Creativity

The thing that boosts my creativity is laying in bed at night with a drawing pad and crayons (yes, as in crayola!) and just letting things roll out.

I mostly use crayons because it reflects my art...basic, simple.

Kindergarden level in my mind.
Because of the crayons I can convince myself that I’m going back to a mental state where I didn't care what it looked like in the end.  It all looked like great art to me. No room for criticism. 
And the delicious smell of crayons; like the smell of lumber, or fresh cut grass (After the gases of the lawn mower blow away!).
And journaling about ideas...you start writing notes on one idea as you go along and then a bunch more ideas start bubbling up.

Tis' bliss!

Quilling

Yes, quilling.  Not quilting.

I want to try a little bit of it so for Christmas I put some of the tools and a few kits on my Wish List.
This is my first attempt using the instructions that came with the tools.
They are tiny.
I also got a kit of beautiful flowers but mostly I want to do the snow flake kit.

All about Isaac

My favorite nephew Isaac has gotten into some bad habits lately. 
He can't seem to get up before 3 pm.
It's apparent that he likes to sleep on his knuckles.

But when he did get up, he made Christmas Dinner! 

Can you believe it? 

He said he wanted to do it! 

Well then, let's take out double the ingredients so he can make 2 meals for us! 

So here he is, hard at work mixing Grandma's meatballs.

He also put together and baked the Scalloped Corn, and peeled and mashed the potatoes! 
Below is my plate, a normal persons plate...except the meatballs and gravy were passed before the mashed potatoes, so my mashed potatoes are actually on top of the gravy.



But Isaac preferred his mashed potatoes, gravy, meatballs and scalloped corn to be mashed up in one big heap. 

The green beans on the side were added to Isaac's plate by Eric AS he asked Isaac "Do you want green beans?"

Isaac custom made this beautiful train display box for his Grandpa. 

It is so freakin' gorgeous!

Did I tell you I love my nephew? 

He is such a fantastic kid and growing into a generous, thoughtful young man.

Christmas in the Cave

Last night Cave Woman had their Christmas Potluck.  It was such a lovely evening.  Good food and lots of laughter.  I need Sarah to give me the recipe for the India Rice she made...or whatever it was called, is was perfection.
I thought of showing the postcards I've received in my recent trades from Postmark'dArt but I forgot to bring them.  And I remembered to throw my camera in my purse but forgot to take pictures! 

Sharon had her cave perfectly decorated for Christmas, with the little tree in the corner and all her fantastic works of art hanging on the wall like it's a Cave Art Gallery. 
Hey, that's kinda funny, her 'cave art', only not quite prehistoric.     Yet.

Pet Pillow Projects Performance Progresses Prolifically

Pet beds.  Center black pillow is a kitten pillow with my machine quilting pattern Sunrise.

It drives me nuts when I turn a mole hill into a mountain.
When Edith Dalleska said she wanted pet pillows to raise money for animals she proposed that we ('we' being all those with in ear shot) sew two hunks of any fabric together, leaving one end open like a pillowcase, and as we're doing all our quilting, we're just throwing all our threads and little fabric scraps into them and when it's full, sew it shut and we have a pet pillow!
How easy is that?
Sharon Englund is making hers out of scraps of polar fleece and actually has a small (clean!) trash can that she puts the pillow 'case' in as if it was a trash liner.  Then all her threads and scraps go in there and when it's full she sews hers shut and puts in a new 'liner' for the next pillow.
I already had lots of chunks of fabric that I used to practice machine quilting on.  It wasn't a big deal to sew them together and do the same thing.
Then I started looking for scrap fabric to sew together so I could sandwich it to practice machine quilting on just so I could make it into a pet bed.
Then I started looking for old panels, cheaters, and left over blocks and kept going.
Where did my regular projects go?
I don't know.
Now I'm all of empty pet beds.

Green Egg and Ham

We're getting eggs from a neighbor.  All different colors.
Dr. Suess, eat your heart out.

Binding Quilts

A woman generously donated a huge amount of quilting fabric,kits, notions and some UFO's that belonged to her deceased Mother.

Some little UFO's only had a little left to do so Doris and I took them home to finish up and then they can be sold at the MQ Small Quilt Auction next summer.

I added the binding to the little appliqued heart and the Christmas table runner.

 All the items belonged to her Mother, Eleanor Eggan.



Christmas table runner, 44" long