And six months later...

Wow.  I don't even know if I remember how to enter a blog post... 6 months... it has been awhile!

I still haven't made any new paper-crafted goodies.  Sad, I know.  But I DID make this:

It's a 5x7 chunky canvas, oil paint, palette knife painting.  Yep.  I did another palette knife painting... I wasn't sure about it after having done that 1st one that I am still not crazy about.  But I really like this one.  Even Poot likes it!  THAT is amazing in itself ;)

I think I do better on my own and not in a classroom setting.  That way I can do exactly what I want without someone telling me to do it differently!

I also think it helped being a smaller size... takes less time... kinda like card-making :)

I just LOVE all of the texture.  I don't feel like I have to be perfect with it like I do when I use a brush.

Now what shall I do for my next one?

What do you think?

Gettin' creative in a completely different way...

I know, I know...

"where the hell have you been?"

Did I read your mind, or what :)

Let just say that I have NOT been feeling the papercraftiness creative mojo for the longest time.  Especially this fall & winter.  All I wanted to do was to hibernate and eat bad food.  DAMMIT!  Yep, I have gained some of the weight back that I was so proud of losing not-to-long-ago.  Which just leads to more depression, which leads to more bad eating... blah blah blah.  Vicious effing circle.

This fall & winter I did, however, help my mom get several of her rooms organized & cleaned.  I even got her to get rid of a lot of her old quilting magazines... THAT was a feat in itself ;)  I was proud of her... she has a ton of stuff in the donation and "to sell" piles.

Other than that, I have been Pinteresting my stubby fingers off... which I am sure many of you are sick of getting the notifications.  Just ignore them :)  

So, you are probably wanting to know what creative schtuff I have been up to... otherwise the title of this post was all a ruse ;)  Well, a few years ago, I had started a handmade quilt.  I stuck with it for awhile, but as with us creative types, we have to pace ourselves and switch to other projects and media.  So, since the papercraftiness mojo left me, I thought I would try quilting again.

My workstation all ready!  My wand iron & table-top ironing mat, mom's fancy sewing machine that I am borrowing, a little burlap box for scraps, rotary cutter, add-a-quarter ruler, cutting mat, cutting ruler... gang's all here!

Selecting fabrics for each block is both challenging and fun.

I used freezer paper method to cut the "L" shapes & quarter-round center. 

The center arc is paper-pieced.

I don't know what I was thinking, starting a king-size quilt for my first quilting project.  AND picking a pattern with circles... crazy woman.  But, I fell in love with the idea of this quilt fading from deep dark colors to bright warm colors.  So here are some work-in-progress pictures:

Most of the fabrics are batik... which I LOVE!  There are two different "Carnival Beauty" block sizes from Valori Wells that I am using (8" & 4").  My goal is to not duplicate any blocks... yikes.  Both sizes will be intermingled throughout... similar to this:  http://www.valoriwells.com/quilts/carnival-beauty

What do you think?

A heavy-hearted goodbye...

Thor:  November 2001 - January 20, 2014

My sweet angel is gone.  My little ol' grey-faced man.  A true mama's boy.

How can my heart recover?

Even as I write this, staring at the photo of your sweet face, I feel lost.

Out of all of the waifs at the rescue, you, Thor,
were the one little redhead within the herd of black and white.

The day we picked you up, you had been playing with your kennel-mate.  Knocking over your water bowl to mix with your soiled paper... what an awful stench!  I couldn't wait to get you a bath.

We brought you home to meet your sister, Heidi.  It wasn't a great first meeting, but she warmed up to you quickly.  Pretty soon, you two were inseparable.  She was the hyper one, and you were the totally laid-back one.  You were never much for playing with toys, unless it was to take one from your sister so that she would chase you around the yard.

And you were definitely not a fan of swimming.  The first time we took you to the lake, you jumped right off the end of the dock and sunk to the bottom.  You popped back up, but were VERY wary after that!  We outfitted you with a life-jacket and would occasionally fetch water toys with Heidi, but you preferred wading along the shore. :)

Heidi & Thor making snow angels :)

You were always showing Daddy who was the Alpha-Male in the house:

When you were young, you seemed to have springs in your paws.  You could jump straight up, damn-near looking me in the eyes... that was usually when I was about to fill your food dish.  I had never seen a dog your size jump so high from a standing position.  This came in handy when we had to section-off Heidi from Grandma Bev's dog, Cinder... you were the only one that could jump the barriers and visit both of them throughout the day.

Another of your little quirks... you always wanted to eat on the stairs.  Even when we had your food dish across the room in the kitchen.  You would grab a mouthful of food, go to the stair, drop it (making a mess) and eat from the 1st or 2nd stair step.  So, we just moved your dish there.  And, you still would take your food out of your dish, deposit it NEXT to the dish on the step, and THEN eat it off the step.

It was kinda like when parents of human children find Legos in the middle of the night (ouch!)...

we would find kibble now and then :)

You loved your Beneful:

You always had something going on with you... mainly skin allergies and ear issues.  Once, you shook your ears so much that you cause it to balloon up with fluid.  You had to wear this splint-of-sorts for a few days:

You looked so dorky.  :)   And you were always kind of clumsy... like a gangly teenager.

But then you had your moments like this:

I cropped it out of the photo, but there was a little angelic halo above your head :)

It always shone so brightly when you were sleeping.

You LOVED napping.  More than any dog I had seen.

And if there was a stuffed animal nearby, that was all the better:

You were definitely an inside dog... you were not much of an outdoorsman at all!  You would stay out long enough to do your business, patrol the perimeter of the fence, and then back inside where the a/c or heat was cranked.  I found you deep in thought one day, staring out the window:

Your eyesight started diminishing awhile back, although to look at you, one would never guess you were blind.  Those big beautiful brown eyes would make my heart swell every time I would look into them.

Last romp in the Fall leaves Nov. 2013

Last September you started really declining.  We had to help you up the stairs because your poor little back legs kept losing strength.  But you wanted to be upstairs, not in the living room... even with a compfy bed there.  You wanted to be near us and would follow me from room to room... bumping into things as you went.  Nuzzling me to rub your sweet face.  I would talk to you and would cock your head to the side, listening intently, as if you could understand me.  

Thor's impression of a red fox :)

Oh how I am going to miss that.
How many times will I look up, expecting to see you and you will not be there?

From the beginning you were mine.

Daddy might have been the one that found you, but you and I had a special bond.

My sweet boy.  I love you.