Happy Diwali !!

Never heard of Diwali  before I hit the Bing front page yesterday and since the forecast was for freezing temperature I ran outside and snatched all the open blooms off my potted marigolds. Even if I was a bit hasty (70's predicted all next week) the plants are still covered with buds.

Arlee, should I dry them, freeze them or squash them between the pages of the OED? Right now they are really stinking up the laundry room and I'm about to move them to the trunk of my car. Don't get me wrong, I love that marigold stink but this many in a small room makes the head swim!

I've added a few new thing to the Small Things page and  spent the morning with the intention of making up sets along these color lines but I got swept up in the stacks of colors and textures and came up with these new ones.

home on a Friday...

...with a sore throat and fever. I'm grateful that I don't have to talk to a bunch of crabby asses on the phone this afternoon.  The sun is bright, the air fresh and I'll get some exercise outside later.

    There's nothing like a  good patch of give and take with fellow artists to stir the creative pot. Did some looking around, looking back - and so spotted a light on the path forward.  The card of the day was right. These pieces are stuck up on the design wall now and having a lot to say.

I'll let them perk a while and get back to quilting the one in progress now, refreshed hopefully, for the stitching and what it could bring to the design.

Here's a much better photo of the container that's still evolving.

WIP...finally

What's tech-wiener speak for spilling a cup of sugary coffee into the keyboard?  I did it  while working the other night and had to quick swap out the keyboard from my main machine and pray it worked..it did.  On half recalled urban legend, I rinsed the coffee flavored one in the kitchen sink, and gave it overnight to dry out. Not quite enough.  I took the whole thing apart to see what was affected or still damp.  Very interesting what goes on under those keys. Swabbed everything with alcohol, gave it another 24 hours and it's back...well 99%. Who needs the 2 or 0 on the number keypad anyway?  

    

I need a better lamp at my workstation so I can actually see what I'm hand stitching. Appliqueing bits of rusted crochet cotton to cusspots is like putting decals on fly's wings. Now I notice the resemblance to those Mayan scribblings.

Meanwhile, I've finally committed to a design for this piece and have started to machine quilt it. So far, I'm not enthused. Somehow, by backing, batting and machine stitching this piece I've fell like I've killed it by eliminating it's potential as something of utility. The artist in me seems to have left town in favor of the working stiff.

freemotion warmup

After tinkering with Elizabeth's Janome yesterday (we both have 6500s) I decided I had better give mine some attention and was appalled at the crud under the throat plate.

I have NO needles and NO oil. Quilting on anything will have to wait on a trip to HoAnns but here's a little test Mayan graffiti. I think it's the symbol for agita.

the bitter fucshia lesson

It took several hard lessons before I learned that anytime you dye with the color fuchsia, it's imperative that you rinse, rinse and rinse again before you wash them, and when you do wash out, DO NOT WASH OUT WITH ANY OTHER COLOR FAMILIES!

Not if you don't want those other pieces tinged with pink where they used to be white or other pales. I have ruined entire weekends worth of dyeing by mixing those hotties into the washout loads so carelessly. This bunch will go by themselves but the piece below, a hand appliqued and embroidered vintage hankie (and the three jacquard scarves) are getting the hand treatment!