Something About Nothing

A year ago (about November 2020) I started drawing and making stamps of gnomes and critters.  I used them to print a few holiday cards to mail to friends. In December I saw a quilt pattern for a tree quilt. The pattern, Plant Worry Grow Hope , was written by quilter Kitty Wilkin. A portion of the proceeds were going to The Trevor Project . I decided the trees and my gnomes belonged together. Some of the patterns were paper pieced foundation. . . . . . and some were a combination of foundation pieced and applique. After putting some together, I played with layouts. I printed a bunch of gnome and critter blocks to fill in blanks. Printed blocks drying on my cabinet. After printing I colored them in with Posca pens. More layouts Finally a layout which I stitched together. Next I worked on a border. I didn't like so much white. . . . . .so I changed it to mostly greens. And then a border of white around the green. The completed top sat on my ironing board for 6 months or more. And fina...

Another online class I am doing is Alisa Burke's "The Imagination Journal." I'm not working on it everyday, but what I have done has been fun. I forgot to take a photo of these pages before drawing on them. This one started out as a lot of purple and blue blobs. I did my best to try being very childlike while doing this drawing. As I drew the rounded houses a song from a TV show of my youth came to mind.  "Gily gily gily gily gily a sa sa" Just that phrase. I couldn't remember anything else so I took a dive into 1960's children's shows in the Chicago area. I knew it was a show for Jewish children and taught Biblical stories and Jewish history. I wasn't Jewish but it was the only thing on on early Sunday mornings so I watched.  It was called "The Magic Door" The rounded houses remind me of the acorn house Tiny Tov went into at the beginning of the show. I found this bear photo in an advertisement for a trip to Alaska. I thought he we...

I took an online mini-class from Linda Kemshall: Learn to Paint - Painting with Pencils, Birds. I've played around with Inktense pencils but never to this extent. I feel like I learned a bit in this class. I'm thinking of making more birds. Maybe a 100 days worth. Maybe not. We'll see. I do still have a lot to learn about using watercolor pencils,  but I have found I like them more than watercolors.

 I've given up on resolutions. Maybe "given up" isn't the correct wording. That makes it sound like I'm not doing anything at all. That I have given up on my life. Quite the contrary. I'm just doing my best at whatever I can do right now without any lists. Yeah, yeah, I've heard the "a goal that isn't written down is just a wish" and all the other stuff, but right now, the pressure doesn't work for me. I do hope to continue including my artistic progress in my blog. I hope you will enjoy following along.  I'm going to physical therapy for my carpal tunnel syndrome, and have an appointment with a hand doctor to see about some shots, or maybe surgery. Whatever it takes. I really like my hands, whether they are clean or dirty. I really need my hands! I'm doing a lot of hand stitching at night while my husband and I watch TV or movies. I can't post photos of the complete project yet because I want to enter it in a show, but I don...

My sister and I did some baking before Christmas. We tried Chocolate Babka Rugelach for the first time. It takes some time, but most wonderful pastries do. We used this recipe from the NYTimes. One of the things we learned was that the recipe makes a lot more chocolate than is needed.  If you spread too much chocolate on the dough it just spills out and burns. The results were so delicious. We didn't have salt to sprinkle on top but I imagine the mixture of sugar and salt on top would be fabulous. Next year. Sister also made her fantastic Double Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies. You're all lucky I took any kind of photo! They go fast! Every year I make what we call Nut Cups. Other people call them Pecan Tassies. In actuality I just called them delicious! My daughter bought a bunch of Smiski's for me and I've been having fun doing photoshoots with them. I think they like the nut cups as much as I do.