Aerial Photos of Salt Lake City

I'm really excited about the aerial photos I took over Salt Lake City. I've never flown over during the winter, so this was new to me.This is one of my favorites . . . such a great composition. This one reminds me of a circuit board.This one looks as if someone just applied the final brushstrokes.The combination of salt, mud, ice and snow made for some fantastic abstract compositions.

We had a great trip to Evanston, IL to visit our daughter for her final college swim meet. Hard to believe that after 14 years it's coming to an end. I know her body will be happy to have a break - 6 hours of swimming a day, 6 days a week is tough. I am constantly amazed at Rachel's focus and determination . . . it's something I could never do.

No trip to Evanston is complete without a visit to Dick Blick and Vogue Fabric. All I bought was a little Thai silk, bright yellow roving, versatex printing ink, extender, Golden open acrylic gloss, and Jacquard color remover.

Not too bad - my suitcase was only 48 pounds and I think my bright red pea coat accounted for 20 pounds. I was surprised how few colorful coats there were. It's so grey in the winter, people should wear more color. Just my opinion.

Grey Ending to a Colorful Week

A few exciting things happened this week, but the most exciting is the box that arrived from Dharma Trading. I've been fighting the urge to start a new collection, but I finally gave in. Here's what I bought . . . Procion Dye, Urea, Sodium Algenate, Cotton/Bamboo, Cotton/Silk fabric and lots of plastic bottles. Score!!! Now I just have to figure out what to do with all of it!! In the past, someone else did the mixing for me. Susan has already sent me lots of info that I'll read during my flight to Chicago next week. We're going to see our 5' 10", 22 year old baby swim in her final college swim meet.

Yvonne Porcella was the guest speaker at our guild this month. I went to her lecture Thursday night and took her silk painting class on Friday. I never painted silk before, so that was really fun. Yesterday, I went to the Road 2 CA quilt show in Ontario, CA. It's been a busy week.

This is one of the new camellia bushes I planted. As you can see, they're doing great. Nothing like a little color in the middle of winter.The rain started here about an hour ago. The weather report says to expect 6-8" on the coast and 20" in the mountains. At the widest part of town, it's 6 miles from the mountains to the ocean. My house is at the base of the mountain and it's probably 3 miles to the ocean. Remember all the forest fires? Our mountains haven't recovered and 20" is a lot of rain. Keep your fingers crossed!

UFO or WIP?

I love it when people leave a comment. It's nice to know somebody is actually reading my blog. There were several comments about (UFO's) UnFinished Objects! It seems like everyone has them . . . the difference is their attitude about them. Some refer to them as Works in Progress (WIP). To me a WIP is different than a UFO. If it's on my design board, it's a WIP. If I lose interest and it comes off my board, it's a UFO. Out of sight - out of mind. Once that happens, I'm ready to move on to something else and I have a difficult time going backwards. And that applies to everything. I can't even do a back dive or roller skate backwards! Sad but true!
Here's a photo of one of my design boards. It's the typical wall insulation covered in felt. WIP's, inspiring pieces of fabric, comics, photos & quotes are among some of the things found there. The piece in top right corner is a hand-painted piece of fabric that has lots of inspiring shapes. The bottom left is a WIP that uses a photo made into a thermofax and then printed, an abstracted photo that was printed on fabric, hand-painted fabric, deconstructed screen printed fabric and commercial fabric. Quite a mix. The bottom right is screen printed fabric that's waiting to be made into a bag. The top left is a quilt made by a friend. It's amazing how good it looks with my own work.Here's the same design board a few days later. The WIP in the bottom left has changed quite a bit, but it's still not finished.

Here are two more UFO's. Both are completely finished tops, well constructed, interesting to look at, approximately 40-45" square. Why are they unfinished? I don't know. I love circles . . . that in itself should be enough to get me to finish them. The top one is completely pieced, the bottom one is machine appliqued.

Patty Ashworth has a system that might help get these projects finished. One year she made a resolution to finish one project a month before she could start anything else. It worked for her . . . It might work for you. Anybody game?