Friday, January 25, 2013

Week in Review 2013 - 01/25




Can you guess which project this belongs to?


Rather than finish with my tip/technique/philosophy de la semaine I thought I would start with it. I am a firm believer that to be creative and to live life well the mind, body and soul must be fed. One of the ways I do this is through yoga. Not that I immerse myself in all things yoga. I do take a twice weekly class at our local YMCA. When I am stressed, stiff or pushing myself running I turn to the lessons I have learned about posture, relaxation and breathing through this class. You don't need to tie yourself into knots or do handstands to derive benefits from yoga (although my knots are looking better and I've done a handstand against a wall.) My favorite one minute break at home, in an airport or standing in line waiting is Mountain Pose. (If you skim down the link there is a visual along with a description of how to assume Mountain Pose.) The fabulous thing about Mountain Pose is that as long as you can stand you can do it. A standing ovation in Mountain Pose to my teacher Joanna Dane whose blog A Terminal Case of Whimsy shines an eye on what it is to be human and laugh about it.

Taking a deep breath, shoulders down and shoulder blades moving towards the spine, heart center raised - OK, now I'm ready to look at my goals for this past week and how I did.


My goals for the week ending January 25, 2013:

1) Shore's Edge:

The last shell to be nestled with beads
is in the upper right corner.
a) Finish beading the remaining shells on the beach panel. - I'm 1.5 shells shy.

c) Seam the beach panel to the ocean panel using the quilt as you go method. - Oops! Missed that one all together.

b) Design the foam section. - Done!

The foam has been quilted and prepared
to be added to the quilt.

d) Start quilting the foam section. Done! Actually I finished it completely.

2) Pictorial Painting

The Calla Lily BEFORE
the stems were painted.
a) Watch the next segment of how to paint the Calla Lily piece. - Done!
The Calla Lily AFTER
the stems were painted.
b) Paint the next section as instructed. - Done!

I have definitely gained confidence with my brush strokes and how much medium to add to the various values of paint. The next area of focus needs to be how to blend the paint to come up with the hue I need.














3) Express Your Love - Do whatever Leah comes up with next. - Done!

Loving the golden rays done with MacTavishing

Loved this week's assignment to add MacTavishing to some of the rays in Express Your Love. In the colored version of Leah's quilt she selected two values of blue for her sun rays. On her black quilt she quilted them with white thread. Since I have been using various hues of thread to fill in the ribbon and earth I choose to stick to colored thread. My plan is to quilt alternate rays with the yellow/orange variegated thread you see here and do the in between rays in a deeper yellow/orange/red variegated thread. Should be smashing. I am really enjoying how quilting with colored thread looks against the black background fabric.

An undocumented goal for this past week was to show marked improvement with my eczema. That has been achieved as well. Thank goodness.

My goals for the week ending February 1, 2013

1) Shore's Edge

a) Finish the beading on the beach panel.

b) Seam the beach panel to the ocean panel.

c) Applique the foam panel to the quilt.

d) Add a scattering of beads to the foam and ocean to indicate bits of foam and spray.

2) Pictorial Painting

a) Watch the segment on how to paint the flower.

b) Paint the flower.

3) Express Your Love

a) Finish MacTavishing the final six rays.

b) Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next.

I can't wait to get started.

9 comments:

  1. Whoe, sounds like an awesome week! I really like the colours on express your love against the black fabric too.

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  2. The quilting on the Express Your Love quilt is stunning!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Terrie. Of course Leah charted the way...

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  3. Thank you for this blog. I bookmarked the yoga page and the MacTavishing page. Also, I can't wait to see you finished Express Your Love quilt. It is wonderful already.

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    1. You are welcome, Regina. Love that both my plug for yoga and link to Karen MacTavish appealed to you. They seem diametrically opposed at first. But actually MacTavishing is a great way to focus on the now and go with the flow.

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  4. I love that calla lily, is that a Craftsy class? And your McTavishing looks great in the sun rays.

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    1. Yes, the Calla Lily is the first of two projects in Pictorial Painting taught by Annette Kennedy through Craftsy.com. Caveat - I was surprised by how quickly this class became expensive due to the high quality paint brushes required. Annette recommends getting them through a crafts store such as Michaels, but I found it very hit or miss which brushes they had and which they didn't. Plus the brand she recommends isn't easy to find.

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  5. I love your rays. They are wonderful. I need to get mine started. I need some help posting my links.
    I need someone to send me some steps on how to post. I go to write a new post, no trouble there, I attach my pictures. I can never seem to put in the right URL it only shows "imlaquilter.blogspot.com"
    I can't seem to get the rest of the URL. because I always seem to have my link come up saying that it can't be found, but when you click on the button that says home it takes you right to the post. Can you help. laquilt1@gmail.com

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