A new project?

Fall is the season for Mums and this spider like Mum currently graces our dining room table. My husband returned from a weekend trip to Jasper and commented on how much it had opened while he was gone. This bunch of flowers is over a week old and still going strong.. Do you have a favorite cut flower for your table? Sunflowers are my favorite flowers but they do not last as long as some others like carnations, alstroemeria, and these very pretty mums.. I don't have any new quilts to show you just now, so I thought I would share one of my earlier creations.. This very bold black, red and white double Irish chain belongs to my parents. It dates back to 2000. My parents use it in their guest room and the colors are still just as rich. I call it my art version of this design because of the bold colors.

One of my projects today was to go upstairs to find some fabrics in my stash for a new quilt. I was looking for traditional Christmas colors(red, green and cream) While I was searching, I found this old crazy quilting Christmas stocking project. I had begun to do the embroidery and added the embellishments- if I get some time, perhaps, I will add a few stitches to it, now that I have unearthed it from the boxes upstairs. Why was I looking for these Christmas fabrics? You see,I am going to a quilting workshop this weekend where we are going to make a very funky tree pattern. I needed to find 30 fat quarters of fabric (or equivalent). As you can see there are some cream fabrics but not near as many as the red and the green fabrics.I have a tendency to buy color and not very much neutral fabric.. I was lucky that I bought the fat quarters with some browns or I might have had to go and buy creams for this project LOL
Here are plenty of Christmas reds- There is more red fabrics in the boxes upstairs but I brought down the fabrics that did not have big bold prints on them as I don't think they would work for this project. There is a red piece that has red scottie dogs that is quite old.
It was a bit of a challenge to find Christmas green.. Some of the pieces from the stash are very old(the scottie dogs I used to make a baby bunting bag for my new born baby son who will be 24 at Christmas). What is the oldest piece of fabric in your stash? Like the reds, there are other greens but some had busy prints, and others were on the yellow end of the spectrum. Now, all I have to do is press the 30 + fabrics and have them ready for Friday night.
While Bruce was gone to Jasper, Carolyn and I ventured out to another little craft sale. This time is was to a hand made lampwork bead show. I brought some pieces to add to the bead treasure chest but, most of them are for Christmas gifts so they will have to stay hidden for awhile longer. I did buy this very fun fairy pendant and a pair of earrings that I admired. I added the pandora style Halloween beads to a bracelet chain. My school kids are going to love Frank, the monster.

Recently, I asked Carolyn if she would like to attend a local guild meeting. I had not attended one for quite awhile, and thought it might be fun to go. I must have had on my lucky shoes or something because I came home with the guest prize that was provided by one of the local quilt stores. I also had the lucky ticket from the book draw. I was happy to share my winnings with Carolyn. She is a talented quilter who is quite interested in art type quilts. The book was more about techniques that would be used to make art quilts- besides sharing ones winnings is always fun.

And some very fun Halloween things that came from Carolyn. The buttons are very fun and I know my kindergarten kids will love them when I get them sewn on my Halloween vest.
I entered a giveaway contest quite awhile back that was hosted by Oz Jane. It is a lovely Australian quilt address book (the book is from Homespun magazine)and I had been thinking that I need to put some of my addresses in one spot, instead of in a bunch of different places. It is a lovely book,Oz Jane, Thank you.


Since I posted last, my beloved celebrated his birthday and we went to see a 3 D Peter Gabriel concert movie. It was very cool- you felt like you were sitting in the orchestra pit. If I reached out, the 3 D glasses made you feel like you could almost touch the people on the stage.
Last week, I managed to get the fall cold that my students had, and have been busy with school projects. The fall is flying by and it soon will be report card time. Bruce has been away some, with work related things so I have been keeping our home fires burning.
I am still working on finishing the cutting for my fall quilt. Most of my current projects are bits and pieces of things that, hopefully, one day will be quilts for some special people in our lives. It is always tricky for me to balance work and play- I spent time with good friends this weekend (time well spent) and did school work too. I am off to do some more school work before this evening is over. I am facing some work deadlines so my quilting projects will have to wait a bit longer...

I hope that wherever you live in blogland, that you are having some good times with family and friends and still getting some time to feed your creative spirit.

Warmest regards,
Anna