New Bag for Spring!

I made this so-cute purse sample last week. The bag was designed by Ellie Grisham of Wisconsin. I love the over-dyed fabric on the outside, the spring colors, the knotted handle - everything about it! This is a fast & easy purse!

Blooms!

Blatant brag: I can grow anything outdoors in the Midwest. But my green thumb seems to turn dark inside. So I was VERY thrilled to see buds on one of my Christmas Cactus last week! I have two cacti - the blooming one was an impulse purchase at the grocery store last year. The other is a cutting from a 100-year-old plant given to me by my friend, Mary R. I almost killed that one (sorry Mary!). While the plant has recovered, it shows no sign that it plans to thrive & bloom. Sort of a teenage attitude - "I'll live here with you & tolerate everything, but you can't make me bloom". The funny thing is that the two plants sit side by side on my kitchen table, in the same size pots, getting the same benign-neglectful care. As with my teenagers, I'll just take what I can get, knowing they will surprise me with a bloom somewhere down the road.

I Meant to Write Sooner.....

Time flies when you're busy. Trite but true. I wanted to complain about the ultra-cold weather we are "enjoying" in Omaha and post a picture of the snowman in our yard. I meant to tell you about the pair of eagles I saw sitting in a tree overlooking the Platte River. I've been dyeing both wool roving and cotton fabric in wonderful luscious colors that I wanted to show you. I was going to brag a little about the beautiful pincushions I've been making. I could have shown you my new quilt, ColorWheel Constellation. But I had Things To Do, Places To Go, People to See. Blogging was put off in favor of getting people where they need to be, on time and (mostly) well fed. I'll skip the details of those so-last-week items and tell you about the weekend.

DH, DDs & myself went to see Phantom of the Opera, at the beautiful Orpheum Theater.


The production is superb! The re-creation of the chandelier from the Paris Opera House is incredible. It was raised & lowered (fell) using well-engineered machinery which made the fall Very Realistic. Since I couldn't take a picture of the real thing, I'm substituting a picture of one chandelier which hangs in a staircase in the Orpheum. Not as ornate or as large!


The story and the music were enthralling. The costumes, especially those worn during the masquerade ball, were fabulous. (Better than the fashion on the red carpet at the Grammy's!) All the costumes were so complex, layers that moved and shimmered and sparkled, in a riot of color. I wouldn't enjoy wearing those heavy, multi-layered dresses in place of my t-shirt and jeans, but I love them on-stage! Come to think of it, I wouldn't wear most of the dresses shown on the red carpet either!

Color, Glorious Color!

I taught a variation of my Color Wheel Dyeing for the Omaha Quilt Guild last Saturday. It is so much fun to share my passion for dyeing with others! The group was enthusiastic and fun to work with - the kind of students that every teacher loves to have in the classroom!

My students dyed a 12-step color wheel, then had "playtime". Gorgeous fabric in plastic bags doesn't photograph well, so you get to see the playtime fabrics. Each student had 2 yards of fabric to dye, and there were as many ideas for dyeing them as there were students. A few pictures of the in-progress dyeing:

The Stockings Were Hung?

The stockings were laid on the pool table with care. Brad & Heather just moved into their new house. We had to improvise!



Maybe we'll put this picture of Casey on our Christmas cards next year.

Travel Photos

We made our almost-annual trek to Phoenix for the holidays. Some pictures I took on the way.....


Anyone interested in a 1946 fire truck?




Overpass art in Albuquerque, New Mexico


San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona

More Christmas Stockings

I've used my sewing time to make a tree skirt for my oldest daughter and stockings for two granddaughters. My original plan was to do alternate wedges in the crazy quilt method used on the stockings in a previous post. Time dictated otherwise and I went with solid fabric wedges. The visible quilting around the outer edge is done with glow-in-the-dark thread. DD's reaction to the tree skirt was "PERFECT!", which is the absolute perfect ego stroke for me! Last year, she used her quilt as a tree skirt. The back of that quilt is the darkest snowflake fabric in the tree skirt.













Zoe and Kyra will have Christmas stockings. I used just a few chile fabrics from my huge collection. Most of my family has cross-stitched stockings. I started making quilted stockings for my grandchildren.