Sunday

I can't believe how fast June is rushing by. I have been working on customer quilts... got two finished this week. I am happy with both. I did not take photos of Charm's Art quilt though, so can't post those.

Wed

Here are photos (not very good photos ... sorry about that) of the client quilts I have been working on over the past month. I still have to add bindings on the two large ones. I currently am working on a small art quilt for Charm C. 

Dave's sis and brother-in-law will be here in a few hours. We haven't seen them for a very long time. I am afraid they are going to be shocked by the heat! It is very warm here...over 100 right now. It is windy and when you step out into it it feels like you are stepping into a blow dryer! There are a lot of leaves and petals in the pool....... but it still feels nice.

I hope the wind stops later this evening, so we can enjoy the pool!

It's Thursday night...... I have 4 quilts to do for customer's as of this afternoon. I am very happy. I spent most of the day looking for fabric for the back of one of the big ones. No one had enough fabric in the right color to do the backs in the quilt shops here, so I went to Joann's. I did find the perfect fabric there and it is a good quality. So.....10 yrds later I have the fabric, made sure it was color fast, got it cut and sewn together and ready to put on the frame. I will start on it early tomorrow. I know how I am going to quilt it. I also purchased backing from Let's Quilt for the back of another quilt, found material for the borders at The Clover Patch.

I am getting excited to see my youngest daughter and her boy friend. They will be here on the 23rd. ........Yah!!!

Now.... time to get ready for bed...

Sunday April 28, 2013

April is almost gone. I really can't believe it has gone by so fast. May....... time to pay my business property tax. I am glad I don't have a lot of machinery, because I would not have the money in my checking account to cover it. This is my first year with my business. I have not had very many customer's this year. Hope things pick up, or there won't be any reason to have a business licence.  I have had a few tell me that had quilts they want me to do, but I don't have the quilts in hand. But that is OK too. Things happen for a reason.
My youngest daughter, Megan, and her boyfriend, Patrick, will be here to visit the end of May. I have not seen them for over a year. It will be soooooooooooooooooooo good to spend a little bit of time with her.
The quilt show at the museum is going to be closing May 11. Apparently our show has been had the best turn out of any show the museum has offered. I sure was hoping there would be a collector who wanted to purchase one of my pieces. But alas............. when asked and a price is given, well... that is all it takes. People don't realize that it takes months to finish one of these pieces. I will just hang them on my walls. I would rather 'give' them away to someone I want to give the to, than to sell them for less than what they are worth. Besides the show might travel and if it does, I would have to make other art from Rob's photos.
I have done a landscape of the red bridge since the stuff for the show. I have another in my head and am painting fabric for it now. I am going to put it together on a red background, just like I did the red bridge and see if it works for desert scenes. It will be of a desert tree... we call cedar, but it a juniper overlooking a canyon. My niece, Angela Phillips, took a photo for me when she and I were on Johnson's-Up-Top in Moab, Utah. I was sketching and she was taking photos. She is extremely talented.
I am currently working on another cactus wall hanging pattern. My 'Red Cactus' wall hanging pattern has sold very well in moab at 'It's Sew Moab' quilt shop. Chrystal Day is selling it as well as my bag pattern. I have a yellow prickly pear in the works. I have it drawn out and now need to make the pattern and make a sample. I could have had it done instead of setting thinking about not having any clients at present!  If I am suppose to have a quilting business, it will work out. If not... then I will focus on my art and charge a lot for any quilting I do. Right now I am priced at 1 1/2 cents a square inch for over all..... 2 cents an inch for heavy over all..... 2 1/2 for light custom... 3 to 3 1/2 for heavy custom ............. show quilting is closer to 5 1/2 cents on up. Anyway.... what will be will be. No need to worry about it.
Dave and I bought a new car this month. Well............. Dave is paying for it and I am doing most of the driving. It is a Ford c-max hybrid. We love it and sure wish we could afford to have two of them. It is so much better than the honda civic hybrid it is not even funny. Dave is driving the honda back and forth to work. It is getting 47 mpg for him right now (this is perfect weather for it). The c-max is getting 45.8 no matter where or how we drive. It is solid... rides so smooth and is so quiet. It has a 2 liter engine and the honda where the honda has a 1.5. Dave got a loaded c-max.... leather... camera.... etc.
My birthday was last week...................... 57 years old... where in the world did the time go?  I have not done very many things I had planed on doing when I was young. But.... thankfully am seeing my art work appreciated.

This is my latest landscape it is measures 48 x 56 inches. I finished quilting it on Sunday and blocked it.  I am happy with it how it turned out. However, the quilting of which there is a lot, did not change the look of the finished project. I was trying to bring in more light especially on the bridge. There is so much thread on the bridge I don't want to add more. I am thinking about adding a little paint to bring the the high lights, but am not sure. I am entering it in the Dixie Quilt Guild bi-annual show that will be held this weekend. We will see what the judges say.

I did this quilt in a different way than I normally do. Usually I start with a muslin piece of fabric, draw the design on it and then add fabric. First gluing  it and then sewing it down. This piece was done on a cadmium red background fabric.  I had watched a workshop video of Arts TV and on artist always started his paintings on a canvas that was cadmium red. I loved the way the paintings turned out. I decided to do my own acrylic of the scene from a photo I took while on a trip with my PHFA friends in Coos Bay Oregon.  I first painted my canvas red and then did the acrylic painting. There is something about the red in the background that give the painting a glow that can't be accomplished any other way. I decided I should try it with fabric... I started with a large piece of cadmium red background fabric. I let the red show through every once in a while... it actually was pretty hard to let a bit of red show... not to much... not to little.... The red underlay also effected the final colors of the fabric. I am very happy with the results. I have not tried the method with any other piece, but plan too.

Now I need to get my labels sewn on and get the piece ready to take to the Dixie Center tomorrow. 

T

Wednesday evening March 20

Today was a pretty good day here in St. George. My studio is all cleaned.... I got the master bath cleaned and did a bit of grocery shopping. Back home, continued to work on my current landscape. I will have it ready to bind over the weekend and that will give me time enough before the quilt show, which is over Easter weekend. I can't believe how fast this month has gone by! The only thing good about time going by so fast is May will be here and I will get to see Megan! I haven't seen her since Christmas 2011!!!!!!! Sure miss her.
I will post photos of my re-organized studio when I get some taken.
Now...............back to working on my landscape.
Tomorrow I need to make some phone calls to friends that live out of this area!
I hope everyone has a great week.

Friday morning

Today is a cloudy, rainy day.  I am under the weather again. I am going to stay inside and rest for the weekend. Hopefully by Monday I will be feeling better, I wish people would stay home when they are sick. I did teach a class on Wed, but hopefully did not spread this, if it is contagious and not just my allergies.

I finished Darlene's quilt... it turned out pretty. I fought with myself about weather to do an over all or custom. I decided on custom and am glad that I did. She will pick it up later today.