I spy with my little eye....

...a quilt that's finished! This I Spy quilt is my first bigger sized quilt. I've learned a lot about quilting while making it. I've definitely got the quilting bug! I'm working on a second quilt (just for fun using lots of PINKS because I can) and I might just make a quilt for our bed too!

I'm looking at the photos of the quilt and you can't see any of the mistakes in it, unless it's right under your nose. The binding (the border) was machine stitched on the front but hand stitched on the back so I spent a lot of evenings with it. I wanted the framing of the squares to be neutral since the blocks already had so many colours in them. I worried it looked too dark for a kid's quilt, but the colours definitely POP!

It's square and not meant for his crib. I just like the way it drapes

 When Alex first saw it the first thing he noticed was "APPLE!". He's since noticed the mittens and "full" cup of hot chocolate as well. Fun!

(The colours are more accurate in the first photo,

hard to take a picture of it without

 a clothesline or fence to hang it on like all the quilting bloggers do)

It's already been put to the Kitty Tackle test!

In the studio: Finger painting

The first couple of times I tried finger painting with Alex he didn't seem to like it. He was like an unhappy restaurant patron. Um, miss! My hands are DIRTY. Uh hello? This is not what I ordered! It tastes like PAINT.
This time he got the hang of it and enjoyed himself. I knew he just needed some time to figure it out, it's a new experience for him. I'm glad I tried again. It was fun for him and FUN for me. I got him to try using his hands, the paintbrush and even Thomas the Train got into the action.

I taped up the paintings on the window to dry and the results are luminous! The paint is actually quite faded and dull when it dries, but with the light from the window it's something else. Like my husband said, that's a keeper.

Hmm interesting...

Getting into it...

Really getting into it!

 Figuring thing out.

Painting with Thomas!

"Campfire in the woods"

"Ocean storm"

Detail of Ocean Storm.

 It's really magical with the light coming through.

Collaborative art: Toddler edition

Alex is really getting into drawing. He seems to like it. This makes me very happy. I keep going back and forth about introducing finger paint. Hmm. Maybe I'll wait a bit longer. He refuses to draw on a blank white page I call it Colouring Book Syndrome (not that he's ever seen a colouring book).

Fox in fall foliage. Crayon on paper.

(The fox, by the way was supposed to be a zebra. My drawing is a little rusty)

Northern Lights at the North Pole. Pencil on paper.

Detail of Northern Lights.

Hello old friend

Study of brain in pink. 1999. Oil on canvas. 36" x 48"

This is one of the last paintings I did. I had another full semester of painting after this but had my paintings stolen. No, they were not that good. Greedy art students steal them for the canvas or the stretchers. It was still a big loss though. My painting got brighter, more refined. I had wonderful painting teachers in college. I got excited about it. Then I entered university, not as an art student, but one in psychology. I hated it. It was dry. It was an ill fit. So then after 2 years I switched to the major in art education. Ah, much better. My classes were in the arts building, overflowing with sculptors, photographers, painters, graphic designers, cinematographers.

I hadn't really done any art since finishing college (college is two years after high school that's required here before university, a little different than everywhere else). I had to take art classes as well as my teaching classes. I found that I was rusty and wasn't as polished as some of my classmates. I stumbled along, falling behind. I took a painting class, hoping to improve. Unfortunately I had a professor who, not uncommonly, could not teach. These university art teacher were not teaching us any techniques just concepts. This, in reality turned out to be How to Bullshit During the Critiques. These people could talk their way out of a paper bag.

Again, I did not fit in. My professor drank during the breaks (a four hour class had a half hour break and the cafeteria sold beer!), so he was useless afterwards. Not good. I stopped painting because it was no longer a joy for me.

The next year I took a printing and dyeing class in the fiber arts department. Oh yes, as my husband always jokes, my degree is in Pure and Applied Basketweaving. Not only did I love this class, I had an amazing professor who opened up possibilities for me. I created fabric prints and then made soft sculptures from them. I was in heaven. This was a perfect fit.

So I have never painted again (aside from a tiny painting of grapefruit that I made for my kitchen). Do I miss it? A bit. I don't miss the mess, or the awful smell of solvent. So I've traded in my paint brushes for a sewing machine. Yes, I think that is a good thing.

Getting back to sewing after such a long period just feels RIGHT.