Too Many Good Times......

It seems I left my blog toward the end of October and then you know how the holidays interfere with writing. But my last ending was in the middle of the World Series and you must all know how that ended. It was a most exciting time for someone who has watched practically every single game for the last, at least 3 years. And, also to understand how very unbelievable all who were long time or good fans could hardly believe it. It really was unbelievable as each game most of us knew it would be lost, so to see so many wins was as I said 'unbelievable'.

Then came Thanksgiving and one granddaughter (theVirginia granddaughters) all are big fans so Alexandria designed a World Series Thanksgiving dinner centerpiece. There were so many things to see it really takes a hundred pictures but there isn't room so just a couple here.

The table seated 15 or so.... 

Hundreds of baseballs in varying sizes used a place cards, also.

The Nats and their WS trophies in three sizes, 

this is Pennsylvania Avenue where the parade took place....

so there was the pink fog sprinkled all over the gray street.

It took studying the whole centerpiece to see all she included.

Then for Christmas I received

 The BOOK

 And for my desk

And for my head.

Please forgive my over abundance of Nats cheering....

There was more going on during the last couple of months.

Christmas followed Thanksgiving.

One day spent at the National Gallery to celebrate Caroline Fogg's birthday.

All the Christmas flowers shown in the atrium, always beautiful.

I chose this year to give some of my art as gifts. 

I spent a lot of time choosing the artwork and then 

writing letters to explain why 

I chose a specific item for each recipient.

Included here are some I gave.

Those above are all colored pencil drawings.

And, to end todays blog

 some of the stitched and embroidered gifts.

That is enough for one day but a lot more

 needs to be written, images, and information, given 

to give this blog a reason to come back to find out more.

I will be back and, much sooner.

A small gift

During a day at the National Gallery of Art I was enjoying 

seeing many  trees like this surrounding 

the center fountain in the rotunda.

 Seeing all the decorations there and then 

at our daughter and son-in-law's (Vicky and Alan Fogg) home,

I found an acrylic painting I had created,

 probably 50 years ago.

 That made me think of the many gifts I used to make

when our children and their cousins were small.

Thinking of the three tiny great-grandchildren we now have 

there is one great granddaughter, now two years old.

 So, I thought she might be the one I could make something simple for.

Found this small soft knit dress that was cotton 

but it needed a bit of decorating. 

 These fictional butterflies have been machine embroidered 

and are pinned on styrofoam and drying. 

(I always boil away the stabilizer I use 

when embroidering on the sewing machine)

 Sewing them on to a knit fabric is not an easy trick. 

I did not want to put a stiff non-woven fabric on the inside 

of the dress so used lots of paper, inside, during the sewing of the butterflies. 

This then took tweezers to pull out all the bits of paper. 

No child wants bits of paper inside their clothing 

and their Mother does not want bits of paper in the laundry.

So I hope it works, fits, and wears well.

This tree with gifts was at the Fogg's home 

where we spent the day having lots of fun, much gift opening,

 and wonderful holiday meals. 

Their home has festive (not Festivus) decorations in every room.

To end the year in humor or humour since this

Aphorism came from a grand daughter (Hayley Adams) 

who had found a box of these aphorisms in London.

From Anton Chekov (1860 - 1904)

"Any idiot can face a crisis.

It is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

Have a creative 2019

Cheers

Chaos in the Studio

It seems that this is the season when the studio is taken up 

with more than creative work, unless one 

considers the enjoyment of gift wrapping.

 Bringing many ribbons, both old and new, to the table,

 I really enjoy recycling everything I can find.

Saving gift wrap from past years is fun to view once again.

I enjoy using old maps and the colored comics,

 plain brown paper and piecing together magazine pages

and so much more.

In the future I may take some photos of flowers and 

print them for gift wrap.

But for now I am finishing up the gift wrapping for this year.....

ALMOST!

CHEERS

Post Christmas and Happy New year

Christmas is over and New Years Eve is almost here.

This is such a busy time of year there hasn't been much time for creative 

art work in the studio. Except, for gift wrapping, which I love 

and cooking and baking, which I like sometimes.

Today, after clearing my desk, I decided to look at some reference photos

 as they, sometimes, stimulate an idea or two for my studio time.

Here are a few I was wondering about. 

You will see during the next few months whether any of these images 

put an idea into my thinking and hands when working in the studio.

Let's hope 2016 brings peace to some war torn places in the world.

Happy New Year

Happy Busy Holidays and more!

Not much creative time during this season 

as the studio turns into a wrapping, not rapping, room.

 Going from neat wrapping to chaotic finishing .....

the life of a studio is continually changing.

 Only one embroidered card this year....... 

the tree is embroidered with a photographic background.

 The tree was copied for a few more cards.

A colored pencil drawing on Vellum of a friend's dog

was the extent of studio time for the past week.

Creativity returns to the studio in the near future.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas

Season's Greetings