January is boring house month. Or if it's not it ought to be. It's not so much that it really looks boring (much), but after all the colors and decorations of the holidays, it just seems kind of blah. So I put out my most colorful winter quilt - a quilt whose color theme seems to be all the colors. I like how kind of random it is because that's how snow days feel.
I took a hand appliqué class from Nancy Lee Chong in 2009 (I think) and my first project was The Penguin Family. It's the perfect after-Christmas quilt. I had always said I'd never get into hand appliqué (note to self - My grandmother was right - Never say never and always avoid always) but I find it to be more fun than I thought it would be. I just can't do it on a tight schedule. Learned that the hard way.
Just when I was working up to a good whine about grey Oregon winters, nature surprised us with this a couple of weeks ago.
It only lasted a few minutes, but enough time to grab the camera and take a few shots.
The list of goals. I always feel so energetic at the beginning of January. I'm going to create more quilts, grow a better garden, do 9000 crunches a day - that sort of thing. I'm not posting the list itself as I know better than to leave that kind of evidence. The truth is that the list is pretty long and I seriously doubt that there are enough minutes in the year to do it all. Still, it's January and anything seems possible. It is safe to assume that I'll never be bored. I've also become realistic over time. Life is a constant push-pull between what we want to create and reality. The trick is establishing some balance. So I'll quilt and draw and quilt and read and quilt and garden and quilt and take pictures and quilt and create the odd neatness around the house and then quilt a little more. Also, I'll go to work a couple of days a week to support all that quilting. I might also take the occasional nap and perhaps dream of a quilt. Will it always be balanced? Not a chance. Will it be fun? That would be the whole point.
And then there's this:
Sweet Ella does not generally go out and bark at the world the way Toby likes to. Still, she is not shy about sharing her opinions with me. She tells me when the water bowl is empty and when it's time for a treat. Today she wants to be out in the snow for about 30 seconds every 10 minutes.
I also learned that red-eye (which Ella had in the original picture) is easy to fix. Green eye is a whole other thing. Until I get more advanced software figured out, Toby has green eyes or no eyes. He's really a sweetheart although he looks like Rosemary's poodle here. Even he is sometimes surprised at how sassy Baby Sister can be.
Stay warm. Candy
Quilter Blogs & Store Search
