Family Fun

Lily's Birthday card...one of my watercolor prints with a few additions!

Our family has been with us in Florida for almost a week now!  We have had so much fun.  Four extra adults and five extra kids, including nine-month-old Baby Layla.  Lily turned eleven on Tuesday.  We have had great meals, fun at the beach, and trips to the park.  The weather was rainy only one day...the rest of the time we have dodged the showers and even seen rainbows.

Our family...fighting cancer together!

Before they arrived, I ordered bracelets from a company called MudLove.com, with the word Together on each one.  I had bought one at the Mast Store in Boone that said Hope.  When I went to the MudLove website to order more, I found out that you could have the bracelets customized with the word of your choice.  Together has been our family codeword for fighting cancer for the last two years.  

Baby Layla has been delightful.  Baby Kasey is a little jealous.  She thought she was the baby.

Well, it is hard to blog when you have four extra adults, five kids and a dog in the house.  They have all gone back home today.  This house is very, very quiet.  

Child's Art Journal

One of the joys of being with my grandchildren is making art with them.  I babysat for little Charlotte two days a week from the time she was three months old until she was two and a half.  She loves to paint and color.

I save up her artwork (mostly big swaths of paint) and the little crayon drawings I make for her.  I used some of these to make a cover for an inexpensive spiral-bound art journal I got her for Christmas.

The pink flower background is a painting with washable glitter paint, Charlie's medium of choice.  The little girl is a crayon drawing that I enhanced with a black ink pen.  I added a little watercolor to the figure to fill in the color.  The text is just lettered on with a permanent black ink pen.

On the back, I cut some shapes out of Charlie's painted papers and added some words.

I used gel medium to attach all the papers to both front and back, and also to coat the finished pages.

I can't wait to start filling up all those white pages inside with her!

We are enjoying a balmy December here in Raleigh.  What a treat to be able to go for walks with my dog without even needing a jacket!

Yesterday we walked on the greenway at Crabtree Creek near our home.  It was so nice to be able to enjoy the outdoors as winter approaches.

Our pond at our Raleigh home was looking nice and shiny yesterday.  I enjoyed a rare chance to eat lunch outside on our deck overlooking the pond. 

Tonight is craft night at a friend's house.  I have no idea what we are going to make.  Stay tuned!

Folded Fabric Ornaments

How are you all doing with your holiday preparations?  Here in Raleigh life is busy, busy, busy, with special lunches, dinners, parties, and outings with friends and family.  Over the Thanksgiving holidays I made some ornaments to exchange with my quilting friends at our holiday parties.

I saw the instructions for making these Folded Fabric Ornaments on You Tube.  The video is by someone with the unlikely name of Crouton Crackerjacks.

His turned out to be perfectly straight and even.  Mine were kind of lumpy and uneven.

Oh, well, I got them done in time for our latke party last Wednesday for the art quilt group (notice some in Hanukkah colors?)  And I think I have enough for my Whacky Ladies quilt bee brunch on Friday.

Someone decided to knock over our mailbox last week.  I came home from eating dinner at my son's home, reached to check the mail, and met empty air as the post and box were lying on the ground.  One of the nice things about renting is that you just call the landlord's agency and get it taken care of. Now our old dented mailbox has been replaced with a shiny new one.

December 3 was the five-year anniversary of adopting our sweet dog, Kasey.  We got her from a family who had gone through a divorce and changing situations.  They did not tell us that she had heart worms.  We got that taken care of.  Later she had to have surgery and physical rehabilitation for a torn cartilage in her knee.  Before she even recovered from that, she developed an abscess from a broken tooth, and had more surgery for that.  This little free dog has cost us thousands, but she is so sweet, and is a very good dog.  She does not leave the yard, is content to mostly sit at my feet all day, and has been such a good companion.

We kept our granddaughter, Charlie, last weekend.  What a joy!  She will be three in January.  She seems so grown!  It will be fun to watch her enjoy this Christmas.

My husband is continuing to recover his strength after all his cancer treatment and surgery.  In fact, he has been working every day for the past two weeks to try to finish up the financial year for his clients.  We hope to be able to spend a couple weeks at Christmas in the mountain cabin.  It is all decorated and ready for us!

Woeful Week for People and Pup

After a great weekend in the mountains, we ended up having to stay until Monday because my husband got the stomach bug.  We made it home Monday afternoon, and I got the same thing on Monday night.  Not fun, but we both are over it.

Also last weekend, we noticed our dog Kasey had a swelling under her left eye.  It was the size of a golf ball. 

Today I felt strong enough to take her to the vet.  It turns out that she has an abscessed molar.  Tomorrow morning she goes under anesthesia once again (3rd time in 8 weeks) to get two big molars extracted and the rest of her teeth cleaned.

My poor baby has had a rough couple of months!  They say she should feel like a puppy once the broken teeth are yanked and the infection is gone.

And we are supposed to move into the new cabin this weekend...and have a house full of company!  It will all get done.  We are blessed to be able to get this sweet dog fixed up and out of pain.

Oh, Look! The Spider Plant is Having Babies!

Oh, Look!  The Spider Plant is Having Babies

All finished and entered in the PAQA-South exhibit called Art Quilt-WHIMSY!  It has to be juried in, so I will know after March 15 if it is accepted.  I have never entered one of their shows before, although I have gone to see the exhibits at the Page-Walker House in Cary many times.

This quilt languished in the UFO pile for years until I discovered the opportunity for whimsy by adding the little spiders.  I added glitter to the plastic spiders, which I bought around Halloween one year.

It was good to get this one finished.

In other news, my beloved dog Kasey had surgery this week to repair a torn ligament in her right rear leg.  In humans, it is called the ACL.  They had to cut into her leg bone and insert a metal plate with pins into it.  She seems to have tolerated the procedure well.  A little droopy but hanging in there.

She is a very special dog who lets our little grand baby pet and snuggle with her, always comes when she is called, will spend all day lying at my feet, but joyfully runs with us on our trips up the mountain.  I hope she will be able to run again once she recovers.

This weekend we have our older son's family here from South Carolina.  They are being very sweet to our furry patient, too.

Not Armageddon...Just Raleigh

ABC-11 News

It started snowing in Raleigh yesterday afternoon.  It came down fast and piled up quickly.  Apparently, everyone left work at the same time...and this scene took place just five miles from my home.  If my husband had come home from work on the Interstate, his truck may have been abandoned next to all these other ones.

Once  he got home safely (taking more than two hours to go about ten miles) I was able to enjoy the afternoon.  

First it snowed for about four hours.

Everything got so pretty!

Then the ice started to fall.  It coated everything.  We woke to a winter wonderland.

This morning all was still...but this afternoon, giant snowflakes fell again, and it is still snowing now.

Charlie has been keeping the wood fire burning in the fireplace.  Kasey likes the snow, and is glad of her fur coat!

I made a bunch of Valentines for my kids and grandkids, but they are probably still sitting in the mailbox getting damp.  I picked up another old project from a Pamela Allen class and have been stitching on it in front of the fire.  A bright summer scene, LOL!

Hope you are warm and safe, wherever you are!

Rivers and Water Quilt Exhibits

I have so much quilty news to share this time!  It will probably take me four or five posts to show you all the quilts I have seen in the past week.  I have been to two quilt bee meetings and three quilt shows!

Last Monday was the monthly meeting of my Anything Art Quilt Bee.  First we had Show-and-Tell at Roberta's house in Cary.

Some of us had agreed to swap "inchies."  These are the ultimate in small quilts...one inch by one inch!  Only two people got theirs done in time for this meeting.  They are so pretty sitting on the table.

 

This one is by Marion.  It has painting, stamping, beading, and quilting.

 

 

Roberta not only finished hers, but made two beautiful bowls to display them.  She trapped fibers between Solvy water-soluble interfacing, stitched intensively to hold the fibers together, and partially dissolved the Solvy.

 

Roberta also showed us some neckware she made from men's silk ties.  Some are gathered over a metal choker that you can purchase from a craft store like Michael's.  Some are gathered over a cord.  In the next picture you can also see Roberta's other bowl, and some flower brooches made from wool.

 

 

After lunch, we gathered at the Page-Walker House in Cary to see the Water art exhibit by PAQA-South (Professional Art Quilt Alliance.)  Our Toni Brown helped organize and hang the show. 

 

 

There were very diverse interpretations of the theme "Water."  Today I will share some of my favorites from this exhibit.



May the Force Be With You, by Linda Schmidt



Kelp Dance, by Gerrie Congdon



Downstream,  by Annette Rogers



Sun, Sand, Sea, Sky, by Marie Spadaro

Sun, Sand, Sea, Sky detail

Desert Rain

 

Keeping Perspective, by Judy Warner

Deep End of Emotion, by Jen Siegrist

 

Coral Reef, by Jenny Williams

 



I will have more pictures from the Water exhibit next time, and maybe some from the simultaneous art quilt exhibit called Rivers.

 

Meanwhile, we went to the mountains last weekend for a restful weekend. I have a few photos that relate to the theme of Water!  The weather was perfect.  Much warmer, no snow or ice precipitation.  There was still a little ice on the pond when we arrived, but it was so warm on Saturday that it melted away. 

 

 

 

The creek has changed a lot over the winter with all the storms.  Dirt has washed in and piled up, diverting the course of the stream and widening the creek in places.

 

 

Of course, our dog Kasey always jumps in the cold mountain creek after our trip across the mountain in the Gator.  She looks so pretty with the sun shining on the water and reflecting on her golden coat.

 

 

 

Speaking of Kasey, I just got her portrait back from the frame shop.  I really like the way this one turned out.  The frame picks up the coppery and gold tones of her fur.