I moved my blog

I had to move my blog to Wordpress.  I can't post pictures to blogger anymore.  Please consider following me at my new blog address: http://marylandonquilts.wordpress.com

Loving Life

I'm still limping along with blogger, but posting here is becoming more and more cumbersome.  It just doesn't like to work with my iPad, or my photos, but I'm persistent.     Life is good!  I've not been able to complete many projects that I can show at this time, but I've started plenty.  We've been doing a lot of traveling, too.  

The picture above  is one of the big Montana sky.  

This one is the view from our condo at Bear Lake in Utah.  So much snow this year!

This piece is a sample of playing around with paintsticks.  Meh.

A beautiful sunset from our room in Morro Bay.  I added a filter with my phone.  

Change in Venue

I'm stitching from our place in California now, and I find it's easier to finish things because I don't have all the distractions of my other life with grandkids, kids, longarm, quilt guilds, etc.   this is the second of four eye spy quilts my grandkids and I have started.  Two of them have the same busy sashing to make it harder to 'spy' and the third will have more of a solid sashing because I ran a it of this polka dot fabric.  I don't want to buy more fabric, and didn't bring much with me to CA.  

Before I left Montana, I was busy blocking, binding and bleeding a quilt.  Oh, my, that was scary.  All that work only to find that the red had bled all over the white. Well, thankfully for Vicki Welsh Publishing an article on bleeding a quilt, I followed her directions and it worked beautifully.  

 

Here are the foam boards I tacked the quilt to.

The quilt is soaking in a hot bath of Dawn dish detergent.  

 

I'm still struggling with publishing to this google blog from an Apple product, so my posts are few and far between.  One day I'll have to make the leap to a wordpress platform...Well, thanks for stopping by and I hope all is well in your world.

 

 

 

 

Challenging Myself

 

  

For 2017 I have challenged myself to accomplish 12 tasks.  Not to finish UFOs, or to make 12 quilts, but to accomplish 12 things.  

 

In no particular order, this is my list:

1. Finish the modern quilt design I started, piece and quilt it.
2. Dye Fabric
3. Use one piece of silk I purchased last year.
4. Finish one of the wholecloth designs I started, mark it and stitch it out.
5. Use Derwent pencils on something
6. Use Paintsticks on something
7. Design and  complete the challenge quilt for Big Sky Quilt Retreat
8. Use EQ7 to design a simple quilt
9. Bind, Block and Remove Bleed from quilt.
10. Use new panto on a UFO
11. Use new panto on a UFO
12. Finish grandkids eye spy quilts
13. Make a charity/comfort quilt from stash.
14. Make a charity/comfort quilt from stash.
15. Use class notes from Sue Heinz' class to stitch on a quilt.
16. Stitch some gridded fills on a quilt.

 

 

 

A couple weeks ago I was coloring with my grandkids.  They wanted me to doodle something that they could color.  This is the piece I kept for myself.  Ironically it's the same colors of the fabric that I purchased last!          

 

And then to make it even more ironic, I rarely design a quilt in which the predominant colors are reds, (okay, one time I made a red and site quilt for a fundraiser) and I just painted over all the red in our house and replaced it with gray. (See all the red and gray in my colored doodle?)

 

New paint colors 

 

 

 

 This picture was from the real estate listing before we bought the home.

  I guess all the painting made a lasting impression on me, huh? 

See, we really are influenced by the colors around us!  I hope you're having a great start to a new year, and I just may need a reminder to follow your blog.  If you are reading this, take a moment to comment so I can check out your blog.