New Project for 2009

OK, I know my resolutions were to finish up projects, and 'try' not to start new projects unless I really plan to get them finished. I agreed to join this swap with my Monday morning Bee (The Katy Rotary Club" to do the pattern "Around the Block" by the Rabbit Factory. Cynthia Regone, local talent extraordinaire is organizing the swap in our Bee. This looks like a fun quilt, and most of the Bee members are participating. Cynthia is a good teacher and she will break this down into easily done steps that all of us will be able to get it done.

The first step was to make 18 9-patches that are red and cream. Red on the inside (negative blocks). Those are due tomorrow and I am done with those blocks. Off to a great start!

Now, for the other project(s) that I bought stuff for is BEADING! My artsy friend Linda Minton is going is give us some beading lessons at our retreat in March. After our FML lunch last Monday we stopped at Beadaholic and found lots of cool things. I'm really chomping at the bit to get started on some of these.

The green beads are for a bracelet, not sure how to describe the bracelet, but you use silver wire and little groups of 7 crystals. Stay tuned for pictures when that is done.

On this project, the turquoise will be the focal point, and Linda is going to show how to make some sort of braid with the other beads. I forgot what kind of braid she called it, but sounds cool. The beads are a chocolately brown, turquoise and a muted gold color. None of these beads are shiny, and are all colors that are in the round turqoise piece.

These red beads are for a pair of earrings. I want to do some twirly girly twists with a few of the black beads in the silver, and then wrap some silver wire around the triangles. Hopefully Linda will be able to understand what I'm looking for. I think that this project will be fairly simple - Except - trying to make both earrings look the same!

Tom Russell Class - Working with Color

We are so blessed in the Houston area that Tom Russell is a local guy, and has been teaching some classes. ( I took his color class at a retreat a few weeks ago) and another class from him that was also working with colors but a different class at a local quilt shop.

Tom is holding my piece up while talking to the class. All of those circles and leaves are made up of several pieces of fabric. The background kinda blends into his shirt, but it is made up of a bunch of 'dark' squares.

Here the class is hard at work putting the background together.

The center squares are a little lighter, but there is a black flange strip that separated them from the outer darker circles. You just see those peeking out from the flowers on the surface. Lots of funky leaves and circles make up this piece. We learned a lot about porportion, scale, value and all that stuff.

Tom hamming it up with my friend Nita (grey hair) and myself. Tom is a sweetie!

I think most of came home with the top put together. We just need to finish the Quilting, embellishing and then for the finale - adding BEADS. How fun!