Merry Christmas and another new endeavor for me

And what a Christmas it is going to be, or NOT! The world is still in "quarantine" so my family won't be traveling to Wisconsin this year for Christmas and it kills me. My parents moved to WI three and a half years ago (I live in Virginia) and every year since their move we have gone up there for Christmas. My brother, sister-in-law, niece and two nephews live up there too. Between my brothers three kids and my two boys they are like "stairstep grandkids" Their ages are 15, 14, 13, 12 and 11(mine are the 12 and 14 year olds) and the five of them get along great!

The world learned of the coronavirus on March 13th, 2020 (mind you that was a Friday, Friday the 13th) The things that have looked different this year include: going/or not going to the pool this summer, no summer traveling, no back-to-school (its all virtual now), no trick-or-treating, no celebrating Thanksgiving with anyone other than the people you live with, and now no Christmas traveling either. Also this is an election year. There were thousands of people that voted by mail. I voted in person before the election and Joe voted on the day of the election.

There are a number of positive things that have happened because of the virus, the main one being that my boys and I have spent more time together. My husband is a Methodist pastor so he is actually working harder now than he was before. Not to say he wasn't working hard before, he loves his job, but the learning curve for a lot of us has been steep. With Zoom meetings and virtual classrooms, sometimes technology is great and sometimes it isn't. At the beginning of this virus, my husband was sending out devotions daily. I would help him record his sermons for Sunday mornings but we are now back to in-person worship with no singing, everyone wearing masks and socially distanced. The handbells (which I am a part of) has been able to resume playing but sadly the choir cannot.

The other positive thing that has come out of being quarantine is the fact that I have revisited my love of writing. In middle school I loved to make up stories and in high school I wrote a number of poems. Six years ago I wrote two middle grade books, just because it was fun. I hadn't planned on doing anything with them really. They were not related in any way, just two ideas that formulated in my head.

Then I looked around and noticed that six of my friends were authors! Now some of them have their masters in literature and journalism but others don't have college degrees. Well if they can do it so can I! Being in lockdown has given me the time to write and edit my work and come up with more new ideas too.

During November I participated in NaNoWriMo, National November Writing Month, where we are to write 50,000 words in 30 days and I am proud to say I DID IT! And I have my certificate hanging right beside me. The reward for doing it is that you now have another written book under your belt, and bragging rights that you conquered the challenge.

So all of this to say, my newest artistic endeavor is to become a published author. I am in the process of creating an author website now so stay tuned!

"Let's Go Fly a Kite"

This was the theme of this year's quilt guild challenge.  It was announced last November and as soon as I heard the theme I had a vision of what I wanted to do.  The only rule was that the perimeter could not be over 100".  I finished mine in December but judging wasn't going to be until our March meeting.
Our meetings are held the second Saturday of the month and guess what?  The Coronavirus closed everything down the day before our meeting!  Fast forward four months and last weekend we were finally able to have our meeting outside sitting 6' apart from one another.

I WON FIRST PLACE!!

I wanted to walk you through my process.  First I cut a piece of muslin the size I wanted the quilt to be, remembering not to go over 100" diameter.  This ended up being 15" X  35"  Then I laid my fabric options out along side of it:

The little girls head is a wooden ball wrapped in brown fabric then attached to a pipe cleaner armature.  I then wrapped the pipe cleaners with brown embroider floss.  Her yellow eyelet dress was made from a thrift store find.

I free-form drew the cloud on a white sparkly piece of fabric then appliqued that over the little girls head.  I made a slit in the back of the fabric and stuffed the cloud with cotton balls.  This hole would be covered when I added the batting and backing.

Next I sketched the big tree that the cloud was trying to blow the kite into, cut it out of realistic looking bark and appliqued that onto the quilt too.

Next were the leaves.  I quilted a few green pieces of fabric, cut them into leaf shapes, zigzagged around them then sprayed them with fabric stiffener and let them dry folded in half.

I added a three-dimensional swing because what is a huge tree without a swing.

After I quilted the entire work, I cut a diamond shape for the kite.  I love making these cut outs, it has become my "signature."  I then bound the perimeter to give it a finished look.

I had learned this technique about a year ago but didn't know where to use it until now, THE KITE!

What you do is you lay fabric scraps, ribbon, etc. in between two sheets of water-soluble fusible web. Quilt the entire piece then wash away the webbing.  I did this then cut out a diamond shape for the kite and added the border.  I attached it to the quilt with clear thread.

And there it is, my finished quilt:

I love a good challenge, I can't wait till next year!!

New app and new pen

I am continuing on my journey with digital art, drawing with a digital pen to be exact.  I have been considering the apple pen for a few weeks now and with the stimulus money everyone is getting I almost talked myself into it but then I went on Amazon and found another brand cheaper.  I was hesitant at first but 2 things made me purchase it.  1. This is a hobby I don't need to spend the big bucks yet ($36. versus $100.) and 2. This pen got a 5-star rating!

Also the app I am now using is Procreate.  I'm sure everyone in the world has heard of it except for me but now I'm on board guys!  So here are my 5 latest drawings:

You can teach an old dog new tricks

I have 2 boys, ages 13 and 11 and they both like to play video games, surprising I know.  Well back in the day I did too! My favorite was a toss up between Centipede and Q*Bert... oh then there was Frogger and Jungle Hunt, oh the memories!  So I guess it will come as no surprise that I’m a casual gamer today. My boys and I have a lot of fun playing Roblox together and we’ve been playing Minecraft for about 7-8 years now.  Yes they were very young when they started playing video games.

I’m sure you’re wondering what video games has to do with crafting. Well, I have found a few apps that let me transform on pictures into watercolors or Monet-type paintings. And while this is fun, I want to be more creative. Enter the world of drawing apps! I NEVER thought I’d find this art form satisfying but guess what? I do!  My favorite one is called Sketchbook although I’ve downloaded Procreate because everyone says that’s the best one to get.  I can see why everyone says it’s good but it doesn’t have the one feature that I like about Sketchbook: the division aspect. Let me show you:
I start out like this:

It’s like a pie that has been divided into 10 sections.  I add color to one section and it mirrors it in the other 9 sections.  Then I use the smudge tool to start blending the colors and eventually I end up with something like this:

Then I add my curly-q’s in there and polish up the lines and end up with this:

Here is another one, start to finish:

 And I post one last one:

During this quarantine I haven’t stopped creating but quite the opposite, I’m teaching this old dog new tricks!

I have put a few of these designs on Spoonflower, the app that lets you create custom fabric, but I haven’t gotten the alignment right yet.

Since March 13,2020

March 13, 2020  Friday.  This is the day the world stopped, school had been cancelled for the next two weeks because of the corona virus (Covid-19) and no one knew what this meant.  No one knew what to do with themselves. I had just finished up my first week at my new job - a nanny for a 16 month old little boy.  At the end of this two week period the governor announced that the school systems in Virginia would be closed through the end of the academic school year (but they would still continue to do school work via the computer).  WHAT?!
 
My quilt guild meeting was supposed to be held Saturday, March 14,  where we were to enter our guild challenge quilt that I had been working on since November.  Actually I had finished mine in December but I was so excited to show everyone what I had done... and to post pictures here!

It has been 3 1/2 weeks now and I know this will go down in history AND I know I should be writing about it but I am still dumbfounded by it all.  For introverts like me I LOVE this time, I don't have to interact with people and I can sew all day.  But then I watch the news and it scares me, no it terrifies me! I worry about my parents in WI and really wished they didn't live that far away.  But I check on my mom daily to make sure they are wearing masks when going out... not that they should be going out except for groceries and medicines.

And if anyone is reading this years later, YES we had to wear masks in public.  There are a lot of tutorials on how to make masks with household items but when you are a quilter like me you have fabric for the entire world!  But it takes time.

My sister-in-law asked me if I could make a total of 19 for her and family and friends.  I was hesitant at first only because I had never made one and it made it seem that more real. But I did and I'm glad I did.  I dropped them in the mail yesterday and felt good that I had given 5 people a little hope for not contracting this disease.

Stay safe and stay at home everyone.  What they keep saying on the news is that we need to "flatten the curve."

I've been doing more drawing than sewing

Last November (at my last post) my quilt guild announced the theme for this years guild challenge, "Let's Go Fly A Kite"... immediately my creative juices started flowing... a little black girl flying a kite... in a little yellow dress... make her 3-D... make the kite 3-D...!!! So that's what's been on my sewing machine BUT I can't post any pictures until March, that's when they'll be judged.  I can't wait because mine is so out-of-the-box that I'm not sure what they are going to think, but generally they like my work.

Something that I've been doing for years and years is drawing zentangles, or zendoodles.  I have created a separate blog for my works of art here: Timeless Tangles and I just posted a new challenge created by Jake Parker of Inktober that you might want to check out.
This is one of my zendoodles but everyone creates them differently: