And now for your viewing pleasure....

Another orchid to end this record-breaking snowy month.

Good Morning Ladies,
It is 7am and I am up this early to play in my room today. I have been decluttering and packing for weeks and our house is finally listed. We had our first showing yesterday. I have been having creativity withdrawl since the house saga began. I am very tempted to limit myself to today to come up with my February piece. I have no fabric selected, and no inkling of an idea, but I have been promised the day to work in my sanctuary and to destress, and that is exactly what I am going to do.

I got the new shadowbox for my January piece from my friend yesterday. It is 1" less deep than the first one and 1/4" less than 20" long. We had to remake it because my finished January piece shrank with the quilting. That was the new info I learned for that piece--I didn't know that Timtex would shrink up with stitching. I assumed that its thickness would prevent that. It doesn't. Good to know for the future since I use it alot. Anyway the piece now fits perfectly and I have to decide what hardware to attach to the back for hanging. I have never done a shadowbox piece before so I am not sure what will work best. Any ideas on the subject?

Well, it's time to grab a bit of nourishment and then up to the sanctuary for my day of creative endeavor.

Two more days

Two more days in February. Yea! Your orchid is a nice treat to get us through. Good luck on the thistles. Susan

Playing with fabric

While the flowers in my head are marinating I decided to try working on the background for them. Found a nice piece of shibori-dyed fabric and am now stamping it. I have piles of little rocks stamped onto the background. I'm thinking this will be a good base fabric for some thistles. We'll see. I tried piecing a small section of cloth to extend the length of this piece -- they're okay separately, but they don't look too hot put together -- so some other solution will present itself as the need arises.

Inspiration

I thought we could all use a little inspiration. These are from the Orchid show at the Franklin Park Conservatory.

I agree!

Hi. As a person who checks the blog several times a day, I would love to see more input!! Susan

Pondering February

As February comes to a close I keep vacillating between thistles and poppies -- neither is much of a winter or spring sort of flower, at least in this part of the world. Whatever I choose to do for February, March will likely be the other. In the meantime, I keep monkeying around with the appearance of the blog -- trying to keep it interesting -- something has to since we're not posting anything! :)

Here's to the end of winter and spring coming soon. I'm tired of snow, and tired of whining about snow. Mostly, I'm just tired of being cold and looking for a change. Keep working out those challenges!

We're awfully quiet

I can only assume by all the quiet that we're hard at work on the next piece. I've been happily searching my photograph albums for a particular picture or two. Found them after a long search and I hope I will have some time this weekend to work out the piece for February.

Meanwhile, the snow piles are taller than I am, and my little SUV can't see over the tops of the mountains of snow at corners and in parking lots. There was a little melting today, and some expected tomorrow. But I think since a fresh snow storm is on the way, we won't see grass until June. Best to stay in and work on art!

I figured it out

Well, Linda asked me if I could figure out how to delete the extra picture. I think I managed it. If you ever need to edit a post, let me know.

Finding Comments Postings

If you're looking for a post and can't find it -- check each entry. At the bottom of each entry is a line in blue that says "who" posted, "when" they posted, and how many comments there are. If the "comments" are "0" -- then there are no comments. But if there is a number there, click on "comments" and the blog should list any comments under that particular post.

Linda, my "comment" to your post is the one that starts with "here's my finish challenge piece -- finally".

I'll look into seeing if a picture can be removed. What I'd like to find a way to do is archive all the pictures into one spot so we can see them all together. That's my next "challenge" to the blog.

Thank you Susan. Elizabeth and I have been calling this the Seuss piece because it looks very Seussical to us. My plan for the challenge pieces are to use napkins. The buildings are from left over Chanukah napkins. Haven't looked into my stash yet for February's idea, but it will get done much faster than this one did!

Elizabeth-got your email this morning, but didn't see any post here. Do you know how to get one of the pictures off this blog? The first time I did it the message said it posted, but there was no picture, so I tried it over again.
Gotta go swimming-talk to you later today.

What a wonderful surprise to find your piece on the blog! It is fabulous. It's frustrating not seeing the pieces in person but obviously you put in a whole lot of hours and with great results. Congratulations. Susan

Ladies,
I think it is ok to invite a few close friends to have a peek at our blog. I really wanted Elizabeth to start a blog for us so that we could communicate with each other since we don't all know each other.

This is my finished Challenge piece--finally! Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show that there are actually 8 layers on this piece. I messed up the facing to try to use my shadowbox and got frustrated and just gave up. I am really glad this one is done. I hope the 2nd piece doesn't frustrate me like this one did!

Does anyone object to having one of my friends be able to view our blog? Susan

Poppies will put them to sleep

So here I am, contemplating the approaching snowstorm, and thinking of poppies in a meadow. Ruminating about what to do for February -- and poppies came to me. I love their happy countenances anyway -- and a red poppy seems appropriate for February. Unless another idea usurps it, poppies it will be.

Susan's February Piece

Here is Susan's February piece!

The How

I added a comment under my January piece about my process for those of you who might be interested.