First off—HAPPY NEW YEAR’S!

As usual, I celebrated by going to bed at a reasonable hour. In the days of yore (when I was in my 20s and had more energy) hubby and I lived in DC. We actually stayed up to midnight once or twice. Then we started celebrating New year’s in Bermuda….as in at 11 pm when it was midnight in Bermuda. Eventually, we moved to Washington state and had kids, while in our 40s and 50s. We then celebrated midnight in DC–at 8 pm local time! Now we live back on the East Coast. Some nights I fall asleep on the sofa by 9. So I have decided we should celebrate Greenwich Mean Time (London), which would be 7 pm locally. At this rate, before I die I’ll get to celebrate New Year’s in Sydney, Australia, though if I actually ever get to celebrate it there I’ll actually stay up–I promise! (or set the alarm and wake up…)

The picture above is of the Janome Xpressions, a needlefelting machine at a VERY reasonable price…I think they list at $399, but can be had for less (if the link above doesn’t take you to the direct page, go to www.janome.com, click on the “Machines and accessories” tab on the left, then select Xpressions from the Machines drop-down menu). I LOVE this little machine—way better than an attachment to an expensive machine that pushes lint into the bobbin area and otherwise imperils a fine machine with lint. On this, the “bobbin” space is a metal box that prevents the fuzz from migrating to the other working areas. Smart! I’m part of the Janome Artists’ Loan program (thank you again, Janome America!), and they were kind enough to lend me one of these babies recently.

Another thing I like is the finger guard. Janome’s machine allows you to use the 5-needle head or a single needle head. Either way, the barbed felting needles are SHARP. I’m glad for the extra protection:

I got to play with it during the past week, and decided to play with decidedly NON-traditional felting materials (which are wools of various sorts): synthetic white satin and sheer silks and yarns….here is a hooped section of satin with various silks needle-punched into it:

and here is what the back side looks like (by the way…that odd green-ringed yellow blob is where I painted onto the satin and it looked yucky..please ignore):

You can also pull the punched silk back off the base fabric, and it turns crinkly textured, which I really liked.

For a small project, I decided to kinda scrunch the silk and then “felt” it.

I then attempted to reproduce a photo in cloth. Well, let’s say this wasn’t quite the best attempt I’ve ever made. I’ll tell you more about the project in a future post, but here is the original, glorious photo (used with permission of the photographer)

and here is my interpretation:

The “final” result isn’t “due” until August, so I may very well re-do this one. I might like this version better if I were to mount it on stretched cloth or a painted canvas, but those aren’t viable options for the project. The beading also took forever. I like the idea of the stamens / pokey up things… I satin-stitched over pipe cleaners (OK…”chenille stems”) and sewed them onto the background. Maybe they are too long? I suppose I could cut them off and re-do the beads on the ends (ugh). Or I could just start over. Hmmm… need to think on it. No matter what, I haven’t done justice to the photo the way I would like to, so will have to go back to square one…. The needle-felting bit, however, is pretty cool, and want to play more.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s a good one… I got to sew today, and even if it rained onto our first bit of snow, it was a nice day at home with the family.

PS–if anyone has suggestions on how to improve my “flower” PLEASE DO!

(a brief interruption to your not-quite-scheduled posting….time flies when the boys are home and I can’t get “air-time” on my own computer! Hoping to resume a more frequent posting schedule soon….dream on?!)

and that I bought in Houston, and at the local art supply store……

On Tuesday (well, at this point a week or two ago), I met a student of mine in town for tea and sharing (she had done a WONDERFUL first journal, by the way, of a dream catcher with prayer flags plus another gift for a friend and yet another of an angel…way cool!), then ran some errands, including to Rockport Blueprint which, despite the name, is the wonderful local art supply store. They had these way cool little easels for all of $2, and they are the perfect size for postcards:

That is fortunate because on Saturday in the mail I had this wonderful suprise from our very favorite quiltmuse, Jacquie Scuitto:

Jacquie wrote me that the tree and star came from Germany! Her daughter and granddaughters live there (Jacquie and Lou lived there for years, too), so she goes to visit every year. I’m honored she shared one of her special German goodies on a card with me…and what a fun surprise to get the card! So it is now on the easel on my desk!

And here are two postcards I purchased from the FFAC booth in Houston. The first is by Kathie Briggs, and reminds me of the torii gates in Japan (those are the red gates at the Shinto Temples and sometimes in the harbors, near shore). I had seen this card on the FiberArts For a Cure webpage and fell in love with it, and was thrilled that it had not been sold and was still there when I got to searching for my treasures. Visit Kathie’s blog here, and her website here.

I also found this one, called Papyrus #1, by Leslie Tucker Jenison. The green is art cloth made by Leslie, with three glorious thick beads on it. I’m not much of a surface design person, but I think maybe I need to play more with paints and stamps and creating my own art cloth…..

I also totally love the idea that I was able to receive these cards made by ladies I’ve met on the QuiltArt list. If you click on this link, it will take you to the QuiltArt home page. There is a lively e-list (with about 2500 subscribed souls), who are fascinating, sharing, wonderful, sometimes crabby, always fun, which you can join; there is no fee, though us “regulars” joyfully send an annual (or more often) contribution to list-mom Judy to keep things running.

Last but not least, I’m thrilled that Virginia Spiegel (website here) invited me to participate in the 2007 Reverse Auction to raise funds for cancer research. Check out the early information here, and check back in periodically for updates. I’ll be making and donating a special piece for this auction. A dear, dear friend died of liver cancer when Joshua was an infant (I’d take him to lunch with her at her chemo sessions…the nurses loved her because of her positive outlook— if attitude alone could cure someone, Linda would be with us today), and my half-brother Charlie (a 4-pack a day, highly overweight smoker) died of cancer in 1982. My dad survived his bout with throat cancer in 1982–he used to joke that at age 83 he’d not live long enough for the doctors to know he had survived past the 5 year prognosis, but he lived to age 96. Daddy was diagnosed with cancer on a Friday. After 65 years (or more) of smoking. He quit that day and never had another cigar (thank heavens…boy did they stink). Anyway, my donations to FFAC are in memory of Linda, Charlie and Daddy.

Remember the crisis of the nearly-ruined flannel? Well, nine washings later, and a full-day-long soak in Oxy-Clean saved the flannel, and here we are on Christmas eve in our flannel jammie pants (except for Paul, who declined to participate in the flannel fun, sigh!).

I’ll do a longer blog post soon, but it is hard to get 15 consecutive minutes on my computer with the boys home from school. The best news is that Mom sent a very nice check for Christmas, so with that, plus savings, plus the gift Paul and the boys gave me for my birthday in October, I will soon be the happy owner of a new Mac laptop!!!! Yes, I’m abandoning the PC in favor of the Mac and can’t wait. Once I have the laptop, I won’t have to fight for time on my own computer, since we’ll clear the files from the desktop (to make it run less slowly) and keep it out for the boys, who will never get to use the laptop…wheeee!

Hope you all had a happy holiday (of whatever persuasion). We changed things this year and had Christmas dinner on the 24th, so the 25th was gloriously relaxed….. no rush from presents to cooking and working all day. I think we’ll do this again! It was the nicest Christmas in years, and Paul actually thought about things I’d like and surprised me with all sorts of little goodies…. so I am very, very happy. Blessings be to all!

or, what I’ve been doing lately. I thought (?? who me?) you might (???) like to see where I live here in Camden, Maine (this hotlink should, ahem, and I hope, take you to a Google Map). So….Scroll down for lotsa photos of where I live… But just to give you one of my favorite things about Camden, is the crosswalks: Stop, Wait, Wave… I love that it is so friendly (and that there are blissfully NO stoplights in the center of town, though there are two flashing lights on the edges)!

A bit of a preface: Maine is lucky, and maybe even unique, in having a state-wide quilt guild, the Pine Tree Quilt Guild. The state is divided into areas (7 I think), which have a whole bunch of local chapters (just checked… seventy!), plus at least two statewide chapters (one for art quilters, one for crazy quilters). Our local chapter is the Coastal Quilters. Many of the chapters have chapter banners, and someone (hi Gail!) recently suggested we should have one too, and would anyone (hint hint) like to design a banner. She meant me, but I needed NO prodding, as designing is just about the most fun part of quilting. I promptly volunteered and designed one. However, I’m not going to share the design with you … yet anyway! (Yes, I know I’m wicked!)

BUT, the Coastal Quilters Chapter banner will feature local / mid-Coast landmarks, from Lincolnville/Northport on the north end to Rockland in the south. For many of them, I already had what I call “reference photos,” which I used to draw patterns for 6 inch blocks. But, I needed a few extras. So today, I went in search of the remaining few special sites:

Cappy’s Chowder House, where Elm Street turns into Main Street at the intersection with Bayview Street (it’s one of those old-city/town things…where a single street has multiple names depending on where you are on it!):

The Chestnut Street Baptist Church is right on the village green, and was my “quintessential New England Steeple” in my quilt Autumn on the Village Green:

The Elm Street School is right near the heart of town (a long block or two-ish from the green), and has been in use as a school since 1896 (or thereabouts):

here’s another view, from Union Street (to the side):

Then, I saw this glorious doorknob on Elm Street, which I have walked past without noticing countless times…. they just don’t make things like that any more!

Some of the Rockport residents (Rockport is the town next to Camden…unless you know where one stops and the other begins, you’d think they were one municipality) asked to have the Rockport Opera House on the quilt, so I snapped this photo today. The Opera House overlooks Rockport Harbor… another heavenly spot:

We also all wanted to include Children’s Chapel on Vesper Hill, on the peninsula that juts out into Penobscot Bay and separates Camden and Rockport harbors (well sorta…there’s a bit more coastline in there, but you get the idea). This is an idyllic setting and I’m pretty sure it gets lots of summer traffic for weddings. It is an open-air structure with lovely grounds / garden:

and totally irrelevant but to the Chapter banner, but a house in Camden, has these leaded windows that make my heart sing every time I drive by. Some day I’ll get out of the car and take a picture of the oval leaded glass windows on the side of the entryway which are even more wonderful than the fanlight over the door:

For eons I have been wanting to make this lovely totebag, which is Joan Hawley’s pattern. Joan is the brains and good writing (and everything else) behind Lazy Girl Designs (website here, blog here). I made the Mt. Fuji and Cherry Blossoms panels in September or October, but life and a zillion other things got in the way. I’d been promising myself I would get to finish the bag when all the other “chores” were done. Well, except for the trim for the chair (which is still pending…grumble at the design store!), it is done. So is the Christmas shopping, the winter flannel jammie pants, the gift wrapping, and a few dozen other things. So this past week I FINISHED the bag!

I made both sides the same (as in same view of Fuji)…the only difference is in the blossoms and branches. Here’s side one:

And side two:

And here is a picture of the flap, opened. I modified the pattern a bit (sorry Joan! I can’t help myself LOL) to make the tab wider and shorter. I want to purchase some of those magnetic purse snaps to use under the flap, but they will have to wait on a larger internet order (not gonna order just two snaps and pay all that shipping!). I like that you can see my quilting under the flap.

Joan’s pattern is wonderfully simple and quick. I made it a bit more complicated (sigh… I can’t help myself…. bigger sigh….) by doing up a fancy center panel, quilting it, then quilting the entire outside of the bag (it doesn’t show so well in the photos, but I outline quilted the bamboo in the batik with a wonderful variegated Rainbows thread from Superior Threads…if you click on the link, scroll down..I used #847 Fucshia Fusion).

Here is what the pattern looks like in the bag:

You can get it at many quilt shops, online various places, including from Joan–click on the hotlink and scroll down maybe 1/3 of the way to the bottom of the long webpage. I LOVED the Bag-E-Bottom (the name, too!), a slightly spendy but really nice plexiglas insert that keeps the bottom crisp and nicely formed, helping the bag look good once you start filling it.