Celebrate, Celebrate, Dance To The Music

I'm doing my happy dance because I went over 6 million stitches on my longarm machine. It's funny how such a simple thing can put me in such a positive mood,,,

I moved my mixed media collage piece along during the early days of the month. There may be more special effects yet to be experimented with,,,

My Impatiens #2 from 2016 is completed and hanging on my dining room wall when it's not on the table looking pretty. 

I finally dug out my beads and did some embellishing around he top edge of my wet felted bowl from last year. I really enjoyed making this piece and the colors are exactly what a Mermaid would want. The little paisley on the bottom was done after the Dimensional Weaving Workshop and it became my signature on the piece. 

This poor silk fusion vessel lost it's rigidity at some point. So, back onto the form with some stiffening agent applied. I think I may add beads along the ridges left by the rubber bands

I spent some time cleaning and clearing this month. I deconstructed 2 wedding gowns. I wanted lace pieces for a project that's part of my Creative Adventure Journal. Also sorted and organized a drawer full of buttons. 

Here's what kept me inside for close to a week. Yep, snow! We got over 7 & 1/2" and the temps dipped below freezing for several nights. It was extremely rare for this to happen in our location and to last for so long!!!

While I was decluttering I decided to put this quilt top up for adoption. Within a few hours it had a new home to go to and it's story of origin was shared. 

Here I am modeling my latest knitting adventure. Mermaid colors are definitely a thing with me. 

I wanted to have a piece of fabric with words and names on it so I tried my hand at making it myself. 

I have a boat load of fabric that I quilted up when I was learning how to run my machine. I cut these pieces into 8" squares and constructed a 'raggy edge' quiltlet for using at Christmas time. 

During the cleaning and clearing I organized my stash of hankies. I purchased enough wide back white flannel to make these into a raggy quilt, but I ran into a problem. I decided to pre wash the flannel because I didn't want it to shrink tremendously after I put the hankies on it. I was pleased with the minimal amount of shrinkage, but,,, the lint is tremendous! I've actually been tumbling them on 'no heat' just to remove as much of the lint as I can before I put it on my longarm. I'll try to get some good pictures of the method I plan to use for making this 'mostly' on my longarm machine. I came across the crewel embroidery piece. It is one my Mom did many years ago when I was a demonstrator/teacher for Creative Circle. I'll do something special with it one of these days. And the 18" quilt block was made from my pieces that were supposed to be for an entire quilt. Bonnie Hunter's On Ringo Lake, mystery quilt along was something I started but lost my umph to continue. I have the directions and perhaps one day I will revisit it and produce a full quilt from her pattern. 

This is an adaptation of a jelly roll race quilt. I no longer had all 40 strips so I went as far as I could, added borders and quilted it up. The strips were cut on straight of grain, but the design was printed off grain. It looked 'wonky' when on the design wall. So,  I named it Wilma, the Wonky. I really like the backing fabric. I used it for the binding for a quick finish. 

I have a friend that fell in love with all the quilts we've been seeing on the internet that are a cross made from log cabin blocks. I decided to surprise her with a kit, as a Birthday gift. But, I needed to know that it was going to come together properly with my calculations. So, I made one very similar to the kit she will get. Mine will go to a local church. 

Here's the kit and fabrics for Nancy. She's going to enjoy stitching it together. I'll quilt it after she has that part done. She was so helpful during our 'marathon of quilting and binding' last fall. That was when we made all those quilts for hurricane victims. 

We spent time with family in NC this month. My husband and his brother made most of the meals and my favorite was the seafood chowder. It was delicious.  

Are you wondering about the Creative Adventure Journal? Well, it's in the works. Things are just taking a little extra time to get them put together. If you are interested in following along, during February watch the insides of your junk mail envelopes. Keep any that look particularly interesting to you. 

May God bless each of you with good health and abundant happiness.