Ready for Christmas

I have finished as much quilting as I am going to do today. I will likely not be posting any more actual sewing over Christmas but I shall not be silent or invisible. We are  HOPING for a visit from our daughter and son in law after Christmas so I was desperate to empty her room of the quilting stuff. I quilted all day and then started to clear up in that room. I hope to bake, decorate for Christmas and to do some more work on iPhoto and Photoshop so with any luck at all, I will post some of that stuff to show you.

I have been learning to make books, calendars and cards on iPhoto. Those cannot be posted on the internet but I have also been investigating a new App I recently learned of. It is called iBook Author, and I am hoping I will  soon be  making some little books to post online. They are supposed to be touch enabled so those of you with iPads should be able to read them . We shall see. I hope I have time to take one more One to One session on this so I can get started on it. Stay tuned , but do NOT put your Christmas prep on hold in anticipation ;-) 

As I have no new sewing to show, I decided to post some pictures of cards I made for Christmas last year. These were a ball to make and if anyone is interested how they are done, let me know and I will be glad to post directions.

I am going to post this on needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com  Enjoy the other posts here too !

I used these and other fibre arts experiments to make one of the two books I have made so far. 

One step forward, one step back!

The step forward is that I have actually started quilting the Layers project! Yay, me!

Starting at the centre on the base of an iris petal

Two petal bases now

As you see , it is not a LOT but it IS a start! Again, yay me! I have finally got a comfortable setup in the new space in the dining room so expect great progress now.

The step backwards is this. Those of you who have been here with me for a while will know how much I HATE that "Prove you're not a robot" thing and may recall my posting a little badge with that sentiment expressed clearly. Today, you will note that I have removed that thing! The reason, I am inundated by spam from ANONYMOUS! Anyone else hear from him/her/them??? The message is always gibberish but the return addresses smack of smut and WE ARE NOT AMUSED! I have not replied to any of them, naturally but now I wish I had the prove you're not a robot thing in place again. Anybody have any idea how to turn it back on? If you have, do tell  please because I am ready to succumb and ask you to use it. Why is it always the good folks like yourselves who have to suffer for the sake of eejits??? For those few of you who do legitimately use Anonymous as a sign in, please do not worry about signing in with your own name - even just a first name because I am just zapping Anon's "posts" without even paying attention to them any more. If I see the name "Anonymous", it is into the Spam folder , toot sweet!! :-)

All set to quilt :-)

Well, I am FINALLY ready to quilt this piece. I have commandeered the dining room table as my normal little cubby hole is too cramped for a bigger job like this.The quilt is layered, pinned and ready to go. I am still hoping to find some better colours of thread to use on it but what I have will get me started.

Here is the quilt all layered and pinned ready to go

And now, it is closer to the machine so I am ready to launch

Here is my little empire all nicely established in full view of the street. Mind you, the window badly needs cleaning so maybe no one will be able to see in! Gotta clean that before Christmas!

I will start tomorrow but before I can sew, I have another class at the Apple Store. I have had two sessions already this week on iPhoto and tomorrow is the last one of the series. Then, I will have a basis for deciding what I want to pursue in more depth. iPhoto is a nice little organization App. I use Photoshop for good editing but iPhoto helps me keep everything in order- well, MY sort of order:-)

Tomorrow's class is about using photos to create books, calendars, cards, slide shows etc. I am interested in the books particularly. My darling kids made a beautiful picture book for us several years ago of photos they took on a very cold, very snowy winter visit to us before they were married. Both of them are excellent photographers and the little book is a true treasure. I hope mine turns out as well.

I had meant to post this on WIP Wednesday but missed the time slot today. Too many irons in the fire! I guess it is getting to be time to knuckle down and do some work toward Christmas. Hmmm! That means stopping sewing, drawing, quilting... Well, a change will be as good as a rest- or so "They" say. BTW, I had my newest bed quilt quilted professionally - first ever that I have not done myself. It looks fabulous but I could not get the binding fabric here so have had to order it online from the US. As a result, it will not likely get finished by Christmas . Ah, well, it will be nice for the New Year!

Blue

I have been nearly living at the Apple store here in town , trying to learn how to work my new computer. What a jolly good time I am having. This week, it has been iPhoto week- a class Monday, one tomorrow (Wednesday) and the last, I hope , on Friday. I have also been dumping photos from old hard drives and editing them and saving them out to a Mac formatted drive so that eventually, they can all go back onto OTHER Mac formatted Hard Drives. I have been having FUNN!

Today, I was editing and discarding pictures I took a long time ago, trying to whittle them down to a manageable number and I came across these. I took them last summer . This is a flat disc of blue glass in the form of a little vase. I think maybe there were violets or Lily of the Valley in it and the light pouring through the glass, distorted by it made gorgeous patterns. Thought I'd share them with you. No reason except I love the colour and the shapes.

Enjoy- and don't forget to look at things close up!

New ideas

As I have been going through photos stored on my external Hard Drives, I have come across some dandies! I found this stunning red Iris that I took at the Royal Botanical Gardens one evening several years ago. I played around with the original picture in Photoshop and came up with a few crops that have now gone into my For Quilting file! It is a VERY full file! I think it could be fabulous- maybe not too huge , say 24 inches - 30 inches square ? Could be very Georgia O'Keefe! Watch out when the Layered one is finished- or nearing finished :-)

The original photo judiciously cropped to get rid of extra background

"Closer to" as my Gran used to say

I like this one a  LOT!

Like I said, keep watching this space. I need to replenish my stores of hand dyes. Reds and purples and yellows would be nice!

Here is Layers so far. Those of you who are trained to observe ( :-) ) will see that some chunks have been removed and replaced and some have been added to. More to do!

Soldiering on!

I am having a nasty TMJ attack today! I am in a lot of pain and cannot open my mouth very well ( DH is probably happy!- not really. He is VERY sympathetic.)I THINK it may be because of the 85% Lindt Chocolate I eat daily as "medicine"- just 1-2 squares. It is VERY hard and my poor old jaw is protesting - loudly. Gotta be more careful.

I am working away on this big thing and realized that I have not posted a picture for a long time. It is getting heavy and complex now and I may be changing my mind about how to handle it. I WILL finish this layer as planned though. It ain't over till it's over- and it ain't over !

I am not likely in a good enough frame of mind to be doing this but I am determined to finish it asap. Remember, you heard it here first! Enough dawdling, here it is to date... I am about two thirds of the way across the piece from left to right You can see what has not been layered yet- the right hand side and the bottom edge. As I said earlier, soldiering on!

Accessory Inchies

Back from the edge of the abyss. I am here once again on Every Inchie Monday. Sorry for the sporadic participation. It would be a huge yawn for me to relate my reasons for my absence but all that aside, I DID make some Inchies today.

The word for this week was ACCESSORY. We all love them, don't we ladies :-)

Makes me think of my glamourous Mum . She has always done scarves SO well. Still does at the tender age of 92!

Believe it or not, I used to wear hats! I actually used to wear them rather well. The only ones I would be caught dead in now are my silly sun hat in summer and my multi layered fleece one in winter. NO PICTURES!

I still wear earrings though. 

... and I carry a purse- but I carry a REAL purse - filled with everything, camera, iPod, iPad etc etc etc. Now ask me about my sore neck!

I am posting these Inchies on everyinchiemonday2012.blogspot.com
Have a look at the rest of the Accessory Inchies there. Enjoy:-)

Layers craving green

The quilt so far, colour levels reduced in Photoshop to more truly reflect the colours

Here we are to date- as of 4:00PM on Sunday. As you can see, I have begun to add surface detail. LOTS to go and I am almost out of -A- Steam a Seam and , -B- energy!

In my humble opinion, this is doing what I want at this point. I started out with two real photos of real subjects-an open magnolia bloom and a pale blue iris. Those were layered several times in Photoshop and you have seen the resulting picture. Now, I am after an abstracted version of  the photo, HOPEFULLY resulting in a sort of Essence of Spring portrait. At the moment, the quilt top and my heart are crying out for more of the chartreuse green- that most essential of spring colours. It is there in the original but I am going to try to find some spots to emphasize it and to suggest little growing shoots amongst the flurry of flower petals.

I think I have had the biscuit though for today. If I do anything else, it should be the Inchies for this week- Accessory is the word for this week. After dinner, if I am still awake, I will try to make a couple. I have been VERY slack with my Inchies lately as I have been very busy on other things but I will try to get back on the Inchie waggon this week. Enjoy the remains of your weekend.

Not an easy task!

Well, I have bitten off a big mouthful this time. It looks very disorganized at the moment but I am working very slowly and will get it! It WILL be finished to my satisfaction.

I have all of the substrate in place. Sadly, the first few pieces were turned edge, sewn in place and they look wrinkly compared to the fused pieces but when ironed and not moved around, they DO lie flat . It is just frustrating when I am displacing it all the time . Not to worry!


Well, don't be shocked! Here is the quilt top so far. The colours are not exactly true. They are a bit chalkier in real life.

There! That's a bit better. I have just taken a new pic smoothed out and hung up so it makes a tad more sense to the casual viewer.

Here it is with the pattern pieces as I cut them apart for details

Do you find it making ANY sense at all? I do, but then, I am its Mummy!

You  see what I mean about the wrinkles. They DO go away when they are nicely ironed. L O N G way to go yet! Bear with me . OH, and wish me luck- LOTS of luck!

Photoshop Layers Quilted?

Here is where I am starting on my new project. I LOVE the colours in this photo. It is a Layers project I have been doing on Photoshop and it is a blend of two pictures, a blue iris and a pink saucer magnolia. The pattern is VERY complex and another time , I would layer the pattern too! Anyway, I have made a wee start. Trouble is, it is big and I keep running out of fabrics so I had to dye a bit more this afternoon. Here is the story so far ....

It looks a mess because it IS a mess at the moment. I am just beginning to build up the substrate and will work on the detail once this ground layer is all in place. You can see a few of the pattern pieces and you will appreciate how complicated this will be, but I am up for a challenge :-) The original photo, enlarged to 8"x 10" is lying on the top left of the quilt. I will keep you posted!

I am sorry to have been so scarce lately. I did not do Inchies this week. Just TOO BUSY! Sorry. I am working hard on the new computer , taking classes at Apple, teaching a quilting class  and generally living life in the fast-ish lane. Time seems to be flying somehow.

Had a great long visit with our daughter on Sunday. They had an earthquake on Saturday last at 12:08PM , magnitude 4.3. No damage but it rattled the house for a bit. I had NO idea Tennessee was such an active earthquake zone but it is the second most active in the USA! Those old Appalachians are not settled down  yet!

Well, on that cheery note, I believe it is time to shut down for the evening. I will post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com. There is always lots to see there!

Sorry! Told you I was learning a new computer, Mac instead of the old PC. NOW I see how to do the link for TNTN properly! Sorry Monika :-)

Heart Inchies

I am on time this week! Yay!!Well done me :-)

I have made some little Heart Inchies. I am NOT saying it has been easy but it has been enjoyable. STILL learning! My Darling Anthropologist daughter would say, " Mum ! Lower primates would learn faster!" Ah, well, c'est la vie.

Anyway, here they are in all of their colourful glory. Six Heart Inchies..................

With Glowing hearts...

And a tangled heart......

And , alas, a broken heart :-(

And who knows what THIS heart is??

And a troubled heart. It is beating irregularly!!

And lastly, the chain of hearts that is Family.

May Peace and Joy and Love be in YOUR hearts.

These are all done on watercolour paper with Pigma Micron pens and then painted with Caran d"Ache soluble Wax pastels used as watercolours. What a fun medium! What glorious colours . Enjoy.

I am posting this on everyinchiemonday2012.blogspot.com You will find lots more there too.

Still figuring it all out

I have been playing about with this new computer and all of its bells and whistles. As a result of that and the fact that I seem a tad obsessed about housework at the moment, I have done no work on my quilt. My mind is a little puddle somehow but I am making progress and am playing with iPhoto and Photoshop. That is a nice quiet diversion for my scrambled brain. Look what I came across!!

Remember spring and summer?

I LOVE hollyhocks! I used to make dollies from the blooms when I was little:-)

One of my pretty iris sibirica. Love these too!

I have been pulling a few pictures onto the new machine so I have something to play with in Photoshop. Found all sorts of nice things.

I HOPE to soon show some progress on the new quilt but I HAD to do some housework today. Those dust bunnies are HARES in this house- well, not so much now, but they were! Parts of the house are looking a tad tidier. Now, I think I will go out for a wee walk before dinner. Enjoy the flowers and remember the good times!

REMEMBER TO PUT THE CLOCKS BACK AN HOUR TONIGHT! Pray for us please. Our antique clocks require fancy footwork at this time of the year.

 This is the photo I am hoping to tackle next , as soon as I have gotten my computer up and running happily. So far, so good. It is lovely and I THINK I am in love! Not sure if this post will work as I am doing it on my iPad as the Mac updates its OS and iPhoto. Stay tuned!

This photo will definitely be a challenge but I LOVE the colours! It sings "SPRING" to me very gently! I plan on using all hand dyes with organza overlays and lots of interesting quilting. The pattern is drawn, enlarged and printed so it is all up to me now

Ok, let us try to post this. Fingers crossed!