Sophia's Quilt

It felt great to have Sophia's quilt finished several days before Christmas.  Good, and strange, I almost never finish anything until the very last minute.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to try to get a good photograph, and needed help to get a full view of it, so these are the best photos I have.   I suppose I could always borrow it back if I decide I need better ones.  It's not a work of art, anyway.  I really urged Sophia's mom to just use it, it's meant to be used and loved, not treasured and locked away.

Resolutions

It's that time of year again.  No matter how many times I make and then ignore resolutions, I still find myself thinking about them at this time of year.  Maybe I should make a resolution not to make resolutions?  Nah, I'd just break that one too.

This year I'm thinking about starting small, but consistent.  I'm not sure yet, but I'm thinking my resolutions will be:

1. Just unroll the yoga mat on the floor every morning.  I don't have to actually do anything, but I know if I find myself standing there with the mat, I am more likely to actually do at least a couple minutes of practice.

2.  Open a sketchbook and make a mark every day. Anything.  Even one line.   I carry a sketchbook everywhere.  I rarely open it. I frequently see things that interest or inspire me, but typically use a camera instead of a sketch.  Snapping a picture does not make you think like sketching does.

3.  Walk downstairs into the studio every day.  I knew when we moved here 18 months ago, that the trade-off of getting more space to work would be not being in the midst of my work every day.  When the studio was the dining room, I had to walk by the design wall, and look at it, and often made at least a quick change or move when I did.  Now it's too easy to just stay upstairs until "later."

I think these three little things would make big changes for me.

Then there's the usual... drink more water, exercise more, eat better, stay off the computer, blah blah blah.... those are the resolutions that are impossible to keep because they're not measurable, or I'm not willing to measure, anyway.

Color Prints #4 - Work in Progress

I've been working mostly in brief snippets of time on my latest piece in the Color Prints series.  I make great progress when I capture even an hour of uninterrupted time, so I'm sure I'll finish piecing this by the end of the year, but I still beat myself up over not putting in enough time.  Enough of that.

I am really liking this piece. This one evolved out of the top "vignette" (that's what I am calling the individual pieces I create then combine in these pieces).  

It once again features orange!  I am no longer surprised by that.  Sometimes its so much easier to see what a piece needs when you get the distance of a photograph on a blog post.  I see clearly that (at least in my opinion) it needs to have the top piece moved over to the right side to offset it from the central one.  And then something with lavender has to happen up there.

I am thinking it's about time to get back in touch with Lisa Call and implement the unused private lessons time that I pre-purchased from her.  Up until now I didn't really know what to use it on, but now I am liking this direction enough to pursue it.  it is my intention to complete three more of these before I go to Nancy Crow's class, which is now ONLY about two and a half months away!  ACK!

I feel a twinge of guilt contacting Lisa since she just posted on FB about how happy she is to have finished up teaching and is now ready for Studio time!  Oh well, I was waiting partly because I knew she was so busy teaching.