Good News

I am so excited - one of my quilts, "Pieces" sold at an exhibit this weekend for Archeologists.  A great feeling to know people want to have a piece of my art. 

First Snow

Our street after first snow

Poor Daffodils didn't like the snow!

Orchids - I have 6 stalks this year.

We had our first snow Monday night - it sure was cold enough for it.  Rained all day, hailed some and by evening it was snowing. Now, in Southern California, we don't get a lot of snow if you don't live in the mountains.  We are about 2400 feet at the base of the mountains through the pass to Palm Springs and always get snow at least once every year.  This was our street early in the morning, notice the snow does not stick to the streets, only lawns, flowerbeds, roofs and cars.  It was ruined my newly blooming daffodils and hoping that when it warms up a bit, they will stand up again.  - Hasn't hurt my orchids, they withstood it all and are starting to open the flowers - this pot is on my front porch.

Of  course, the mountains look beautiful this time of year, all covered with snow.

Rainy Sunday dye painting

Today it was a cloudy rainy day.  I decided it was a good time to do some dye painting for some future projects.  I don't have a large studio to do this type of work and usually can utilize the patio.  Too cold today for that.  So I draped my kitchen, with the help of hubby, and painted fabric.  Some of it is my table top dyeing I do and other was the Phil Beaver technique with salt.  Creates a mess, but stays contained to one area.  All done now and all will be dry later this evening. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Had a fun day at Desiree's painting and celebrating Valentine's Day. Desiree had a wonderful chocolate dipped strawberry for each one of us.  Before we could eat it, we had to paint it.  This is my painting in my journal.  Then she gave us each a beautiful rose Valentine and we then we made our own while learning this technique.  It so relaxing to attend these monthly classes while learning to journal and paint - not good at journaling very regular, not very good at painting regularly (as I would like to do), but each is giving me some very fun learning experiences and I am progressing.

Merry Christmas

Only a few days left until Christmas.  I got my tree decorated this last week and lights up outside.  It really comes fast and then over so quickly. When I was kid, Christmas was really a joy.  I lived in Chicago and it was always snowing when we went to church on Christmas Eve.  We played in the snow, made angels, ice skated and dug tunnels along the parkways. Shopping for special gifts and baking was a very wonderful time of my life. I now live in Southern California, so no snow but has really be cold lately. I miss too that the real meaning of Christmas is disappearing in our society.  May we remember it is the birthday of Christ and that is what we celebrate.  Most of my family is gone or moved away, so it's just husband, daughter and grandson.

Today is my birthday- a  Christmas baby I am,  and not feeling old at all.  I keep very active, creating and quilting.  Walk every morning and being successful in a good weight loss this year.  Got the best card from my sister-in-law that said "Forever 39" and that's really what I feel like.

A Very Merry Christmas  to everyone and much peace for the New Year 2012.

New Fabric

Doing something I have wanted to do for a long time with my art quilting. This is a piece of my new fabric I am having printed at Spoonflower.  A yard contains 3 different blocks repeated 3 times.  They are some designs I made in my fun program "Kaleidoscope Kreator" using some of my flower photos.  I am anxious to get my order and design a fun art quilt for some new one day workshops I am planning.  Anyone can purchase this fabric, or fabric from other designers, on the Spoonflower site. I have purchased fabric from them from other designers and have been very impressed with the quality of the printing and service.

My fabric is called "Kaleidoscope Blocks".  I'm having fun with this and have several more things on the drawing board for classes and having other fabric printed. 

Christmas is almost here

I know Christmas comes so fast and all of a sudden I need to be ready.   Since I have been doing watercolor classes, I decided to paint our Christmas Card this year.  Well, after countless of tries I was not happy with any of them. So, I cut them up and did a collage with the pieces.  Our last class in October was textures.  I tried saran wrap, salt, stamping leaves, negative painting, and several washes. I think it has turned pretty neat.

I like working with the watercolor, but find controlling the water very difficult. I am seeing some practice paying off with my washes.  Drawing seems to be my most difficult part of it all.

Now to see about printing them and on to creating some gifts. Have a couple of purses I want to make for family members.