Thursday, February 5, 2015

January

A month has passed since I last posted. Not much to show for 30 days, I have to say. I have had to spend time just sitting. I strained my back at the last guild meeting… It took a few days… to get past the worst of it, and I have had a couple of relapses… which also takes a couple of days to get over.

Right after Christmas I was at a grocery store, and found a cart full of plants marked down. I picked up 2 orchids that were in pretty poor shape. So poor in fact that all these blossoms were limp and droopy. A little water and some conversation and they perked right up. There are even some buds that have formed and will be flowers eventually. The other one, had already completed blooming, but the flower spikes, are re-sprouting.

DSCN0953

Also in January, of the guild members offered to have our Challenge quilts as a program for a Retirement facility to help brighten the dreary winter month. 10 of us shared our quilts. We had a very receptive and appreciative audience. It was a very fun morning. We each brought our Challenge piece and one other quilt to share.

The other time consuming things is - we are preparing to sell our house. Not sure if I’ve mentioned that before or not. But our days in Virginia are numbered. I have spent much of the last month either cleaning. you know deep cleaning, or packing non essential things away. Its all for staging and preparation. I have also interviewed and obtained bids for painting and making any needed repairs. The target date is the first spring day after the last snow melts!!!

Of course this also means that I have to make my Creative Space look as inviting and completely organized as I can. I have packed away everything I can live without… and might even do so, in the future. So, to make it look pretty, I pressed and folded all, ok most of my fabrics, to a uniform size and put them on the shelves above my cutting/work table. On the left side are the batiks and on the right are the regular cottons. Two shelves have some of the African fabrics.

fabric-shelves

Oh, my…. I don’t think I will be putting my fabrics back in to plastic bins again. I do like looking at them. I also enjoyed the whole process of pressing and folding them. I revisited several pieces I had forgotten I had (some from the 80’s), found some I didn’t know I had, and in general became reacquainted with all of them. It took weeks, a couple of hours a day… give or take to get it looking like this!

One of the other things I have been playing with are the cast offs from another top. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet.. or even how I’ll finish it. I do like looking at it, though.

Pinwheels

Once again you are all caught up on the doings around here. More Later-Beth

8 comments:

  1. She's baaaaaack! Love the colorful quilt! And your shelves look inviting to me... I'd buy your house!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can feel the pain of not being able to make a mess and create. I hope repairs go well and the house sells fast.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your shelves look so inviting and I agree, no bins - i have none.
    And the top is great, hope you find a way to finish it...of course you will :)w

    ReplyDelete
  4. I could look at your shelves all day. lovely quilt top too, beautiful colours.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your shelves look so inviting! I hope the rest of the clean-up painting and such goes well. I'm redoing my bathrooms; it takes a while but is so worth it. It will be great having you closer than Virginia again.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beth, the shelves look great. inspiring to get in there and sew and mess it up, isn't it? I love the pinwheel quilt. It makes me smile. lovely colors.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your studio looks fab! I would never store my fabrics in bins, I love to be able to look at them. And - once you start audition fabrics for a project, there are alway some that you had no clue you owned :)
    Good luck with the rest of the staging!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hahha, forgot I already commented. Well, shows the state of my mind LOL.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment- big or small.... I love hearing what the pictures say to you too.