Starting to be a blogger again!

Well here it is April 2018 and I have not touched my blog since Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour in September of last year.  Sheesh!  I am almost embarrassed but not quite. 

My experience with Tour was wonderful and I achieved my goal of selling many of my quilts and donating a bunch more.  After Tour my Muse went on a vacation for a while because I stopped my Creative Flurry and just relaxed.

BUT - I am back now.

So below are a bunch of little pics of how my garage looked set up for the Tour.  Great memories of lots of wonderful people.

This is the entrance of the garage - featuring my beautiful butterflies.  They really welcomed folks as they arrived and let them know that they were about to enter a place full of fun.

This photo is a bit blurry but you can see my little quilts.  They sold very quickly and if I do Tour again I will make a lot more this size.  They are all samples from some of the classes that I teach.

My whimsical quilt wall.

My serious face wall.

Time for Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour to BEGIN!!

Well the day before has arrived and I am shockingly relaxed.  Indeed.  I guess all my list making and preparation worked. 
The quilts and butterflies and whirligigs are hung in the garage, the supplies to wrap the quilts are ready, and I am ready too.

My favorite part of tour is meeting the people who drive around on tour to meet the artists and see where they work and what magical things they produce.  It does my heart and soul good to be able to interact with people as they look at my quilts.

And I love love love to answer questions and tell stories about my creations.  It is a truly wonderful experience.

Tomorrow morning I will take some photos before anyone arrives so that you can see just what it looks like.  I am very curious to see who arrives.......

Butterflies Flying All Over the Place

And yes these butterflies are attached to the same fishing lure thingies that allow them to fly freely.  Well not QUITE freely because if that was true they would probably fly away..... but you know what I mean!!  I will take a picture of them flying as soon as I figure out a way to secure a line between the trees.....

More whirly things

Did you wonder why I posted pictures of the TOP of the other whirly thing?  Because I also want to show you the tops of the other ones.  And I figured it would make more sense.....
Here they are....

Whirly Things that need a better name!

My latest desire with quilting is to use lots of color and to make things that freely hang from the ceiling.  Eventually I think that I will be making hanging faces.  Is that toooooo weird to imagine?  Probably.  But I think it is where I am meant to go next.

Anyway.  In the meantime (and just because it is a lot of FUN) I am making smaller projects using the base product that will allow my creations to be solid enough to float in the air - but easy to cut and trim.  Uh huh.  That probably doesn't make a lot of sense to READ - but it is part of the learning process for me.

So I am making whirly things.  And YES I need a much more creative name for them.  Soon.....

In the meantime here as some photos to show you what they look like.



OK.  It is really hard to take a photo of the darn thing.  It keeps moving (which it is supposed to do) and I wanted a plain background so you could see it ---

But this should at least give you an idea of what it looks like hanging.

 And this is a picture of it on the floor so you can see how pretty the fabric looks

And this is what it looks like when it is folded up.
There are beads on the top and the bottom.
And the whole thing is attached to a Barrel Swivel Fishing Lure thingie so that it can twirl around and never get tangled.

I got VERY good at making those tricky little knots to secure the fishing line!  SOOO hard to tie something that is basically invisible!!
But it works!

Scurrying around getting ready for studio tour

Well just because I haven't posted for a while does not mean that I haven't been busy (VERY busy!!) getting ready for Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour.  It is two week away!!  TWO WEEKS!!  Yikes.....

Anyway -- I am making some very fun and colorful pieces because they will not only make the display great fun to look at .... they might be just the right size of a project for people to imagine in their own home.... or for a present.....  We will see if I am right.

So check out the next couple of posts and see the lovely new creations.

Collage Horses Transformed

Inspiration comes from such interesting places.  I frequently take on-line classes in drawing and painting.  One of the classes was about creating Imaginary Animals.  I love to do that anyway and it was a lovely class.

One of the lessons was painting blobs of paint on a large brown bag (grocery bag).  Then adding black and white and dots and squiggles and texture.  And then tearing the paper into shapes and making them into a picture of an animal.

This is what my collage looks like.  The horse has a peculiar set of legs but I like the overall design.




In fact I liked it so much I made it into a quilt.  I am particularly fond of the colors.  I revised the legs a bit - they are still strange but better.  And I added another butterfly and flowers.  But it is basically the same design.




I named this quilt Queen Wilhemenia.  Fancy name for a horse!!