changes...

Now more than ever it seems...

As the world around me deals with constant changes, I am beginning to notice one a little closer to home

In looking at some of my recent work I began to notice there was something afoot there

It seems there is a slight shift in my go-to colour palette... the soft blue-grey I have been drawn to for many years is slowly being replaced with a soft, dusty mauve

It's spring-like, sometimes paired with a soft grey-green, other times a perkier yellow-green seems a better choice

It's perfect for a little of cluster of embroidered pansies

I've also noticed in the past few months I've been doing more hand embroidery than just about anything else

Lots of stitch experimentations, so many in fact, that I made myself a cloth stitch book where I can record all of my stitch explorations and experimentations

It's lovely to stitch in and lovelier still to flip through

Embroidery books are great for looking at stitch patterns but line drawings are not very informative when decisions need to be made about thread colour and weight. Having stitched samples that let you see how a stitch looks when made with one strand, two strands, three strands etc. helps making decisions so much easier. As well, it's a joy to sample in that way and something we don't often take the time to do.

And here again, that soft mauve...

Another change occurred this week...  

I picked up a paint brush and painted with oils, for the first time since I was 14 years old. 

 It was as if all the years between then and now fell away and I was inexperienced,  exploring, trying something wonderful for the second first time. 

I spent such a delightful day, mixing colours, playing about

I love the texture you get with oil

After all the mixing trials and making a little colour chart, I took the leftover paint and began a very small landscape - there's more to done on it still but I need the paint to dry before I take it any further.

I kind of like that about oils... there's time and space to consider, to think about what comes next. 

No need to rush, which for now, is a good thing since there's nowhere I need to be and not much I have to do... 

Today is"Blursday"...

Every day is "Blursday"

When this business of staying home and physically distancing from everyone first began I fiddled around for the first week trying to get used to things... 

each day feeling the same as the last, knowing that when I went to bed at night it would be set to "repeat"

 over and over again

then waking up and having to think about what day it was, the days all blurring together in a strange mix of sameness...  it was very disconcerting and and so I came up with a sort of plan for my days...

an hour of this, an hour of that - time every day for housework and yard work, quilting and hand-stitching - even cooking and baking

each day was like a marathon, running from one thing to the next

tick, tick, tick went the items on the daily "To Do List" but there wasn't much satisfaction in it-sure I accomplished something every day, but everything seemed to take such a long time to finish

like the quilt you see in the photos below

(not the best pictures but lately it's either been way to bright and sunny or way too dull and dark to get a good photo)

 three years ago, the plan was to make a queen-size quilt using the pattern "My Three Stars" by the Buggy Barn

I pieced the large stars but then things came to a standstill for three years, so this was first on the "Finishing Old Projects List"

28 large stars

26 medium stars

28 small stars

it took two weeks of one hour per day to get the medium and small stars done and when I started laying out the blocks on the living room I didn't like what I saw - half the blocks are light stars on dark backgrounds and the other half are dark stars on light backgrounds

and so the quilt looked like a hodge-podge, a mish-mash

a mess

after stewing on it for a day or two I decided to give up on a new bed quilt, separate the blocks by background and make two lap quilts, one dark and one light

below is the dark one laid out

and here is the light version

here is what I'm thinking of for a border

since these kind of match I want to make the borders the same size and keep the match thing happening

working on these for an hour each day, day in, day out...day after day

it got tired, and I got cranky

flitting from here to there and back again... so I decided a change of approach was needed and I made a new plan

each day I do one thing  - a day for house and yard work, one for quilting, another for painting/ sketching

more focus, better concentration and I think even some time savings

it's so easy to get distracted these days - do you find that too? 

I'm hoping working in this way will help with that by allowing me to fully immerse myself in what I'm doing without having to keep one eye on the clock and not constantly assessing what I got done and what needs to be done the next day - I can work knowing I have the whole day 

I figure it's worth a try...

Where to Begin?

It's been so long now, I hardly know at all where to begin

I guess I'll begin at the end, which always seems to turn around and be a beginning of it's own...

I haven't posted for such a long time as for the last half of 2019, and also most of the first half, I was working at least four days a week - ick, yuck, blah

So the end of that story is that I quit my job

and now it seems a new phase is beginning

one with more time for what matters to me

I'm finally getting a chance to do some things I've been wanting to do for a long time... getting caught up in online classes I've been taking, finishing old projects, tidying and re-organizing, doing a bit of designing

thinking about so many things

there are a million things I'd like to make and a roomful of things to make them with and I'm determined that nothing in there is too precious to use

yesterday I dipped in to some of my favourite papers and made a bit of. paper "collage" - kind of like paper "boro"

patched and stitched - this will get torn and patched again before it's done

vintage Japanese wood-block text - simply amazing

I'm hand-stitching this and it's taking time - but thankfully now time is what I've got

and so I'll leave this first post back as a short one, dipping my toe in

and if any of you who used to come here are still out there - I miss you and have thought of you often. And I hope all is well in your yard...

See you soon.