Greetings, Fans! Wow, it sure can take a while to catch up on two weeks of creativity. Especially since I had two weeks of blog posts to catch up on from my favorite bloggers. Anyway, guess I should get to it, eh?
So, as I mentioned yesterday, the family and I traveled down to Mississippi to visit with family and friends. Since it’s about 16 hours of driving, we split it into two days each way. We stopped in Bristol, VA, then continued on down the next day to Mississippi. We had a great time visiting for about 10 days before we had come back home.
Even though I took my laptop, I never even took it out of the bag. Yes, I had my smart phone with me, but I didn’t use it much for anything other than checking email, a tiny bit of FB, and googling directions to businesses and such. It was a pretty low-tech vacation, all things considered.
I picked up a little sketch book and a set of pencils so I could doodle, since we had a lot of rain and some thunderstorms. There were a couple of days I managed to get out with my camera, too. Still need to process a couple of photos. Let’s see what I have handy for you to enjoy…
Here is a little something I made from a photo taken with my cell phone. Filters really can hide a multitude of mistakes…
The original photo was just enough out of focus to make it obviously bad. However, by applying a little PhotoShop magic in the form of an artistic filter (Watercolor, in this case), I think I was able to save it nicely.
Here’s one I shot through the windshield during the drive home yesterday morning:
I really liked the way this turned out. It’s not easy to get a decent shot from a moving vehicle, you know.
I have a bunch more photos, but I have to go find my camera bag, which got unloaded from the car yesterday, but I haven’t seen it this evening.
Today I started sorting through my UFOs (UnFinished Objects) in my sewing studio, and pressed some fabric to get it ready to cut and stitch into quilt tops. I also found some white cotton, which will be perfect for a dye experiment I intend to try in the near future. (If you want more info on what that project entails, check here.)
I also found a couple of books in MS that I hadn’t seen before. One is on surface design (think paint, dye, embellish, etc…) for fiber artists, and the other is by Jane Sassaman, on using “personality prints” (i.e. large, loud prints, symmetrical patterns, or other designs that may be a bit much for a standard quilt) to make quilts and other projects. I actually read through both books in two days, and have some fun ideas bouncing around in my head.
So, I have brand-new, colored Sharpies and clean, pressed white fabric to work on Sharpie dyeing (yes, it’s a thing – pop the link up there or do a search on Pinterest), and I have a couple of washed and pressed “personality prints” to start a Sassaman-inspired quilt. Now I just have to decide which one to start first. Decisions, decisions…
Of course, I have several other projects in line ahead of either one, at least two of which need to get done within the next two to three weeks. Well, one of them needs to be finished within three weeks. I could stretch the other one to four weeks. And I seriously need to work on the Christmas presents that haven’t been started yet, and finish the ones that have been started. Looks like I’m going to be busy for the foreseeable future…
