Saturday, October 25, 2008

As usual....

As usual I let too many days go by, and then I have too much to write about all at once. Thank goodness for photos or I'd never remember what we've been doing! LOL

Last weekend the weather was cool but sunny...in other words...gorgeous. On Sunday The Tramp mowed lawns and then we lit the burn pile. While I waited for him I brought out my stitchery and sat in the sun for a while with the dogs. I finished the first of twelve redwork Santas.



Ivy, per usual, worked on her doggy calendar poses.



I gazed at the trees and the stunningly beautiful blue sky.


Then I moseyed over to check out the pecan tree.


And we have pecans bursting out of their pods!


What fun for a "city kid" to start harvesting her first crop! LOL


I also re-treated the fire ant nest in the compost pile. Yick!


And found more nests are still appearing. :-(


Then watched the burning. All in all, a day full of pleasant accomplishment.


Monday, Mom, Dad and I went to the State Fair to check out the needlework exhibits.


I fully realize the State Fair is not a quilt show but we were very disappointed by the quilt display nonetheless. The quilts were hung on rug racks. Even the little wall hangings! We couldn't get close enough to see them properly or discover who made them and what won in what category. I was particularly dismayed that the two big "rug rack" displays meant that a worker was grabbing the sides of the quilts and yanking or frankly "flinging" the racks along to show the quilts to visitors. All day long for eleven days! I'm sure glad one of my quilts wasn't up there! :-(

I know the point was to make it possible to see the large quilts...and it turns out I know many of the ribbon winners from the quilt guild but I had no idea since nothing was labeled. It seemed hardly fair to the quilters who worked so hard.

This week I got my backing put together and got my Orange Crush mystery quilt marked and pin basted. Big job!


I also appliqued and quilted a cute autumn wall hanging. The pattern is by Joined at the Hip.


Last night we went to see Walking With Dinosaurs at the RBC Center. Wow.



I took a few pictures with my cell phone. These are the best of them.







And lastly...today I went to an all day workshop with Lyric Kinard on fabric embellishment. Lyric lives locally and managed to fit us in before she leaves to teach at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Lucky us! We had a great time. The class included stamp carving, stamping, foiling, photo transfer, stenciling with freezer paper shapes, screen printing and beading. The samples were fun to experiment with.


I particularly enjoyed learning to carve a stamp from a plastic eraser.



And then had even more fun starting a small art quilt. The stamping and foiling is done and now I need to do the beading.

Gosh I'm tired! G'night.

7 comments:

Stephanie D said...

Nice stamps! I'll bet that was one fun class!

Cute Santa, too! Are they all going to be one quilt, or several gifts, or what?

Sounds like you might need to call Terminix or somebody out there for the ants. Yikes!

Tine said...

The dinosaur-show looks awesome! Wow! Also a risk of seriously scaring some kids!! The santa you made looks great, so do the fabrics you embellished :-)

Sew Create It - Jane said...

Wow you've been busy...I love the stitchery you've been working on...now that I'm finished the quilting on the monster quilt I want to get back to some hand work.

Nancy said...

My goodness girl!!! You made me tired just reading all the things you have been doing. I didn't realize that the state fair was this late in the year; I'll need to ask my parents if they went over. I know my step-mom would love to see the needlework too.

Love the doggy poses..... when is the calendar coming out???

Hugs,
Nancy

Poyla said...

How was the dinosaur show? I remember seeing videos of it for a while now on the youtubes. I heard the creationists tried to block the show because it claims the Earth is over 4000 years old. Dumb scientists! What do they know right? Oh, wait...

If I was rich I would hire those guys for my next birthday and ride them around the city.

Lynn said...

Busy you! I want to get to that dinosaur show. Your OC looks fantastic.

Chookyblue...... said...

went to walking with dinasaurs when it was in Oz and it was great........