No Warm Tones

I bought this strand of dyed shell chips to make some kind of fun casual necklace. It had many colors but I painstakingly separated out all the orangey ones!

Richardson TX bead show and all my goodies pt 1

I went to the bead show and had such a great time. Besides the usual fare of: strung crystals. stones, cloisonné etc they had many lamp work bead artist and others representing one of a kind wares. I bought this lovely porcelain pendant and matching string of Peruvian opals. I needed to extend it a bit, I auditioned different metals and ended up adding these fish beads in silver.

The funniest part was when I went to check out the seller DG Designs, Danis Garcia, recognized my name and said she had read my blog. She lives about 4 hours from me, but what a surprisingly intimate world crafters live in! Lots of entries coming-I have been beading up a frenzy--

Fall in the Arboretum

I cropped the people out of this frog fountain photo and you lost the scale! Wow, he is about 5 ft. tall. I walked all over during the Dallas arboretum's fall opening, there was an art show, great sculptures and lots of pumpkin displays. I always like these bright fuschia globe amaranths in the photo of me because they dry that same color.

grandma's garden

I think my mother gave me this top that someone else had given her. I had it quilted and just bound it this week. It has plain muslin on the back and a pretty flower design quilted on it. The hexagons were all hand sewn. This quilt has just a few colors/fabrics on it and is really not my style at all! I think it is an odd size now, kind of wide for a throw and too short for a twin bed.

Sunny Triangles quilt

I'm still working on this quilt for my friend's alternative health office. First off it was too hot to sew in my little upstairs studio all summer here in Texas, now a few cooling breezes have me finishing up some projects. This was much more difficult to assemble than I would have thought. The problems came because it was not nearly as random a design as it looks. The triangles have to be put together in odd ways to have the rows come out straight. It is cheery though!

I wanted to have a labyrinth quilted on this one but I think it is too confusing for my quilter's long arm, making all those channels unless she has a double needle option? I am also having problems figuring out how to transfer the design to this quilt top. It will default to something simple eventually.

Grandma Zarski Paintings

My Husband's Russian grandmother died this year, she was almost 100! She painted well into her late 80's. Sometimes she would scrape off the paint and paint back over her canvasses in the Wintertime. She grew a large garden, kept sheep and was a talented cook. Her are some of her impressionistic oil paintings, almost all were landscapes. These are the ones we have at our home. Maybe she wasn't the most talented artist, but I love that she kept doing it!

Rolling Blue Waves

Hurricane Ike is nearing us today and I am binding this quilt while I stay home. Hooray! It is now  completed for Ben and Steph. I will mail it to them on Monday. I don't know why I avoid these little binding tasks for so long, maybe because a queen size quilt is so unwieldy. 

This lovely blue quilt is quilted with a serpentine stitch covering all the seams on the half triangle blocks, this helps with durability when you have a one year old and a  little pomeranian dog. These are large blue blocks and this worked up quickly. It has interlocking stars on the dark blue borders. Some of the fabric has little white doves on them, a hope for a peaceful nation and a peaceful home from grandma.