I Hate Being Sick!

I hope I make sense today. I have a cold and feel terrible but am getting tired of laying around. I hardly ever call in sick to work but I had to yesterday. I wouldn't have been able to work 1 hour let alone 8. Today and tomorrow are my actual days off. I hate spending them sick!! I had planned on doing some things with the kids and working on some of my projects. It's really frustrating since I don't know when I will get 2 days off in a row again.

These pictures are of the last round robin quilt I worked on for Fiber Art Friends. They met last Friday and I had to work. This background piece was made by Lynne Rand.
This is what it looked like after I added some beading to it. Of course, you can't really see the beading. There was so much going on that I didn't want to add a lot - just something subtle.
At the meeting we recieved our pieces back. Mine was dropped off to me at work after the meeting. I need to get a picture of it and then will post it. Now it is up to us how to finish them for display at our show in October. I have a good idea of what I want to do.

I signed up for the Grab Bag Challenge that is being hosted by Tomme Fent. It was announced on the Quilt Art list. I can't show any pictures of it since the person whose grab bag I recieved might see it on my blog. But I have a good start on what I want to do with it.
For those of you who don't know what this challenge is: You put together a bag of fabric, threads, embellishments, etc. Then these are swapped out and you have to make a quilt using at least 30% of what is in the bag. Here is the link for ones that were done last year. Last year it was called Bag O Stuff Challenge.

http://community.webshots.com/user/tommequilts

Sunshine!!

Finally, we've had a sunny warm day! No rain! Usually I don't mind the rain since it keeps the well filled but I'm really sick of it right now! We haven't been able to enjoy the ladies slippers in our yard. These pictures are from last year since it hasn't been dry enough to get any this year. We've had more of them this year than ever before.
We are busy at work now so I haven't had a chance to get any quilting done. Very frustrating! I keep trying to fit in a couple minutes here and there but I really wish I could do more. Although, I'm so tired that I would probably mess things up.

I did get "Mixed Media Explorations" by Beryl Taylor last week. It is published by Quilting Arts. as usual they did a superb job putting the book together. I could spend hours just looking at the pictures. I love Beryls work, it has lots of texture. I have been playing with some new techniques from her book when I can. No pictures yet.

This n That

I haven't had a chance to work on anything lately. Work has gotten busier and I've had kids things to do. Alex had his birthday party yesterday. I'm glad he only invited 2 boys since it was raining all day! We also lost electricity for a while.

This is a quilt that Kara made for a project in her English class. They had read the Odyssey and had a choice of doing an art project or taking a test or doing both. Kara being the over achiever she is did both. The art project for her grade and the test for extra credit!!
The main picture on the jar(can't think of the actual word - Amphora?) is a scene from the Odyssey. All the little things relate back to the story. She had to show her art project to the class and tell how it related to the Odyssey and answer questions about her art piece. She found out her English teacher, Mr Smith, is a quilter. She recieved a 98 for her project and did just as well on her test.
Thursday morning we had a black bear in our driveway. I tried to get a picture but wasn't able to. Alex was really excited. He'd never seen a bear that close. Kara was disappointed because she was at school and missed it.

Fiber Art Friends met on Friday. We did the last exchange of our round robin projects. I forgot to take a picture of the one I worked on. It is always fun to see what everyone adds. It's getting harder to decide what to do with them now. At the next meeting, we will get our own pieces back to finish. They will be displayed at our quilt show in October.