Snowed in

So, um, it finally snowed...



19.4 inches in 24 hours, 24 inches total over 36 hours. My trusty Saturn handles really well in the snow, but Thursday I couldn't get out of my driveway. No worries, as my office, along with the rest of the city was closed. The MALLS were closed! The state patrol told everyone to stay home unless they had a major emergency.



Friday was a snow day as well...everyone was still stuck. Pistol and I went for a very short walk to check out the snow.



Mostly we hung out on the couch, crocheting and cuddling.

Family portrait

Man, I HATE losing to the Cougs. But we did have a LOT of fun!


AshLee covered her bases - that's Vandal gear underneath her Husky gear.

The vital importance of goofing off

Too much of my creative time has been in bits and pieces crammed in here and there. That works fine for stitching or paint layering or embellishing things I've already mostly figured out. It does NOT work for designing, developing, testing ideas. Those lovely, wonderful tasks require larger chunks of time, time to get lost in playing around, goofing off. I finally took an evening to do that this week and this is the excellent mess I made. I didn't "accomplish" anything and that was perfectly fine. The point wasn't to accomplish, but to let my mind rest and refresh and slip back into a creative groove. To get things percolating. I goofed off until I was tired, then went to bed. I woke up feeling refreshed and bubbling over with ideas and design solutions. Love that feeling!

I have been making some stuff

I finished up some new dresses last week. These three are currently for sale at the Lady Bug Gallery at Sew Uniquely You.

Preparing for the colorless and cold

Ha! Who am I kidding? I'm not preparing for anything. Life is a blur of work and bad football. Quiet moments with the camera and the cat are rare.

I'm not ready for the colorless and the cold. I'm still busy lamenting the fact that I lost the best of the color and the heat, stuck in bed recovering from my surgery. On the other hand, I got a cold last week that didn't turn into a sinus infection...the surgery was so worth it. Life is such a balance. The colorless and the cold make the color and the heat that much sweeter.


Pistol thinks these concrete edgers are a cat sidewalk. He walks everywhere on them.

What I've been up to...

Sheesh, bad blogger! It's been a very busy month since I last posted. Here's some of what I've been doing the last six weeks:

Went to Seattle 3 times. (Pic is Lake Union from the rooftop terrace at Eastlake Grill)

Returned to Husky Stadium with my dad, a day I've been anticipating since he had double bypass surgery in January.



Finished up my contribution to 2 different swaps. This is a crummy picture of my page in a post-ArtFest fatbook. Colors are more vibrant in RL.


Reconnected with an old friend. OK, this is where I've spent most of my time. ;-)


Hung out with AshLee.
Dyed fabric twice.
Went to the lake.
Soaked up as much sun as possible.

Time really flies when you're having this much fun...

Big (shopping) weekend!

Here's a hint of where mom and I went this weekend:


Shipwreck Beads! They don't have a big sign, so the beaded sidewalk tells you you're in the right place. Here we are inside the store:


We look so happy! The store is bigger than it looks in this picture. It's bigger than I remembered. It's just really really big. And mom wants to say that they make really awesome BLT's.

Here we are at our second destination, Pacific Northwest Quiltfest


I was really pleased with the quality of the show this year. I only noticed a couple of traditional quilts that were made from well-known patterns and, of course, the workmanship on those ones was excellent. There was great variety in the art, pictorial and innovative quilts and more sophisticated use of all the cool techniques and embellishments than I've seen in the past. It seemed like design drove the use of techniques and embellishments more this year, rather than techniques and embellishments driving design.

The exhibit from South African quilters was definitely my favorite part of the show. This quilt, Blood and Fire by Jeanette Gilks really mesmerized me. I felt like it was worth the whole trip just to see this quilt in person.


Here's a closeup. Of course, pictures don't do justice to the incredible layers and details and symbolism of this quilt.


Oh yeah, and there were vendors. Do I really need to say more? ;-)

Here's last weekend's fun...

Now that I'm getting ready for this weekend's fun, I'm finally taking a minute to post a couple of pics of last weekend's fun. Two beautiful sunny colorful days of dying fabric with the Sew Uniquely You crew:


Here I am with my table buddies Pam and Becca. I think my favorite part was when they moved the table into the shade while I was busy doing something else. I turned around and my table had disappeared! LOL!


It was a great weekend: tons of fun and tons of beautiful new fabric to play with! (I'll post some fabric pics next week)