Friday, January 29, 2010

When I decided to publish my blog, one of my friends asked me "Why" would I want to "share" this??
Well several reasons actually: firstly I wanted to let my Minnesota and Arizona family and friends know what I have been up to, and for them to see pictures. I get emails from some friends that only forward joke type emails to me, never tell me how they are doing etc. Now they have no reason to say "Liz we haven't heard from you in so long." But I can say that to them. My good friend Debbie from Arizona, has been doing a blog for some time, and I check hers every day, it keeps us connected, I really look forward to reading hers.

Secondly, it brings me back to this image that I have had for along time in my head, now close your eyes and picture this, you are on the Australian Outback, or Nunn Colorado for that matter, on the prairie, it is winter, and the landscape is desolate and barren. Everything is brown. there is a woman standing all alone on her covered porch, looking off onto the horizon. Her hair is pulled up into a bun, but still looks disheveled with tendrils of hair hanging out around her face like English Ivy. Her sun tanned face is etched with wrinkle lines, worn by time, as a single tear streams down that weathered face and drops on to the sun beaten boards of her porch, like an Arizona rain( one drop every 6 inches, my dad always tells me.) She is dressed in drab pioneer type grey skirt down to around her ankles, with pleats almost thread bare from over use and over washing, her brown colored blouse being in the same shape. As she takes her knobby overworked hands and straightens out her skirt, I see her face, it has a somewhat maniacal expression to it. Her problem being---no creative outlet!!!That is why I do this blog, I have always enjoyed writing and need the outlet, and at what better time to do it than my time off. Oh, the lady, maybe she just finished carrying water out to her livestock,or is watching for her man to come home! Had you going however.
Another good reason is I am forgetting how to spell, have you every watched the show "Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader"???Most of the time I am not! Yikes!!!!!Also,I hope to now and then put a smile on your face, and Lord knows, my wheels are always spinning.

Now for quilting. When I lived in Benson Arizona, I joined a small quilt club, when they first saw my Minnesota quilts they said "you have no color!" so this quilt in purple, orange and green was born. It is very lovely, I just finished quilting it after having it sit for years undone. I recently joined a stash buster club, and had to write down all my unfinished projects that I have lying around. Needless to say I have 14+, hence the finishing up of my purple quilt. I call it Lazy Daisy quilt in Arizona. I machine quilted it myself with lazy daisy's, it turned out pretty nice.
Then I was really on a roll, this next quilt is a scrap quilt that was an Arizona challenge to use everything in my stash to create this quilt. I could not purchase anything, no thread, pattern fabric etc. I even quilted this myself, I started it years ago, and due to my stash buster club, just finished it a week ago. This quilt is called Kansas Troubles and has a couple thousand pieces. I plan to count all the pieces and then put that on the label on the back.
While in Arizona, I also did a Baltimore album quilt,

and also a block exchange quilt, my requests from the members was houses or trees, in Minnesota colors so this quilt was born. I added sashing that looked like your were looking out a window to the outside, this might be hard to see on picture, I also appliqued flowers on a vine to give it more pizazz.
I was very productive with the help of my Arizona friends, and I have taken on quilt challenges that I never would have dreamed of. thank you Sally and Sandy for all your tutelage!

This is a picture of a lacy scarf that I just finished knitting, it is yarn from my herdsire Pulitzer Prize. It is very close to cashmere in appearance. I spun this yarn myself. It is going as a gift to my Mom.

AS I went out to do chores this am, it was 19 degrees no wind, but a heavy fog had set in during the night. This is a picture off my deck, looking north. Well needless to say, I won't be standing out here with a maniacal look on my face, at least until the fog lifts!!!!
More latter.

No comments:

Post a Comment