I have been working on the site over the last week, adding some gallery pages.  There were so many drawings, paintings, quilts, and Temari balls in the blog postings that I decided to collect them so that they would be more accessible.  I hope that my readers will find this interesting. The gallery pages are not all done yet.

Painting

The painting I am working on now, Mother and Child, is going very slowly. I find myself redoing sections over and over, trying to get them to reflect my vision of them. Right now there is no part of it that I would show to others – I must keep refining and adjusting. I am learning a lot from this painting, partly because I am deviating from my reference in places.

I have been looking at the work of two artists – Solly Smook the painter and Bisa Butler who is a fiber artist. I would recommend their contemporary work to anyone who admires artistic courage and vision.

Quilting

I am still working on the free-motion quilting of the quilt I am making for a friend. Progress is slow – I am only a beginner in free-motion quilting.

I completed the straight stitching last week and took a bit of time to decide how to quilt the rest of it. There should be some quilting every few inches to hold the batting in place. The designs are done in black thread so it is hard to see, but the pictures show the simple designs I am doing for the border and the dark squares. The border is on the left.

   

Knitting

I got a request for some knitted dish cloths, so I have been working on them in my spare time. I had forgotten how restful simple knitting can be, restful and soothing. My hands keep busy and I can keep my mind busy at the same time, listening to an audio book, a movie, or a show. The dish cloths are a simple pattern called Gramma’s Dishcloth by PJ Allen on Ravelry.

The pattern is well written and works up quite quickly. I am using Bernat Handicrafter 100% cotton yarn and should be able to get 4 to 6 cloths out of a 12 ounce or 340 gram ball.

I really like using multicolored yarn. It is fun seeing how the streaks of color form as you knit.