even more dresses

Here are dresses #5 and #6. Apologies for all the dark pictures lately, it's practically impossible to get a decent picture up here in the frozen tundra these days. It was actually sunny yesterday, but way too cold to go outside for pics.




To look at my blog you'd think all I've been doing is making dresses. There have been some other creative activities happening, but mostly there's been a sinus infection followed by an allergic reaction to the meds. The weatherman just said it's 1 degree out. Ugh.

Lucky studio cat - he has all that fur to keep him warm.

more dresses

Here's dress #4. I'm leaving the edges unfinished because I'm planning to sew them together like quilt blocks. As for the short sleeves Sheila, it's always summer in my head! The flowers are made with my painted/collaged paper and a flower-shaped paper punch. I love these!

And this is a little minidress. ;-) It's ATC size and very cute!

Resolve

Ah, the lure of a new year. So much possibility, so many things I'd like to do. It's always tempting to commit to a year-long project - for several years it was the block-of-the-month quilts, now it's the many incarnations of make-art-every-day/week/month. And I do want to make art and be creative every day. But I don't want to lock myself into a specific project or format.

As I look forward, I realize that this year I have two things that I haven't had in the past. First, my time is my own. And second, I finally know what I want to make. I'm bursting with ideas and I'm finally reaching a point where I'm comfortable with my own techniques, my own ideas, my own style. I'm transitioning to just making stuff instead of wasting a bunch of time worrying whether my ideas are good enough.

And so, armed with my time and my ideas, my resolution for this year is: MAKE A LOT OF ART. Don't worry about good or bad or external considerations like shows, etc., just make stuff.

The "stuff" in the picture is a cover for a weekly planner that I made for a friend on New Year's Day. It's a nice start.

Peeping raccoon?

Oh my gosh. This raccoon just tried to get in my house! I was lounging on the couch when I noticed Pistol standing on the arm of the chair looking up at the window. He sorta looked like he'd come to a dead stop in the middle of bounding up to the windowsill. When I looked up I saw why. This little guy was standing right up against the window staring in at us. This picture was taken later, after he'd backed off a bit and the cat got brave enough to jump up on the windowsill and growl. I know I live close enough to the river to have lots of wildlife around, but somehow you just don't expect to have a raccoon watching you eat dinner and watch tv.

So, um, my hair turned curly.

Nope, not a perm. Totally. Natural. Ringlets. You must understand that I'm a stick-straight hair girl from a family of stick-straight hair girls. Oh sure, I've developed some annoying cowlicks the past few years, but it was a shock when I didn't bother to style it one Saturday a few months ago and discovered this. It's weird, but in a nice way.

Dress #3

This is my kind of bag...

For making at least. Just decorate a square (in this case quilted with perle cotton), fold up the corners and sew them together, and tack some ribbons on for a handle. This is my take on the Kemshall's bag project in Quilting Arts Gifts. It's a gift for a friend and I'm just delighted with how it turned out. In fact, I accidentally told her I wanted to keep it for myself. Oops. OK, what I really meant was "I want to make another one just like it for myself." She took this one home at noon to keep it safe.

Merry and Bright

So, as it turned out, I actually cleaned up a bit and put up the Christmas tree. Shocking. I haven't put up the tree since I've had Pistol (full disclosure: I've been pretty grinchy the past few years). But I decided since this is a Year of Change, I'll try to change my attitude about Christmas. Now we just have to wait and see about Pistol's attitude.

So far he's just watched. And then he got bored and passed out on the clean laundry pile. But I've added lots of shiny toys while he's been sleeping...


This is really a win-win for me. I'll either have the pretty tree to enjoy or I'll have a good story of kitten hijinks to tell. Maybe both?