Thursday, February 29, 2024

I Like Thursday # 391 fave dinner , quotes, bridgerton era dresses, and one naughty poodle

 

welcome to this week's list of likes. I have had this metal sculpture (made from barrels that float ashore in the carribean, for so long. I still just love it, the colors the symbolism the irregularities and that is was made from unwanted metal.On with the show.
 
Happy leap day/year... does that mean anything to y'all?

A couple days of cooler weather in the midst of mid 60's all thru January and February, when it used to snow thru May in the front range of the Colorado Rockies. Just a few years ago, now we've fallen off a cliff of heat which does not bode well for us. We like cold more than hot
one day of wet snow, and it is nearly melted not 24 hours later, weekend temps near 70

My ornament boxes from a sale at Home Depot came, so time to finally pack away xmas ornaments
holds 64 ornaments!

Reading

on ebook 
The Proof of the Pudding - Bowen, Rhys 
finished on audio, recent in series by Ellie Alexander bake shop mystery
Catch Me If You Candy - Alexander, Ellie

 TV

little by little a few shows are returning, like The Good Doctor,  Survivor, American Idol
 

  quote

"“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”" Friedrich Nietzsche 

 quote:

If you have nothing to hide, there is no reason not to be transparent 

 -Mohamed ElBaradei-

Quote

ursula wolfe rocca 
 

Yum 

I like our homemade cinnamon rolls... the secret to making them like cinnabon is cream poured on just before baking. I did a cream cheese buttercream icing too. 
 


ahem, I assume I'm not getting one? this is inhumane punishment since I've been sniffing them for hours!

Mama: you can taste the icing...

mmmph, lick lick, just as I thought, delish!

 

actual 1800's gowns in a person's manor house closet



 a good thing

 we were out for a walk, in the "now summer all year long colorado" when we noticed new to us neighbors. 

they were doing spring yardwork, and we all chatted a good 15 min. I LOVED them... they moved into the house formally owned by Milo's friend Murphy, and we started over my mention of the apple trees that are so fruit laden every year. I remember when Murphy's mom planted them. 

The new neighbors said feel free to pluck some when you walk by! I said, the previous owner never offered, and well we found so much common ground. It didn't hurt that the woman said Milo is so cute and a standard poodle right? 

They were so friendly and such a relief from our usual belligerent neighbors, that I said maybe there's hope. I repeated their names three times. Now I think (awesome) Amber and (Native) Nick like a dancer taught me years ago. Associate a name with a same first letter adjective. 

 Our Prompt this week

if you came home to a beautiful multi- course meal made by your husband (let's assume he can cook) what would you hope it was? What would be your favorite meal? If it's too much of a stretch that he made it, assume he got if from a favorite restaurant? Tell us what the courses are... 

I think he might have to get this from Little Italy in Baltimore (so it's not happening) 

starters a shrimp in a bread bowl coated in garlic cream sauce for starters

a beautiful tossed salad 

Chicken marsala with lots of sauce, bread to dip in it, mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus  

some kind of decadent amaretto cake for dessert with a nice espresso

rose champagne from Lake placid to sip through the meal... 

ahhhhh

Milo's moments

sometimes I have remorse so I lie down til it goes away

I was looking for a certain photo of baby milo and ran across this post, and laughed and laughed (now that he's grown) please enjoy

https://lapaylor.blogspot.com/2018/03/ 

 

please visit these people to see what they liked this week! let me know if you did a post to include 

https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/  

grammajudyb.blogspot.com

https://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/


 
 
   LINKING WITH 

               friday smiles

 

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Creativity this week: 4 challenges, some paintings, and a workshop



whew! completed 4 challenges, painted a bit, and took a workshop on writing/ illustrating a novel. 

It  required all my creativity!   

Click on images to enlarge them

Let's start with the Project Quilting piece. The prompt was "hourglass" and we had one week to design, make and finish it. Here is my finished project

It will hang in my studio, reminding me of the speed of time (tempus Fugit ) that artists are happy when they are creating

I started with cutting two triangles of peltex stiff stabilizer, covering them with backing brought to the front

choosing which of my paintings on fabric to use took thought

I love both these little pieces, it was hard to commit to using them. They both glisten with metallic paints, now with mylar glitter thread for the free motion quilting, and sparkle of beads hand sewn on.


I put the painted fabric on top of the triangles and stitched around finishing the edges. The two triangles were stitched together after quilting. A backing covered strip of peltex was sewn across the join. The flowers are from the scrapbook section of michaels, made of paper but quite sturdy, I hand stitched them on. The hanger is a scrap of "mother of the bride" fabric.

embellishments not used

I love it, it's going to look pretty on my wall, is about 9" long, about 6 " wide

next up is using the same colors, but paint on paper...

I used my Kuretake impressionist watercolor palette for all three. The bottom one was to clean my brush between colors but I love how it looks like a forest! My kind of colorful forest! 

After painting all the colors as a leaf, to test them, I went around them with a poem

leaves of colors and alive, blooming, feathers of trees that can't fly because they are rooted to the ground. Can trees feel the fluttering leaves of color...

I was listening to a video of a woman reading our daily angel cards, and these messages came through for me... I wrote in different directions, turning the paper, filling in with different pens, until I was spent. Then I over painted in the impressionist paints, and put in a flower and leaves. I love the look of painting in letters, and around them positive and negative space. I like having the messages available in this form, sitting in front of the computer to remind me I am a spiritual entity living in a body. 

Next up is the stay at home round robin for this week. The prompt was "4" VERY open to interpretation

these are my rows this week, on the left and bottom, 4=patch blocks done two ways

I admit I spent more time trying to figure out how to keep my quilt integrated while adding in a 4 patch, I tried several renditions before settling on these fabrics, sizes, and shapes. 


I thought I would insert the green and white blocks next to the sunflower blocks (cut at 2.5") but that white wasn't balanced with the big trellis, so I repeated the center green fabric instead. The green on the white 4 patches repeated from the last row added, keeps it integrated. I'm in love with that white print!

I have stopped short of attaching the last 3 rows to my center, just sort of waiting... There is one more row to go in this challenge, but I had one week to do this row and met the challenge!

finally, I used red scraps this week, for rainbow scrap challenge, and did Joy's Table Scraps challenge to use scraps/ red/ and a heart

I drew in the two hearts with fabric markers!

I didn't want another little quilt, so I decided to make a book to hold hand embroidered works...

I layered a backing fabric, a batting, and two pieced of peltex along the edge that would be stiff enough to be the books cover, leaving a strip along the spine, without peltex, so I can stitch in pages of embroidery as I make them


two little flowers stitched on after quilting

had to include some hand embroidery, right?

a wee button for a closure! Ain't she sweet???

Inside of the book,

pretty threads to use for embroidery pages!

linking with

Sahrr round 5

table scraps 

Project Quilting 


design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts

https://songbirddesigns.blog/monday-musings-6-26-23/ 

finished or not

https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thursday, February 22, 2024

I Like Thursday # 390 favorite couples, fine dining, art and a poodle

 

one of my little paintings this week
really light on likes this week, but here goes

 We made zucchini bites again this week, this time using the little muffin size and they came out perfect!It made 16 small bite sized (two bites) appetizers and we had them during the week with my dip made of yogurt, onion powder, garlic powder, and chives. 



I tried making some lemon mousse this week, 

 

I chilled it in a bowl before making a more fancy presentation

fresh lemon juice and I added in some zest

sugar, water, (arrowroot to thicken instead of corn starch) 

cream whipped with sugar and almond extract.

 Recipe : Here on youtube

 

I like my calendar art this month 

 Watching on video

time to clean up around here (short video funny)

https://youtube.com/shorts/ruZiHafJXoQ?si=PM82cAOXMh-Jvg8i

 prompt this week

who is your favorite TV or movie fictional couple? Why do you like them? if not a tv/movie fan, what about books? 

here is a whole episode  on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbhzIqeK_EM

I like the banter on Mad about you... it felt like real marriages. I loved the scene where Paul says something negative about Jamie, she says something like well I do "whatever" and he says, "but it's Okay"... I also refer to the Thanksgiving episode of him offering to help, he starts to cut carrots and 

is S L O W  and she says, you can't go too fast, and that's our experience here too!

Luke and Lorelei on Gilmore Girls... better together both of them

Baby and Danny in Dirty Dancing, the actors didn't like each other but that didn't stop the on screen chemistry from being really hot.  I liked that they judged each other on character not economic lines

the Birdcage... love knows no bounds

Milo's moments
I could eat what's left, so you don't have to put it away!

Mama: Milo! Milo! Where are you??? Oh, what are you doing in the studio without me?
 
that gray pile of blankets is my dog
 Milo: Huh? just a little after lunch nap Mama... I know you come up here after lunch, I just beat you this time! Ha ha I'm first! Just like every time we go up the stairs, I always beat you and get there first! 

Mama: yep, you're fast. Is it because you're young or that you have 4 legs ? 

I covered him up when I found him
 Milo: we all have strengths and weaknesses like I don't have thumbs... the things that help you make food, speaking of which why don't you bake something for us? 

Mama: you had a zucchini bite... 

Milo: sure but only one and it was gone in a flash while you took a long time to eat yours. The way I see it, I should have as many as it takes to finish eating at the same time as you.

Mama: hmmm well I don't think that logic will hold up, as Daddy eats as fast as you do 

Milo: all I know is you are a good cook, and I want all the food you make! 

please visit these folks to see what they liked this week, and see what tv or movie couples they like

if you do a post let me know to add your link in

https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/  

grammajudyb.blogspot.com

https://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/


 
 
   LINKING WITH 

               friday smiles