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.

Where has the month gone?

 For a retired teacher I worked too much this last month.  I did a week at a school, went off to Anaheim California (Christmas gift from my husband) and then right back to work for a week, during the end of the term in January at a high school (same school before I left).  I'm working way too much and my husband finally told me he wants me home more (that was after a heated discussion).  And I have to admit I'm enjoying staying home tremendously. 

I'm having trouble calming down but that's been going on for months now, with this on again and off again working, not working, etc.  I don't know if I'm coming or going.  But I'm believing that I'm at the end of this part of my life.  I promised my husband that I would spend two weeks with him, and he said I can take requests only.  I pointed out to him that this was all I was doing for the past two years, but now he understands that we can't have it both ways.  So it's stop with all the extra money from subbing, or continue on.  He wants me with him, so that's the way it's going to go.  I'll try to cut down to one a week or at least 2 a month for supporting my my craft habits:  quilting, acrylic painting, water coloring, and the courses that I'm taking.

This leaves me time for more of the hobbies and retirement now.  This is the trip to Anaheim:

Shark that someone hauled up while fishing at a pier.  We got a great look at him.  My goodness it was surprising.  It's called an angle shark and it wasn't far from the beach.  We also swam at Huntington Beach and there were 54 people stung that day because the sting rays are coming closer to the shore.

we saw two hockey games - one in LA in a suite we were invited to and the other in the Duck Pond in Anaheim.

Went to 6 beaches in 5 days, and at one we saw a castle on the beach.  That's my hubby in the picture.  It goes up to the top so the people on top of the cliff can come down to this private beach.  We had to come down about 60 stairs on the side of the cliff to get here.

That's the cliffs at the wild beaches.  We sat for about an hour at this one.

This is another beach and a picture of the stairs to get down at this one.  It was easy and pretty, and really built up for people to walk in a huge park.  Loved it.

This was the walk at the bottom of the stairs, it was about 2 miles long but on a cement walkway.

Another wild beach and the dunes around it which are falling into the ocean.  That's why the fence.

Huntington Beach.  Love the reflection of the water.

Of course we went to Disneyland with our friend Kara.

And this time we explored Disney hotel.

We also went to a town where houses fell down the cliffs (no one was hurt) and it had a lighthouse.

 We got a tour of it, and went all the way to the top of it.

Now I talk about my paintings  I continue to paint with Allie Kay online lessons at FreshPaint.  Her lessons are easy to follow and she had a class on 25 minutes of painting a day.  Did 4 our of the 5 paintings on very small 5 x 8" blocks.  

These are a few extra when I had time, just practicing.

The one below is one that I did as a solor.

This was just this week, one of Allie's lessons.

I am doing some watercolors as well but I have to do more practicing.

That was this month's work.  But I'm not done.  I also did two quilts:

One for a friend who just learned that she is pregnant.  Below is the back of the quilt....  

And below is the quilt itself.  I loved it.  It's free from SewFresh.  Tiger from Disneyland.

Here's another one that I made this week as well. It's a lap quilt but I'm thinking of making it larger.  Adding piano keys all around it.  What do you think?

And that was what January is like, busy busy busy, with 10  days of subbing.  I got to take a break.  Going to finish my quilt for my cousin in Win nipeg and I'm leaving for Winnipeg in a couple of weeks that's the next one needed on the list.

How did your month go?