Christmas coming soon

Time to get cozy

Winter is here 

Christmas is in 3 days.

Are you ready?

Sharing images from the internet.

I love red foxes. 

Merry Chrisrtmas

Christmas Morning and just the right amount of snow

to make the kids happy,

The food is all cooking.

I am resisting the urge to go to the studio

just for one hour.

What could it hurt? 

No NO No

Not a good idea.

I think I will get everything wrapped up

Clean myself up and sit and read a

book if there is any free time left.

Much safer. 

I will work on the purple quilt Thursday.

Marry Christmas

Wishing all of you a very Marry Christmas.

Enjoy the holidays. Make lots of good food,

smile a lot and give lots of hug.

My love to all of you on this Christmas Eve.

Over the river and through the woods.

Over the river and through the woods

to Grandma's house they will come on Tuesday.

Hopefully I will be ready.

I will double check everything today.

The menu, the stockings and the food.

The luxury of being done early.

I think I may go to the studio and play today.

Why wait until after Christmas.

With the weather we are supposed to have today

it will be good to stay home.

I had hot chocolate and bonquet for breakfast.

Bonquet is a dutch pasty made with almond paste

and a flaky buttery crust shaped into a tube.

Delicious.

First I must clean the kitchen it took a beating

yesterday. All the food packet are delivered or mailed.

Now just to straighten up and I will have

3 days to play.

Christmas is getting closer.

I finally got out my collection of nativities.

I love the colors of this one.

As you can see in the background no snow yet.

Thank goodness.

My youngest son decided to build his own house.

He read a few books.

Good thing his father worked for a carpenter.

Plus his older brother has a strong back.

Yesterday they set the main beam

A 3000 pound giant.

I am glad I did not know they were doing it.

This is really a job for a crane.

But they got it up there.

Braced it good.

than it got really windy.

This morning my husband said "no phone call'

It must have stayed up there.

Now  to set the trusses on a 12/12 pitch.

I wil have an ulcer before this project is done.

Celebrating Christmas

 A little more of Holiday decor,

this is part of my Santa collection.

I love the color  green.

 Home is where the heart is.

Have a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas is for the birds.

 After looking at Frieda Anderson's Santa collection

on her blog Friestyle.

I thought I would share some of my bird (obsession)

I meant collection. I love birds.

At Christmas I decorate with birds.

 This is my Christmas tree it is only 3 ft tall.

The perfect size to put me in the Holiday spirit,

It is covered in cardinals.

 A day would not be complete without watching the birds

out my kitchen window which is decked out in more birds.

My husband made me a new bird feeder this winter.

Its really a small house for the birds.

Now all we need is some snow.

Blog interrupted by Christmas

I don't know about you but I am busy.

Cleaning the house

Making food

Buying food

Going to rehab for a frozen shoulder.

Following up with the foot doc for

a fix on each foot.

Trying to do the above with bad feet

not able to use my right arm too well.

Sounds like usual for an person of age.

always something.

It will be good though.

Christmas is always good

Besides I have a son and grandson who

work in catering on week-ends

who will come early Sunday morning and

make magic in my kitchen.

I just need to purge the place of my junk.

Piece of cake.

After all I got 5 days to do it.

A busy day at Cedar Ridge

Back in the studio to make some more small art quilts.

I had request for another open house so I will be

open on Saturday the 10th  10 am to noon.

You will really see my studio as it usually  looks'

I started several new projects.

I am going to leave it all out.

Lose too much time cleaning  I need to get

some presents done.

I will be doing small quilts form this painting.

I love the fall colors and so do my clients.



Sunday Solitude

Sunday is such a great time of recharging.

Last nights concert at the Bluegate was awesome.

5  piano's at one playing music.

Definitely going back next December for the Christmas show.

Enjoy the day.

Morning at the ridge

 Finally the Studio is clean and everything priced.

I always allow myself 2 days to recoup from getting ready.

I want to enjoy the day with my friends and neighbors.

This painting in the metal frame is my favorite.

Next is the Adam and Eve pottery duo.

This morning will I will take care of the small details.

Tonight is our Art League meeting I must

prepare the agenda and get organized for that.

We will be looking forward to next summers show

Under Indiana skies.

I think I will surprise them with a Christmas ornament.

I am thinning out my Christmas stash so it is easy to share.

Have a great day I plan too.

A early start to the day at Cedar Ridge

Started at 4 this morning cleaning the studio

and setting up my displays for the Open House.

Saturday will be here before I know it.

I love cardinals they are so bright in the landscape.

I love all my birds.

They eat better than we do at times.

The woodpeckers, blue jays,titmouse's and chickadees

have been very hungry.

I switched to solid block bird feed.

They perch on it and work the seeds loose.

Fun to watch.

Well I had better get back to the studio to finish up.

I plan to be finished by noon today.

Than I can spend tome making

some more landscape quilts.



Setting up for the open house.

My knock out rose bush doesn't know its time to quit.

The spot of bright red in the garden is nice.

Today My grandson and I will be setting

the studio up for the Holiday open house.

Andrew is such a help.

He can put up with grandma changing things midstream.

He told me I get from 9 to noon is all.

So we will be busy.

Decorating for Christmas and hanging art.

The open house is November 19th,25th and the 26th.

10 am to 3 pm.

at Cedar Ridge Studio located in DeMotte, In.

We hope to have maybe 4 shops in the area participate.

Directions will follow next week.



Cedar Ridge Studio

 New and improved sewing station but

 I miss looking out the window.

Sewing is hard with the sun in your eyes.

When the sun changes elevation I can go back.

I did get another 12 small photo quilts

stitched so this morning I will mat them.

Got a roast cooking in the crock pot

to add to the beef and noodles

I will serve at Christmas to

the 35 or so guest.

That is why I start early

with the food preparation.

We usually have a feast.

Going to be a rainy day so it is a good

studio day. 

Have a good one.

Whats new at Cedar Ridge.

               Thought you might enjoy last years Christmas card. I made 10 different watercolors.

      The female Cardinal is back at the bird feeder my husband made  from a plastic saucer.
 
           The Junco, female Cardinal and the Downy Woodpecker enjoying the sunshine today,

            Another of my presents to me. two small art quilt collages from Virginia Spiegel.

           You would think I had enough of Christmas but my daughter
           and I went in search of next years Christmas presents at 75%  off.
           When you do 30 stockings you can never start too early.

Recyle Art

One of my artist friends sent me some photos of  scrap art. I though this was a clever use of spark plugs.

Tuesday the 21st and the days will get longer from this point.
 Another 4 inches of snow and more to come on the weekend.
Finishing off the stockings today all 28 of them. And the Dirty Gerty  gifts- a good way to regift.
We do Christmas different at our house. Instead of gifts I do stocking for everyone.
Our family and guests have to bring a $10 wrapped gift that we put in a pile and play Dirty Gerty. Everyone gets a number and you hope for the last number. When your number comes up you pick a gift but you don't always get to keep it because someone can take yours instead of grabbing from the pile. That's why you want to be last.
Of course we salt the pile with things like the belly dancing kit ( a older single man got that one)
The henna rub on tattoos ( 89 year old Reka picked that one year)
The year of the marshmallow guns was fun I found dry-ed miniature marshmallows for  several months after Christmas.
There are always some beautiful items the ladies take from each other like last year the beautiful throw.
Looking forward to Saturday to see  what  will be in the pile this year.

Day 5 of Totes

 Day 5 and only one more to go. This is Betty's tote At Easter she picked out the fabric.

The guinea hen fabric for the pocket gave this tote some personality.

I am looking forward to getting back to painting after so much sewing.

See you on Monday for the finish

The chapel at Camp Mack in Milford has beautiful stain glass windows.

I spent the week-end at a retreat with The Midwest Collage Society at Camp Alexander-Mack and had a really nice time.

Learned some new techniques, took lots of pictures and made some new friends. These artist are so talented.

The upcoming Holiday shows will keep me busy until December.

Sunsets are one of my favorites. At Camp Mack last weekend the sun setting over the lake was special.

My newest series of landscapes done in silk and beads. I made the four seasons. The one on the left is Spring. The art quilt on the right is one of the animal print series. These are about 5" by 7" and are fun to do. The PAC Holiday show is this week-end and these will be featured alone with my one of a kind greeting cards. The show is in Rensselaer, Indiana at the Lillian Fendig gallery. Friday 6pm to 9 pm and Saturday 8:30 am to 3 pm.Lots of fine arts to see.

I do rust dyed fabric paintings. I combine the fabric with rusty items like barb wire to create a unique art object. The large red & white painting with barb wire would go nicely in a rustic setting.