We finally got a tree put up last weekend. I kept the branches trimmed from the bottom of the tree, and tied them into a wreath. My daughter decorated it with a beaded garland and added a bow.
Have a great Christmas.
I had to make chocolate ganache after thinking about it for several weeks for my Photoshop project. A birthday cake for my husband last weekend was the perfect excuse. The sides are frosted with whipped cream. 
The product and brand on this Photoshop label are completely made up:
My current Photoshop project was inspired by two photos from a photo excursion in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jose. Two buildings on neighboring plots caught my attention: a well kept Victorian house, and an old run-down business of some sort with the name “Skin Deep.” I decided to move the two buildings closer together. 
A bit of web surfing revealed that this is the Tilden-Laine house and the remains of Laine’sGrocery. I used a photo of the nearby Alviso marsh area as the background for the two buildings.
Deadlines are great for getting projects done. I wasn’t very inspired by my latest project, so I procrastinated on quilting it. I like it now that it’s finished. Some white paint was added after the quilting was completed. And it was completed just in time to enter into a juried show.
Our Fast Friday Challenge theme this month is outer space. We are supposed to use unusual materials or embellishments. My plan is to follow the requirements for this challenge while making a piece to submit to a show asking for art made from scrap, recycled, or repurposed items. I got started a week late for the challenge, and haven’t been working all that fast, but deadline for entering the show is still a couple weeks away. I think I have a good start with repurposed old jeans, garment sewing scraps, and pattern cloth scraps.
I'm still in California, but I enjoyed working with this photo from Innsbruck, Austria this last week.
Our last Photoshop project required less imagination, but taught us just how powerful adjusting the tonal range and color balance can be. We needed to start with an old photo scanned into digital format. I picked one from 1967 of my husband and his family picnicking at the Hood Canal in Washington State.
At the CQFA meeting last weekend, we had a time scheduled to work on individual projects. A few years ago, I started a bed quilt with a very loose plan sketched out on the computer, and had made about 60 blocks. I grabbed it to work on at the meeting, since I didn’t have any newer projects in progress. 
I made a handful of blocks on Saturday, and made another few today. It’s a great project to play with color and value, and doesn’t require any planning. I plan to get out my bag of green and orange strips and small scraps occasionally and make a few more squares. After I have made about a hundred more, I will see how I can fit them together. I figure in about 20 years, maybe I will have a quilt to show.
Would you believe that my daughter is only about six inches tall? Or that a buffalo and a chipmunk followed us home from Yellowstone this summer to have tea with her in the Hayward hills? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I did however have fun playing with scale in my latest Photoshop assignment. And Camilla had fun helping me act out the scene which I had imagined.
I have survived the first two weeks of school, and have completed my first Photoshop assignment. Interestingly, this Photoshop project required no photos. Our task was to create a self portrait using the editing tools in Photoshop (selection, fill, paintbrush, …), without importing any photos. It is supposed to be recognizable (but not necessarily realistic), and say something about our self. 
Camilla goes back to school in two weeks. We’ve done some back to school shopping, and I’ve been making a dent in my fabric stash while creating some back to school skirts. 
There wasn’t quite enough of this green plaid to make a skirt the length she wanted, so I did a little more digging in the stash. I’m glad I didn’t have a larger piece of the main fabric, or I probably wouldn’t have added the contrasting trim at the hem. I like it better this way.
The picture is her own original design, painted with fabric paints. She has finished quilting with embroidery floss, made a label, and picked out some fabric for the backing and binding. I helped her fuse the back onto her quilt, and sewed the binding for her on the sewing machine.
I got two 5 x 7 pieces out of the current project instead of the one I was planning. I am looking for a good source for pre-cut double mats for framing.
My current work in progress looks a bit like chrysanthemums or Dahlias to me. The plan is to add green. Maybe it will begin looking more like succulent plants then.
We've made more sock creatures. 
Hi! My name is Dino. I’m the blue one on the right. Camilla made me, because Mom brought home a book called “Stupid Sock Creatures” by John Murphy from a garage sale this weekend. The green one is Dinah. She’s my best friend. Mom made her. I have a tail, but Dinah doesn’t. We’re modeled after Wronky, but look nothing like him. There are no patterns in the book, just instructions to eyeball everything. That makes each of us a little different, just like God made creatures.
Yesterday we visited relatives & friends an hour away in Tiburon. We went for a couple mile walk down the bike path for lunch. That’s the Golden Gate Bridge poking up out of the fog. On the way back, I picked up some succulent branches that were broken off of the landscaping along the path. I am going to see if I can get them to root.
I have traded my trading cards at my CQFA meeting yesterday, and now I have several from the group I belong to which I can admire.
There is a garden in the neighborhood with the most amazingly beautiful succulent garden. I stopped there today, because there was a plant sale in progress. I bought five dollars worth of succulent plants which would rival any nursery succulents I've seen. They will be a welcome addition to my garden, and should add nice variety to my succulent series.
   | Quite a while ago, I began a succulent for the SAQA Auction, and then set it aside as a reject. I cut it into rough squares a couple months ago, with the intention of completing the Fast Friday Challenge which was supposed to be based on grids with an accent color. I picked out the fabric for the accent color, but then couldn't satisfy myself with the final arrangement, and it got set aside again. This months Fast Friday challenge is to work with pattern or texture and triad color scheme. My rejected project was already the right colors. I sewed the squares together at random, quilted, and then used orange and white paints to bring out the texture and add some dimension. Then I cut it apart again, and inserted orange veins. This was a fun experiment. The current plan is to cut this into trading card size pieces to swap at my next CQFA meeting. |
"Succulent V"
I have several palettes on COLORlovers now. Next week I will pick a few of the palettes and begin working on the website mockups. Which are your favorites which you think would be good colors for the website?
I have finally finished this small succulent quilt that I have been working on. It is about 8" x 10". I don’t want to name it Succulent V, because it doesn’t seem to be part of the same series as the other succulents. I have given it a working title of “Echeveria Forest”, but don’t know if the name fits. Any better suggestions for names? I have satin finished the edges instead of using a facing or a binding. If I hang it, I think I will mount it behind a mat.
I’m getting a late start on this month’s Fast Friday quilt. I almost decided I would skip the challenge for a month. But then decided to spend just a couple of hours and make a quick fabric sketch with freehand cut fabrics, which led to hand stitching with embroidery floss. Half way through the stitching, I decided to make some changes in my fabric choices. So now, several hours into the project, I’m not halfway done. It will be getting done, but not on the schedule I had originally planned.
