Let me be the first to say, Happy Birthday Michelle!

It happened in the blink of an eye. My daughter hits a new decade on August 4th. This is the silly quard I made for her birthday.

& here is the crazy quilt that I did entirely in my longarm. Pieced & quilted all in one. It's the first large quilt I've done like this. The first small one I did several years ago for the Quilt Alliance challenge, that Ally Aller bid on & won. & included in her first book. This one I used a wavy rotary cutter, to cut all the pieces. I layered a solid black fabric on top of the batting, & then pieced leaving the black to show between the raw edges. It has a soft minke back & will keep her warm in winter.

This last is a piece of silk, that I painted on a nice sunny day on my deck last week.

Doodling 3D

It was a warm sunny day again today, & I couldn't see staying inside, so I took a piece of cloth, & my color box, of pens & crayons, & did some doodling! Here are the results.

I saw a short demo on making things appear 3D on Facebook somewhere, & decided I had to play with it.

The plaid may be a bit carried away, but it was fun.

The contrast of light & dark seems more effective, than those with the more subtle contrast.

HAPPY July 4TH

It's a beautiful day here in Anchorage, Alaska.  Warren is out mowing the lawn & I'm getting to ready to go pull some weeds. It's our 24th wedding anniversary, & we will be having dinner out tonight to celebrate.

I appreciate comments, & honest critiques. I took Kathy's from my last post & agreed completely. I had actually thought the same, but was feeling too lazy to go further. After seeing what she said, I decided to get off my duff, & do what I had actually thought about before the last post. I added a strip of batting inside the lower half of the sleeve, quilted it, & folded it in half. I also painted with Lumiere & some Gel pens, to help add the the continuation of the Aurora into the sleeve area. I like it better. Thanks Kathy!

Here is the Poke blossom eco-print after washing. The dark marks to the left are from the piece of Bamboo that I had wrapped the fabric on to do the steaming. I guess bamboo dyes dark. There were also bits of small leaves from some random plant that I have on my deck that added a little touch of green spots.

I just finished 2 projects on Lilly (the longarm), & here is the next big one to do. I had a bit of a bad day yesterday when I cleaned & oiled my machine, & accidentally caught my oil rag in the bobbin hook underneath. Had to tear down the whole thing & work on getting the timing right again. It took me a few hours, but better than the days it took the lat time I did it! I swear I will never go near that thing again with a rag in my hand, while I running the machine!!!

This new quilt is the last large quilt my friend Carol Wight Jones has done. I'm honored that she is entrusting it to me. I hope I can do it justice. Carol has been a cover quilt on Quilter's Newsletter magazine. Her work is impeccable!