Retirement, seriously????

 I've been semi-retired for the past 3 years I believe.  My husband retired about 6 months before me, and like so many retired people we're still trying to get it right, and get use to being together for so long.  That's OK, it's a big change of life, and like everyone else, you fumble through changes.  

I have my quilting and my painting, and he has his walking, but he has no creative challenges.  He's reading a lot now (he never read in bed before but now he looks forward to it), and many of the books are on things of our travel.  That's the way I get him hooked to doing things when we travel.  He read about MASH and so we hiked to their site where they did so much filming for 6 years.

We've been on a number of trips, and once to London for 3 weeks.  We're exploring, walking, seeing new things, and it's been really surprising how relaxing it can be.  But there's also a franticness about it.

You're not the only one getting old, and you're noticing that many of your friends can't travel anymore, or some are sick (some very sick), so you realize that there is a limit of time of what you can see and how you can travel.  Your health is so important.

But there's also a franticness of getting things done, doing the things that you've always wanted to do.  IE the painting and learning, the reading of different books, hitting all those hiking spots.  After three years both my husband and I are realizing that we need to slow down.  We're still travelling but now we sit and watch people and places, and rest in between.  

That's the same with my creativity.  You want to paint so much but you can only paint so many days or nights.  You have tons of quilt projects all ready, but you want to just make a small thing every now and then.

I've just come off a huge quilt (queen size) all hand sewn by One S1ster.  Here's the link to the pattern and her website.

Yes, I did this, I'm on the final block, doing the top flowers and leaves.  There's a permanent hole in my finger from all the stitching.  It took me two years to finish it as every once in a while I put it away because I was tired of doing it every morning.  Now I've been doing it every morning and night, so that's what I mean about frantic.

You also get frantic about using all your material.  There was a blog post of using your scraps and one day I just wanted to sew so I made this pillow.  The instructions for the driesdens and the pattern is at this link at Flamingo Toes.  A wonderful site.  Seriously try your own.  It only took me about an hour to finish to top, then 1/2 hour for the quilting and the pillow backing.  I used a zipper because I like how they look better that way, more finished.  All fabric was scraps and they came together really well.  I love playing with pillows, to get a little creative.  I don't even remember what quilt I used the fabric for.  It's been years of sewing.  I have to bring it to the Quilt Guild for show and tell, along with two others.

Yes retirement is frantic, and really really busy, but it's up to you to slow it down and enjoy the process more than then the end result.  The painting of the week (I'm looking at fixing it up).  I'll do a before and afterward update later.  

For tonight, a little painting and then tomorrow off to the Tulip Festival in La Connor in Washington state.  Have a good night.

Working In April.

 I've been busy...  I have been to Scottsdale Arizona for 2 weeks, just soaking up the sun and walking around Ghost towns this time.  Here are some paintings I made.

The one below I painted for Easter for my hubby.

When I got home I then wanted to finish off a couple of quilts that were almost done.  Got them finished and am gifting one this week to someone I promised a quilt to 5 years ago.  OK I'm slow, but now it will fit her daughter who is 5...

Love the colors.  Quilted "x"s all through all the squares, and "V" shapes on the top.  It's ready for her.  Happy that I've been productive for the last 2 weeks.

Subbing again this week and last week, seems it's one a week now, but that's paying for my painting habit and I have a big some coming soon.  I did a small version to mark the colors and practice.  When the hubby leaves to see a friend in May that's when I'll do the hug one.  Stay tuned.

It's cherry tree season (actually it's almost over with) and as usual they're lovely.  Judge for yourself.

Tulips are up which means it's tulip festival time in Washington State by La Connor.  We haven't been there in a long time (at least two years) so I really want to go this year, but when you're semi-retired, you seem to be very very busy, so we will have to see.  So that's it.

That's my update.  

February is at a close and March is marching in....

 This weeks has been a very busy busy painting week.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I still did some quilting.  I have two blocks left on my cat on the farm hand sewn quilt...

See that top corner?  That's the two left.  It's a queen and it's scary how big it is, and all that hand sewing.

I finished the one below for donation.  A Scrap sew along from Meadow Mist.  Her pattern called Looking Glass.  Extremely forgiving and extremely easy to do.  I used all my 5" blocks but you can also use your 2 1/2 strips to make it.  Came together in less than 4 weeks.  So easy to make and so colorful.  Thank you Cheryl.  This link takes you to the blog post of the re release of this quilt.  

I am donating it to the Women's Shelter place that my quilt guild sponsors.  Thus the poem below:

GENERAL INFORMATION

🗓 Kickoff Date: Thursday, January 22nd
⏳ Duration: 7 weeks, wrapping up on March 12th.
🎉 Final Parade: Come here for the party.  People had a choice of 4 different patterns to try.  You did have to buy your pattern but it was on sale really cheap so that was great.
🚫 No Prizes—Just Fun: This is all about using what we have & enjoying the process.  And I did enjoy it.  Now I have a pattern for making a real quick quilt for a baby.
📝 Scrap Busting Posts: There were tips posted on fabric organization, scrap-busting ideas, and sewing techniques throughout the sew along.
🔹 The Challenge: Try to create your entire quilt—top, binding, and backing—using only fabric from your stash! No new fabric purchases needed.  And I didn't buy any except for the backing that I bought for a different quilt, found it wasn't right, so now I used it for this one.

The quilt parade is at this link at the end.  Come take a peak.

Then there was the painting which I went crazy on.  Take a look.  They're in order of when I painted them.

and my favorite.  I absolutely love the colors....  Getting better don't you think?

That was a  busy 2 weeks  lol.  How's your quilting and art coming along?

Getting her done......

 

And that's what I plan to do.  

There was a list of  things that I mean to get done this month and they are the following:

• The Mystery Mist Scrap Quilt laptop that I was working on.  It's due March 16th or there abouts.
• The colored 5" squares quilt for a colleague that I promised 5 years ago....  boy am I bad.
• The house and cat hand stitched quilt.  I have one panel that's taking forever.  Want that done and the next one all prepped for when I travel to Arizona in March.  That way the last 2 sections/panel can be completed when I get back and that's it for that one.
• Cutting the bear quilt that was on my list for the quilt guild to be completed by June meeting.

That's a lot, but it's doable.  My mouth is better from the surgery I had.  The stitches are coming out soon, so I will be able to do some stuff faster.

Lets look at the painting side of my life:

On the waterside of painting I did a challenge and 2 lessons so I'm doing well.  Most of my challenges I do on card size water paper so I can give them away.

On the acrylic side I did a painting my husband requested to redo our main bathroom with the theme of the beach.  Reminds me of Huntington Beach in California.  The picture is from Santa Scruz from Ali's painting lesson.  I love the difference I made on the rocks.  Learned to use more orange on the rocks to show light shining on it.  It's 12 by 20".

I also prepped 3 more paintings (did the outlines and the starting covers), and got some canvases ready for starting.  And that's it for this last week, yes a lot.

February is a quick month.

 Hello all and welcome to the new site.  If you recall I started to subdivide my websites because my interests are expanding.  I wanted to keep track of my book reading, my watercolors and my acrylic painting as well as my quilting.  I talk about them all here but in the different pages I go into them a bit more so you can see where I got the idea and where I am learning from.  But for now lets get going:

Quilting

I finally finished my quilt from SewFresh.  I just found out this week that she's closing her Etsy store and only selling on her website which is https://sewfreshquilts.com/  This site has a shop, a blog, tutorials, and many free patterns which you would really like.  I just finished a baby quilt using one of her free patterns, with Tigger.  It's from the Winnie the Poo and Friends quilt she made.  I just made one of the guys, but there are four of them to check out including Piglet, Eeyore, and Winnie the Poo of course.  The link is at the end of the blog posting above.  The writing around the Tigger are the words Tiger.  I got this scrap material from Fabricland (made for them only) for about $5.00 a meter, a great sale that just sat there for about 5 years.  Now was the perfect time.  I gave that away to a friend who just found out she's pregnant, and she loved it.

I had extra material even with this one so I cute out another Tiger to add to this one and I have a bit of the yellow left to go around it then I have some red to go around that.  That one I'll donate.  It ahs to be 35" by 35".  It's been a long time since I donated so I'm happy to do that.  

But the  other three characters from the free patter are so cute, I wouldn't mind doing them one day.  We'll have to see.  Go to SewFresh and on her tutorials you'll find the pattern as well as patterns for Earnie and Burt from Sesame Street and a really cute one of the Grouch

   
Have fun trying these ones out.

And here's the big review of another one of SewFresh's quilts, the Skeleton.  It's with rectangles, all of it.  There's a great map showing where the whites go, the blacks, and the grays.  The rest of the colors are your choices.  Because she loves Halloween I thought I would do oranges and fall colors.  I made a queen size quilt so that she can have it on her bed.  Her birthday was Monday, but it will take time to ship, so when it arrives, it arrives.

This is the back, a haunted house.

It's huge.

It's size on a queen size bed.

I love her patterns so much that I bought another one to make for my husband's shower curtain.  The theme is beachie and below is the next one, called gulls and crabs...   so cute.

Look at it when it is completed in fabric.....   gorgeous

Another one that I promised myself I would complete by the end of March when we leave on a trip is a Scrappy one.  The pattern is by Meadow Mist, "The Looking Glass".  It's made to use your 5" squares.  I've been cutting out many from scraps.  

It's part of the 2026 Stash Busting Quilt Along, the one and only group I've joined this year because I want to get my other BOM and Quilt alongs done (I have soooooo many on my UFO list).  You could choose between 4 different patterns that are all created to use your scraps so it's really good.  Also I have a choice of what size I want to make.  I'm making a lap quilt, but you have the option of a queen and a king.....  The pattern is that easy you can just keep going and going.  Not going there to a queen or a king after the last quilt I just finished.  At least not for a while.  With all of my scraps cut up I thought OK, I'll be able to get rid of some.  This really made me happy.  And it's looking good.  Although I am a month behind, I am catching up, everything is cut, half the blocks have been created, two rows are done, and half of the half (another quarter lol) is completed.  I also used scraps for the white backgrounds to get rid of some of that.  I'm not giving it away to anyone at this point of time.  May even give it as a donation, depending how it turns out.  So stay tuned for that one to be compelted.

I do have a flimsy completed with some other scraps I found.  I promised a councilor at my old school to make her new baby a quilt, never got it to her, and 6 years later, maybe this will be the one.  Take a look at the right.  That's right, 5" squares of all these different colors, so I put it in color order and just kept on and on and on.  But I think it's still too small length  wise so I'm going to add some strips off color on the top and on the bottom, then use black as the binding.  That will look lovely for both a girl and a boy.  But it's for an old colleague for sure.

So it's on my list to get this quilted with a white meandering quilt design.  That will look gorgeous.

So that's three for the end of February and start of March.  Should be able to do that.  The quilting prompt for February is something that makes you smile and all of them certainly do that.

Painting.

There is no prompt for painting but I'm using the same one for quilting, something that makes you smile.  And that's what this one did.  I decided to do one of the challenges from my course for watercolor painting from Emily Olson.  As the founder of Watercolor Mastery she sets out to prove that  by moving away from step by step and into "action-by-action" you can get pass the overwhelming and self0doub feelings, to just loving how to paint.  She has a You Tube channel with free guides, and some free lessons online on her web site.  But I purchased access to her online  blog.  But it also leads to her Watercolor Mastery classes that have tutorials every day, as well as lessons galore.  Take a look at it and tell me what you think.  Today I'm doing yesterday's challenge.  My goal is to do 6 more challenges.  You'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.  It's a frog in water.  So cute, with a big old eye staring out from the water.  I'm enjoying it and they say that you should practice at least 25 minutes a day.  Hope to make that goal.  Wait for the next one.

Acrylic Painting

For Valentines day I painted the picture to the right, for my husband.  I wasn't thinking of doing it but I

 was suppose to be away to Winnipeg to see my Aunt before I had to get dental surgery, lost my front tooth, broke right off, so they had to pull it and are not putting in an implant.  It's painful, and along came a fungus infection that I don't know what it came from.  Now I need to see the doctor to find out.  The blood test I took showed the fungus infection is in my blood.  Life's ups and downs.  This is one of them.  So I'm back to painting as well.  Want to do a three part series on beaches for my husband's remake of his bathroom.  Looking at a beach scene then doing a fish, a starfish, and a palm tree sunset.  Will show when it's done but that means a full day of painting...  This may be going on until after march.  One step at a time.

Also did my favorite raven.  Love how the feathers got to look so real with the sun shining on it. Wish I did the tail longer, but you live and learn.  That's it for him, need to move on into something new. This is the second time I tried a solo and I want to do another solo soon, so I made about three or four different copies or preps for my solos.  That's the idea, do some practices so I'm ready for the big 30" by 30" that I want to do.  Not going to say anything about it but one thing, it does go with the quilt that I plan to make to put up on the wall.

That's it for today, have a great day and a great week.  I'm taking it a bit easy these next few days to get rid of this stupid infection.

Bye....

Continuing on with prompts.

 I love  joining things, blocks of the month, reading clubs, cleaning clubs, painting clubs, oh my!!  But I just found a real cute one at Gnome Angels  It’s reading and quilting together.  

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Every month I’m provided with 2 reading prompts + 3 patchwork prompts.

I choose: 1-2 Reading prompts and 1-3 patchwork prompts.

For example, I can choose 1 reading prompt + 2 patchwork prompts. 

I can choose to do as much or as little as I want. It’s completely up to me – no pressure.

I can customize the prompts to suit my situation and the readings or quilts I am already doing.  According to this group there’s no right or wrong way to use the prompts. It’s reading and patchwork my way.

WHAT ARE THE PROMPTS?

The prompts are below.   On the site you get an explanation for each prompt and if you sign up for the newsletter you can get a pdf of all this. I’m behind on this so I got to catch up.

MONTH	READING PROMPT	FABRIC PROMPT	TECHNIQUE PROMPT	COLOUR PROMPT
JANUARY	First book in a series OR Summer Loving	Nautical / Aquatic	Traditional Piecing	Pink
February	Contains romance  OR Read with a friend	Makes You Smile	Fussy Cutting	Red
March	Contains animals OR Set prior to 1900s	Oldest Fabric in Stash	Strip Piecing	Green
APRIL	Autumnal vibes OR Has humour or pun in the title	Seasonal Theme	Stitch & Flip	Aqua / Teal
MAY	Mother(s) OR Botanical theme	Favourite Fabric Designer	Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP)	Grey
JUNE	A cozy read OR An “overdone” trope	Floral / Botanical	Over 12″	Black
JULY	Set in space OR Colourful cover	All in a Collection	Seamless Pattern Matching	Blue
AUGUST	Part of a trilogy OR Winter / snow / arctic setting	Low Volume	Improv Fabric Slab	White
SEPTEMBER	A “classic” or retelling OR Set in the future	Most Hoarded	Square-in-Square	Brown
OCTOBER	Thriller, mystery or horror genre OR Adapted into a movie	Selvedge	Selvedge FPP	Orange
NOVEMBER	Contains a hobby OR A genre blend	Stripes	Triangles	Purple
DECEMBER	Vacation read OR Holiday-themed book	Gifted Fabrics	Under 6″	Yellow

I don’t know how this will go but I’m going to try to have fun with it.  Go to Gnome Angels and sign up.