the fence - it took two days and looks so good, the rest of the fence looks downright dowdy...but replacing the other half will have to wait a while!

Art for the month:
Finished up three more flower bags from the Omiyage book:





Looking forward to October!

9/1/17

AUGUST 2017

It was an art-filled month for me!

On the 3rd, the Dallas Quilt Guild hosted Gyleen Fitzgerald (her website here) - she now presents as a Modern Quilter, but, to me, she's a Traditional-With-A-Twist kind of quilter. Her stuff is marvelous, of course, and her presentation had us in stitches (as it were - did you see what I did there? get it? stitches...).  The phone pics are a little pixilated but you get an idea of the quilt...the two more-solid pics were taken after the presentation with several of her quilts on a table...

Dave's had fun with glasses this month:
his new half-glasses for working at the computer
Just the facts, ma'am.
 On the 12th was the Plano Quilt Show, where I ran into Denise, Carol, and Carolyn.  It was nice seeing the show with friends!

Afterwards, we went to Carolyn's house and celebrated Denise's birthday.

Dave has still been taking pictures from his office window - I found this FB post very funny and true!
On the 19th, I joined a group of SAQA members at the Dallas Museum of Art for the Iris Van Herpen  Transforming Fashion exhibit (her website).  It was more sculpture than fashion (to me) because in these originals no one could even sit down! I have noticed on the internet, however, that commercial versions of some of them have been produced (in cottons and polyesters, no less). These are only three pieces (of 46) from the exhibit (we are talking plastic, 3D printing and metal, people!)
We then went to Lark in the Park for brunch - honestly - best Eggs Benedict I have ever had!
Toasted English Muffin, Avocado, Tomato, Eggs
served with potatoes
On the 21st, the eclipse was fun (we only got about 85% coverage) - the leaves on our Oak tree acted like pinhole cameras!

On the 24th I went to Arlington for the Sew Expo which was combined with a Quilt Show from 6 guilds - My favorite quilt was the Dear Jane by Susan Alotto - it only took her 13 years to make it!

My Art for the month (I was very productive!):

I felt like doing more handwork this month, so I selected this book from my shelf:
It is fun working my way through, and while I'm not sure what to do with them yet (except the shell pincushion), I look forward to making more projects from the book.
small gift bag
small gift bag
small bag (fish is a small pocket)
small gift bag
temari ball
front and back of seashell pincushion:

front and back of small (might hold a bracelet) gift bag:
Also made a little bag out of some scrap lace that my friend Jules dyed:
and notecards for CC Young to use (DAFA community project) - made a lot more than this, but took these pictures so I would have a ready reference if I wanted to do more...