I created a box-in-a-box quilt using the Ives Color Wheel that is extensively used by Joen Wolfrom in her wonderful quilt design books and tools. In this quilt, I used 12 of the 24 colors, specifically, Red, Orange, Orange-Yellow, Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green, Aqua Green, Turquoise Blue (Cyan), Blue, Violet, Purple, and Magenta. I love how the colors in the small squares shift as they cycle through the other colors. Such a wonderful color gamp and educational tool. I would love to do a second one using the remaining 12 colors. It’s on the list.
On August 15th, I will be selling and signing copies of A Patchwork Life at Knitting Romance in Ellettsville, IN. It will start at 10 am. Please come and see me!
Starting the first weekend in June, I have been scheduling and attending book signings for A Patchwork Life. The first one was at the two day Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival one June 5th and 6th of this year. It was an amazing experience. Out of the 40 paperback copies I took, I sold 39 of them. I was so happy! Also, I met and talked with the nicest people. So many remembered me from the Dyed in the Wool days as well as all the weaving, spinning, knitting, natural and fiber reactive dye classes. I came away with the best case of the warm fuzzies.
The second book signing was at Let It Sew in Avon, Indiana, on July 17th. While it was a lot of fun, and the fabric shop was awesome, only one book sold, although to shop have two more to sell for me. Mind you, the weather was really bad. The rain was so hard that it was hard to see to drive down there. I would go back for another book signing, hopefully with nicer weather.
The most recent one was at The Back Door Quilt shop in Greenwood, IN and was on August 1st. Wow! I sold all except 9 paperbacks and 1 hardback. Everyone was so nice and they loved the quilt for the book top. I invited everyone to get a closer look at the quilt and all the buttons and extra embellishments surprised and tickled them. Again, I would love to go back sometime.
I just completed Series One of my free cross stitch patterns. There are 12 designs included, and I hope you download and enjoy stitching them as much as I enjoyed designing them.
I am enjoying retirement very much. Not only have I been taking classes, but I, finally, have the time to indulge in some play time. In this case, it’s building the Lego kits that I had purchased but never had time to build.
The first thing I want to show you is the Vespa.
And, yes, our library, also, has become our Lego/model building area. I really enjoyed this build. The attention to detail that is in this kit is amazing. And the best part yet?
It’s the perfect size for 11.5 inch dolls. Leia and Michelle love the freedom they have with their fancy ride. They have earned the name of “The Trouble Makers” honestly. They can be found zipping around the halls of the house and you never know where you will find them.
I loved building this kit so much that I decided to build it again, but this time using parts of whatever color I could find. Let me introduce the Junk Vespa.
Searching for the right parts in spare parts bins at the local Half Price Books, It’s A Block Party in Greenwood, Indiana, and a few special ones that I could find locally off of Bricklink. It’s 95% from the spare parts bins, though. Lordy, I love this thing so much. It makes me smile just looking at it. Two more dolls have claimed this one. Besties Lamily and Lynn have been riding it to and from the fitness center each day and have been having fun annoying The Trouble Makers with their brightly colored version of the fancy one.
This summer, Scott and I took two classes. The first one was colored pencils and this is the best of my practice results. The rest looked like a kindergartener reject.
The top pear is the photograph and the bottom pear is my version of it. I felt like I was finally getting my head wrapped around how to use colored pencils and the blender, which, by the way, was my favorite thing learned in this class. While I am glad I took this course, I have decided that colored pencils are not for me. It was a bucket-list item for me, and I have it checked off.
The second class, though, I absolutely loved!!! It was clay sculpture. I started with coil building and created this:
It’s wonky and the lid doesn’t fit it very well, but this gnome house is delightfully organic and I love it to no end. The father and son gnomes who live here think it’s perfect, and that’s good enough for me.
The second gnome house I made was slab built, and this one came out much better.
The lid is the second floor, which overhangs the first floor on purpose, just like medieval houses did. There’s a secret hidey-hole in the ceiling of the second floor for special bits of junk the gnome family might collect. There are four of this family, and the wife is the daughter of the old man who lives next door. Sometimes that feels a little close for her taste, but what can one do, really?
The last builds are this dog and chicken house for the two families to share.
I would be happy to take this class over and over just to be able to build gnome houses. Another bucket-list item.
I just keep adding more free cross stitch patterns for you to enjoy. The newest two are Seesaw and Roundabout. Just click on Patterns on the top of the page, then go to Mandala Cross Stitch.
I added a background based on the color theory quilt I recently finished. Also, I have added another cross stitch pattern and images for the video links.
