Changing seasons (especially the time change)

My DH goes to work on Sunday mornings at 5:20 am and I usually just stay in bed until later but this past Sunday I woke up and puttered around in the dark for a while.  I like the glow of lamp light rather than overhead spots or fluorescent lights, so I have a lamp on my kitchen counter - I found it in a thrift store and it looks so old fashioned and almost matches some of my thrifted dishes.  The yellow-gold glow is so warming and cozy.  I use this old tray over my stove - it is easy to clean if anything splatters and one of my favorite things is the little tea timer - it keeps track of three different times so whatever tea you are brewing is perfect.

I then put together an Apple crostada (Barefoot Contessa recipe) - so perfectly yummy for fall

and put some pork country ribs and sauerkraut in the crockpot - good eating once the football games are done.
How was your weekend?  I always treasure those quiet early morning moments alone - some coffee or tea and some dreaming and planning..........................

Chris

Tropical flower applique quilt

Welcome to my studio - 

I spent most of this past summer making an applique quilt for a dear friend. I admit I was positively obsessed with working on it and finished it in four months (queen size hand appliqued and hand quilted).  She loves tropical flowers and has one of my orchid paintings

so I went with that idea - I found some great applique patterns in the book Color-Blend Applique by Jane Townswick.  I enlarged the patterns and tweaked them - some a little and some a lot.  I hand appliqued the fabrics and used my technique for hand dyeing ribbon to add dimension to the orchid block. Her room is done is grays so I was able to find several shades that worked well together.  I had to be very careful piecing both the front and back as I began to run very low on the grays, pink, and lavender, and knew I could not find more locally.  I hand quilted the applique blocks enhancing the design and then used straight lines with 90 degree angles to define the blocks and to coordinate the borders.

I was very pleased with this quilt and am enthused to go back and finish a Baltimore Album quilt that I started 15-20 years ago.  When I lived in Jacksonville, I purchased a couple of  Elly Sienkiwicz's books and also purchased enough backing fabric to make a quilt. I have made about 12 blocks over the years (they still need finishing touches) and have plans for more SO I think 2014 will be the year to finish it - I should have almost all the supplies: backing, reds, greens, hand dyed solids so it's just down to finalizing the final block patterns and getting going - stay tuned for further updates!

thanks for reading and have a great day,

Chris

Life starts all over again........

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall"

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

It's not exactly crisp here in south Florida but it has definitely cooled off and the light has changed dramatically.  I have a few little fall corners in my house.

I love The Art of Abundance - whenever I feel a bit frustrated or my skills or funds don't match up with my expectations, I randomly open the book and find something that reminds me of all the abundance in my life. I haven't blogged much this summer (to be honest, I haven't blogged at all) but it's been a strange year with lots of unexpected expenses and issues.  Thankfully things seem to be quieting down now.  I have been quilting a lot (I made an applique quilt this summer and will blog about it soon) and there's a new quilt right now being quilted on my ironing board (I discovered that quilting on the ironing board is a really good thing!) and a wall sized crazy quilt is taking shape

so things are definitely happening around here.

And of course, I hope you noticed Mr. Squirrel up there - we had a new squirrel family move into one of the oaks in our backyard - I guess they decided the tree was now tall enough that they would be safe from the neighborhood cats. I have been painting lots of animals and will share some of my techniques in a future post.

 

 I hope you have had a good summer and  I look forward to welcoming you back into my studio, my home, and my life.

Always,

Chris

Vero Beach Art Club Members Invitational at the Vero Beach Museum of Art

Eastern Promises

Hope to see you at the Museum!