Watercolor subscription boxes

I recently subscribed to LetsMakeArt watercolor boxes.  Each month I will get a box with paint, an inspiration photo, watercolor paper, and outlines.   There is a tutorial online every Wednesday night.

So far I have done the Celestial Wolf, a pumpkin postcard, a sunflower postcard, and a Thanksgiving poster.

I haven't done watercolors in years, but I have found that the tutorials are really pretty good about explaining the whys and hows.  I may actually learn something instead of just playing around!
Anyhow, here are my first efforts.

Halloween

I don't decorate a whole lot at Halloween, as I am rarely home for the actual event.  The International Quilt Show in Houston is usually scheduled that week and I have attended all but one show for the past 30 some odd years.

But I did get all my little pieces out and pinned them to the Vanilla Quilt which is on my living room wall.

Quilts of Valor

Our quilt guild in Pflugerville honored WWII and Korean war veterans last year on Veterans Day by giving them quilts. There were only five attending. But it was a lovely ceremony and I enjoyed talking to several of them. I had made some star blocks for one of the quilts and it was nice to know that it was appreciated.

For the next year, we plan to honor Vietnam vets.

So I made this quilt and donated it. Sarah quilted it and it's ready to go.  The pattern was taken from a blog - MaryQuilts.com.

(This picture shows the completed top pinned to an existing quilt that is on my living room wall.  The vanilla-colored blocks are not part of this QoV.)













I enjoyed doing this so much that I made a set of brown and blue blocks and put them together for another QoV. This one was quilted by a fellow guild member, Sarah, as was the above rail fence quilt with stars.




This spring, the guild had a challenge and issued panels, to be made into Quilts of Valor.   Having just done several panel quilts for Christmas, I thought it would be fun.




For the Challenge, I took a flag panel.   I went through my stash and selected fabrics which played well with the panel and took the whole set to a retreat.   There, I found a border treatment I liked and computed how many units I needed.   I put all of it up on a design wall and figured out the size of the coping strips needed.  One area was too large, so I asked for help and Carolyn suggested a checkerboard.  That worked great.

My bee-sister Laura quilted this one gratis in gold thread with stars and wavy stripes.   Really looks good.

I've entered it into a local quilt show in September.  I put the sleeve on so that the field of stars is in the upper left.

At the next meeting, there were panels left over.  I took one with an eagle soaring over forest and mountains.  It was pretty dark, but I found a piece of grey that worked well and other supporting colors.   (I had bought this as part of a kit from a friend who was trying to lighten up her stash.)

Back to the design wall I went.   I made some Easy Braid again.   My friend Kitty came over one day while I worked on it.  She noted that the whole thing was pretty dark, so I looked in my batiks and found some very light cream and gray and gold strips that lightened things up a bit.  (the picture is a little lighter in person.)

Sarah quilted this one with stars.

This was so much fun I got another panel. 
I had no more of the dark gray, but had a lighter one that worked well.    Laura quilted this one with stars and circles, which echoed the backing.



These felt very good to make.  Can't wait until October, when we'll present them to VietNam veterans,

Lucy

Yet another dog portrait.  This one is of Lucy, my neighbor's dog. 
I did this last year but don't seem to have posted it before.
Lucy loves to come over and explore.   She's a very sweet dog.

 I thought, at the time, that I had done pretty well.  But now I look at it and she looks a little fierce. 

Lucy is not and will never be fierce   She's shy and sweet. 

Christmas Presents fot the Great-Grands

This summer I participated in a Panel challenge with my local quilt guild.  I made this quilt and really enjoyed the process












So I got another panel out of my fabric collection.   This one was of a road scene with buildings and vehicles.   I pulled out a set of orphan blocks and finished it.

  I used additional orphan blocks to widen the backing that I had chosen.  When my granddaughter saw it, she exclaimed that her nephew, my ggson, would love it. 


But he's two, and I knew if I gave him a quilt, his four year old sister would expect one, too.
So I found a floral panel and finished it for her.   She loves yellow, so I found a wonderful Moda Grunge yellow for the border.

Then my son-in-law (their 56yo grandfather)  got sick, had surgery, suffered a cardiac arrest, went into a coma, and passed away.

Christmas loomed and I didn't know what to give to the older two ggchildren.   Fortunately, I had given a dog-themed quilt to my local guild and was able to purchase it back.  I planned to give this one to my older ggson, age 10.

This is what it looked like when it was almost done.  Sarah Spence quilted it with cartoon puppies and bones and it looked great. 


I had a great pink/green/orange sampler top almost finished and I knew that my 12yo ggdaughter would love it.   But somehow, it got misplaced.   My sewing studio is small and fairly well organized, but that top just wasn't to be found!    So bright!   So almost finished! 

What to do!






My friends helped me search my condo for it and, although we didn't find the bright one, we found a small top that I really loved.   I hadn't had it finished because I liked it so much that I wanted to make it into a larger quilt.   So I dis-assembled it slightly, made 60 more blocks, and sewed the top together.  A local quilter did a speedy pantograph and ta-dah, it was done.

My daughter went to be with her grandchildren for Christmas.   I stayed home and took care of her dogs.   They seemed to like their quilts.

Earrings from Lizz

My great niece Lizz made me some earrings. 

Not too dangly.   Not too obtrusive. 

Just some nice little sparkle in a color that is a good one for me.