Catching Up!

It's been a long time between postings! It's time to get down to business and start doing some sewing in the new year and I am prepared.

The last couple of weeks have been consumed with a Christmas visit to my daughter's in Charlotte and then back to the beach house where I now sit. The past several days I have had the great pleasure of entertaining my old roommate from my single Philadelphia days! We always get back together and can talk like we never have been apart and it has been over 40 years!! She currently is teaching art at Winthrop University in SC so she had lots of insights to share about art in general and my meager attempts at art quilts. She has a wonderful eye and besides looking at some of my "creations", we looked at the work of several others and analyzed the positives and problems. It was a great exercise. Her favorite of mine was actually a picture of the back of one of my tops where the papers were still! That was very inspirational as it told me that my lines were good and that I could play with color or value and come up with something a lot more interesting -- she really thought my quilt tops gave too much away and didn't let the viewer have to work.

One last picture from my last day at Fort Myers Beach. This was a really nice tri-color heron looking out over the early morning waters. We had a great day of shell collecting that last day down at Lover's Key.


Lisa's kitty Paca loves to cuddle up with her and put his arms around her neck and sleep.

Warren and Lisa spent Christmas week working on this year's list of projects to get done. She has recently remodelled her kitchen so needed some finishing touches there, some mouldings to be finished elsewhere and then a new addition to the list, fixing the screens on her screen porch. Her Maine coon kitty is extremely clever about finding ways to break out and will push his way out if he can -- but only at night! While they had several of the screens off, this Carolina Wren and a friend found themselves trapped inside until Warren shushed them away toward the open space.



This is Lisa's other kitty Yahi (the Maine coon) perched on top of the kitchen cabinets, his place of choice while inside because our pint sized kitty George just terrorized him!! Even after a month together, we couldn't keep them in the same room without George chasing Yahi until he would flee to the top of the kitchen cabinets!

The weather is cool here but the sun is brightly shining and warming everything up each day. I don't mind the snow or the cold in the north, but I do loathe the short days with little or no sunshine. Before we bought this house, I checked Wunderground to see what the usual weather was down here in January and when I saw that it was usually sunny, it was a sale!

The sewing machine is out and ready to do some mandatory pillow making for our new futons. After that, I will play a bit with the piles of strips that I have left over from other projects. Those that don't get used this trip will get contributed to the quilt club free table in February. More to come!