It’s a miracle…it’s not even a full year after Joshua graduated and got his GED and his quilt is DONE! Here, Joshua and Ashley are opening the quilt and looking at the top /side one!

As Joshua got close to finishing his GED exams, I asked him what fabrics and colors he would like in his graduation quilt, because of  COURSE he needed a quilt for graduation!   He really liked a fabric I used to cover the back of a chair (I don’t much like the chair so wanted to cover it up), so that became the “base” fabric.  And Joshua loves what I do, and he loves color (I tie-dyed them Grateful-Dead-style fabric for a kitchen valance), so I put together big prints for the diamonds and small semi-solid-ish-look for the sashings.   At first I thought I’d go totally random, and it looks like a mish-mosh.  Then I hit on doing rainbow in the sashings, and it worked!

Here’s the quilt laid out on our queen sized bed. It is about 86×97 inches. I wish I’d made it one row wider, but by the time I figured that out the skinny half-triangles on the side were done, so I called it good!

My initial idea was to do random large blocks, but I wasn’t certain it would look good.  So I hit on the Kaffe Fassett inspired diamonds.  THEN I took the leftovers and made the back (or the other front?):

Here’s the back of the quilt, which can be an “other” side. I used more of the blues and greens here.

Then I asked Joshua to wrap up in the quilt:

There’s my boy giving his girl the eye <<grin>>

And then I asked them both to wrap up in it:

Of course they laughed!

And here’s Ashley looking like a very colorfil Cousin It:

Ashley under the quilt

And then Joshua couldn’t resist the tempation….

Picking up his honey! Luckily, no one got dropped even though we were all laughing so hard!

Are those not the cutest kids on the planet? LOVE YOU BOTH!

So that’s Joshua’s graduation quilt, and he even got it not-too-late!

Just a quickie catch-up post!   I’ll have some great news to share in a couple of weeks about what has been keeping me busier than my usual busy.   But I’ve also managed to squeeze in a few other things.  First in date order is two online classes with the delightful, talented, and superlative teacher Val Webb (website here).   This winter I had planned to relax and take two of her classes which overlap by about a month.  Despite the fact that you can really do a LOT of work (and LEARN a LOT), I decided to take both.  First one is Drawing Dogs and Cats, second one is Fairies (or as I prefer, Faeries) in Nature.

My Luna-Boy faerie in gouache, about 9 x 6 inches.

In Val’s classes, you learn not only about drawing, but also painting, as well as various media and techniques.  The lesson above is for small children as fairies, with wings, and gouache (which I have never used).  There are some technical issues; basically, I need practice with the medium!   But overall I am quite pleased with my Luna-boy.  In the next photo, we worked with graphite to sketch a dog.  His right eye is a bit off (thank you for the feedback, Val! I knew something was off but couldn’t spot it until you helped), but I’m fairly happy with this one, as well.  I attribute all good stuff with these two to the quality of Val’s teaching!

Sweet doggie, in graphite pencil.

This week is also number 2 son’s 16th birthday.  How the child can be 16, weigh more than me (wooohooo! finally!), etc., defies comprehension.  Clearly the calendar lies.  Eli’s request for birthday dinner:  my waffles and Joshua’s parmesan fried chicken, an exact repeat of what Joshua had in early November.  As it was the beginning of the wrestling season, Eli couldn’t pig out.  This time he could and did <<grin>>!

We will NOT think about the calories involved in waffles and fried chicken.

Thanks to de facto DIL Ashley for taking pics as I brought in the birthday cake:

The calendar lies. There is no way my youngest is 16. I realize I am old enough to be his grandmother, but that is irrelevant LOL! Eli, we love you to bits and are so thankful you came into our lives (even if we were and are old and tired!).

She also got this great pic of Thumper the 26-toed cat.  As you can see, our cats pay us no mind.  Sigh.

Thumper. Sigh.

And guess what it is doing today.  Again.  Sigh again.

One more time. At least it isn’t sleeting a lot, as was predicted, and the temperature is now down to freezing or just below.

At least it is pretty–the flakes where HUGE!  We were predicted to get a lot of snow, school let out early, and we are all expecting it to be cancelled tomorrow.  Then the weather service predicted less snow, more ice and lots of sleet.  That is actually a lot worse.  But we haven’t had any sleet here in Hope, though beyond the ridge of hills on the coast is may be sleeting.  Here it has been snowing for about 7 hours.  We’ll see what the morning brings.  We will also fill buckets with water as it is likely to be heavy, wet snow and power could well go out.  Again.  Sigh.

And to end of a fun note, this fall I will be helping curate (i.e. be the behind the scenes worker bee) the new SAQA Food exhibit, open to SAQA members.  Alex Veronelli, mover and shaker at Aurifil Thread, will be the juror.  Just today I received the Quilts, Inc., eInsider newsletter, which had this profile of him.  It’s an interesting read.  Enjoy.

Now I need to go start on dinner.  Oh whee.

Let’s start with some beauty: sunrise yesterday en route to the All-State (Maine) New England Qualifier tournament at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine. LOOK at those colors on the snow, the farm on the crest at the right, the maples silhouetted (and likely soon to sprout sap buckets)…. sigh..swoon…

It’s been an action packed few days:  it is now 9:34 a.m. Friday.  Since this time Wednesday morning…..

I received two memory cards (RAM, not hard drive) for my 2010 MacBook Pro and successfully installed them!   WOW what an improvement now that I’m at the max. for this machine, 8 GB!   Why did I wait so long?

In the upper left you see one of the two old RAM memory cards. The two new ones are installed, in the center of my laptop. The Apple Store no longer does upgrades on machines as “old” as my 2010 model, so I had no choice but to do it myself. Luckily, there were handy videos online and it was easy peasy! And boy does my laptop switch from one thing to the next faster!

Then I got to go downstairs.  As promised, I’m sharing some of the fabric–since I can’t share the in progress pics until the quilt is done and juried (either in or out).

Here are the pre-fused fabrics for my current quilt. There will be plenty leftover, but that is the joy of Mistyfuse–it never goes bad. I can keep and use all the scraps and leftovers. In fact, many of the fabrics on the table that aren’t big rectangles are leftovers from previous projects. Yep–I’m a Mistyfuser! I’m gonna have to blog how I use it, maybe even try doing a video….

Yesterday was Eli’s final meet/tournament of the wrestling season:  a new one, but a worthy addition to Maine’s line-up.  In the past, the three state champions for each of the 14 weight classes (from 106 to 285), one each from Class A, B and C schools went to New England Regional Championships.   This year, in an effort to have the best of the best, they instituted a New Englands Qualifier tournament the week after States.  The top four finishers in each weight class got to compete.

As usual, I had to take “good luck” photos of Eli warming up. Here he has doffed his sweats, put on his headgear and is running into the gym for what became his final match.

As my loyal readers (thank you! I am still astonished at that concept!), you know Eli is a GOOD wrestler, hubby/dad Paul is an Asst. Coach, and I’m a loud fan of Eli and the Camden team.  Last weekend, Eli placed third in States, having lost by just two points to the eventual winner of the 145-lb weight class in an early round, thereby ended up in the Consolation bracket where the top spot was number 3 (which he got!).

Earlier in the day, he and buddy Connor Winchenbach (who placed first at 152-lbs at Class B States) take a break between rounds to have some lunch. In the far mat another of the Camden boys is wrestling (tiny figure in red with white lettering down the spine).

Earlier in the season, the kid from Massabesic tooled all over Eli at a duals (regular season) meet. Eli was in a better frame of mind this day, but Eli told me the Massabesic kid is **really good** on his feet. You don’t often see Eli in this position, about to get dumped! (Eli is in red, Massabesic — a Class A school from the southern part of the state — is in white-green-yellow.

But it wasn’t one-sided:  it was back and forth and tied at 5-5 until halfway through the third period:

After getting brought down, Eli came back and here is in control, trying (but not succeeding) to get the boy onto his shoulders.

PK and Coach G are on the right, watching Connor who is wrestling on the next mat. Eli and Massabesic wrestler are in the back, with Eli on top and in control.  Eli is doing a cross-face, which makes it hard for the kid to maneuver.

But in the end, Eli couldn’t hang on to the very strong senior from Massabesic, who got back on to his feet and managed to score two points at the end of the third period to eke out the win.

That makes Eli one of the top SIX 145-lb. wrestlers in the State—all classes! (there is no wrestle-off for 5/6, but the other one tied at 5/6 is the boy won won Class A States!).  As a SOPHOMORE!   Of the other six, one is a sophomore (he placed third), and four are seniors.  WAY TO GO, ELI! (Yup, bustin’ my buttons proud!)  AND, Eli placed higher than ANY other Class B or C 145-lb wrestler (meaning he did better than the boys who won first and second last Saturday)!  The top three in each weight class from the Qualifier meet will compete in two weeks at New Englands.  And (drum roll) Connor Winchenbach, a senior, qualified to compete, too!  Way to go, Connor!

Then came food!  Connor’s parents and three teammates who traveled with them (the school did not provide a bus!) and the three of us went to Pizza Hut, and boy could you tell only Connor has to make weight.  Those boys ATE!  <beam>

Eating continued this morning with the first waffles in 3 1/2 months. My recipe, from Joy of Cooking, uses 3 eggs, and I generally think of it as feeding 3 people. I had 3 waffles (small). Eli had ALL the rest. <Beam!> I’ve missed feeding Eli!

Hmmm…just noticed my watermark needs the date changed! ….Anyway….

During breakfast guess what it was doing:  yep, snowing.  This is the FIFTH snowstorm/snowfall we’ve had in the past seven DAYS.  I ran out during breakfast to get this photo.  Good thing as the temperatures have just pushed above freezing and it has changed to (yuck) rain.  That means slush and, when the temperature drops tonight, ice.  Yuck.

HUGE snowflakes coming down during breakfast.

So that’s the past 52 hours.   Today:  work more on that quilt, hopefully work on a drawing lesson/class, and hang out with Eli on the last weekday of Winter Break.  Tomorrow:  to Portland with Eli to buy new running shoes for the upcoming Track and Field season, then to a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) meeting in Portsmouth, NH on Sunday.  WOOT!  And fabric dyeing with Kathy, hopefully on Tuesday!!!  Double WOOT!

Woooohoooo!   I got IN!  Yep, I am thrilled that I will soon be spending a small fortune to send a 40 x 100 cm quilt to Australia to be in the Living Colour Textiles exhibit! The bad news is that I can’t share a full picture until the exhibit opens at the Australasian Quilt Show in Melbourne in mid-April!  But I can share some of the “early” pics…..

Fabric stretched out on some rigid foam core, manually pleated/folded, dye applied, ready to be covered and batched!

The exhibit is called Living Colour, and as the curator Brenda Gael Smith reminded folks, there are two parts to that title!   I have been noodling around with an idea for a week-long workshop around the theme Quilting the Good Life (c), and Quilting the Garden as a part of that.  The workshop would involve learning my collage and thread-coloring techniques with a small project (similar for all), then moving on to develop a quilt based on one’s own photography or imagery, then quilting it.  (If anyone wants to hire me to do this, please write!)  This quilt will fit in that rubric!  Although I usually use lots of batiks, this quilt was mostly my own hand-dyes with a few batiks.  And of course I left it to the last minute to make the quilt!  About 10 days before it was due, I dug out the dye pots (above) to make the red fabric in exactly the color and texture I needed, which I did by manually “pleating” the wet fabric and applying dye with a sponge paintbrush.

The resulting red fabrics used on the front (and back) of the quilt.

As long as I had dyes mixed up,

Last year’s $$ investment in the business was to put a sink into the basement. It is in the room with the water pump, oil tank, water heater, etc., but I have just (barely) enough room to put the 4×8 rigid foam core on top of a folding table and have this re-purposed kitchen cart on the side for mixing. Those of you who have take Carol Soderlund’s fabulous classes will recognize some of my color pages clipped above the mixing station. And I have learned to keep notes in my spiral notebook of what primaries I’ve used so I can replicate–like the green in a photo below.

I overdyed some hideously ugly fabric I had made, some in a workshop, some on my own.  The beauty of cotton hand-dyes is that if they turn out vile, you can just keep throwing on dye.  Either they turn good, or you add more dye and get some great deep browns and mottled forest colors!  These are clearly the before shots:

The plum fabrics on the left were from a workshop exercise. I cut a small bit off each to remind myself, then over dyed. The teacher won’t tell you the purpose of the exercise, she wants you to learn by doing. That’s fine, but if I had known the exercise was to force splitting of the dyes I would NEVER have selected the final plum color because the blue-yellow make that nasty mint green! Thankfully I did not follow her suggestion to use a yard each, but instead only wasted a fat quarter each. Which are still hideous enough!

This ugliness was a mopping up cloth. UGLY.

These are the after:

The green on the top is a hand-dye I like and want to reproduce. The blue on the bottom is a purchased batik. The pink-coral with blue splotches is the fugly piece just above. The orange-fuchsia-yellow are that plum-mint ugliness. The fuglies are going back for more color. Ugh. They will make good browns eventually!

Result:  less awful than before, but back in the over-dye (again) pile!

SNEAK PEEK:  and finally, here you can see a pile of red off-cuts from my quilt for Living Colour Textiles.  I fused the reds with Mistyfuse, cut my shapes, and had leftover bits.  Those will go into the next project, a quilt of Eli during cross-country season in his red team uniform of tank and shorts.   That one is already in the sketched out, fabrics selected, fusing happening stage!  I WILL make more than two quilts this year!

Off-cuts from my Living Colour piece, all Mistyfused. They were SO fiddly to cut I figure I will use these somehow…

And I had to add Tyger, who decided to help warm some of the fabric by sitting on top (thankfully the plastic extended well beyond the edges of the pan) of the fabrics batching by the woodstove!

What a silly cat! Tyger has his back half sitting on the fabric, his front half going paw-paw on the plastic on the floor.

About a month or so ago, Eli came in from the yard and said “Mom, what bird would be all white with brown spots?”  The only bird I could think of was a snowy owl, but we are way too far South of their normal range, so I dug out my Peterson guide and went through the entire thing.  The only all-white bird with brown spots was the owl.  Asked Eli: what shape head and beak?  “I don’t know, it was flying away from me.”  Then a few days later on NPR there was a report of many Snowy Owl sightings in Maine this winter…. and we had one in our yard, and I had missed it.

Snowy Owl at Clarry Hill, Union, Maine

Then my friend Kathy told me she had SEEN the snowy owls at Clarry Ridge in Union, about 12 miles from our house, and told me how to get up to the ridge, which by the way is freakin’ unbelievably gorgeous blueberry barrens with a 360 view that goes for miles and miles and miles.  So after a wonderful lunch with Gail and Louisa at Boynton McKay in town, I decided to explore and hope for the best.

The blueberry barrens are this incredible russet color in autumn and winter. There is SO a blueberry barrens quilt in my future. And maybe dyeing fabric. Soon.  We are lucky to look out from our house (about 8 miles as the crow flies from here) and see barrens on the hill opposite.

Clarry Hill is apparently part of the Medomak Nature Preserve , and it is in the middle of a hilltop of blueberry barrens.  I wasn’t a hundred yards up the path that I was taking pictures of the late afternoon light picking up the incredible colors of the barrens:

How GLORIOUS is this color? Looking to the west-northwest to Appleton and Union.  I want to dye fabric these colors…..

It was so glorious I didn’t mind that I didn’t see an owl.  Then on my way back to the car I saw a woman with binoculars scanning and she had a camera hanging around her neck, too, so I asked her if she was there for the owl.  And she pointed one out to me…at that point s/he (the owl) was behind me to the left:

See that white spot in the tree? That’s my first view of the snowy owl! Gotta go log that into the margins of my Roger Tory Petersen guide!

I took several photos, had a lovely chat with Hilda L. from South Hope, then headed back to the car after taking MORE photos of the blueberry barrens.  Talk about wanting to head straight to the dye-pots!   Anyway, I get in the car and start backing out when out of the corner of my eye I see movement:  a snowy owl (Hilda told me there are at least two and possibly three up there) landed in the tree just up from the parking spot!  So I took a bunch of photos, then moved down the drive a bit and took MORE photos.  And was lucky to snap the owl stretching his/her wings a couple of times!

From the small parking area (on bare rock at the end of a short dirt road), I caught sight of the owl. I had to use digital as well as optical zoom so these aren’t terribly high res photos, but WHO CARES?

I sat there long enough that the owl started moving its wings–just getting comfortable I guess as it didn’t take off. I LOVE having digital instead of film because I can take a bazillion photos and luck into a couple like these!

How AWESOME are those wings?

I inched down the dirt road a bit to see if I could get an angle for a shot that didn’t have twigs between me and the bird.  Here’s the view from the care before zooming:

From the road looking up the hill with the lens at wide angle setting. Isn’t Maine beautiful?

More flapping…I LOVE seeing the wings!

And just a bit more flapping…look at his floofy legs!

And I’ll confess to a little photoshop to lighten the shadows on this one. The owl was backlit by the setting sun, so I lightened the shadows.

This has been a glorious day:  order for a pattern this morning, some artwork and art lessons, lunch with friends, Joshua calls me and wants to see me because he got a haircut (photo on Facebook timeline), I see Ashley (his girlfriend) because she works where we went to lunch and when I went to pay she hands my card back to me and says no, I took care of it (THANK YOU  you sweet thing, you totally do not need to do that!), ran a couple errands, saw the owl, got great photos, then get home to a pair of sandals I ordered from Zappos (they are green, how could I resist) AND a new duvet cover—we’ve had one new duvet cover in about the past 15 years, so I figure we’re due, and it was on sale, and I love it and it totally cheers up the bedroom.  So I am HAPPY!   Here’s to you being happy, too!  Life is GOOD!