Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Getting ready for Christmas

Hard to believe that Christmas Eve is only a week away.

Finished the yearly ornament for my daughter. Decided to make an Eiffel Tower to remember our wonderful vacation in August to Paris. It is machine stitched on wool felt and then cut out.


I also made her 2 grocery bags. I created the pattern from one of those cheap paper/fabric bags that most grocery stores sell. I think these are more interesting looking and will hold up much better. Plus this gave me the chance to use up some fabrics. Besides who can resist a bag with cats on it!!


Our house is all decorated for the holidays. We have a deep snow layer outside so the holiday spirit is upon us. I love Christmas.

Stockings I made years ago. Now that is Christmas red for you!



Some of our Santas. The old one on the left we call our demented Santa. Lots of other antiques as well as one of my quilts. I think it was one of the first quilts I made on my Janome 6500 when I got it about 10 years ago. Hard to believe I have had it that long.


My blended quilt hanging in the family room. I still like this one. In fact it hangs all year.


I might still have some projects to do yet, but mostly I am ready to celebrate.

I am doing a lot of thinking lately on whether I want to continue to do the challenges that I have been participating in. They take a lot of time and I don’t seem to get any other work done. In one of the groups someone accidentally sent around an email insulting the work of some of the members of the group. No one was named, but I have a feeling I was among those that were being insulted. So this might be another reason to drop out of the group. I mean I know that I am not the worlds best art quilter, but it hurts when someone insults what you do. Funny thing is that they issued an apology for making the mistake of sending the email to the group instead of just the person in charge of the group. Some apology…I still feel insulted.

In 2014 I am taking a year long master class with Elizabeth Barton to improve my art quilting. I think I want to concentrate on that in 2014 instead of continuing with the challenges. Not sure what to do.
Have you dropped out of groups? How did you make that decision?
At any rate my semester is almost over and I had several students tell me how wonderful I am as a professor. So that made me feel good.

My mom is not doing well an is currently dying of cancer. So I have the added stress of that as well as a husband that hurt his knee and will probably need surgery. So it is life just like everyone else gets. I certainly don’t need stress in my fun activities like quilting.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

1 comment:

  1. Chris - so much to comment on here. First, so sorry about your mother. You have a tough road ahead of you and your quilting, if you have time for it, should be the escape and healing kind, not the stressful kind.

    And so, among the other reasons you bring up, I think this may be a good time for you to bow out of group challenges. I'm glad we had the conversation about that recently. Indeed, I have left groups when they no longer filled the need that made me join in the first place, or when I sensed they were distracting me from what I really wanted to work on, or even if people in the group started to be less than enjoyable to be around. No shame in that.

    And if you do drop out of your challenge group, you can totally devote yourself to your study with Elizabeth Barton. Oh, my, that is SUCH exciting news! A little part of me envies you, but only a little, because I know I don't have it in me right now to devote the kind of time & focus to benefit from the experience. I think it is a wonderful move for you.

    And lastly, the bags are great and your decorations are lovely. Have a wonderful holiday, just let things be as they are, treasure good moments.

    ReplyDelete

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