Another Southwest Quilt

I think this is one of my favorite quilts so far, for a number of reasons. It is a commission of sorts (no, I am not starting a quilting business), and I was asked to make a southwest style quilt. I was shown some coasters that the person had in their home and I tried to make a design that followed those patterns and designs. This is the design I made in photoshop:

I used pictures of the material I hoped to use and came up with a few tentative designs with various color patterns. This is the one we picked. (Blogger seems to want to put streaks across my photos lately, so sorry for the one across the bottom - it isn't in the original).

After making all of the measurements and calculations (I have to thank my sister-in-law, Christine, who helped me with the math on the triangles), I got the material and put it together. It went remarkably well - probably my best quilt with triangles to date. They actually lined up and I didn't sew the points off this time. :)
 But, I put it together, pinned the whole thing, started doing the machine quilting, and then (yes, it took this long) realized that I put it together wrong.  The part with the green triangles (just to the right and left of the center strip) had one of them going the wrong way so instead of an "X" like formation, it was more like stairs going all the same direction. Hard to explain, and my photo is on my ipad, not this computer, but basically I had to do a lot of redoing and the stitch remover became my friend. Remarkably, I was able to get it all fixed with minimal damage and I finished the quilt. I love this quilt. I was tempted to keep it for myself. I actually bought similar material and I am going to make a different quilt with that.

This is the final product:

up close on the middle (my favorite part, and probably the most complex part too)
And, no, there isn't pink on the bottom in real life, just what the computer wants to do

Upright - I actually uploaded this photo four times, and this is the best Blogger would do for me. UGH! But, you get the idea. Maybe some day I can replace it with the actual decent photo that was taken.

From above, sort of.

 I forgot to take a photo of the backing - but it is just dark brown (and super soft) minky.

Christmas Crafts

There are two things I have wanted to make for Christmas for a looooong time.  One is an advent calendar. I have looked at many, thought of buying different ones, but so many have teeny tiny drawers or they are the fabric kind which I didn't quite like, so after much searching, looking at reviews of some build it yourself kinds and finding out you have to sand down every drawer extensively, and other such annoyances, I ran into a handy little idea in the tool section of a store. I put it together, pulled out what little actual scrapbook paper I have left, and my acrylic stamps and old stickers and such, and put this together:

 It is made from one of those tool boxes that hold little screws and other small items. The drawers were the perfect size and I even have five extra to hide fun little goodies from time to time.  It isn't professional quality, but I don't care. I like it, and the kids have had fun with it so far (the two whole days we have done it).

The other project I have wanted to do for a while, and especially in the past few years was a tree skirt. I made one when Jeff and I were first married, but it seems kind of small and boring. So, last year I got around to finally buying material and I found a pattern, cut the pieces, and made the top. Then, as Christmas time usually goes, my life exploded into craziness and I never finished it. After staring at it for months I packed it away and almost forgot about it. Then, last week as we started getting our Christmas decorations out, I remembered the skirt. So, I pulled it out and over a couple of days I finished putting the bottom on, quilted it, and added a binding.

Sorry the photo is so dark - this kind of shows the view with the tree.

The binding from above

Up close on the binding - this is my favorite part - my machine can do these pretty stitches and I actually figured out how to do them (that is half the battle with me).

The view if you were laying down by the tree (you know, because we always do that, right? )

So, I am pretty happy that I have finally done these two projects. Now, if I can only finish the 20 other things I have on my list... :)

Wedding gift

This is a quilt that I promised my sister as a wedding gift. Her wedding was a year and a half ago.  Sigh... Sometimes I take forever to get things done. But, it is finally finished, and shipped to her. Yay!  This was the largest quilt I have done so far - a queen size. It was really fun though - very different from other quilts I have done.
I used the material that she used for tablecloth squares on her tables at her wedding, so they are her wedding colors. And then I found backing that coordinated perfectly, and it worked out great. I found it just in time too, because it was out of stock in most stores online.

This shows what the backing material looks like (not sure why there are streaks across the photo)

The design from above

This is the picture my sister took and posted on facebook - it looks great in their room - and is a much better photo than the ones I took :)

Two new portraits

I finished this first portrait a few weeks ago, but I wanted to show his parents the painting first. It was a fun one to do. I like his little toothless smile.  :)

Benjamin

This weekend I have had some time to do another portrait. This is my nephew. I did his brother back in May and kept thinking I would get around to doing him, and it kept getting put off. But, I am happy to say that I have finally done it.  It also went fairly well, which is always nice :)  I haven't seen him since Christmas, and he has changed a lot since then. I found some more recent photos and this one grabbed me the most. It is just a little harder doing a portrait of someone I haven't seen in awhile.  I will say that doing this portrait style was a lot easier the second time around. Maybe I am starting to get the hang of this :).

Theo

Progress

I think I have figured out how to find a little time to do some art and quilting. So, I may actually be posting more on here again. I hope. 

Here is what I have been up to:

This is the storm at sea quilt I mentioned in a couple of posts. Fortunately, in this photo, you can't see all the places where things don't line up.  :)  I am not done. I am actually putting it on hold while I do some other projects.  I plan to put a border around it, and of course I have to do a backing and quilt it and put on a binding. But, honestly, the hardest part is done.  There are 1297 pieces that I put together to make this. The bulk of the cutting and a lot of the piecing was done awhile back. I just finally got around to finishing the piecing and putting it all together. It makes me happy.  :)

Storm at Sea

Work in progress

This is the current quilt I am working on.  It is a wedding gift for my sister (a year and a half later...). We are using the material that she used for table centerpieces so it is all in her colors.  I have all of the pieces cut and laid out, and now it is time to assemble.  Unfortunately, I had a little accident with my rotary cutter (not doing quilts, ironically) and I can't sew little pieces together very well due to lack of function with my index finger, so I will have to put this on hold for a couple of weeks.

I can still draw though.  I finished a portrait, which I will post as soon as I have had a chance to show the people who commissioned it.   It went remarkably well, and it gives me hope that I really can do this more often.   It has been three months since the last portrait.  Too long.

That is what I have been up to in between all of the other normal day to day tasks of life. I have felt happier and calmer since I started getting back into creating things. It is a therapy of sorts for me, and I hope to do more.

I finished something

On my phone, I keep a to do list. In fact, it has several lists. I have house projects, art projects, quilts, sewing projects (non-quilt) etc.  This is so, when I find I have time to do something, I scroll down my list to see what I feel like working on. It is also my way of seeing what I have actually accomplished because I keep the items on the list, just with a strike going through them. That list barely changed all summer. Then, school started, and my life turned into an explosion of chaos. It hasn't been the freedom I had hoped for. I am trying to accept the fact that I feel like I have less time to myself than in the past few years. I try not to fall into the "this isn't what I thought it would be like" trap. So, I made a decision to make the entire hour and 15 minutes of my "free" time dedicated to me. It means I am not getting much of anything else done (because the rest of the day I have at least one child by my side), but it is keeping me sane. So far.
I have kind of been in an art funk for awhile. I am not fully sure what the deal is, but I decided that I needed to first get my brain thinking in a creative artistic way again.  So, I looked at my phone to-do list and I decided to work on a quilt. I started this quilt back in February. In fact, I was almost done with the top of it, and then it sat for a long time. so, I decided to finish it. My son needed a not-so-girlish quilt on his bed, so I  made this one. It is smaller than I had originally hoped, but that is okay. He doesn't use most of his bed anyway, and he does have a large soft blanket if he gets cold. I showed him the material I had to work with, and he made up the design. The quilt isn't stellar. It wouldn't win an award (except, maybe, "how not to do a quilt") but I finished it, and there is a lot of satisfaction in that.  here is a photo:

And, now that I have finished something that requires a bit of creativity, my brain is starting to feel a little more artistic. I started a sketch of a portrait I am going to do next. And, I finally put all of the pieces together for the storm at sea quilt that I  mentioned many many posts ago. Now I just need to assemble the blocks and put the top together. I also have two-three other quilts I have lined up, so there is no shortage of projects on my list. I am glad to finally have a little time to work on these things, despite my disappointment of having less time than I planned. And, maybe, just maybe, I can survive this school year.

Mirror Lake in the Uintas

Mirror Lake

It has been really hard this summer to find time to draw. There always seems to be someone who needs me, and I haven't made it down to my art room in awhile.  Until the past few days. When I finally was at the end of my sanity, I locked myself in my room for just one hour, and started this drawing. I felt SO much better afterwards. It was amazing. I could deal with all the things going on again and didn't feel so overwhelmed. Lesson to myself - drawing is therapy and I need to get proper doses of it.  Because I have done so many portraits lately, I decided to take a break and do something totally fun with no pressure. I wasn't kidding when I said I thought landscapes would be easier. I can't believe how much easier they seem. That being said, I see things I want to change or try next time, now that I am looking at this, but it was kind of a free exercise to see what I could do with my newer pastels and all of the techniques I have learned.  And, strangely enough, some of the techniques I learned for portraits helped with this. 

It took me a few days of locking myself in my room to get this done, but I did it. This is from a photo of Mirror Lake in the Uintas.  I took the photo 3 years ago and have wanted to draw it for a long time. I think it was a good one to try. 

Now I just have to decide what is next.  Portrait, landscape, or something else? 

My latest commission

This is what I have been working on lately. I have found that it is quite tricky finding time to draw now that my children are home all day. I have made a few arrangements that have helped, but I definitely get more done during the school year.  That being said, I enjoyed drawing these four children. We have known them from before the oldest was born. In some ways that makes it harder because I keep saying, "no, that isn't quite them yet... no, I don't think the eyes are right.... hmmm... that one looks too old..." etc. I actually got on an artist website (wetcanvas.com) and posted one of the drawings to get some feedback.  It was incredibly helpful, so I plan to post more on that site in the future.  It helps to get other eyes looking at it, and I had about 10 people comment with suggestions.

As for the rest of the summer, I don't plan to do as much art.  I will still welcome commissions, but I may not start them until mid August. That could change and surprise me, but we have a lot of  plans coming up and I don't really want deadlines at the moment. I have one other commission that is lined up, but I also have some projects of my own I want to try.  There is a landscape I want to try drawing.  Now that I have done faces, landscapes seem easy.  I don't say that to downplay landscapes, it is just that if you make the branch of a tree go at a slightly different angle, it still looks like a tree.  If you make eyes go at the wrong angle, it looks like a Picasso.  :)

Maybe I will work on some quilts this summer and post them here, or maybe I will post photographs from our adventures. We shall see... when I started this blog, I planned on posting all of my creative outlets.  I haven't done that for awhile.