Art Calendar Journal - November

Now, here's November.  I really have lost steam for creating these calendars by this time and sadly, it shows.  **sigh**  What a turkey I am.

 

 

 I'll have to brighten it up with some colorful markers for the journaling.  It's hard to believe the holidays are upon us once again .....already.  Time passes so slowly as a child and waaay too quickly as an adult.  Where is the fairness I ask you?! 

 

 

October really was trying to fly by as fast as it could.  I struggled to keep up with my daily blocks. 

 

 

That would be why the lack of some creative journaling that could have been really fun being Halloween month.

 

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - N

We've been assigned the letter N for this fortnight.

I've chosen the word(s) next-door

 

 

 

Boy was this one fun to do!  I do love making these tracing paper houses.

 

 

xxx

Annie 

 



Happy Halloween!

I have been sewing for like, ever, but only blogging for a couple of years.  So, I thought I'd share some of my older Fall and Halloween themed projects.

My most favorite Fall wall hanging.

 

 

A fun skinny wall hanging 

 

 

A mug rug to test the spider pattern before the wall hanging.

 

I couldn't seem to get enough of those spiders...a postcard too.

 

 

My Halloween Squared quilt

 

A friend of mine made those gorgeous pumpkins for me.

 

From the quilt scraps I made this table mat.

A mug rug for a swap.  I don't think it was appreciated but I thought it was pretty fun.



 

Another wall hanging

 

and another

 

A couple of small accent pillows

 

 

 Wishes for a beautiful Fall and a wickedly Happy Halloween!

xxx

Annie 

 



Altered Dictionary - L

This time the altered dictionary letter is L

and my word choice is Look

 

 

No fancy new word to learn but it was fun putting the scene together.  I wanted to put the word in the window but it was too far down the page to work it out nicely.

 

I've only 5 more letters to complete this year long alpha challenge.  And after that, only about 950 pages remaining to be altered.  hahaha  I've got a feeling my followers will be glad when I'm done posting these (me too!).  But I'm at least back at my sewing machine part of the time too.

 

Enjoy today!

xxx

Annie



Some Postcards

I have been inexcusably lax in mailing out some postcards.  I've been a bit lax in making them as well, but I do have a few I haven't mailed yet.

 

Who's There? (paper)

 

Blue Chip (fabric)

 

Ma'am (paper)

 

Big Catch (paper)

 

and finally,

 

Share Space (fabric)

 

Have you seen one you like?  If you have, tell me which one and in a few days I will choose recipients and mail them out.

 

This favorite, Sissy, has already been mailed to Renee. 

It is a fabric postcard printed from the Sissy envelope that never arrived to Renee.  I wrote on the postcard that I hoped the postcard would find her since the envelope did not.  I hoped to make the postal system feel guilty for poor delivery and apparently it worked. :-)

 

Whatever it takes to create a good mail day **heehee**

 

xxx

Annie



Pretty Pinwheels

 

Once upon a time, there was a quilter named Annie...  I love pinwheels.  They are my all time favorite block.  Every fabric collection is considered for a pinwheel quilt.  But none has ever been right.

Until one day in February, Carol and I decided to purchase and split a Fat Eighth bundle called 2wenty Thr3e.

When my now Fat Sixteenth arrived, I knew it would be my long awaited pinwheel quilt.  BUT would there be enough fabric for enough pinwheels to make a quilt?

It was March when I finally decided on a design plan.  I actually NEVER have a total design plan...only a start.  I then dive in and fly the rest of the way by the seat of my pants.  I decided to make both 6.5" and 4" pinwheels.  The 4" pinwheels would be sashed with two different widths and then turned and placed at random between the 6.5" pinwheels.

Then a border of all the 4" pinwheels again.  It turned out to be the perfect sized throw quilt for me.  As I prefer quilts as accessories to beds and chairs and such rather than as a bedspread, I couldn't be happier.

I still had small scraps of all the fabrics and decided on a pillow.  But not with tiny pinwheels!  Just some small squares placed in a fractured arrangement.

I wasn't sure about not using pinwheels in the pillow, but it turns out that I love the design contrast.

 

 

I am SO happy to have my pinwheel quilt!  And even happier that I'm completely happy with my end result...even seven months after it's start.  **sheesh!**

 

 

 

It doesn't bother me at all that this looks more like summer than fall.  I prefer summer and I'm happy enough to hang on to it as long as possible.

xxx

Annie



Art Calendar Journal - October

I finally brought myself to try a month of non-regimented days and weeks.  It only took me until

October

to brave this change.

 

 

It will be interesting to see how these blocks look filled in.

 

Here is how September has come out.

 



May October be filled with wonderfully wicked fun!

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - J

J

is the assigned letter for this fortnight for the altered dictionary alpha challenge.

 

Jockey is my word choice.

 

 

Off to the races!  Not really.

xxx

Annie



Mail Art Storage

I thought I'd done quite well when I found and bought a small trunk style box for storing my received mail art.  And I had.  Until Carol's envelopes started getting larger.

 

And larger. 

 

 

So back I went to purchase the next size up just for mail art from Carol.

 

 

All better now and plenty of room for more!

 

 

 

Good mail day!

xxx

Annie

 

Altered Dictionary - G

This fortnight's letter G is brought to you by

The Craft Barn 

I chose the word

Goggles

This dictionary has so many illustrations of its own that it's challenging to add my own.  I used the stamped chevrons to hide a golfer and a gondola. 

Here's lookin' at ya!

xxx

Annie





Altered Dictionary - Z

Z is for Zeppelin

 

I must post quickly, as a new letter will be assigned on the morrow!  I so wanted to choose the word zip or zipper, but neither is in this dictionary...w h a t ???

 

I procrastinated this time around because first I needed a proper amount of time to grieve for the absence of the word zip.  Besides that, I wanted to sew pinwheels.  In the end I took the easy route and chose zeppelin on the very last page of this dictionary.

 

 

Ok, now back to my pinwheels.......................

 

xxx

Annie 

Art Calendar Journal - September

September
 

has arrived and I'm on the search for bits of enjoyment in each day. 

 

 And here is August all completed for my snoopy readers...yeah, you know who you are.  LOL 

There are a couple of days I didn't want to share so they have the large 3 and 8 covering them.  I know, the 8 is upside down.  But they're just laid over the writing for your entertainment, so no worries.

Here's to enjoying our September days!
xxx
Annie



Fall Leaves

This little abstract Fall Leaves quilt started out as a pillow.  I laid it over a pillow form but wasn't really liking how it would look.  It's another last Fall start that's been sitting around waiting to be finished.  I finally decided to cut it down to a small quilt that measures 13.5" square.

 

 

That background turns out to be pretty busy.  I like this little quilt more in real than I do in these photos.  The background is the woven technique and the green bars and orange leaves are raw edge applique.  The larger leaf pattern was divided into 6 sections and each section is cut from a different fabric.  I really like how that leaf looks.

 

How come we never see those stray ravel threads until we post a photo?! 

 

I hate that Fall is coming because Winter is never far behind.  I'm a Spring/Summer girl.  But I love the colors and fabrics and papers of Fall!

 

xxx

Annie

The Crow's Collection

Hooray!  I'm sewing again!

This wall quilt got put away last year with so little left to do on it.  But that just made it an easy finish for this year. 

 

 

I don't remember the designer of this pattern, but since it was free, I can't complain about it.  But I will anyway .... because I've seen this pattern stitched together so many times just the way it is published.  The mid-section doesn't line up.  I don't know if it's supposed to be that way or not, but it looked too strange to me.  I thought people were simply not-so-good at joining paper pieced sections...until mine turned out looking just like theirs!  UGH!  Of course I couldn't live with it.  I had to make an adjustment to line up the wings (or at least center the sections).

(After posting, I find that it isn't clear what the exact problem was.  The wings not being the same size is not the problem area and is a wonderful design decisions in my opinion.

 It was joining the body pieces in the center where the top half of the crow did not line up with the bottom half.  He was disjointed so-to-speak.  I corrected that mishap on mine.)

It was fun and challenging to find enough one inch fussy cut colorful pieces to surround this guy with as his Halloween collection.  I wanted to do a third row but it was struggle enough just to fill two rows.

I'm just a sucker for fall colors and Halloween prints!

xxx
Annie


Altered Dictionary - O

Letter O

is our assignment this fortnight.

 

I found the word

Osculate

which means kiss.

 

 

I printed the most famous osculate and some words onto tracing paper, cut them out and glued them to my page.....as the ostrich looks on.

 

I must say now, that this is a word I could have done without coming across.  If you think of a few sentences and replace the word kiss with the word osculate, I think you'll find it sounds horribly gross and disgusting.  No wonder we use the definition word in our everyday speaking!

 

Don't forget to osculate your loved ones goodnight.

see what I mean?  Eeeww!

haha hahaha ha

 

xxx

Annie