Progress on 3 Coneflowers

I've made progress on my 3 Coneflowers quilt. I've gotten all of the pieces stitched down and borders added. Now I just need to quilt and bind it!

March by Geraldine Brooks

This is the story of Mr. March, the father in Little Women, who was a chaplain for the North during the Civil War.  He was a very idealistic man, and went to war to support his anti-slavery convictions.  Once he got to war, he became disillusioned, not about the cause, but about how blurred the lines were between right and wrong, good and evil.  I enjoyed this book much more than Little Women, in large part because the characters felt more real to me (ie, not perfect but flawed, with real feelings and emotions).  Most of the book is narrated by March, but part of it is narrated by Marmee, March's wife and the mother of their four "little women."  March had a very small part to play in Little Women, so most of the story is completely new.  But the parts that overlap Little Women remained true to the original.  Now I'm glad I read Little Women first, as I knew the characters, even if I didn't enjoy it that much.  I rate this book 4 out of 5.  It is the second book for two of my reading challenges this year:  US Civil War Reading Challenge and Off the Shelf Reading Challenge.  And it is the first book for another of my reading challenges:  I Want More Reading Challenge.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I've said here several times that I haven't read very many classics.  I actually read Little Women many MANY years ago, but I didn't remember it at all.  Because I wanted to read March by Geraldine Brooks, which is the story of the father in Little Women (by a contemporary author), I thought it would be a good idea to reread Little Women.

It is the story of the March women:  mother (Marmee) and 4 daughters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy) while father is a chaplain for the North during the Civil War.  I really struggled to get through it.  It was too syrupy sweet for my taste, with way too much moralizing to be enjoyable.   If I had remembered it, I certainly would not have read it again.  I rate it 2 out of 5.  It was the first book for two of my reading challenges this year:  US Civil War Reading Challenge and Off the Shelf Reading Challenge.

Altered Photo Artistry - Coneflower

This class is from Beth Wheeler. I sent her my photo a couple of weeks before class. She altered it and printed it onto fabric for us. In class, she talked about how she altered our photos and gave us ideas on doing that ourselves and talked about how to add stitching. Then we got started on our stitching. This is how far I got in class. I still have lots more stitching to do, but it was a lot of fun and I'm quite happy with how it looks so far.
I enjoyed the class so much that I decided to take another class from her tomorrow instead of the one I originally signed up for.

Quilting in the Desert

I've been traveling since last week, which explains why I haven't posted in awhile.  I am in Phoenix at a quilting retreat called Quilting in the Desert.  The original plan was that one friend and I would leave home on Thursday and drive to Santa Fe, shop at Santa Fe Quilting Friday morning and a couple of Albuquerque shops Friday afternoon, then drive to Phoenix on Saturday.  That changed when an ice storm was predicted for Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  We left home after my physical therapy appointment (for my ankle) on Wednesday afternoon and drove as far as Amarillo.  We shopped Santa Fe Quilting Thursday afternoon and spent the night in Santa Fe.  We shopped Quilts Ole and Southwest Decoratives (in Albuquerque) on Friday and spent the night in Gallup.  Then we drove to Phoenix on Saturday, going through Sedona on the way (what a beautiful drive that was!).  We picked up another friend at the airport on Sunday morning.  They treated me to a (late) birthday lunch Sunday at a very nice restaurant called Lon's at Hermosa Inn.

My workshops started on Monday.  I've been taking Abstracting from Nature from Jane Sassaman for the past 3 days.  It's been a wonderful class!  She has very patiently guided us through the process of designing our own quilts.  This is what I've been working on:

Abstracting From Nature - Coneflowers

It isn't anywhere near finished in this picture.  In fact, nothing is stitched.  And the white "stems" are just paper place holders.  But I did manange to get a little tiny bit of stitching done after taking this photo, and I'm very happy with how it's going.

Tomorrow I will take Altered Photo Artistry from Beth Wheeler (who has written 2 books on the subject).  We were to email her a photo of a flower before the class, and then she will have altered it and printed it on fabric for us.  We'll use thread painting and free motion quilting techniques on it.  I had chosen a coneflower photo to work on, which is one reason I've been doing coneflowers in Jane Sassaman's class too - I thought it would be really interesting to do 2 quilts on the same subject matter in very different styles. 

Then on Friday I will take Out on a Limb from Wendy Butler Berns, where we'll be doing a little tree quilt and learning several texturing techniques.    I'll try to post more pictures in the next couple of days.  We're leaving on Saturday and will be home on Sunday.  It's been a fun time so far.

Sketchbook Challenge - Highly Prized 2

This is my second page for January's "Highly Prized" theme in the Sketchbook Challenge. Background is Caran d'Ache watersoluble wax crayons blended with water. Lettering is with a variety of pens. Paper is Strathmore 500 series 140 pound cold press watercolor paper; journal is 5 1/2 inches wide by 7 1/2 inches tall, handmade by me. I started by writing things that are very meaningful, and as I wanted to fill the page, I added things that I like but may not be "highly" prized. I may add more words to the page as time passes.

Years ago, when I was into scrapbooking, I started a book about me. In it, I have a page about some of my favorite things. I looked at it today; it was interesting to see what had changed and what had stayed the same.

This is also my week 3 entry for Project 52.

Blogs and Time Management

I've been spending way too much time on the computer lately - it's taking away time for other things.  I'm READING about how to be creative instead of BEING creative.  So I've decided to take a number of blogs out of my reader as a first step to spending less time on the computer.  If yours is one of the blogs I've taken out of my reader, please know that it isn't personal - I really enjoy all of the blogs I used to read and wish I could continue reading them all (and more).  But if I'm going to get anything else done, I have to do this for me.  Thanks for understanding.

Sketchbook Challenge - Highly Prized

This is my first page for this month's Sketchbook Challenge. The theme is Highly Prized, so I had to do a page about my kitty Buster. It is also my entry for week 2 in Project 52.

3 Creative Studios Giveaway

3 Creative Studios is having a launch party including a giveaway.  There are three really great looking prize packages - you can read all about it here.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Skeeter has just returned home to Jackson, Mississippi after graduating from Ole Miss in 1962.  She wants to be a writer and gets a job with the local newspaper, writing the weekly cleaning advice column.  The only problem is, she doesn't know anything about cleaning.  She asks her friend Elizabeth's black maid, Aibileen, for help.  Skeeter convinces Aibileen to tell her what it has been like to work as a maid for white families and begins writing a book, which has many repercussions for Skeeter and Aibileen, as well as other maids who also agree to tell Skeeter their stories.  It is a very well written book and a look into a shameful part of our very recent history.  It is my first book for the New Author Challenge 2011, and I rate it 5 out of 5.

Winter Hat ATC 2

I made another winter hat atc for a private swap on atcsforall. This is also my first entry for the Project 52 challenge.

Book Page Backgrounds

I was inspired to make these atcs by a swap at ATCsForAll using a book page for a background (although these are not for the swap). I used distress inks, black embossing powder, Magic Mesh, twill tape, ribbon, and needlepoint thread.

Happy New Year!

We had a very nice new year's eve with friends last night - dinner, conversation, laughs, and a movie.  It's been a tradition for us since new year's eve 1999.  Hope you all had as nice a time as we did.

I don't make resolutions - I never have.  But I have decided to participate in a variety of challenges this year.  Some of them are reading challenges, most of which I've already mentioned in earlier posts.  The one I haven't written up yet is the New Author Challenge 2011.

Here are the guidelines:

1. The challenge will run from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011.
2. Since this is an author challenge, there is no restriction on choosing your novels. They can definitely be from other challenges. However, the authors must be new to you and, preferably from novels.  Anthologies are a great way to try someone new, but only a third of your new authors can be from anthologies.
3. I want this to be an easy challenge, so you can pick to do either 15, 25 or 50 new authors.  It all depends on how fast you read and how adventurous you want to be. 

I'm signing up for 15 new authors.  I did the New Author Challenge 2010 and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would do it again this year.  I have created pages for each of my reading challenges, which you can see above the posts.  I will be updating those throughout the year.  I have also included pages for the challenges I have done in the past, but Blogger only allows 10 pages, so I may delete the older ones.  I'll have to decide what to do with the older ones, since I don't want to lose the information.

I am also participating in a couple of art challenges this year.  One I've already written up is the Sketchbook Challenge.  Another one I signed up for yesterday is Project52: The Weekly Art Challenge over at ATCsForAll (which I joined a couple of weeks ago).  Here is part of the write up about it:

The goal is be to be creative a minimum of once a week and create something. Your piece of art doesn't necessarily need to be an ATC, it can be a postcard too, a scrapbook page, chunky, inchie, twinchie, a quilt, work on an ongoing project, photography - anything that tickles your creativity!! 

SO - all of that should keep me busy this year!  What about you?  Do you have any great plans for the new year?

Doldrums

I've been in kind of a funk the last few days, so I thought I needed to do something to shake things up. This is what I came up with. I drew the curved lines in pencil and then just started writing in pen, without working it out beforehand. That's a breakthrough of sorts for me - I generally have to see that everything will fit first.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett is best known for writing thrillers, a genre I'm not particularly fond of.  But Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel, a genre I like a lot.  This book is set in 12th century England and tells the story of the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge.  It is a sweeping saga that covers approximately 40 years.  I enjoyed it for the most part, but wasn't unhappy to reach the end (of almost 1000 pages).  I found it mildly annoying near the end when I felt like the author was trying to tie up every single loose end; I rate it 3 out of 5.

Pug ATC

I recently joined ATCsforAll, and I made this for a 1:1 trade there. I saw an atc I wanted, and when I asked the artist if she was interested in trading, she asked me if I could do a pug. So this is my pug for her.

Snowman ATC

Just another snowman atc.

Clever Christmas - Cat ATC 2

I wanted to add a Santa hat to the cat I painted in my last ATC, so I did another one. Lots of fun!

Sketchbook Challenge

I'm going to be participating in the Sketchbook Challenge beginning January 1, 2011.  This is the brainchild of Sue Bleiweiss and she has put together a great group of artists who will be sharing their sketchbooks and suggesting monthly themes.  She has even gotten some sponsors to donate prizes for participants!  It sounds like a lot of fun, so if you're interested, you can read more about it on the challenge blog, here.

Clever Christmas - Cat ATC 1

Our final lesson was plays on words - so this was what I came up with. It's been LOTS of fun!

Clever Christmas - Stocking ATC 2

Playing around with stocking designs of my own - and with writing haiku.

Clever Christmas - Stocking ATC 1

Lesson 4 was Christmas Stockings. This one was straight from Laure's demo and was fun to do!

Clever Christmas - Wreath ATC

I decided to add a bit of word art to my wreath for lesson 3. I used a sponge and rubber stamping ink for the edges of this atc. This is a fast class, but we're doing little projects and it's a lot of fun!

Clever Christmas - Snowman ATC 3

Lesson 2 in Laure's Clever Christmas class is all about snowmen - and this one is my favorite.

Clever Christmas - Snowman ATC 2

Lesson 2 in Laure's Clever Christmas class is all about snowmen - I love snowmen!

Clever Christmas - Snowman ATC 1

Lesson 2 in Laure's Clever Christmas class is all about snowmen - I love snowmen!

Clever Christmas - Hat ATC 2

This is another ATC for Laure's class. I used watercolor and ink, then added a couple of snowflake rubber stamps to the background.

Clever Christmas - Hat ATC 1

I'm taking another class from Laure Ferlita (my favorite teacher!). This one is a quick one - 5 lessons in 10 days! But we're doing quick little pages so it's LOTS of fun. I used glitter on the fur of Santa's hat, which of course doesn't scan well, so you'll just have to imagine that part. This is ATC-size (2-1/2 X 3-1/2 inches) on Stonehenge paper (which I've never worked with before).

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

This is my book club's current month's selection.  I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.  I knew it would be a somewhat interesting story, but I generally prefer reading novels to non-fiction.  But this wasn't a somewhat interesting story; it was fascinating.  Greg Mortenson wandered into a small rural village in Pakistan after a failed attempt to climb K2 in 1993.  The villagers took him in, fed him, and nursed him back to health.  When he learned that the village didn't have a school, but the children met in the open, kneeling on frosty ground, to practice lessons that a neighboring village's teacher left for them, he promised to build them a school.  The book traces how Mortenson kept his promise.  Mortenson is now the director of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which has built at least 55 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  It has also awarded scholarships to graduates who wish to further their education, assisted in teacher training, and provided resources for clean drinking water and sanitation.  CAI's motto is Peace and Hope Begin With Education: One Child At A Time.  I highly recommend this book.

Figure Drawing

My husband bought this manikin for me (at my request, since I'm not getting out much with a broken ankle), so I wanted to paint her as she is before I start using her for figure drawing.

Journaling reads:  This is Mandy my new art assistant.  I'm hoping she will help me draw the human form, but I wanted to start by drawing HER form.