Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!
As for me... strange goings on here in the frozen deeps of the Utah wilderness.

Postage stamps again

I'm way overdue on making my quilt for my International Threads group; the prompt "signs and symbols" was supposed to be made by October, but for some reason I was blanking on what to do.  You know my rule is to respond to challenges only with things that are already on my mind or better yet, on my to-do list.  (Because challenges are so enticing, I have to restrain myself from going after every one that crosses my path.)  But what could I do for this theme that was already on my table?

Finally it hit me -- duh -- I should do the alphabet.  And with a bit of arithmetical fiddling I realized that I could do four alphabets, 108 letters, in my old favorite "postage stamp" format and fit them perfectly into the assigned dimensions of the quilts.  So I whipped into a frenzy of stitching over the New Year's holiday and to make my tiny "stamps."

I've made a lot of postage stamp quilts and have figured out how to crank them out almost on an assembly line, so the construction is a case of plonking down at the sewing machine, turning on trash TV and SEWING, SEWING, SEWING.  Because all the stamps are the same size, I gang them up into long rows and sew from one to the next, cutting them apart only at the very end.  One thing I love about this process is that the stamps tend to accordion-fold themselves up into a neat pile behind the sewing machine where I can't see them.  When it's time to start a new row of stitching, there they are pretty much in a little bundle!

Here they are ready to be arranged and sewed together.

And here's the finished product:

Photo suite 209 -- secret messages

I think at least one of these says "Happy New Year."

January!

Time to change your desktop calendar.

Happy New Year my friends!

Click on the image below to download from there.

Crabby at the refrigerator / Happy New Year!

NO, not crabby because there's 200 pounds of leftover turkey in the refrigerator, and no ice cream.  Crabby because at our recent retreat I discovered this new addition to the decor -- refrigerator magnets that you can use to make poetry.

I have enjoyed such toys in the past in other people's kitchens, although I've never had a set myself.  It has always been fun to write a poem while waiting for the water to boil.  But this set was suspiciously lacking in half the concepts I thought should be available to me as a poet -- especially a poet who's taking a week to focus on art.

Where is the discouragement?  Where is the frustration?  Where are the obstacles to overcome?  the problems to be worked through?  How could I write an honest poem if all the words were sappy and positive?  Would it be great art if Hamlet said, "To be, that is wonderful!  No questions!"

Don't know about you, but sometimes I have small dreams.  Sometimes I feel the urge to step right up and shout "No, I won't do it today!"

I want a poetry magnet set that allows me to write poems along the lines of :

Negative attitude
no focus, no goals
not enough determination
can't see a future
don't want to work

Tomorrow, maybe excellence
today, trash TV 
junk food and a bottle of beer.

Happy New Year!!  May 2016 have less junk food and more excellence, but let's don't get discouraged if that doesn't happen every day.