Sold A Photograph!

And then it got picked for a treasury, the very next day.

Coincidence?

Anyway, I'm just so happy someone liked my amateurish photography enough to buy it!  The original was 8x10, but she requested a custom listing of 5x5.  Fortunately, it looks good in both formats.

It's a geranium leaf from a potted plant in out patio last summer, just after some rain.

Sometimes a piece of work just gets stuck, and I begin to wonder if it's gone to Never Land (as in never to be retrieved).  Sometimes, though, it suddenly falls into place after a long, long time in limbo.

That's what happened with Perpetual Astonishment, and that's what happened with this piece.

I call this one Comet.

And you can get it here!

My favorite blues...and they look amazing in that dark wood frame. 

I think I need some red now, though!

Perpetual Astonishment

For months (months!!!)  I've had a painting hanging in our living room - unfinished.  No one seemed to be able to tell, but everytime I looked at it I cringed.  I knew I needed to work on it, but that canvas is two feet square.  I didn't want to do it section by section.  It would look so weird, plus I don't work like that.  So it languished there on the wall.  In this state:

This is a very bad shot, and not taken in natural light, but you get the picture.

So yes, I just stopped looking at it.  Lately though, I've been working with my sewing machine, and really enjoying it too.  Ironically, making fabric jewelry somehow inspired me to get back to this painting, and two days ago I just pulled it down and finished it - just like that!

And in a matter of hours, this is what it became:

Our wall just got a makeover!!!

I've replaced a lot of my favorite turquoise (which is color of the year this year!) with intense red and orange, but it's making the blue pop even more.

I call it Perpetual Astonishment (you'll find out why!), and you can get it here.

Naturally, all that painting has inspired me with more fabric jewelry ideas.  Weird, huh?

In The Bag!

OK - not completely: I'm still learning how to make a little purse, but sitting down (a lot of sitting down!) and actually making one taught me a couple of things that I now know how to fix in my next one.  Like sewing the lining part separately from the outside part and then inserting the lining into the outside part, and then sewing them together!  I also didn't have a clasp available so until I put one in (I'm thinking just a plain magnetic closure) this purse doesn't close...

But this was a weekend's worth of work for me - all those little bits first patched together, then the outlines to each shape, for which I used a variety of methods: handsewn bunched up strip of fabric - those puffy ones that you see - cord, twisted bits of fabric and well, more cord.  I tried riboon too but the width didn't look right so I took it off.  Also I could have used more layers of fabric sewn together for the handles but my back was starting to give out and I just used wide brocade ribbon instead.

And oh yes, each side has its very own metallic brown rose!

I love crazy quilting, and this was my very first time doing it.

I'm so happy with it!

My very first bag, and that too a crazy-quilted patchwork one!

YAY!