108: Labor day shorts

admin September 1st, 2008

 This morning’s post is just a few pictures and random short notes.     

 First….here is a project I recently did….hmm, some nickels, blue paint…I wonder what I am up to with that?  If you ever get anything as a prize or eventually buy something from Blue Nickel Studios….you will find out!  :)     The last couple of posts have shown our outdoor cats, Sassy and Jade….here is the kitten, One-Eyed Pete (her eye is healed now, so well, she is missed named, oh well)   Pete (or Bad Baby) has been loving it when I wash new fabric as I throw it on the floor for her to play with while I get the machines ready…Here she is sitting in Sandy Gervais Tranquility and Mary Engelbreit’s Isn’t Christmas Jolly fabrics that I am working with for quilt designs to be published in the future.    Here is a Round Robin project that I am working on from the QuiltGuy yahoo group I belong to. 

Here is the original center made by one of the guys    And here it is with the rounds so far   I now need to add a 5 inch border with some applique.   I don’t really like to do applique, but I did come up with an idea for it, so I am working feverishly on it now, as I got it sent to me about 2 months behind schedule as it is.  

I want to post more today, but I have to go run to work for awhile today even though it is Labor Day.  I hope to post again tonite, hopefully with more news, like a picture about the next round on the above quilt, a link to my friend Mark Lipinski’s new line of fabric coming out, and a couple other exciting things like and “award” and a new project I am about to embark on!

easter weekend–the aftermath

admin March 24th, 2008

That sounds ominous, but it wasn’t.  I just didn’t have time to write about the weekend during the weekend that is all….or I didn’t make time to write about it.  Anyway, Easter Saturday was a really cold morning.  When I went out for my morning fitness walk, Sassy, our beloved she-manx cat, barely lifted herself out of her bed.

S3010938.JPG  Here she is in her royal swan bed.  My dad made this bed as a planter, but after the first set of geraniums died, her royal highness Sassy, took over years ago, and it is now her place. It was so cold though, she wouldn’t even come to the door looking for a hand to pet her, or a handout of food.

This is the sunrise that greeted me on that Saturday morning.  I wanted to capture the abundance of snow on the foothills, but I don’t think this photo does it justice. We really don’t have snow on those hills very often, especially not on Easter morning.       S3010943.JPG  

Easter Sunday rather a disappointment to me, as I didn’t at all get the sermon at church.  The time of worship was good, but the best part was when my friend Mike read from Matthew the part about not worrying about the future, each day has enough worry of its own. It reminded me of a book I recently read called The Shack.  the shack.jpg  It is a very powerful book, and one of the best parts was about  God’s love for us.  The phrase “God loves you” is so over done these days, I find it rather meaningless but this book reminds us the God is “especially fond” of us…all of us, even if we don’t acknowledge His hand in our lives.  The whole “His” references are challenged in this book too, as God first shows up as a very large African-American woman.  I love it!   There are many far-right seekers of God that would be offended by that, and the far-left seekers get too wrapped up in themselves to see that God is both male/female.  He created us that way in His/Her image.  I still refer to Him as Him, but it is good to know that He is our mother as well…...Kinda trippy and metaphysical I know, but it is a good book, and the book is not hard to read at all.  There are no pictures, and I even managed to get through it in 3 days….

Another great book (with some REALLY trippy parts) as well is The War of Art war of art.jpg  

 It is rather strange, and parts of it are hilarious, but some of it speaks well about fighting artistic blockages of all sorts.  It rather demonfies “resistance” and glorifies perhaps defies art.  The author has some strange religious anger brewing underneath his ramblings, and some of that I found rather annoying, but I did like how he faced resistance head on and basically challenges the reader to keep plugging through all the barriers that keep one from creating.   I recommended it to my friend Mark Lipinski on the phone, and while we were talking he ordered it from Amazon.  I am wondering what he will think when he reads it.  I think the line that I read him likened the problems of Resistance to somethings like acne, world hunger, and erectile dysfunction.    I KNOW that the ED is in there, that is what made me laugh out loud. 

Anyway back to Easter Sunday….it rained and rained and rained…..not very “springy”......so the Pagan Easter part of the celebration was pretty drenched down….did see some neighbor girls way out back running around in boots and fancy dresses looking for eggs….that was pretty funny  The Christian part of the celebration left me rather sad….I think I must have missed it….all of it…the point of Jesus on the cross and ressurrecting on Sunday I “KNOW” it in my head, but my heart sure didn’t seem to notice, and I think that is the point where I was very disappointed by it all..

This is supposed to be an “Artistic” blog, so I don’t know why I wrote all that heavy stuff…it is not like anyone really reads this stuff anyway.   But there you have it, Easter weekend in a nutshell…..