I am, however, participating in a Holiday Studio Tour my artist friend Aida Schneider and I cooked up! I designed the postcard and got it printed last month, and she’s been drumming up publicity, here’s a nice article in the Riverside Press Enterprise. If you’re on my email newsletter, you got a mailing about it earlier this week, but I’ll share the postcard here too as well:

Pretty Snazzy, if I do say so myself! (The website with more info is here).

Anyway, here’s how I did in November:

November Goals

So right now, I am focused on getting the house all decorated for the tour, but BONUS, this also means the house is decorated for Christmas! I’m going to try to get some more everyday art to sell at the tour. Once the tour is over, I can switch to making Christmas presents, and officially give myself a break from making to sell and just make to develop a small fraction of the things that are whirling in my brain!

December Goals

Here’s a quick customization I did for someone. They wanted a single Botanical Sketch mounted a bit bigger, so I took some fabric and wrapped it around a larger stretched canvas, added some iron-on velcro and VOILA!

Interested in the meetup? Find out more here, any one is welcome to join!

Meetup | December 2011 Goals is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I’m happy, it looks about like what I imagined it. I hemmed and hawed for about 10-15 minutes over sashing, no sashing, but again, I gave myself permission to just decide and move on. Looking at it this morning all pieced together, there were a couple of blocks that I would have switched upside down….but too late!

Botanical Sketches: 35" x 38", all fabric dyed by me, botanicals free motion machine sketched on my Juki TL-98Q

Here’s my favorite pair of blocks:

And some outdoor detail shots:

It feels great to have this done! I’m also amazed that I got some halfway decent shots so late in the day! Let’s see what else I can get done on the list!

After one…more…picture…

Botanical Sketches Art Quilt is Complete is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

but the size of these are a bit large, and although I like this size as pillows, they weren’t gelling for me as a larger piece.

So today I made some blocks, and threw them up on the design wall. I was reminded how much I like making smaller works and combining them into larger compositions after they are complete – I don’t have to commit to a certain layout! So I tried out a few different layouts:

Now, I did NOT want to mull, and mull, and mull over this. I just played with them quickly for about 15 minutes, taking some pix along the way.

Then when hubby came home for lunch, I had him look at all five of these pictures and choose his favorite. He liked the same layout, for the same reason I did, so I took that as a sign, chose that layout, and kept working.

Can you guess which one I chose?

Do you want me to tell you?

hmmmm…should I?

Ok, I won’t keep you in suspense, it was layout #4. Hubby and I really love the center pair of blocks: the darkness draws you in and the fact that they’re mirror images kinda bounces your eyes back and forth, and sends your eyes back out again – at least, that’s what I think.

I’ll show you more progress – tomorrow!

Snapshots from the studio | Botanical Sketch Quilt is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I developed some new botanical sketches from the flowers on them:

and came up with new color combos inspired by them as well.

These are in an ever growing pile of things to pack for Cleveland.

Even with all the stuff I’ve gotta get done, I’m coming up with new ideas to add to the ever growing list. Where are the shoemaker’s elves, who will come in the night and finish up all the things I leave half done in my studio?

A few pillows – inspired by buttons! is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern

I’ve been thinking a lot about my botanical sketches lately, I’d like to add some new flowers to my sketchbook. I was out in the backyard, photographing a couple of scarves, and lo and behold, the fennel flowers in our garden looked incredible. I thought I’d share them with you.

Inspiration | Fennel Flowers is a post from: Candied Fabrics New in the shop: Versatile Messenger Bag Pattern