New Look!

I'm getting wound up to return to Hawaii! I have dressed my blog in hibiscus and lots of green! We've still got 4 months before we actually leave, but only 3 months before our stuff is packed up and shipped out. We're shipping early so, hopefully, everything will arrive in Hawaii at the same time or right before we do. I'm even shipping my car early. On Monday, our cats are going to the vets to get their blood test and shots so they are all ready to go. The moving is going to be hardest on them. They are old and it's a really long trip. We are stopping over on the east coast before we get to Hawaii just to give everyone a break. It's not quite halfway, but it will be a rest stop for about a week.

I've been cross stitching a lot hoping to get a few things finished before I leave. I'm already packing up my craft books and some supplies. Europe has been fun, but it will be nice to be home again. I'm not fond of living in rental quarters. I owned my own house for over 20 yrs and I prefer it to being paranoidly careful at home. Anyhow...onward and upward!

New Work

I hope everyone had a good holiday! I finally got time to take pictures of some new mixed media work I've done. Some of it is quilted, some not. I had great fun making it all!

This piece has been done for a while, but I never took pictures of it. It was done using water soluble interfacing and layering fabric, then stitching through the layers. This was my first piece like this. I embellished the piece with fabric beads, fire-polished beads, Swarovski crystals, and a couple of yo-yos for good measure. The following are close-ups of the embellishments:

This is a close-up of the yo-yos and fabric beads. The yo-yos have Swarovski crystals sewing to them.

Close-up of the bottom of the piece. Fire-polished bead dangles, fabric beads and a yo-yo.


This next piece is a quilt I made and then beaded. I stitched freeform beaded flowers. The last picture shows how I "tied" the quilt with beads.

This is a piece I did to experiment with using used dryer sheets which I painted.
I used flowers that I had used watercolors on and after placing on the quilt top, I thread-painted and beaded the flowers. More of these are to come.




This piece is done on a stretched, painted canvas. I used layered painted and melted Lutrador. I added a string of beads for sparkle and texture. I call it: "The DNA of Life."




This piece is also done on canvas. I used some painted, melted Lutrador, Angelina film, polymer clay beads, glass beads and a copper metal sun charm.


I call this: "Sunrise On The Beach."



This piece is on painted canvas with painted and melted Lutrador, Angelina film, glass leave beads and polymer clay beads. I call this one: "Sunlight Through the Leaves."


That's it for now. I do have some experiments that I've been working on. I'll be posting them in the next few days.

Thanks for visiting!

HO HO HO!

I've dressed my blog up for Christmas! I'm finishing up all Christmas presents this weekend and getting them in the mail by Monday! Pictures coming up!

Very Soon Now!

I have been practicing my beadweaving a lot in recent weeks. I think I have perfected it to the point were, very soon, I will be comfortable listing a bracelet or two on my Etsy store:
The Beaded Cat . I have also delved into making peyote amulet bags. I want to think up an idea for these bags that don't involve necklaces. I'm thinking about making them a bit bigger and making beaded evening bags. I don't know anyone who wears the amulet bags as necklaces anyway. I think I may make smaller peyote bags for keepsakes and storing earrings or even gift pouchs.....hmmmmm...

Seed Bead Frenzy Yahoo Group!

I just started a Yahoo Group called Seed Bead Frenzy! Anyone who has an addiction to seed beads or has an interest in learning what can be done with seed beads, please click on the button on this blog.

Hope to see you there!

Here we go again!

Well, it's official! We are going back to Hawaii in May 2009. My job was eliminated here and although I was offered other duties, I didn't like any of them. Bob is eager to return to Hawaii as he hasn't been able to work as much as he wanted to here. So, what the heck! It's Paradise after all and we have our house to return to. I'm going to try to go to the Puget Sound Bead Fest in July, if we're settled in by then. If not, there's always the quilt show in Houston in November.

I've got a list of projects to finish before I go, so I'll be busy, busy. Also, we've got a couple of trips planned around Europe. It's been fun and we'll have lived in Europe for 2 years by the time we go. That's not too bad.

Advertising on my Blog

Someone who owns a company which sells seed beads, albeit not the kind I use, posted a comment on one of my blog entries which was thinly veiled advertising. I don't allow advertising on my blog. I promote the businesses which I patronize for my own reasons.

As for seed beads, for size 11 I use Delicas and Matsuno beads almost exclusively. I also use Matsuno size 8 and size 6. I am happy with my choices and will change only if I find a superior bead.

To any other proprietors of bead supplies, please do not post comments for the purpose of advertising your products on my blog. I will delete them and definitely will not patronize your business.

Bead Mosaic and Gustav Klimt

I showed my bead mosaics to a friend of mine at work. She immediately said it reminded her of the work of Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. Never thought about it, but after studying some of Klimt's work, with which I was very little acquainted, I think I see what she means. I do like his work the most famous of which is The Kiss . I know that as long as there are seed beads, square or round, I'll be making mosaics.

Bead Mosaic

So, in April I went to Florence, Italy. (I specified the country because upon googling "Florence" I found a number of cities of the same name, but on the wrong continent.) Florence is incredible! It's beautiful to look at. The bridges, the architecture, even the people are beautiful to look at. The river Arno, which runs through Florence, is not so beautiful, especially with a rat swimming in it:

However, I digress. I was transfixed by the art in Florence. Sure, they have paintings by the Masters and sculptures...some wonderful, some which make you wonder:




But nothing that struck my fancy like: mosaics. They sparked my imagination and delighted my eyes.

Since then, I've been trying to recreate mosiacs in materials other than stone or glass. Naturally, I turned to seed beads. So far, I've created the following:


This is the top of a paper mache box. I'm working on the sides now. I used some round beads square stitched together and some square beads stitched together to make "tile. That worked pretty well. Between and around the "tiles" I glued rows of black square beads as "grout." I intend to perfect the techniques for bead mosaics and create more.



Here I am beading the roof of a paper mache house box. I started out with twisted bugle beads, but realized they were not flexible enough or big enough to do the entire job.









Here I am using peacock-colored square beads to cover the roof. I did square stitch some of the beads into tiles, but it was just as fast to glue them on one at a time. This portion took me about 4 hours. Not a fast process, but it is rather relaxing.

The bottom picture is Jazzmyn checking out my latest creation.

Seed Beads

I buy LOTS of seed beads! For those who have seen my bead stash, you already know that. For most of my seed beads I prefer buying Miyuki or Matsuno beads. They are the best seed beads I've found. I have a few sources for most of my beads. I like using businesses that provide good service and good prices. When I find businesses like that I stick with them.


When I want to buy in bulk, there is nothing like Fire Mountain Gems . For large quantities of seed beads, especially square beads, they are the best. But, sometimes I don't want large quantities. For smaller quantities, I like to buy my beads from an Ebay store called:
Miyuki Gal Beads . The first thing that caught my eye about MGB is that you can buy beads in groups of coordinated colors. You can also buy the beads in mixes of fringe, cubes, round and cylinder seed beads. And Sue at MGB provides great service. Whether I'm living in Hawaii or overseas, I get my MGB packages in a week or less.

And speaking of Sue at MGB, she was kind enough to feature my beading efforts on her blog: Seed Bead Sue . You should check out her blog. There are other really talented bead people featured there.

Is Finishing the Point?

Is it? Is finishing a project the point of the project? Or is the creative process, the journey, if you will, the point? For me it's the creative process. Most the time I couldn't care less if I "finish" a project. I enjoy creating it. Sometimes I feel sad when I declare a project finished because that means its evolution is over. The growth process for the project and for me has ended.

I work on several projects at once because sometimes I run out of creative ideas for one, but I know it's not finished. I don't know what's next, but I know there is a "next." For some people their projects speak to them. The project tells the artist what it wants next. That doesn't happen for me. Objects tell me things. I can pick up a button, a piece of polymer clay, fragment of fabric and it occurs to me that it would be perfect for that little piece I started two months ago and put aside for lack of inspiration. My projects WILL tell me when they want to be left alone; when they want to rest and be what they are for a while. At that point, I put them aside and leave them until something tells me to pick them up again.

I guess I am envious of people who can get inspiration that goes from beginning to end uninterrupted. My inspiration doesn't work like that. That's ok with me. I think I'd be frustrated if my inspiration got interrupted because I have to go to work 5 days a week. For now it comes in spurts and that suits my time to be able to create. It does, however, mean I don't finish as much as those with continuous inspiration. I'm ok with that, too. :)

Quilting, Quilting, Quilting

The weather is getting colder here in Bavaria. I think we might have much more snow this year than last. We got barely a few inches last year. But, it did snow on Christmas Day and New Year's Day and, after not seeing snow for 4 years, it was kind of nice.

With the colder weather, my thoughts turn to quilting. I've finished more quilts in the first year I've been here than I did in 4 years in Hawaii. Bob finally has his very own BIG quilt and I pin-basted a smaller quilt for him yesterday. Shouldn't be too long before that quilt is finished.

I have a HUGE quilt to pin-baste and and quilt in a month or two. It's a bed-sized monster.
Maybe I'll have a quilt basting party and get some help doing that.

I have more wall-quilts to work on, too. I'm going to bead some and applique pretty flowers on others. Hopefully, I have some pretty flower wall quilts to decorate the house for spring :)

Adelaide's Garden

I'm posting a picture of my latest mixed media wall quilt entitled, "Adelaide's Garden."

I used one of my polymer clay heads and daisy doily thingies (don't even know if they have a real name). I painted the daisy dollie thingies with textile paint and used some dichroic glass cabochons as the middle. I added gold leaf trim for stems and leaves and flower and butterfly beads. I thought I was finished with the quilt when I realized that Adelaide needed some jewelry. I added a multiple strand necklace and some "buttons." As you can see Adelaide looks very proud of her flower garden which grows on a background of painted fabric.

Blogging, etc

I have so much to blog about. The one thing I don't have is time to blog! I've tried to set up a schedule for blogging, but I am horrible with schedules. In fact, I'm rather horrible about structure of most kinds outside of the workplace. I believe that subconsciously I believe that schedules are for work only. My non-work time should be unstructured and creative. This usually means that, during the week, I bounce from project to project, different crafts depending on my mood. Weekends I can make several hours available for specific crafts/projects and that's when I usually finish things. I also tend to design more on weekends. I'm going to have to harness that rather weak natural schedule and use it to my advantage. The likelihood of any strict structure on the weekend is just not going to happen. And the closer I get to retirement, the less likely that becomes.

Christmas is Coming!

I am working furiously on Christmas gifts. I'm making Mill Hill ornaments for my friends. I only have one done and I have at least 3 more to go. I really like MH kits because everything is right there. They work up pretty fast, too. Just stitch, slap a piece of felt on the back and a pinback if you so choose and VOILA!

Beaded Tapestry

I thought I'd post a picture of my first beaded tapestry just as it came off the loom.

I'm going to put fringe on the bottom and add a bead hanger to the top. It looks much better when it is held up to a window.

And here is a picture of my latest bracelet and then my work in progress on my new Mirrix loom:

I'm working on an original design of sunflowers. I think this one will be a beaded purse !

Where Have I Been?

Well, I haven't been traveling much. We had a guest cat for almost two months in June to late July. She was a challenge. I was concerned that my two cats and the guest cat would get into a very large, violent disagreement. So, I stuck close to home.

Since I was around I started to learn beadweaving on a loom. I also began to do peyote, right angle, and spiral techiques, too. I began learning beadweaving a couple of years ago, but quit because I had my jewelry store on Ruby Lane and that store was too expensive to let just sit around; I had to get string items made. Now, with my Etsy store, I can put in what I want when I want and only incur expenses when I list or sell something. It makes things much more flexible so I can learn new techniques and expand my creativity.

I am almost finished with my first loomed bead tapestry that I designed myself. I'm pretty exicted! I'm not going to divulge much about it until I can actually post pictures.

Later today, I hope to get some pictures of some bracelets I've make this summer.

Finishes

I have two very special needlework finishes to share today:

Silk Parasol, a piece I have been working on since 2004 and finally finished on Christmas Day 2007. I stitched for my mom and just had it framed. Here it is:

And Village Sampler by Prairie Schooler:

I started this in 2005 and finished it two weeks ago. It's my favorite PS piece and I am so happy to have it not only finished, but framed and hanging in my living room as well.

Cats and Quilts...

Anyone who has read any of my myriad pf blogs in all their various forms, knows that I have two cats, used to have three. I have recently been preoccupied with the connection between cats and quilts. Here's why:

I decided that there are some traditional patterns that I probably will never make. I'm out of the " cut little pieces and precise sew them together" realm of quilting. I like to use simple shapes and let the color and texture of the fabric speak for itself. Having taken that decision, I've been checking around for some of my favorite quilt patterns already made up into quilts. I thought I'd collect them and maybe use some of them to augment my own quilts.

So, I turned to the place where all things can be found....Ebay. I found several sellers who had good feedback and seemed reputable. I started collecting. I've collected 7 so far. Including a gorgeous 1930's wedding ring and a couple really nice lone star quilts.

I also collected one that is called Stars at the Crossroads. I love star blocks! This quilt is in colors of rose, blue and green. The pattern and age of this quilt is not so much as to make me unwilling to put it on my bed for the summer.

I washed the quilt, repaired a few loose seams and prepared it to grace my nicely made bed. I no sooner got the quilt smoothed over my chenille bedspread when my almost 12yr old Oriental Shorthair cat, Boo Boo, hopped on the bed and rolled on the new quilt like he'd never in his life laid on anything so comfortable! It was if he knew the quilt was new to the house and he had to make sure it had an appropriate amount of his cat hair on the new addition.

Why is it that cats are so drawn to quilts? Mine aren't drawn to tablecloths or placemats or even towels. Is it because they grew up in a household where quilts are lovingly made? Are they attracted by the good energy to comfort and warm that quilts possess? I don't know.
What do you think? Post a comment and let me know.

Painting on gauze

In my endless quest to find something else to paint and put in a mixed media quilt, I bought some 100% cotton gauze. It thought it would add interesting texture to something I haven't even thought of yet. When it got here, I rushed it upstairs and cut off pieces. Then I started to paint. The paint sort of stuck in globs. I used my brayer to spread the paint around, but still it was still pretty gloppy.

At first I didn't like it at all and had half decided to dunk the gauze in my paint-dye (which is just paint diluted with water) instead of painting it. I put it aside to dry and didn't think about it too much. I took it out today and decided I really do like the way it looks. I used a bit of it in my newest project covered with layer of organza. I'm sure I'll find more uses for painted gauze.

Pictures!

Pictures based on my last post:

This is a painted dryer sheet with flowers painted with watercolor paint.

Thread painted flowers. Specialty machine stitching with varigated thread.

Framed with bugle and seed beads, with gold, square beads on the corners.

Mid-April Already!

Goodness gracious! It's mid-April already and I was SURE I had blogged at least once or twice in April. I couldn't believe it when I looked at my blog tonight and saw that I hadn't blogged since 30 March!

We were in Florence, Italy from Sunday to Thursday last week. Florence is a beautiful city and we had a lot of fun. The food, the wine and the people were exceptional!

I have been working on a few projects. I decided to paint some used dryer sheets just for the heck of it. I used Lumiere paint and I LOVED the result that I got. I took some black and white flowers that I had cut from other fabric and painted them with watercolors. They came out good, too. I decided to combine the dryer sheets and flowers into small quilts; they are about 12x10 or so.

I used metallic paint on the dry sheets, so they contrast nicely with the softer colors of the flowers. I have four quilts planned. I am fairly far along with one of the four. I did some thread painting on one of the flowers, did some fancy machine stitching and then did a bit of machine quilting. I decided the piece needed beads, so I beaded the inside of one flower and beaded a border around the whole piece with bugle and seed beads. The piece is crying out for more beads, but I haven't decided if I should do leaves or just abstract designs.

Once again I need to take pictures, which I will try to take and post tomorrow night. Given the choice between working on a project and taking pictures, I'm almost always tempted to work on the project.

The Scent of Old Roses

I finished this piece yesterday. It actually went together quite quickly when I just let my mind wander and allowed myself to be creative. Sometimes my brain tries to make rules for my creativity and then I get stuck.

The background fabric is something I painted and posted in an early entry. I added a photo that was a piece of clipart which I tinted sepia in my photo manipulation software and printed out on fabric. I fused it and the piece of fabric beneath it to the painted fabric. I added lace and sewed beads to the piece. It does have a piece of fusible batting between the piece and the backing.

I'm beginning to think about embellishing more small quilts for wall hangings. This piece is going to my mom.

BUSTED!!!

When I met my DH in 2002, I had three cats. He assured me that while he was a "dog person," he could live with the Unholy Trinity, as the three spoiled brats were known. At least one of the cats, who has since passed away, wasn't very kind to Bob and gave him no reason to change his mind about preferring dogs to cats. And so it has been for the past 6 years.


Three weeks ago, we took in a friend's cat. The friend was going out of country for a month or so and needed a place to stash her 5 yr old red tabby female cat named "Kitty." Kitty has stayed with us before, but it still required an adjustment period to get the Gruesome Twosome (my remaining cats) used to having a guest.

Kitty stays in the spare room with Bob at night. She is used to sleeping with people, and the Twosome always sleeps in the bedroom with me. Kitty has her own food and own "facilities" in her room. During the day, she has the run of the house. The house is so large that the three feline inhabitants could easily avoide each other all day long. But, you know they don't.

Kitty has developed an attachment to Bob. She sits next to him on the couch and walks past me to hop on his lap when she wakes up from a nap and just wants to see what "her Bob" is up to. This 8lb. cat has stolen Bob's heart. Bob has teased me about rearranging my stitching or laptop to accomodate one of the cats that wants to be petted or to take a nap on my lap.

Well, tonight, Bob is BUSTED. Little Miss Kitty Princess-Thang, as she has been nicknamed, hopped on the couch next to Bob. He immediately shifted so she could sit next to him. When it appeared that she wanted to sit on his lap, he moved his laptop. Of course, she just walked over his lap. She was just passing through, but hadn't checked him out in 30 minutes or so. Not only has Miss Kitty developed an attachment to Bob, he's developed an attachment to her!

In case anyone doesn't believe me...here are the pictures to prove it!

Hit the Jackpot!

Well, the jackpot for crafting anyway. We've been having problems with the APO mail system for some reason. So, today when the mail came in, I got a WHOLE bunch of fabric, beads and cross stitch stuff! I also got my Amazon orders for a couple of books and Seasons 9&10 of Stargate SG-1. I miss that show. Stargate Atlantis is a decent Sci-Fi show, but SG-1 was my favorite. Seasons 9&10 were pretty weak, but I have the rest of the series, so I thought I might as well get the last two seasons, too.

Back to arts and crafts! I painted fabric yesterday....again. This is what I came up with:


I painted my already painted fabric with Lumiere metallic paints in gold, copper and silver. Then I used Shiva Paintsticks to do a rubbing of a rubber stamp of roses and one that turned out to look like a cool circle. This piece feels kind of stiff, more like paper than fabric. I still have to iron the piece.















Another experiment: I painted...er...already painted fabric and then used an oil paintstick to rub a checked rubber stamp. Then I painted two other textured stamps with Lumiere paint and stamped as much a I could. This piece came out softer than the one above. Not sure why. Both are nice and very useable. Both need to be ironed

Pictures!

I took 'em and now I'm gonna share 'em!

First up: My first bead embellished wall quilt

I used design ideas from the book Successful Scrap Quilts from Simple Rectangles . I have been in a black and white phase for a while. And I think I'm not quite done yet.

Close up pictures of beaded flowers:

These are really free-form flowers. I loved creating them with beads!

And I "tied" the quilt with clear, silver-lined triangular shaped seed beads.

And now, some experiments I've been cooking up:

First, some abstract pieces from tiny scraps and threads

The red piece will have things added to it. I may add it to a piece of fabric and embellish it. The black and white pieces will probably stand on their own with embellishments.

And, finally, my painting experiments:

I used a white on white fabric and painted with acrylic paint and water. After the fabric was dry, I used oil paintsticks for rubbings. I'll probably cut this apart and use pieces of it. I think I'll use smaller pieces of fabric and use my Lumiere paints.


This piece was painted with acrylic paint and water. I dried it hanging over the heating element in the bathroom, which left darker ridges in the fabrics. Rather intriguing....

Artistic Heaven!

I've been really lucky the past three days. I have spent the majority of my time on my artistic pursuits. Here in Bavaria, everything closes down for four days for Easter. All businesses, offices, etc were closed on Good Friday. Stores were open short days on Saturday and, of course, on Easter Sunday everything is shut up tight. No restaurants, no stores, nothing...except churches, of course. Yesterday was Saturday, so we went out shopping for milk, bread, etc anything we'd need until Tuesday. We're not even sure if stores will be open on Monday. Most businesses and government offices are closed, but we're not sure about stores. We do know that our favorite restaurant is open, so we're going there for dinner tomorrow night.

Anyway, on to my artistic pursuits: I finally finished and bound my first embellished quilt. It's black and white with beaded flowers on it. I am horrible about taking pictures of things, but tomorrow is going to be picture day, I promise! I also worked on another black and white quilt that I'm going to give to Bob. It's only going to be about 54x60 or so. Just enough to cover him up.

I also painted some fabric, which was very messy. Probably didn't have to be so messy, but I'm messy when I'm happily creating stuff. I painted some white on white and then used oil paintsticks to do rubbings with some of my patterned rubber stamps. I did a bunch of different rubbings just to test out the technique. I like it and think I will incorporate it into some wall quilts. I'll post pictures of that, too.

Finally, I just got done playing with another technique that I am really liking a lot. I got the idea from the book Stitch, Dissolve, Distort With Machine Embroidery . I've been keeping a lot of my tiny scraps, thread ends, strings, things too small to be used to construct a quilt. I sandwiched all these goodies between water soluble stablizer sheets and free motion machine stitched all around. Then I soaked the pieces in water and came out with very interesting freeform pieces that I can embellish further and use to decorate wall quilts or use for wall quilts themselves. It's definitely something I want to experiment with more. Right now, I'm using Aquafilm as the stablizer, but I'm going to experiment with some Solvy stablizers next time. I like Aquafilm, but it is a little goopy when I'm trying to wash it out of my pieces.

That's it for tonight. Gotta get my beauty sleep. Tomorrow I need to do my mountain of laundry, but otherwise the house is clean. That means more time for play time!

Pictures tomorrow!

Been Busy!

I have been a busy bee for the past week. I finished two black and white wall quilts. Well, one came out a bit larger than I usually make wall quilts, but I still think I'll put it on the wall. The second wall quilt is definitely perfect size for a wall hanging. I decided to embellish the second with beads. I made freeform flowers in the right hand lower corner and then "tied" the rest of the quilt with clear triangle -shaped beads. I don't think I'm done with it quite yet. The flowers in the right hand corder are colorful and make the rest of the quilt look empty. Soooooo, I think I'm going to rummage through my button collection and find a couple of red buttons to decorate the corners of the quilt where there are no flowers. And then again I might use size 11 seed beads to make some daisy like flowers (only red) in the upper left hand corner. I have the quilt spread out upstairs in my "studio" so I can look at it as I work on other things. What needs to be done with that quilt will come to me....eventually.

Today I spend a fair amount of time making jewelry. First, of course, I cleaned the bathroom and swept the stairs. After I finished those chores and a few others, I felt grand sitting upstairs stringing and making earrings. I was on a natural material kick and worked with turquiose, lapis lazuli, serpentine and various quartz. I have to admit I was never fond of bracelets made with elastic cording. However, after making a few for me to wear, I can see that they have a place in my jewelry wardrobe. Sometimes after I have worked with fabric for weeks and weeks, I need some time with my beads :) I really liked combining my beads with fabric. That's the best of both worlds :)

Civil War Whirligig

Finally got a picture of my quilt made from Civil War reproduction fabric. It started out as a rail fence, but now I think that it looks like a whirligig pattern instead. I like the warm colors and the randomness of the fabrics.

And Now for Something Completely Different....

I've decided to keep one blog...put all my stuff here. I'm just not multi-taskable enough to deal with more than one blog. So, in this post I will tell about our recent trip to....ROME! It was wonderful, but too short. Never having been there before, and having been places where I've stayed beyond the time it took to enjoy whatever was there, I decided to only give us about 2 days in Rome. Coulda spent a week...a month....a year.

It was cold, but at least on our first full day, it wasn't cold enough to keep us from stomping around the Colloseum and Palatine Hill. We were some of the first people to get out to Palatine Hill, where the ruins of the Roman Forum are as well as several temples dedicated to Roman gods. It was great to walk around such ancient fragments without hordes of people to trip over. We had the place to ourselves for an hour before the tour groups and school groups descended. From the Forum ruins you can walk upstairs to see Caesar's Forum. That was really interesting. Lots of columns remained and there was some active archeological activity going on. As you walk around Caesar's Forum, traffic whizzes by as present-day Romans go work or about their errands. And in the middle of it all are columns, statues and other remnants of "other" Romans who probably went about their business the same, only in different conveyances.

Another top finished!

In spite of a rather nasty cold, I managed to sew the last four rows on to what I thought would be a Civil War Rail Fence quilt. I used reproduction Civil War fabrics which I love for their muted colors. Looking at the top pieced, it looks more like a whirly gig pattern more than a fence! But, if I do say so myself, it's a nice quilt. I am looking forward to quilting it, although it is VERY BIG and will be a challenge to quilt on my regular sewing machine. But, I am up for the challenge and hope to have it finished by the end of the spring. For now, I am working on a black and white quilt based on the book Successful Scrap Quilts from Simple Rectangles. I like manipulating simple shapes to make interesting quilts. I don't know how big this black and white quilt will be. I think I have enough rectangles to make a large quilt or maybe several quilts. Maybe a wall quilt with red appliqued shapes, flowers or circles or stars.

Got a log cabin in mind for Bob's next quilt. It will use some more of the coffee related fabric I bought for his first quilt, but didn't use. I think I'll call it Bob's Coffee Log Cabin.

As soon as I figure out a way to take a picture, I'll post one here.

New Blog

I finally found a name for my blog that I really like! I've tried so many names over the last couple of years, but THIS, Cat Hair on My Quilts, really does sum up my life! I'm going to post the pictures of my quilt that were in my old blog.

This is Bob's Coffee Quilt finished on 4 February