Here's What I've Been Doing..........................

For the past few days I've been busy sponsoring our annual January Spin-in which takes place the last full weekend in January in Destin, Florida (no better place to be in January!)! This was our 25th anniversary party and we did a little celebrating. Our theme for 2013 was Circles

We had 25 silver balloons around the room.............

Lots of silver tinsel and silver spindles to give as favors......................

And lots of good reason to be where we were.................

One creative spinner wore her reasons for being here--a different shirt for each day.

We went from an empty room

Vendors setting up their booths

 

To a full room with over 100 spinners--all there with one thing in common--spinning to have a good time!

 

Here's Where I'm At................................

White Sandy Beaches of Florida Gulf Coast.............that's where I'm at!

Chinese Textiles

A trip to China in itself is fascinating but when you can take a trip to this country and feast your eyes on your passion, that's a real bonus! Textiles! Textiles! Textiles! We had visited China a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed our time there.  Since there were only 5 of us we could voice our opinion on what we would like to see and do--well, you can do that to a certain extent.  The Chinese government will only let you see and do so much.  We wanted to see textiles.

I had put my treasures away safely and had forgotten about them until we had a fiber artists meeting this past week and our speaker had recently returned from a visit to the southern provinces of China and brought some of the textiles she had purchased on that journey. 

The stitching on these garments are absolutely fabulous!  and there is no way we would spend the time or effort doing this.

These are culture pieces, passed along from family member but the knowledge is fast fading as the younger generation want western things

These pieces of jewelry are from our speakers 'stash'  The top piece along the border is a head piece

Now, the following pieces are the ones in my collection.  Feast your eyes and senses on this handiwork from this culture

The stitching seems to contain small beads

This piece would be worn like an apron

Miao Textiles :  this book gives a good overview of this topic, but you can read online some of the history

The blue is from indigo--deep dark indigo

Shibori piece

Batik

If you have a chance to visit China, look at the textiles.  You will see many minorites wearing their treasures in various cities and small towns.

UFOs Finished!

UFO (unfinished objects) or in this case--unfinished projects. It always feels great when you can finish up a project that has been sitting around for awhile. A goal for the New Year is to finish up two UFOs before beginning a new project.

This the project for January from Patchabilities that I receive each month from Cedar Chest Quilt Shop.  I make two of these each month--one goes to brown headed kid in Colorado and the other goes to my mother, who at 92 is hard to buy for.

This is the small hanging for February.  My mother says she looks forward to seeing what each month's pattern will look like.  I'm relieved that she likes this gift!

These jockeys and shirts were a swap with other members from Scratching Post on Fatcat Patterns website.  It's free to join the group.  This long line of clothing will hang in brown headed kid's laundry room.

Finally, almost finally anyway, caught up with mystery blocks from Carol Doak yahoo group.  All are paper pieced--this one seemed to take the longest to work up.  So many pieces but it's looking good.

Another UFO finished--this one went quickly. 

This laundry hanging will go in my laundry room where I just have a small space--but what fun it will be to see these hanging on the line!

This was a swap from Denise Russart's site.  Only problem--I didn't make it in time to make the swap, but figured out a similar pattern to use.  Looks like this will be a Binky Patrol quilt. 

These were good stash busters too and easy to assemble.

FINISHED! after a year long project--the chicks are ready for the quilting needle.  Really enjoyed making these wonderful whimsical chicks from designer Sindy .  although the patterns are no longer available you can order from her site.  Now up for the next few months are colorful fish--fun and another stash buster. 

  So glad to have some UFO projects finished and ready to be quilted.  And if you think my goal of finishing two UFOs before beginning another is right on target--you are so wrong!  It ain't workin' for me--too many other things to create in order to have more UFOs!