Ramblings

Downtown River Walk

My friend and partner in sewing crime (teehee) came over tonight. We talked & cried (just a smidge) but mostly laughed & sewed at my kitchen table. It was therapeutic. I love having her over once a week to sew. It motivates me to keep working on my sewing goals. I wish more of my crafty friends lived closer so you guys could come over & join us. It's a lot of fun. I really do understand why women from days gone by used to get together to sew & quilt together. I'm accomplishing something while having a fun conversation with a friend. How often do we allow ourselves such a guilty pleasure? I'm being silly here but some days I do crave the conversation of someone over the age of 10. Thank goodness for telephones and dear friends. Oh and quilt nights too ;)

Speaking of good conversation, I now have 4 little ones in the house that officially call me "momma". Yes my sweet little Oblio woke up this morning saying momma! He started saying "dada" a few weeks ago. The girls could hardly stand it. Aris comes up to me all the time saying things like, "Mom, Omri just said azdogoveldoff. Did you hear him?" I'm like, oh yeah that's pretty amazing! Haahaa. Now that he says momma the girls are in heaven. Sloan is in the process of teaching him how to say "sissy". He'll be talking our ears off soon.

I have a confession to make.....I didn't get to send in my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project. It made me very sad but I couldn't send it half finished. It was a hard lesson for me to learn. I really need to work on follow through when it comes to projects & starting things on time instead of waiting until the last minute. Such a bummer but, it won't go to waste. I'm sending it to a very dear friend as a belated birthday gift. I promise to post pictures when it's officially finished. In the mean time I have a couple projects on the table right now. First:: finish up the last two cards for Simply Sweet Marriage. Second:: work on some sketches for a commissioned art piece a dear friend asked me to make for their baby to be. I feel so honored to work on this project. I can't wait to share the process with you. Even though I haven't posted any finishes in a while, I am working every night on something creative. It is the best feeling ever.

I hope you all are enjoying your week as much as we are. It's flying by & I'm okay with that. Thanks for all your sweet comments on my blog. They really do make my day. If you come by often but haven't commented yet, please say hello. I love to meet new people & I'd like to get to know my readers a little better. It allows me the opportunity to drop by your blog & say hello too. Hope you all have a happy day.

First Swing

Can you tell he loved it?

Sketchbook Project (part2)

"Blankets"

The second theme of my sketchbook was "blankets" So I decided to draw some of my favorite quilts from one of my favorite books, Treasury of American Quilts. I found this book while working at Barnes & Noble oh so many years ago. I have checked it out from the library more times than I can count. Why I don't own a copy yet is beyond me. It's filled with beautiful quilts from years gone by. All the quilts included in the book are ones I'd love to snuggle up in. Quilts are my favorite kind of blankets. I thought it only fitting to draw them and add them to my sketchbook. All the blankets drawn above are contour line drawings. They aren't blind contour because I wanted them to actually look similar to what quilt I was drawing from the book. However I still wanted them to flow with the previous set of drawings & that's why I used one continuous line to draw each sketch. They were stinkin fun to draw. The one with all the little people in it is probably my favorite so far. It took a little over an hour from start to finish. I live an exciting life huh, lol :)

I have one more "blanket" sketch to finish & then I'll be working on the "sheets" part of the sketchbook. Oh, I think I forgot to mention some great news! Due to the holiday weekend sketchbooks don't have to be mailed until Tuesday. Yippie! I might actually finish. I'll be sharing more sketches soon. You'll be sick of line drawings by the time I'm through.

Sketchbook Project

Last of the blind contour line drawings for my sketchbook.

The sketchbook project gave us themes we could choose from. So I chose the theme "Jackets, blankets, & sheets" I figured what I'd like to do is split the sketchbook into 3 parts and address each one separately. This is the last of the "Jackets" part of the sketchbook.

Sketchbook Started

These are the first 8 sketches for my "Jackets, Blankets, & Sheets" themed sketchbook for the Sketchbook project. It's due Friday & I'm scrambling to get the 30+ pages finished up. My only saving grace is that I have a clear vision of how I want it to look. If not I'd totally be in trouble. I'll post more sketches tomorrow & the finished pictures On Friday. Just in case you are wondering, these are all blind contour line drawings. I look at the photograph I'm using as reference & don't look at the paper while I draw. The photographs are from a book called "Many Are Called" & it's filled with photos by the amazing Walker Evans. These sketches are so much fun to do & I wanted to have fun with this project. I'll be adding color, text, & numbers before I'm completely done. You can find out more about the project ::here::