Last year (I had to search my blog to find it), my word for the year was

Simplify.

Even though I had actually attempted to do that over the course of the year, the fact that I didn’t remember the word (sigh) will tell you that I have some work to do on that score!

The word for 2011 is

Breathe.

The year, as I mentioned yesterday, is starting on quite a stressful note thanks (well, NO thanks) to the owner of the house on which we put an offer.  Our house has sold, so we MUST move  (we have a short rentback from the new owners and think we can extend that a bit), but we don’t know if the current owner will comply with the requirement to be out of the house for *us* to occupy it when we go to closing due to a lot of things that have gone on since we got the contract to sell our house.  So we will know next week when closing happens if he will be out, and if it will be this month……

In the meantime, I am trying to breathe.  Trying not to feel like a quivering mass of stress.  Trying to pack up some things, clear out junk (to Goodwill when suitable, to the dump when not!), keep up with paperwork, not snap at the hubster and children.  All will be well in the long run, but at the moment it is pretty nerve-wracking.  Again, I’ll ask for you all to send vibes for things to work out the way we would most like!

Happy New Year to one and all!

Yes, while the turkey was roasting on Christmas day and the potatoes were boiling and the pie and stuffing were done, I took a little time for art!  About a thousand lifetimes ago (meaning last winter, maybe February-ish) I took an online class with Sharon Boggon (her site is here and is now called In a Minute Ago, here blog is  Pin Tangle)  about a “working” sketchbook.  Not a fancy, work-of-art-in-itself journal, but about using a journal as a way to flesh out ideas and stimulate creativity.  Here’s a link to the class description…I really enjoyed the class!  Alas, I have been abysmal at keeping up with it–simply too much life happening.  BUT…. I have the journal and the supplies and the desire.  So on Christmas I made the time!

I just LOVE how this turned out....it makes me happy. Being creative and noodling around just makes me content. I should do this more!

I took some of the squares I had cut from magazine pages, and some words and phrases, and started gluing them up.  One page became two…. then I took my WONDERFUL Christmas gift from hubby:  a set of 72 Derwent Inktense pencils

The Inktense pencils are in the upper left. My magazine snippings are in the box, and the bag on the right is my travel-art bag, with room for a set of 6 graphite pencils, a 12-travel-set of watercolor, a waterbrush, glue stick and a couple odd pens are inside in their custom-made pockets

and a waterbrush and, in the evening after supper while watching Starman with my family, colored in the background.  I LOVE IT!

And I cannot let the last Christmas posting pass without Kate’s candles–I’ll blog about our Frayed Edges meeting in a few days, but I had to share these.  Kate found the votives in cylindrical glass cups then re-purposed old (tossed out) sheet music.  The large one is from Stonewall Kitchen (a Maine company) and smells of “Maine Forest.”

My new Canon G12 has a "candlelight" setting on the dial, and this was taken just holding the camera still, no tripod or bracing...love it!

OK…no pictures today (sob, I’m sorry!).  It has been, as usual, chaos, and more chaos than usual!   I am happy to report, however, there are lots of pictures and things to share….I just need to find a few extra hours in the day to process and re-size the photos, then write and blog!

The biggest interrupted by life was going to the International Quilt Festival in Houston, where I demo’d, met friends, ate Mexican (HEAVENLY!), met new friends, had fun, spent some money on fabric and paints, tried a new product that I think is gonna be awesome, and generally got exhausted and happy.

Then there are the teenager and kid and aging mom things that tend to interrupt life.  And filling out insurance claims.  And selling our house (going like a dream) and buying our new house (not so much…I’ll dish AFTER the closing is done and we own the house, but it has been unnecessarily difficult because of one person…more in maybe February or March on that one).  It looks like, at long last, that all WILL come off without a hitch (I’m an optimist), and in late January we’ll be moving to a new house about 4 miles away (same school district).

Then, on the way home from Houston, I was too tired for the level of attention required by the book I had.  So while changing planes in Dallas (which by the way is like a big city shopping mall with airplane gates added!) I went into the Barnes and Noble (complete with Starbucks) and bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.   Ooops.  That means I have been DEVOURING that book and the two sequels.  I am halfway through the last book, and will surface when done LOL!
Thanks for checking in, and I promise good pictures and fun stuff SOON, Cheers, Sarah

So, you might ask, what have I been doing?  OK, no, you probably haven’t been asking.  But it has been insane here.  We are hoping to buy a new house and move in January, so there have been MANY (way too many hours) doing real estate related stuff.  The good news is that our house got a contract on it in 12 days, in this economy!  The bad news …well…. I’ll share when all is said and done (you won’t believe the story when I can finally tell it).  Let’s just say EVERYTHING is on track, and we do expect to move (so much for January as making quilts time!) in January—yeah!

In the meantime, I’ve not been able to concentrate a lot on art quilts.  But I liked that use-a-big-print sampler I made for my free-motion class  so much that I decided to make a bed quilt, possibly as a project piece for a future book (yeah, shoot me again please!). Here are the squares pieced with the sashing into rows:

Big prints with white sashing (vertical pieces)

Adding the horizontal sashing....it has been a LONG time since I've done precision piecing!

And the first of the rows with the horizontal sashing added..I am going to LOVE this quilt.  But it’s a good thing I am probably buying an HQ16 sit-down machine early next year as I will need the space:  this quilt will finish at about 100 inches on each side!!!!

The top three rows now have the horizontal sashing....

And I’m getting ready to head out on Nov. 2 for the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  I will have four quilts and two photos on display!

Cookie? PLEEEZE Cookie! is in Art Quilts-Miniatures in the juried show

Joshua is in the Beneath the Surface Exhibit

Koi and A Sense of Place:  The Wall are in the 500 Art Quilts exhibit, where the quilts are from the Lark Books book of the same name.

and in the Eye of the Quilter Exhibit, I will have two photos!  I’ll post those photos in a post in a few days!

But here is the pile of “getting ready to take” stuff, including some in progress postcards for a swap. I’m going to take some of this round’s swap cards for my demo in the MistyFuse booth!

As if I didn’t have enough to do already, we are thinking of moving to a different house in the area–same school district, though.  So in addition to selling off mom’s household stuff, trying to keep up with my quilting career, raising two kids (one of whom is a teenager…’nuf said), eat, sleep, walk the dog, et cetera, we are getting the house spruced up.   The dear, departed Yeti-dogbeast (read about him here and here) left his marks on the house literally:  major scratches on the door from the garage to the house, so I needed to fix them.  Alas, there was so much to do that wood filler the color of the door wasn’t gonna do it, so I went to regular wood filler:

Yep.  That light stuff is ALL wood filler.  I didn’t get the molding done perfectly, but it is a whole heap better than it was.  Then primed:

And finally painted to match the interior walls…mo bettah!

So does this mean I have time to sew?  Alas, no…. life is happening in a major way, but at least the house is looking better!  And keep your fingers crossed that we find a buyer for our house SOON!