Washing To Do

A big stack of to-be-washed fabrics.  Monthly batik packs from eQuilter and random purchases over the last year.  I try to wash my fabrics as I buy them, just works better for me, knowing everything is already washed.  I think I've been putting this off because it will be a lot of ironing, but the stack is taunting me, I want to use this stuff!

I Find It Trying

This December 8th daily collage or sketch came about because I was playing with the Tangoes that were on my worktable for some unknown reason.  Have you ever played this game?  Really challenging! I traced each plastic shape in each color of fine tip Sharpie that I had (black, blue, green, red) then filled in with color pencil.  Wanted to see what the overlapping would look like.  The words say 

I Find It Trying Being A Square Among Triangles And Parallelograms

The December 9th daily collage, magazine pictures and words along with colored pencil.  Words say: Power Explodes When You Need It Most

Round Robin In A Day

First quilt finished of 2012! This is from a CQFA workshop called Round Robin In A Day.  We each started out with a small piece (the center windmill-ish square) and it gets added to and passed on several times.

 Quick, improvisational and no pressure, the whole room just explodes in creativity as everyone rises to the challenge.  Such a fun activity.  This is what the piece looked like before the quilting.

 Some closeups of the embroidery stitches I stitched on each seam, I used a lot of the ones on my machine, but not all.

We just did this activity again at our January CQFA meeting, so I'll post about that another time!

Imaginary Landscapes

 This time it was a pen and watercolor crayons in the daily practice journal.  The words in the binding say:  Imaginary Landscapes Draw Me In Every Time.

December 7th just magazine words this time and some pen marking.  Words in the binding are: 

You Know You Do.

Square Fabric Bowl

 A fabric bowl that I finished and gave away as a Christmas present this year.

 It was pretty easy to make and is a nice showcase for cool fabrics.  Timtex was used as the interfacing and the fabrics were fused to it before sewing it together.  This was started in a CQFA workshop a while ago.

 You can see how differently shaped it could be, depending on how high you sew up the seams.

I think I'd like to try to make another one in a different shape at some point.

Gather Gather

 Gather Gather - the daily collage from December 4th consisting of a magazine picture of a bee, paint sample strip, selvedge edge numbers, stamped words, blue tissue paper.
Words in the binding are: Oh! To Have Such A Purpose!

A little surrealism for the December 5th collage.  A magazine picture of a chicken foot and a kudzu covered structure, colored pencil and magazine words ALIEN INVADERS.  Words in the binding are: 

Aliens have to come from somewhere.  What do aliens call home?

What Do you do when your fortune isn't for you?

Another of my daily collages from December, this from December 3rd.  The power was still out, so I had my battery powered lamp on, and my little mp3 player for music, and my messy desktop for inspiration.

We had purchased some nicely bagged tea from Rivendell in Santa Cruz, and this was the front of the bag which had interesting stamps of horses and Chinese writing as well as the name of the tea (which was quite yummy).  Pen and colored pencil drawings, along with a fortune cookie fortune (You love sports, horses and gambling but not to excess.) Painted paper and rice paper too.  

The words in the binding are: What do you do when your fortune isn't for you?

Hello! How are you doing?

"Hello! How are you doing?"  I found those words in a magazine advertisement, how could I not use them to make a card? They're collaged along with colored rice or mulberry paper, ink from a stamp pad, and a paper lace border.

Collage Practice In The Dark

 For my birthday way back in the start of December I decided to start a collage a day practice.  And I was stubborn enough to actually do it even though the power was out due to a massive windstorm. As my motto goes "Do It Anyways"

 I used my new visual journal, which is a spiral sketchbook thing with bristol paper, nice and heavy and takes watercolor and glue really well.

 First collage done via candlelight, no flash.

 First collage with flash.  The presss here circle is heat sensitive mood ring stuff.
Words are: "DISCOVER the mysterious.  NO RIGHT NOW"

December 2nd collage.  Power was still out, this is a photo taking via headlamp which was how I was working.  Safer than candles, and brighter too.

Ancient's Eyes Are Always Open

New Favorite Dessert

New favorite after-dinner treat.  Pomegranate seeds on top of Honey Greek Yogurt.  Especially in my favorite cat bowl.  Ice cream no longer required.

Happy New Year!

 Heya Happy New Year!  Another long absence from blog-landia, whoops!  But there's several good reasons this time!  How about a kind of spur of the moment trip to China for the holidays?  Here's some pictures of our snowy freezing day on the Great Wall (Mutianyu).  The weirdest, steepest, twisty-est stairs I've ever been on, which were also icy and snow-covered.  Fun!

You can see all the funny angles of the brick work, nothing level, I found it disorienting when I was walking, but beautiful and interesting when I was standing still.  Zach, Marc and Alex.

 A picture of Marc and I. Wearing many many layers.  On one of the graffitied corners.

 We didn't get too many super long views because of the clouds, but the wall just goes on and on and then even further.

Another Zach and Alex picture with lots of the wall in the background.  It really is an impressive thing and I'm glad we got the chance to see it ourselves.