Break from color, briefly

Challenged to make a "quiltie" for a swap I decided to trying something I've never done before. This little 7x7 inch piece was make using a technique in the latest Quilting Arts Magazine. First I quilted the piece in a squared spiral using thin cotton batting under a tightly woven pine and white striped decorator fabric. Then I finished it with a pillow case type backing so it would not need a binding. Then I painted it lightly with white acrylic letting the pink stripes show through. Then I added the pears using a photo I had taken of a couple of pears that were almost too pretty to eat [but eat them I did] and drew on the quiltie with thin and fat Sharpies.

Of course one cannot blend with Sharpies but I feel I have control and I have absolutely no experience with paints and am anything but secure in my drawing ability. I was pleased that they look like pears and having discovered I actually can draw a recognizable facsimile I may use the technique again for my next quiltie in what may become a year-long series -- I'll tackle some other edible.

Thinking about doing it took quite a bit of time but the actual doing didn't take long at all. And so then it was back to my stars. There will be twenty. I have three and a half to do. I feel I am learning about color, value, and so on. It's wonderful to find myself actually accomplishing something I never felt comfortable with before.

Shopping, no crowds!

Are there reports of brisk holiday sales this year? From here it seems unlikely. Yesterday afternoon [Saturday, a prime shopping time, one assumes] Rachel told me she had just come back from the mall and it was not very busy. My own plan was to go there this morning while many people would be in church. There were very few people about, I did not have to wait in line to check out, the parking lot was not packed. This experience may be atypical but it seems few people are frantically shopping.

Happily I had time and space to wander and, as always I shopped with an open mind, not a firmly defined list in my head. I had some basic ideas and thought it would be unlikely I'd finish my shopping. But I did! In about an hour and a half and then I went to the Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble where I got a remarkably fresh cranberry-orange scone with their Christmas special coffee. I enjoyed my snack while I looked through a Quilting Arts Magazine thinking I would find it as pretty as usual but, as usual, not offering many ideas I would be likely to use. Actually, it seemed to have a different, more useful slant this issue so I bought in order to read thoroughly and keep it on hand for reference. It was a most satisfactory morning even though rain was splattering down.

I'll have the mail-away gifts in the postal system's hands in a day or two. What a satisfying feeling! I have a couple of quilting projects to finish but I've got two weeks to do it. No prob'. Ho, ho, ho ... I'm holiday-ready.