Reversible Holiday Table Mat

I recently made a small quilt to use on our dining room table.  It is reversible, so can be used for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I started out by making a "Lucky Star" block from Atkinson Designs.  I am making a large quilt using this pattern for my friend Marcia, and wanted to practice.

The green outer border is flannel.  I did freehand machine quilting with my Janome 6600 domestic machine.  I used a variegated poly thread everywhere except in the gold background.

The feather is just done freehand, no drawing or pattern used.

Here is he other side.  I used one block from a fabric designed to make pillows or a cheater quilt.

I did not feel like binding it, so just made a pillow-case type block by turning it, hemming up the opening, and top stitching the edges.

I hope you are enjoying your fall, and thinking about your holiday projects!

Art Quilt: Connections

I went to the PAQA-South quilt exhibit at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center in Cary yesterday, thinking that I would linger and take some photos prior to my art quilt group going out there for our November meeting.  I took a few photos in the foyer of the old house, and was told by the lady at the desk that I could not take individual photos of the quilts.  I could only take shots of the quilts from across the room.  Well, that is the first time anyone has stopped me from taking pics at this venue.

In the display case at the entrance, there is a colorful arrangement of prayer flags made by members of PAQA-South.  I must have missed the memo asking us to make these.  They look great!

I found my quilt upstairs on the second floor.  The room is not nearly as lovely as the downstairs parlor with the gorgeous wood floors, grand piano, and fireplace.  It is just a meeting room.  But I liked the quilts upstairs.  Mine is the little guy at lower center.

Here is the wall at the far end of the room.  The two quilts on each end are by Raleigh quilter Roxanne Lessa.

Here are some more on a different wall upstairs.

 And these are on the wall opposite my quilt.  My friend Roberta Morgan's quilt is the one with the faces next to the window.

It has been beautiful in Raleigh.  I took my dog for a walk at Umstead State Park, which actually adjoins my neighborhood.  Instead I drove to the entrance off Glenwood so we could walk around Big Lake.  The leaves are just starting to change there.

We are now in the mountains, where it is quite chilly and there is a freeze warning for tonight.  I started quilting an antique quilt top this afternoon.  It is going well, and I should finish quilting it this weekend.  Photos to come in a future post.  Here is a teaser:

Fall in Raleigh

Fall is looking colorful and beautiful here in central North Carolina.  Our leaves are at the peak and I am enjoying our very woodsy yard.

I have put out baskets of mums by our front door, and the camellias in the garden beds have decided to bloom.  I put a little quilt banner in the garden.

I took our dog for a beautiful walk around Durant Nature Park in north Raleigh.  We both enjoyed the lakeside trail and the colorful reflections in the water.  (I enjoyed the reflections, she enjoyed the water!)

I have been dabbling at the two portraits that I started in my watercolor class, but I think I should have left them alone.  Too much mucking about can ruin them.  I'm still not satisfied...  but here is a funny little portrait I did in one of my journals.  The lady started out as a cosmetics ad in a magazine.  She probably never dreamed of being quite this colorful!

I have been enjoying my baby granddaughter, who turned ten months old this week.  She has been practicing walking behind this toy I bought her.

She took her first steps when I was there on Tuesday!  Look out world, here comes Charlotte!  But she also LOVES to watch Sesame Street.  Up close and personal!

This weekend we are staying in town.  My husband and his partners are throwing their annual client pig-picking on Saturday.  His brother, who does Elvis impressions, will be arriving tonight with his wife, Phyllis.  We are going to take them to the Angus Barn along with our friends Pauline and Tom.

When they leave Sunday, Charlie is driving to the mountains to be there for a Monday morning meeting with the contractor, site manager, crane operator, and concrete trucks.  We are getting close to getting the foundation ready for the modular log cabin.  It is sitting in a parking lot in South Carolina, wrapped in Tyvek, waiting for our lot to be prepared.  Lots of government red tape to deal with.  One of these days we will have a house in the mountains!

On Monday, I am hosting my art quilt bee.  I have been trying so hard to get boxes unpacked and find places for everything  but almost every room has a corner piled with stuff that has not yet found a home.  Oh, well, we will work around it!

My Bags are Packed, I'm Ready to Go...

It has taken most of the last two days, but I am ready to head to the mountains!  I'll be taking a watercolor class all next week with Fealing Lin, an artist from the Los Angeles area.  She paints gorgeous, colorful portraits that glow with light.

I have even cleaned my paint palette and loaded it up with fresh paint!

I never did find my tabletop easel.  I also could have used my light box, which has gone missing, and an entire block of Watercolor paper that I bought on sale earlier this year just for this workshop!  That is the fun of moving.

I probably own about 60 paintbrushes, both my own and the ones that belonged to my dad.  But I will need to buy some more, because I need some big round brushes for this technique.

It should be so pretty to drive back and forth to  Cheap Joe's in Boone, NC, from our cabin each day.  Nothing like October in the mountains!

It is getting pretty here, too.

The workshop does not begin until Monday, so we have three full days of mountain fun ahead.

Seeking Fabulosity

It has been months in coming, but we are just about ready to put our house on the market.  The POD is almost full, the rooms are painted, the closets and cabinets are cleared out, the windowsills are caulked.  Finally I began to look at decorating the rooms to make them very cozy, comfy, and inviting.  I don't really enjoy spackling walls, but I do like to make the rooms look pretty!

Here is my kitchen table, which received sunlight from three directions.  The glass hurricanes are 40% off the sale price at Coldwater Creek, a great find when I popped in there last weekend.

 

People who have been to my house would not believe my kitchen counters, all cleared off instead of covered with appliances, houseplants, and junk mail!  Staging the kitchen means removing stuff instead of adding decor.

 

 

We also have a small dining room that looks larger after removing a tall chest, a side table, hanging shelves, and my quilt rack.  This is the room where I had to remove all the wallpaper.

 

 

Our living room has the same type wall of tall windows as the kitchen. 

 

 

There is a screened porch behind the living room windows.  I added some branches with LED lights to the bouquet of silk flowers on the table.  They are currently on sale at Kohl's.

 

 

Here is a view of the deck.  I moved some of the rockers from the front porch back here, and moved the old adirondack chairs from the deck up to our mountain cabin.  Okay, Charlie and Dave did the actual moving.

 

 

Here is the entrance to the deck.

 

 

I have some terra cotta pots filled with mums marching up the steps to the deck.

 

 

We have a big front porch surrounded by flower beds and shrubs.  This house is perfect for nature-lovers like me who prefer the outdoors!

 

 

Last Christmas, someone sat in this little wicker rocker that belonged to Charlie's mother and broke the cane seat.  I hid the hole with a very realistic cat ornament, but my grand-dog Roo tore the cat to shreds one day while left alone inside.  Now the chair is a plant stand.

 

 

If you look on the other side of the front porch, you see the garden pond with fountain.

 

 

Of course, the real star of our property is the wooded back yard.  The leaves are just starting to turn.  On a sunny day, our yard is very inviting.

 

 

Thanks for going along for the virtual door.  Looking at these photos helps me to see what else I need to do before the realtor comes to take pictures.  Next time I'll show you the upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afternoon Light

Don't you love the long shadows and golden streaks of light from late afternoon sun?  That's our dog Kasey watching over her kingdom in our backyard.

Our trees here in Wake Forest, NC, still have a lot of work to do to reach their full autumn splendor.  But they sure light up in the late sunlight.

 

I have signed up to take two watercolor classes at Art of the Carolinas, both with Tom Jones.  And both deal with painting light.  The first one is Sunrays Filtering Through the Forest, and the other is Painting the Mountain Mist and Clouds.  I am thinking of adding a third class.  It will be great to do some painting again.

 

Anyway, when I walked back to the edge of our woods, I heard something moving around.  Sure enough, a small deer went scurrying past.  (Too fast for me to get his photo!)

 

 

I was reminded of the movie Funny Farm, where Chevy Chase is trying to sell his Vermont farm house, and yells "Cue the deer" when the buyers are in the yard.  They let a deer out of a wire cage to capture their charming environment.  I'm not so sure that would be a plus around here, with deer being so prevalent and eating people's landscaping.  We have not had that problem, probably because everyone has a dog in the backyard and there is so much woodlands for the deer's habitat.  We rarely see the deer near the house.

 

We are about finished working on this house.  I am hoping the "For Sale" sign goes up soon.  We have company this weekend and our annual pig-picking on Saturday...but not at our house.  I have changed gears and spent the past two days pampering myself with new highlights and haircut, manicure, and the most luxurious pedicure at the salon. 

 

Ah, that's more like it!