big news, little news & in between news

Its been a whirl wind of activity over here on this end. Its kept me scurrying around like a headless chicken and I've decided that today is my day to park my tush on the sofa and bond with my laptop. (I do love my laptop so. Is that wrong?)

I made a list of things that I want to blog about. Its becoming that hard to keep track - no longer can I just put it in my head and expect it to be there when the time comes that it needs to be tended to. (Not sure if that's a sign of getting older or just the fact that I find it easier to move through life with a schedule akin to a runaway train. I'll have to think on that one...I'll make a note to do that...)

Everything's been pretty exciting around here so let's get to it.

Big news!

I've been sitting on this one for a long time and I'm finally excited to be able to say: TA-DA! I've got another article in the latest issue of Quilting Arts!

I give you two guesses what the topic is (pretty sure you'll only need the one). Yup, thermofax screen printing. I am now bringing my obsession to the masses, I feel a little like Pinky and the Brain. Have a little looky:

Its a whopping five pages long and I am always so darn impressed with the beautiful layouts that QA puts together. They've got such a grand way of making everything looks its absolute best.

Don't forget that I've got tons of screens and paints in my etsy shop so if you are inclined to join me in my mad little world of screen printing, everything is there to initiate you. :)

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Semi-big news!


I sold stuff.

Last Saturday was Running with Scissors' 2nd Annual Handmade Marketplace. Here was my set-up:


Business was decent. Its only our second year so we are still working on establishing a following and getting the kinks out. I'm doing another show this coming Saturday called All the Trimmings. Its in Chelsea, MI so if you are inclined to come on by and give me a little hello, I'd be happy to see you.

At the RWS marketplace I sat next to Kate. This is both a wise and dangerous thing. Wise because Kate is about a hundred different kinds of awesome and always fun to be around. Dangerous because as soon as she put these little fellows on her table, I snatched them, growled "They're mine!" like an obsessed banshee and hid them away in my display so no one else could claim them:


I am utterly addicted to her plush piggies. Can't get enough. The one on the right is a mini - a plush piggie piglet! (Say that five times fast!) These two bring my count up to five. Now I can stack them like a cheer leading pyramid, which amuses me to no end. They hang out on top of my thermofax machine so while I fill etsy orders, I can squeeze their chubby little bodies and chuckle.

Love me the plush piggies.

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{{ In between news }}


Today was the take down day for the assemblage show Leann, Joan and I had up at the Coffee Bean for the past two months.

My kitchen table now looks like this:



Its like bringing home old friends. I'm glad to see them again. I'm bringing several with me to the show in Chelsea to maybe see if I can get them adopted out to new homes. After that, I'll get them up in the etsy shop.

The exciting news is that as a result of this show, we've been offered two more exhibits. You should see the way our eyes light up at the idea of being able to make more assemblages - bring us the weld bond!

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Little news


The thing that gets to be problematic when so much is going on is that (1) I usually can't find the time to make art and (2) domestic duties tend to suffer - which then results in a mess of impressive epic proportion.

Luckily, I have a deadline that forces me to work a small amount of art making into my schedule. I'm part of an online art quilt challenge group called 12 Connected. Every two months we post art quilts that we made based on a challenge word.

The latest word is Icon. I can't show you my whole piece just yet (it will be posted in detail tomorrow) but here is a little peek:



Layers of thermo printing. Ahhhhhhhhh...does it get any better? Check back here tomorrow for a full view and then I'll kick you on over to the group's blog to see everyone else's work. There is such a wide range of styles, diggin' it.

And yesterday I just couldn't stand it anymore, I had to clean. The first area of attack is my shipping/paint supplies for the shop. Holy cow, they manage to take over and tromp all over my OCD tendencies like you wouldn't believe.

I shifted around things on my bookshelf so I could contain the little devils:


The paint inventory is low. I have a bunch more coming. I have pretty much become one with the paint. While doing laundry yesterday, I found only a few shirts that didn't have some kind of splatter on them. No amount of aproning seems to help and since I'm not about to do screen printing in the nude, I'll have to figure something out.

I also started decorating for Christmas yesterday. My dad got me this:

The whole sleigh rocks back and forth as a music box plays Christmas music. Dr. Seuss definitely has it going on.

Okay, time to go visit my email inbox. Its taking some bravery to get in there and tackle it but I'm tougher then I look. I've got skills...