Privileged

I was one of the lucky ones in my guild to take a workshop taught by Gloria Loughman from Australia. She is author of the book Luminous Landscapses. Part of the class, my favourite part was painting skyscapes on fabric. I have done fabric painting on my own with regular acrylic paints but when you have the right fabric paint along with the proper instruction for mixing colours and how to sweep your brush across, around and through your fabrics it makes alot of difference in how the pieces turn out...

These pictures show some of the painted sky scapes drying in the sunny parking lot and below is the one that I did. My sky will be part of a prairie sky, my little landscape quilt is yet to be completed so it will be awhile before I show the sky in an actual piece... soon though, I hope.

I Must try to update ...

On a much more regular basis...

But, I am STILL recovering from my recent illness and tend to be rather lethargic some days AND now we are having a deck built in our tiny back yard -- the deck takes up half the yard -- it is a townhouse yard, and is only 15 feet wide and 22 feet long. The deck is 15 feet x 14 feet. I can hardly wait to sit out there on my SWING and work on some of my hand sewing projects!

I have pulled out a couple of them -- hand sewing projects that is -- in anticipation of sitting on the swing. One is making some hand sewn dolls -- tiny ones, 3" high only; and I have a english paper piecing project that is about 3 years now, in the works; and another hand piecing project of various blocks from the book Quilted Diamonds -- so lots of hand work to do while sitting in the sun...

Too Deep, Too Deep for Me...

For a few years now, I have been following Myrna Giesbrecht's writings. She has such a completely committed position to her art and to me works very hard at being an artist.

It is all too deep for me.

I am a lazy artist - I am a lazy worker - I am a person who lives by the words of the song " Whatever will be, will be" I certainly have never been one to make a hard turn in my life to keep on or to purposely change my track. I heartily admire people who can steer their way though life and make choices and even able to recognize the time to make a choice in life or art... I just float along and hope that certain things happen, sometimes I make somewhat of an effort to drift in a particular direction, but if it takes more time and effort than I seem to be able to committ, I don't worry that my "art" or "effort" was not up to par, just that it was not quite enough to be noticed... Marketing, is the word, I mean. I am not really looking to be famous or to do famous things -- but you know what? The thing that I have striven for has never been noticed?

Why is that?

I have written for a national magazine for more than 10 years. I have had a few short stories published in compilation type books. No one in my family has EVER, said congratulations or in fact one family member said to me "so, your not the first one to write a story" --- and that I have to conceed. My great-great-great-great grandfather wrote 3 books, between about 1830 and 1845...

I think, my attitude is what it is, because I am not here to please anyone except myself, and ultimately, I am very happy with what I have done, writing wise, and quilting wise, and even now crochet wise...

Fillers

I am not very consistent or regular in posting on this blog. Well, not recently anyway. I was determined to keep Miss Snips to writing exclusively about sewing and quilting and some crochet, but, Miss Snips is in for a change...

Miss Snips will go back to writing about whatever strikes her fancy.

There are alot of things to write about.

Half of the things that Miss Snips can write about probably will turn out to be just personal stuff. One of the things that I have discovered is that everybody cares about something quite passionately and practically everybody else wonders what kind of a nut would care about that! Life sure is strange. You see those kind of disparities in people in Political Campaigns. Today is Election Day in BC. We are voting for a new Provincial Government. Because of my own health issues - I think that Health Care is a big issue -- but the party leaders consider it to be about #5 or 6 on their Issues lists. It has been a mud slinging campaign and has been difficult to follow. My particular area has had the electoral boundaries changed from the last election 4 years ago and since one of the boundaries is in the middle of town and so am I, there is a mix of signage, making the list of candidates that I have available to vote for even more confusing.

Ultimately, I hate to say this, but I have not figured out who to vote for. Mainly my illness has occupied my thoughts and the confusion of names and area and issues just was more than I could put my full attention to --- so I am not going out to vote today. I just am not ready for it. I know, it is a responsibility, but to go stand in the booth and puzzle over, "who is this guy and what did he say when" is beyond me for this time. I hate not going to vote; but if I did, it would be an irresponsible vote.

Now, how bout something pretty instead...

Sending a Quilt out to a Long Arm Pro

The time has come. I have been making quilts since -- too long to say! Though the first 20 years of my quilting was alone and fairly primitive and the quilts were definately for everyday and utility use.
Since about 1990, I have much improved and made quilts for their beauty and usefulness and even have my non-traditional, ARTY side. I have put together and completed a wide variety.
In 1997, I was part of a small group who wanted to learn more about quilting, so I helped the other 11 members focus on learning to piece traditional blocks from simple to difficult. Each person made 12 blocks of each pattern. After a year and a bit, we brought our blocks together and exchanged them. So, I was fairly motivated by the blocks I received -- I usually am -- aren't you?
I created for myself a slightly different "medallion" for the centre of the quilt, added some borders and then placed the group blocks around the central area. Somehow that is where the work stopped. The top has been in the closet for 13 years! I can't even believe I would let something vegetate that long.

So. It is time to have this "sucker" quilted. I think, one of my quirks has been that I have always before hesitated to have someone else, anyone else quilt my quilt. It seems that in my head, then I did not do the quilt on my own -- well, of course I didn't -- I had 11 other ladies contribute blocks to this particular quilt! How, odd is the thought that I want it all mine, mine, mine, yet it isn't and never was, to begin with!

I meet with the long arm quilter in a couple of weeks -- I do need to check a few things on this top and I need to make a backing for it -- then I will deliver it and when it comes back, I will see how I feel about a quilt not quilted by me! I do have a couple other tops that are lanquishing that may also qualify for a long arm quilt job to be done on them so that I can say -- they are DONE...