Family portrait fun

    Moving oil paint around on a canvas is fun. I decided a family portrait would be next. I put Joe driving his sport car facilitating our lives. The grandchildren are on the trunk watching a roadrunner. A southwestern landscape is on my mind because of a reunion I want to attend. I am painting with Farley beside me, wind blowing his ears. David is hanging on to Emmit, his Pug. What to do about the parents and uncles? I decided to pilfer angels from art history, to create guardian angels...not specific persons, but symbols. The license plate notes initials and ages. The flowers have meanings and refer to largesse bestowed. I started out with a toned canvas and added color. Click the photos to enlarge.

    

      Every time the Boston Marathon rolls around, Hannah is another year older. There was her soft quilted birthday card to make and the hard copy for clarity. I always think of Hannah as our prolific reader, so this year I grabbed a literary Paddington (we saw the movie) and added some of my favorite quotations about reading. I hope to stitch better next year. The batting dragged under the needle and I was running out of time.  

       In the spring,  Katie rounds up friends to make blocks for Project Hope, so I whipped up nine. I didn't have enough printed squares, so I took images from the novelty fabrics I did have and painted the blank areas with a Sharpie Rub a Dub laundry marker that doesn't bleed and Jacquard acrylic fabric paints that leave the fabric soft.  The four bottom left blocks were embellished this way.

       While I paint, Joe insists on building frames. All in the family portrait think he is a special guy to have around!

Time "FLU" while stitching!

    Since a child I have loved an excuse, like rare rain in Amarillo, to stay inside to color! This week it was the flu. A chance to stay home to stitch, watch movies and read. I stitched a lot (MM spoiler alert).

    Yes, Erika (and family) came to visit over Passover/Easter week. It was only reasonable that they check out their new house. We thought the children's flu had passed. While here, granddaughter and Joe went out to hang eggs in her carefully chosen spots. But much of the time she still needed to rest. We didn't rest so much and caught the flu. Life was slow the last two weeks, but stitch I did. 

    I had an assignment to quilt "canyon." Probably only I would express it literally, but when the Palo Duro Canyon is just outside my home town and is second in size to the Grand Canyon....and Georgia O'Keefe painted her time spent there, you want people to know about it. I could quilt nothing else. But I still have a month before "Reveal Day" at Material Mavens to think of something else and do it better. I could add a flying crow from Georgia's painting. I painted muslin with Jacquard fabric paints and quilted with #8 embroidery thread.

    Today I realized I better get started on the Katie quilt for Project Hope.http://www.prohope.org/ This year the topic is bugs and nature, so I made one block. I have been wanting to make a 36 square 12" block. It made me so happy, I want to do more.  Click photos to enlarge.