Halfway There

picture credit: Marc Stiller, November 2014, Quail Hollow Ranch

Stylish? No. 

My style? I guess so. 

Even the cowboy boots which are still taking some time getting used to.

Anyways. This is what my version of turning 50 looks like. So far so good.

I always wanted to be 50. And now I finally am. All those cool ladies I knew when I was thirty who were 50 looked like they were having so much fun. They just seemed happier, less angsty about themselves, more present in their own lives. So now that I'm finally here, is that true for me too? You know, I think it is. Like I said, so far so good for this 50 business.

The Word for the Year

Every year, I choose a word. Usually from a long list that I've manually cut out and placed in a bowl. This year though, I went to oneword365 and picked one of their suggestions. Drumroll...the word my cursor landed on was

EMBRACE

And yeah, that seems like a really good one, that can apply to a whole lot of things I need to work on. Embrace the possibility of success (or failure)
Embrace the now (ooh how 70's, so sue me)
Embrace the impossible (why not?)
Embrace the inevitable (spend your energy on what you can change)
Embrace the change (at some level that's what you want, right?)
etc. etc. etc.

So I made myself this small quiltlet as a reminder to look at all year.

Eyes First

 Stitching on a self-portrait piece.
No my eyes are not actually peacock blue (neither is my face for that matter!)
I used a not very closed-up zig-zag, because I didn't want the weight and height of a satin stitch to outline the shapes.

 This piece has been in the works from a short class at CQFA a while ago about doing self-portraits using fabric with prints or colors to help represent things about yourself. Describing one's insides instead of just portraying the outside.
I had it all glue-sticked and pinned together for more than a year.

I brought it over to China with me, and finally stitched the pieces down. The rest of the quilting is yet to be done though.

Scraps of The New Year

 Happy 2015.

 It's been a year away from blogging here at High Fiber Content. 

A year away from normal life at home. 

A few months spent trying to get back to where I left off. And it's all still a pretty tangled mess.

This was in my Christmas stocking, a skein of sari scraps. 

Colorful strips of silk, sewn or knotted together end to end. 

All colors, all patterns, all a wrinkled, beautiful mess. 

An apt metaphor for where I feel like I'm beginning the year.