While working on my sketching and watercolor class last fall, the L.L. Bean Hunting catalog arrived.  I was instantly taken with the stag on the cover, and wanted to try to sketch him…to my utter delight, it worked!

The Stag Christmas card....made just a dozen....

Here is a snapshot of the catalog cover and my sketch:

The initial sketch, before doing the water-wash to get the shading

Fortunately, when I shared that I had used their photo with LL Bean, they didn’t mind!  I used a Tombow water-soluble ink pen on this as well as a permanent India-Ink (Pitt by Faber-Castell) pen for the outlines.  The permanent pen doesn’t bleed or leak, which preserves the crisp outlines.  Then I shaded with the Tombow (a medium-dark gray) and used a Niji Waterbrush to spread the ink.  A tiny bit of the Tombow bled outside the inked lines in the antler, but so it goes.  Finally, I used an extra-fine tipped Pitt pen to write “Forever Wild” as a “frame” for the  sketch.  Back in the old days, Maine’s Governor Percival Baxter bequeathed a huge tract of land to the state which is now Baxter State Park.  His only requirement was that the land remain “forever wild.”

The photo or scan didn’t transfer all the shading to the cream card stock, but it looks good anyway!  PHEW!  Here’s a photo of the cards and the back of a gift ornament (post coming in a couple days) :

Card, ornament and 4-pen set of Pitt pens

Well, number two son Eli had a phenomenal end of season!  He won the Busline (local) League individual Championship, with his friend Ben coming in right behind him!

Eli wins the Busline League (midcoast Maine) Middle School Championships; friend Ben is not far behind

The boys team wins the Busline League as Undefeated Champions (second year in a row!)

The girls team wins the Busline League as Undefeated Champions (second year in a row!)

Happy Coach Morse and Happy kids!

Then they went to the Winthrop Invitational (thanks to a wonderful Coach, Jim Morse, who kept seeking more opportunities for the top runners), where Eli won with a new course record (!!!), and both teams won!

To our delight and surprise, Eli came charging up the final hill IN THE LEAD--and no one in sight behind him-- and won the Winthrop Invitational with a new course record!

Next was a larger invitational about 90 minutes north of here so the kids could experience a larger field.  Eli came in third, and both boys and girls teams won!

Aurora meet...Eli comes in third! and fourth is not even around the corner of the building....

While I was teaching at A Quilters’ Gathering in New Hampshire, there was a State-wide qualifying meet in Augusta.  Runners who placed high enough would get to compete in the USA Track and Field Association Junior Olympics Northeast Regional meet in Queensbury, NY.  Eli placed second in the STATE!

The last big event, the Sunday before Thanksgiving…get this!…. Seven of our runners went to the Junior Olympics Regionals!  A few more made it, but they were in 6th grade and the parents decided, maybe when they are older (smart!).  All of the kids raced, some ran their best times ever, and all came in somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Eli was the highest finishing middle schooler for Maine except for the kid who beat him at both Aurora and Augusta meets.  There were some older boys from Maine, Freshman, in the same age group, and they came in a bit ahead.  Eli was 63 of 116 which is pretty amazing since runners came from Maine, NH, Vermont, parts of NY, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. WOW!

Junior Olympics Northeast Regionals, age 13-14 boys; Maine kids are at the far right--taking off! As Eli put it, the leaders shot out, went into the woods, and weren't seen again!

Eli heads down the chute for the finish line at his first Junior Olympics race

Our Camden-Rockport kids standing under the finish line. It was great...we had kids in three or four separate races, and all the kids and all the parents stayed for all the races and finishes! We're so proud of ALL of them! Eli is the boy to the right, his friend from first grade on, Ben, is at the left.

It was a 6+ hour drive from Hope, Maine, to Queensbury, NY, so we drove  over Saturday for a midday race Sunday, then drove home after the race.  And slept in Monday–we told Eli he could go to school late!   While waiting to head over to the course on Sunday, I decided to sketch a bit…I’ll share more of this journaling later.

To pass the time on Sunday morning before the race, I decided to sketch Eli's tank.

It was a great season…we are so grateful to Jim Morse for his dedication to the kids, to the school for providing buses to all the meets and letting the kids wear their red uniforms for the after-season meets.

I have to comment the USATF and the volunteers in NY.  Over the course of the day there were some 2000 runners, and this was by far the best organized meet of this sort I’ve ever attended.  And best of all:  ALL the kids were enthused, learned from the reality dose from being the best of the best in Maine to among the best in New England, and ALL want to go back next year!

You know how the internet goes…one link leads to another leads to another…not sure where I saw this, but thought it would be fun to share:

For about the past 18 months, I have wanted a new tea cozy as the old one was seriously exhausted, stained, beyond redemption.   Then a few months ago, after a trip through the wash, the ribbon which gathered it up on the top came out and I never put it back.  It was getting annoying.  So a week or two ago, I took a break from “ought to do” stuff and did a “want to do” thing:  I made a tea cozy that actually fits the current teapots…smaller than the old one so it will keep the pot warmer (in theory).

Finally, new tea cozies and a mat/pad

The first one I made was a little bit too small, so it got turned into a little hot pad.  See, I make Irish steel-cut oats most mornings and, rather than dirty a dish, I just take the small pan to the table and eat from that.  In the interest of not scorching the placemats or table, and with the idea of something a little less decrepit than our kitchen hotpads, I made the hot pad.

The two tea cozies are the same size, but have four different Rowan/Westminster fabrics, those lovely color-saturated florals!  You can see three of the four fabrics in the photo.  So now I am going to go pull the cozy off the pot and have another cuppa tea!

Coastal Quilters 2013 Challenge: Favorite Place

Hi all…yes, I’ve been seriously missing, and as usual, that also means BUSY.  Among other things (which I will blog about in the coming days), I made this small quilt (in this photo, not yet quilted….that tells you how busy…it’s done except for sewing down the facings now).  Among other things that keep me busy and happy, is Coastal Quilters, the local chapter of Maine’s Pine Tree Quilt Guild.  I’ve been active on the board doing this or that for, well….basically since we moved to Maine 7+ years ago.  At the moment I am co-Program Chair and co-Challenge Coordinator.

Every August, CQ has a picnic at one member’s camp cottage (a “camp” in Maine is usually a rustic, uninsulated building somewhere in the woods or on a pond or lake).  Like most camps, this one is reached by a dirt road which astonishingly now has a name, not jut R.R.  (rural road) or F. R. (Fire Road) plus number.   But the road is still dirt, still so bumpy you need to drive at a crawl, and has “camp tree”…. a tree at the fork in the road with boards nailed to it.  Each board has a name and some sort of arrow so you know which way to go.  Joan also kindly always puts out some cheater-cloth dresden plate squares as flags to keep us going to the right place:  the family cottage on the shores of Pitcher Pond.

Why this digression?  well, we announce the Challenge in December or October, so by August I am starting to think about getting things organized.  And for the past two years, I have deputized all present at the picnic to be my advisory committee!  Since it was rainy and dreary this year, there were only a few of us (five, plus Joan’s husband and their dog).  Eleanor had been greatly inspired by the Twelve by Twelve book and Challenge.  See, my friend Deborah Boschert is one of our mini-group as well as part of the Twelves (see their website here), and she came from her home in Maryland for our show this summer at the library (see here 1, here 2 and here 3).  Eleanor really wanted to do a challenge like that.  So we summarily decided that in addition to the 2012 Challenge (using a vintage block, inspired by Mary Kerr’s Vintage Revisited, here), we would ALSO announce the 2013 challenge! We came up with a list of themes, and will announce one every other month at the unveiling of the “current” theme quilts.

Our first theme was Favorite Places.  Eleanor also completed a quilt  (interestingly, I chose my spot on the sofa in the living room, and Eleanor did a site map of her home–totally unknown to each other), and since this challenge was her idea, I asked her to pick from our list of themes for the next one:  Cycles!  Try Googling cycles and you’ll come up with all sorts of cool possibilities.  I hope we get more participants; I hope to let others choose the themes.

So that my local chapter members have a place to look, I’m going to include the instructions right here, along with the themes.  Hope you enjoy–feel free to adapt / use these guidelines to set up your own challenges!

Themes:

• Due December 2011:  Favorite Place
• Due February 2012:    Cycles

The 2013 Coastal Quilters

Chapter Challenge!

In a nutshell:

• Every two months from October 2011 to April 2013 we will issue a challenge theme.
• Make a 13×13 inch quiltlet that relates to that theme and bring it to share two months later.
• You do NOT have to make ALL the challenge themes.  You can make one, several or all.
• For at least ONE of the challenges, you must incorporate a traditional quilt block pattern/design/something into the piece is some fashion.  You may do this just once, a few times, or for every challenge.
• Please include a label on the backs with this information (see below for possible limits on display)

Your First Name Last Name

Date (May 2012 or whatever)

Coastal Quilters 2012 Chapter Challenge

Your address/contact info

More details:

At the 2011 Picnic at Joan’s camp on Pitcher Pond, Eleanor  said she was inspired by Deborah Boschert’s Twelve By 12 Challenge group and the book.  She wanted to do something similar.  Sarah deputized those present (Joan, Louisa, Louisa’s sister, Eleanor) as her Challenge Advisory Committee, and we came up with the general guidelines and themes for this 18-month challenge to be shown at Maine Quilts in 2013.  Here’s what we decided:

• Quilt must be 13 x 13 inches to go with the year 2013
• Puns are allowed/encouraged
• Each quilt must have a front, batting, back and suitable edge finish
• You must include a traditional block in some fashion in at least one of your challenge pieces
• We will have 9 themes distributed over 18 months
• The first three themes are decided; we have ideas for the rest, but participants may suggest additional themes and we might possibly revise the list

If we have too many 13×13 quilts, Sarah will figure out how many we can display, then set a maximum number that any individual can have on display.  Those with less than that number may display all their quiltlets.  Those with more than that number will select which ones they want to hang at Maine Quilts.  As has happened the past couple of years, Sarah will do up the entry for our challenge and arrange the display.

Please include a label on the back with this information

Your First Name Last Name                        Coastal Quilters 2013 Chapter Challenge—[theme]

Date (May 2012 or whatever)                        Your address/contact info

More information:

If you have any questions, contact Sarah Ann Smith at  sarah@sarahannsmith.com.

The Twelve by Twelve International Art Quilt Challenge book is available in many locations, including on Amazon.com.

ISBN-10: 1600596665 or   ISBN-13: 978-1600596667