Art is Fun.....!!! My Two Cents Worth

a few of my ATCs

(Which are now living in a box...in the closet)

Once upon a time....well maybe I should say: Not once but almost always and almost upon everytime....I go off track. The result of a cluttered brain. I have a compulsion to learn and to try something new and something else...again...and again....and.....well, you get the idea.

In the beginning there was needlepoint....I made a case for my glasses (which I've since lost...the case, not the glasses) and a bargello pillow. That pillow was the end of my journey into needlepoint. I realized that I could go out and buy a piece of upholstery fabric that looked exactly like my needlepoint and it wouldn't attract moths...like the project to which I had given many hours of my life. While my bargello was hiding in a closet...it was, except for the canvas, devoured!!! Scraped clean of those tiny, woolen stitches.

Then...my mom gave me her watercolors (she liked oils better)....and I was off again. I painted and painted and then packed all of the paintings and paints into a box...and into a closet (there's something about my relationship to closets that might be interesting to explore some day). Twenty years later I found that box and had four of the paintings framed (decided that they weren't too bad after all...and they hadn't been touched by moths!).

I made a quick trip into embroidery...then decided that I needed a bigger canvas. I explored quilting. True, about it being a bigger canvas....but it also (as what doesn't?) takes a lot of time....and room. Have you ever tried to prepare a king-size quilt top for the actual quilting? The only space large enough for this process was the living room floor. My dog, Mishka (I only lived with one at that time...but he was a BIG, 100-pound, dog) and my cat, Weird ol' Willie (just take my word for it...he was) loved that part of the process. They offered themselves up as quilt sitters. I could coax Willie off of almost anything with an empty carboard box....but Mish was happiest when he sat on my quilts. I had to pin around him. He loved to help.

Cross stitch was next. Then I took up quilting again...(Mish) had taken up residence in Dog Heaven by then....and....I had purchased a very large cutting table on which to work. I made pieced quilts, then applique, then crazy (quilts...not me...not yet). Discovered that, as much as I love making quilt tops I tend to put off quilting them. Which means that I have a pretty good collection of tops and very few finished quilts.

The next adventure was in Paper. On tiny bits of cardstock or watercolor paper...2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch bits...I made ATCs (Artist Trading Cards)...hundreds of them. I even managed to trade bunches of them with other makers of ATCs. I have a huge collection....in a box....in the closet.

Such is the sad story of my creative life.I'm again heavily into Cross Stitch...but also have the urge to journal (this blog is kind of a journal, I guess) and to make ATCs and maybe even do some quilting. What I once did one-at-a-time....I can now try doing it all.

Some of it takes time....but I've got time. I'm retired!

Love Bees! Love Dogs!

Well, I've thimbled and stitched through another little project....this one measures 5"x5". It's from a book by Sheena Rogers...'Mini Cushions in Cross Stitch'. It's going to become a nice, fat pincushion!

As I sit writing this blog entry, the 5 'kids' are having adventures of their own. Heard a thump a bit ago. It seemed to interest the whole pack...so, of course they went off to investigate. Nothing happens around here without immediate investigation of the thump, the squeak, meow or chirp...any sound, in fact, usual or unusual...that occurs within ear shot (theirs, not mine) in this house. The Four-legged Doggie Detective Agency is always on the job. The chief of this little band is, of course, Mopsy Blue-eye (only one of her eyes is blue...and when viewed in the right light her face takes on the slightly sinister look of a pirate).

Today's investigation was rewarded with (now this is sad) the still-warm corpse of a Mourning Dove that, having cooed its last coo, promptly smashed, head first, into a plate glass, sliding door.

Suddenly, from the family room, came menacing growls...the kind that say: this is MINE....YOU TOUCH--YOU DIE!!!! I quickly decided that death threats take priority over blogs and went to investigate. There was Mopsy, surrounded by the other four dogs, spitting her warnings at them and jealously guarding her trophy.....inside the house, of course, and with dove feathers strewn like rose petals on the family room rug. Since I'm a lot bigger than the 5-pound Mopsy and (sometimes) have more authority...I managed to take the poor, dead dove away from her. The dove now rests in a shroud of plastic grocery bag. Until trash day on Thursday its coffin will have to be the large, Rubbermaid, garbage can...in the garage.

It's funny how quickly dogs can find other amusement. Mopsy is now contentedly chewing up a pine cone...which I'll have to vacuum off of the family room (that poor family room again) rug when she tires of this new game.