Off the Wall, Part One

The sewing projects that I started about this time last year are at last off my design wall. I feel very satisfied about Pinball, which will be my contribution to Kaffe and Liza's 2016 quilt book and that I introduced here.

Satisfied schmatisfied, I am downright ecstatic about it! And I want to try this concept again for myself, unencumbered by the fabric choices dictated by the marketing gods. (I believe you art folks call that "working in a series.")  It has always been something floating on the horizon of what interests me, the idea of staying contained within one design form and exploring how much further I can use it to express myself.

The felted wool birds (no link: my blog is littered with them) have also just taken flight off the wall.  I thought they would like it here:

 

But they seem to prefer it here.

 

Guess they're like all the other birds in the neighborhood, suckers for Himself's latest contribution to aviary public housing. The open house has been going on for a few weeks but it appears that a nice young finch couple has moved in to the yellow center hall colonial over the weekend.

I am stitching the last bits down on the outside border with an old woven Kaffe Fassett plaid fabric that I earned by cleaning out Liza's studio.  The pattern includes 96 wool berries on the outside border. Mine are currently very happy lolling about in a ever-so-juicy basket by Patricia Spangler...

...and they will stay there as I finish my creative visualization exercise. Specifically, I am visualizing me, stitching down wool berries with wool thread, onto a heavy wool blanket draped across my lap as temperature begins to climb into the 90s....

My last project, the One Block Wonder for the wedding couple, is also off the wall and on its way to the machine quilter. It simply is not my style and the less said (or shown), the better.

Oh, right, as if I could stick with saying less about anything.

Its just that I learned a valuable lesson: while the notion of making a gift may be heartfelt (and it was) the gift itself must also be part of the maker's creative heart as much as her hand (it wasn't).

Anyway, three projects that kept me company for the past year are now winding their ways out of my life. I am happy to once again be starting a dating relationship with this:

We're taking it very slow, since neither of us wants to repeat our the mistakes of our past.

Which brings me to Off the Wall, Part Two. Its about the other walls in my house and why I want my kids to get off of them.  But it is now Friday night, Shabbat descends and I am going to go to synagogue, sit in the front row with E, admire Rabbi Diana's dancing eyes and lime shoes...

and feel satisfied and grateful for it all.

Shabbat Shalom.