The leaves have been changing, and falling, around here as we seem to jump through Fall. We've already had our first snow. It didn't stay long, a day and it was back to feeling like Autumn. We've been busy over at The Artist Place, rearranging, improving, growing. planning. It's fun to watch a concept evolve as we learn a new and sometimes better way to do things. I feel that way about TAP, and about my own creative process. I feel that way about life.

    I hadn't intended when I wrote my last post that it would be so long before I wrote again. It just sort of came upon me and then a month had passed and here I am after a haitus. I've missed this space, this bit of journaling I share with you. I wish I could go back over all that's happened in the last month and have lots of exciting things to share. But, that's not how it is here today. Today it's just like waking up after a really deep sleep and remembering a few of your dreams in bits and pieces.

    I've made a ton of Cake Cookies and Zucchini Cake/Bread this past month. I've knit more dishcloths, added to my crazy garter stitch blanket, become obsessed with the BBC show Sherlock, watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, the first season of Downton Abbey and Deadwood. I've had many lunches and dinners with family and friends, I've laughed outloud and cried the ugly cry. We've had lots to worry about in our home these last few weeks, and also lots to be thankful for, lots to hold on to. We're in the midst of heavy family prayer for health. I've also made plans to go on my first retreat next year with dear friends. I've been thinking alot about how you can feel 100 different emotions all as once, and also so thankful that is true.

    I've put the Etsy store on haitus for now too, it has been for this last month as well. I 'm creating for The Artist Place right now, trying to add variety to my collection there, and fill some gaps. It feels good to be apart of the community of crafters we have there. Especially the staff, we create together and make each other better in the process. We're constantly teaching and learning and the give and take is some kind of special. I'm beginning to believe that the friendships you form while creating can be some of the strongest ones forged. I still struggle with my own personal trust and anxiety issues sometimes. I still struggle with my big mouth sometimes too. I've often found myself saying 'Sorry I'm so bossy. Sorry I'm so opinionated.' and also just as much 'I'm so glad we're friends.' I'm excited to see TAP grow and to be a part of nurturing that growth.

  I did remember I promised you a look at my TAP apron, the one I've been embroidering with patterns that make me happy found over on Flickr. People keep asking if I'm done with it, and I think a good answer is for now. There's an awful lot of empty space that could hold more stitching when the want to comes back. 

    We've been talking about having a Holiday Bazaar in the shop this next month too. If we put our heads together and get our hands working it'll be happening on November 17th. I made two Christmas wallhanging quilt tops with my mom a couple of weeks ago and am needing to get them hand-quilted and finished up for the Bazaar. You could pray for me on that - we all know how not into hand-quilting I am, and how slow and non-progress like I could make the next couple of weeks if I focus on the not wanting to aspect of it. I've tumbled over other options in my brain a lot over the last week too and really keep coming back to the fact that they need to be done simply and by hand.

    So, my goal is to be back here in this space, keeping my journaling alive and having a good chat with you, Sweet Reader. It's not an exciting life by any stretch of the imagination but it is life. It's my story, or atleast a little bit of it, and gosh I just love stories. Don't you?
    
    Tell me a little bit of yours. What have you been up to in the last month?

    Every year is different when I go to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival. This year it was never more apparent that this is true.
Sometimes I take lots of photos of already made projects that inspire me. Sometimes I come away inspired by a class & bring home patterns for different projects. 
    
    This year it was really all bout the free class demos. I didn't buy anything. I didn't take many photos. In fact, I took just this one - from a class about printed interfacing making complex looking quilts easier. This broken radiating Lonestar is to remind me to look up Quiltsmart. The demo was given by a lady that works in one of my favorite local quilt stores. She also teaches a class using this interfaced technique to make Lonestar quilts. I so wanna take that class! 

    I wasn't quick enough with my camera to snap a photo of the Spinning Lonestar quilt that made me gasp - so I looked for some examples on Flickr to show you...
    Like this Rainbow Spinning Lonestar, and this lovely Midnight Sun version, and finally the Starry Sky one is pretty great too. I think I would make mine much more simple than these. I proably would make just the star and not add anything between the points. I love the dramatic effect of a single giant star with that spin in the colors. What do you think?

    I came away from the festival with just this one project rolling around in the back of my head. This one picture to help me dream it out. I did also learn a few new things in the classes to enhance some of my current sewing skills, but this is the project that inspired me to dream. It might be just the thing to get me to take my first quilting class, and to try something that looks much harder than anything I've worked on before. I'm pretty excited about that!

    Things around here are moving slowly. And quickly. I've said several time in the past couple of weeks I need to get myself an actual notebook planner. The calendar in my phone is getting so packed days and things to do seem to be running together. I haven't needed a planner since I was planning my wedding! I'm both shocked and thrilled to be carving out this niche of a life and filling it up with friends and family and doing. I can hardly believe this is where I am right now, in the midst of so much doing! 

        The Artist Place studio/shop/retreat is getting moved into! Furniture and boxes are waiting for things to be unpacked and put in their place. Paperwork is being made to keep things organized, dreams are getting made, excitement is building. I'm ready for September to get here so we can open!

    Quilts are being made and finished - the binding went on my Mom's Rouenneries Deux by French General jelly roll quilt this week - and Max decided it was so nice of us to make him one big cat bed. Her little barn swallows came back this year and the four babies are all up and flying around and making a mess ont he patio. Oh, and they are entertaining the cats who sit at the sliding glass window under the nest and try to catch them. It's pretty funny to watch them jump and slide down the window...

    E's giant! rainbox quilt that I cut the pieces for got pinned this past weekend as well. It might be waiting for some cooler weather before it gets handquilted by E. We had to take it to church and use a classroom floor to baste it. It's some kinda happy.

    It's also county fair season - and pulling at said fairs both here and in Kansas are in full swing. This week there was four days where I didn't see my husband. Then we made plans to visit our own fair and hunt down my favorite fair food - ribbon fries! One night we went to watch a movie on the grounds and I had them with cheese. Then the next night we went for the rodeo and we had them with ketchup. I should probably eat spinach only for the next week to make up for this! By the way Applebee's has potato twisters and they make a great stand by. I also realized that my husband and I have never ridden a ride together, not at the fair and not at a theme park. This is something we will have to remedy!

    We also added to our family this week! Meet Petey our quirky little Budgie (Parakeet). He was gifted to us by some friends who needed to lessen the amount of creatures living in their house. I'd been asked if I wanted him before and had always said no and thank you. THEN I met him and got a little crush! So, he came home with me and I've been spending every free minute researching Budgerigars online. Who knew there was so much to learn about such a little guy?! From ideal feeding to personality quirks and socialization there are just tons of Budgie enthusiasts willing to talk about every little aspect of caring for these little parrots. I think our little dog Penny decided he was her entertainment, she's been spending lots of time on the floor beneath his cage watching him climb around his cage and sing. This is the same dog that climbs on the back of the couch to stare out the window and watch TV so this curiosity is no surprise. My favorite thing about animals is learning their little personality traits and I'm oh so slowly doing this with Petey. Love that.

    So much stuff happening - from the crafty - still knitting that crazy blanket & sewing journal covers...OH! I'm also super excited about this Lyrical Lettering emboridery series happening over at Wild Olive. I see a couple of framed embroidered gifts in my future - hmmm...Hanmade Holiday idea maybe?? I found a new-to-me favorite TV show, it's British and awesome, called The IT Crowd. We have some friends we get together with to have British comedy marathons. We all have our favorite show and it's like we're all in a club when we put on our show t-shirts and hunker down for a day of laughter and munching. Speaking of...Have you been watching the Olympics? We have. Not faithfully, but enough to kinda keep up with what's going on. I especially liked diving and gymnastics. Crazy awesome athletism and creativity at the same time!

    Oh so many little things making up the days around here. I've been feeling moved to think about making myself a schedule and trying to make the run of these days seem less haphazard and messy and totally improvised. Not that I mind improvisation, but I really love planning and organization more. (I am a Virgo after all.) How about you? Are you a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants person or a scheduler? What method helps you make the most of the hours in your day? I could use some tips! Thanks for being so patient with my lack of presence here this summer, this place needs to be one of the first things in the schedule so I can't keep telling myself 'I'll do it tomorrow! Today is so much better!

    That's how it's been going around here lately. Ignoring most other things to get lots of making done. A big fantastic Stitch-a-thon! That big Hope quilted throw was finished & shipped off. My friend was super excited to open the box and find it waiting inside.

    I've also been excited to get making for the new shop some friends are opening here soon. It will be called The Artisit's Place & feature a warm and creative space to come & work on your favorite craft. There will also be things for sale made by local artisits - cards, jewelry, hand knit & hand sewn lovelies. And, it'll have some delicious tea & pastries to help keep those creative juices flowing! I'm so very excited for September to come and the shop to open that I've been stitching up a few things and dreaming over this new venture. 
    On my list for making for the shop are quilted journal covers...

     There are quilted zippy pouches on my list as well, and a few wall hangings. Once I started making the journal covers though I had a hard time stopping! Then, I needed something I could be making on-the-go so I pulled out a couple giant skeins of cotton and got to working on some fun dishcloths while I was out and about. Those little things worked up so quickly and easily (and I've still not gotten through one of the skeins) that there will be a good many dishcloths blocking on the guest bed for quite a while.

    Ah, making of things is so fullfilling, don't you think? I get a little giddy as the pile of to-dos turn into a pile of finished pieces. I mark something off the list and breath a happy sigh. I work through one pattern and love it so much, quickly there are four more variations of it getting made. There is such joy in having friends who love creating as much as I do. Who are happy to spend a day watching movies and handstitching and sharing the creative time. We've all got a shot of energy as we prepare for the opening of a new fun place to get together and so we are bees-a-buzzing just now. Making and dreaming and scheming. These are the best kinds of days.

I don't often promote items for sale in my shop here on the blog. I like to talk about other stuff too much! But, every once in a while you have to say a little something & pray for a sale or two to help pay down the credit card, ya know? So today, I'm gonna share with you the newest item in my shop - the Color Me Hopeful mini quilt!

I've been so inspired by the other Hope quilts that I thought I might make a series of them for the shop. I made this one a touch bigger than the small original - 18x 26 inches. I machine pieced it, and then hand quilted it in matching colors around each of the letters. I also hand bound it in Kona Espresso so it would have a nice 'framed' look.

Nine happy hours of work went into this little bit of Hope. I stayed up late to finish the top because I Just. Could. Not. Stop.I love projects that are like that. The loving it too much to quit projects. I watched an odd Irish? movie called Ondine while quilting it. The actors talked so low we kept having to go back to figure out what they said. Then watched a British comedy called The IT Crowd while binding it - and laughed! It reminded me of Big Bang Theory. Color Me Hopeful was a joy to work on & it wil be a joy to pass on to someone who could use a bit of Hope in their life.

    Is seems like all the making going on around here recently has been quilting. I have lots of 'other' projects that I could be working on but lately the sewing machine & fabric are getting the workout. Do you have creative seasons like that? Where it seems like one medium is getting all the attention? I go through phases like this alot - sometimes embroidery is all I think about, then it switches to knitting & right now it's that crazy Q word. Here's what has been getting stitched...

    I had begun this quilt top a while ago intending it to be a Christmas gift for a family on my list. Then, as the fires all over Colorado raged a local quilt store, The Sewing Circle,  asked for blocks & tops to make quilts for all the families that lost their homes. These quilts went from being for families in our area to going to families all over the state of Colorado. They also wanted to collect enough kid sized quilts to give one to each child - so with that heavy on my heart as I stitched the last borders on this guy I decided really it was intended for fire victims all along. Off it went on a journey to its new owner the next morning.

    I also got the biggest thrill when I went to pick up my new too-big-for-our-bed-quilt from the longarmer not too long ago. As soon as she started unfolding it I was snapping pictures & declaring it would be bound & in use on my bed by the end of the day. And, it was. This giant 104" x 104" square of jelly roll goodness just made my heart sing. Here's a closeup look at the fancy quilting on the backside, the sunflowers echo a design in the fabrics from Sweetwater's Hometown collection...

    I got stitching on that binding just as soon as we got back to my mom's house! Sleeping under that lovely blanket has been such a huge joy. Most mornings I don't want to leave the handmade nest of my bed.

    As you can see we had a really hard time finding a place large enough to lay it out... it covered (and then some) my mom's loveseat. Soon I'll get better photos of it laid all nice and pretty in the grass outside, but I'm reluctant to drag it off the bed! :)

    Recently I've been playing with the idea of quilting words in a graphic way. I doodled some ideas in my graph paper notebook trying to figure our a simple clean way to do that. Then after rolling the idea around in my head a while one morning I just decided to try it out. With 2 inch squares I played around until I made a little Hope wall hanging.

    After that lived on my wall a day or two I decided it would be cool to make it bigger, like - lap/throw sized bigger. I have a friend who has been going through some very heavy & difficult medical challenges recently & in light of wanting to just encourage her & send her some love I thought that maybe a big ol' quilted hope blanket to wrap up in might be just the thing. I pooled some help from E. who agreed to do the hand-quilting on it, and set out to expand my little hope to a big hope....

    The Hope to the left is 14" x 20" & the lower one is 46" x 64".

     And, I gotta say - I really like my Hope BIG! How about you?

    So much of life is learning to take the good with the bad. It's learning to 'ride the wave' and know that one moment will lead to the next and each one will be different. It's been quite the wave around here.

    The quilts finally came back from the longarmer last week, so birds were singing. I did quickie binding for mine & got it all finished & labeled super fast. Oh, it feels so good to put in that very last stitch. Mom hand-bound hers but had it done the next day. They are lovely & we are so happy with them!

    These Walk About quilts are done just in time for us to drop another project off to be longarm quilted, too. We are putting finishing touches on two "queen-sized" quilts this week. Oh. My. They were made using a super simple pattern using jelly rolls, but still..they are big. Bigger than normal queen-sized quilts. Mine is going to finish about 98 inches square. It's for using on our bed & I like lots of covers! (Or, maybe my husband likes to have them wide enough he can snag an end when I start wrapping up in it like a burrito.)

    I didn't remember to take a bunch of pictures of Mom's quilt, but while she was sewing on the binding I did snap one of the quilting. I love the way the flowers in the quilting echo the flowers in the fabric. Awesome.

    So, now that I've shared one of the good things from the wave of life I've been riding recently, let me share a bad one. My car was vadalized for the second time this year! In February the windshield was shot up with an air rifle & this week my driver's side window was smashed out. It's not personal, it's some stupid hoodlums I think. But, still. It's not fun, and it's not cheap. The cop who came out was nice, even though there's nothing he could do. Some crazy talk about needing witnesses or something.

    And, just so I don't leave you with bad stuff happening - here are some silver linings...
The blessing of something we can fix. So much of life's bad stuff is not that way. It's not winter & snowing - summer weather without a window is not too bad. A discount for the replacement & help with the money for that. Good times with my Mama, despite that snag to our afternoon. Driving the hubs' truck and feeling dainty behind the wheel. Laughing with good friends over the jokes that the vandals didn't like my knitting or christian cds. The vandals didn't even bother to try to steal anything, just wanted to break the glass. My hubs & I dragging out the air mattress & a big pile of blankets to have an evening of indoor camping & movies just for fun. 

    Is your life like riding a wave, or a roller coaster, right now too? I hope you find that even though you have to take the good with the bad - you can choose focus on the good. I'm trying that too. :)