A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Design Wall

I finished one more quilt top as of December 31st!  It's for me.  I had a load of pretty bright floral fabrics.  There were a lot of aquas and spring greens.  I'm not a 'cool' color person, so I threw in some yellow/orange/red prints that seemed to be similar in scale.  I wanted a pretty, simple, scrappy charm quilt.  Away I went, cutting and sewing 4" squares together.  I decided along the way (because I never plan anything) that I would alternate the warms and the cools.

cool on the left, warm on the right

Since nearly all the prints have white in them, I decided I would sash each 4 patch block with white.

Once each of the 4 patches were surrounded in white, I started to refer to this as a quilt full of 4-pane windows.  All good?

So I got the top finished and I love it!  It's fresh, pretty, and just for me.  I got some sunny, snowy photos out on the back deck.  I showed my kids... "Look guys!  It's a Windows Quilt!"  My kids oohed and aahed and then one pointed out the WINDOWS LOGO.  (WHAT!??)

No way!  You've GOT to be kidding me!  This was a total accident.  I cannot for the life of me believe I just made myself a Microsoft logo quilt!!!  ROLF.  ooops.

Happy New Year's Eve!  Hope you are laughing at this one! See you in 2012.

Thank You 2011

Oh my, 2011 - you treated me good!  What a year.  I've met so many wonderful friends.  I had so many incredible things happen:  Three art shows, three art awards, a scholarship, patterns published plus a cover feature (thank you ANPT magazine), teaching opportunities, public speaking, commissions, and acceptance into a curated Fine Craft exhibit.  My head is spinning. 

Bloom 2011, in progress.

Owl Boxes quilt (sold)

another Owls quilt - auctioned

yup.  ANOTHER owl quilt.  Is there a pattern here??

HSTs = for Jesica's quilt, all her late grandmother's fabrics

my 3CS thread sketching tutorial

Mandy's Wall Quilt - all from her children's cloth carriers and booties

Kate's commissioned wallhanging

UFO

the cover shot : )  Summer issue.

oh gee - the paper too!  I almost forgot.  : )

lots and lots of fibre art, prairie inspired.  Free machine and hand stitched.

I made and received dozens of postcards.  'My Happy Place' pictured above.

I learned some formal embroidery.  I made tutorials.  I joined a guild.

I made my first wearable art and entered it into a Quilt Show.

Winter Comes at Night, 2011 (sold)

As for 2012, my calendar is booked FULL for the first six or twelve months.  : )  Seriously.  Year of the Dragon?  No kidding.

Winter Dress - embroidery work in progress.

I am so grateful  - for all the support I've received from friends, guild members, mentors, and bloggers across the country.  I'm grateful for the internet.  I never thought I'd say that, but the exposure online has opened so many doors for me.  Still, when it comes right down to it, I thank the local 'prairie lovers' for connecting with and appreciating my work.  It's pretty incredible to sell half of a show via facebook before the art even makes it onto the gallery walls.  It's been a lot of hard work, but so worth it.  Someone told me if you love the prairies, it will love you back.  (awe!)  It must be true.

Hands down, the best moment was when I discovered a collection of used dryer sheets that my husband has been collecting for me in the laundry room.  He commented on the sky in one of my pieces a long time ago.  I told him that dryer sheets make the best clouds.  I had no idea he was collecting a stash for me.  That's some sweet support for the in-house fibre artist, isn't it!?

cheese cloth makes great clouds too...  Poles Along Highway 7 (in progress)

Happy 2012 everyone!  I hope you leave 2011 with no regrets.

   

Things I Love Thursdays

Oh my gosh!  I'm late... I love being in holiday mode because I have no idea what day it is!  haha  Hmmm... what do I love today?  I love that it's still so mild out that we can walk around to enjoy the displays instead of view them from the ice-scraped window of our van!

We enjoyed Smurfy (Murphy) Crescent and counted 117 blue smurfs the other night!  Brown Crescent was one of my favorites.  The whole street does a Charlie Brown theme each year.  ; )  I love the Peanuts gang.

They say that your favorite character says a lot about your own personality.  My favorite is always Peppermint Patty.  I guess that's true - I'm pretty easy going, unconventional, but often in my own little bubble.  I talk to myself a lot when people are around.  (haha)  What about you?  Who do you love?

Happy Thursday!

Last Week of the Year!

I can hardly believe 2011 is nearly done.  This has been one astounding year.  This week is pretty quiet in my sewing studio, but things are steadily happening.  I'm taking my "A Prairie Dress" along with the shoes and delivering it to the Saskatchewan Craft Council.  THAT is exciting.  The Seeds exhibit begins soon into the new year.  (You can click on the info in the heading at the top of this blog for more details.)  I can't wait to be part of a curated gallery show!

I also decided I couldn't stand it anymore and had to bring home some of this...  fabric!  It will be a charm quilt.  I considered some other patterns, but when I look at the pretty country fabrics, I think a simple charm blanket is just right.  I have some REALLY pretty surprises with this one...  you'll have to keep watching to see.

Also this week, I am getting more massage work on my arms.  One treatment has made a WORLD of difference on the condition and abilities of my hands.  No surgery here...  though the true test will come once I really get back to work. 

I got some terrific hand-friendly gifts from my family this year.  I have rose soap, almond hand & nail butter, a universal craft floor stand that holds the embroidery hoop or frame for you while you sit and stitch, and a really cool voice-activated computer program called 'Dragon Naturally Speaking' that TYPES EVERYTHING YOU SAY.  No kidding.  It's very intelligent.  I can blab away, and the words just pour out onto the screen.  It was just under $100 from Future Shop I think.  (Office Depot?)  It also types out every time you say, "Kids!  Please keep it down.  Mama is talking on the computer".  haha.  There are simple prompts you can say to delete those.  ; )

Universal Craft Stand by Frank A. Edmunds & Co. (their photo)

On the homefront, we have a wee bit snow!  I'm not sure how long it will last.  It's still incredibly mild out.  Speaking of weather, did you know that two of my photos were featured on The Weather Network?  One was used in an online feature story, and the other was on their TV station this morning!  Cool : )  You can go back to the last two posts to see the pictures.

Have a good week, and happy new year to everyone!  Linking to: The Needle & Thread Network.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning, a photo by My Sweet Prairie - Monika Kinner on Flickr.

Wishing everyone a happy weekend!
~Monika

Sunday Snapshots

Christmas Morning, a photo by My Sweet Prairie - Monika Kinner on Flickr.

While you were all unwrapping presents, I was out getting some really terrific Sunday Snapshots! You can click on it to go to my flickr photo page to see the rest. They are all beautiful!

: )
Merry Christmas,
Monika

A Little Bit Sketchy

I was recently inspired by 'Threadpainter' on Flickr.  Her name is Sharon Begg from Ontario I believe, and she has ink line drawings posted that are all full of cross hatches and dots.  It's gorgeous!  I typically bypass the sketchbook phase with my art, going strain from photo to stitching it out the colors.  When I saw these drawings on flickr though, I was wowed at what a great technique that could be for me to plan out the method I would use for handstitching.  So I pulled up a couple favorite photos of mine that have not yet been put to fibre, took up my pencil and paper, and sketched these out.  The first one is from yesterday's photos.

Not the best looking, but it gives me lots of ideas on how to fill in space with stitches.  VERY helpful.  Then I did this one...

That was from a very colorfully dramatic photo I took on Valley Road.  It looks and feels MUCH different in black and white.  I hadn't noticed the giant curved cross hatch of the huge cloud formation behind the perspective of the power lines.  It gives me ideas on future angles of interest I could use in my work.  I like the angle of the road there too, it mirrors the cloud.  At the time of the photo, I only noticed the color.  It was sun down.  The lines & shapes were not the forefront of my excitement when I took this shot.  In fact, the lines themselves are quite dramatic, aren't they!?

And then I did up the Tipi and rosehips photo.  I love this composition very much.

LOOK how different it is when sketched!  Again, in the photo, I loved the red berries on the white snow, and the light tipi against the blue sky.  But once I sketched it out, I saw new things...

I LOVE that sky so much!  It has such an awesome SWOOSH to it.  Isn't that cool?  I hadn't noticed the sky before, only the drama of the snow... which has no emphasis at all in the sketch.  I guess I"ll be paying a little more attention to line for a while here.  Lots to learn!

My 'Official' Winter Sunrise Photos

Good morning!  What a strange place to be - Saskatchewan 2011 in the dead of winter, with not a stitch of snow to be seen.  Unreal!  It was a very bright and lovely moment when the sun reappeared. 

No white stuff anywhere.  Here's the little crooked trees along the roadside as the sun made it's grand entry.

Sweet!  Safe & happy holidays everyone!

Happy Winter Solstice Little Bear!

I'm heading out this morning with the kids and another family to see the Winter Solstice sunrise.  Soon, very soon, the daylight hours will get longer and longer. Sun up isn't until 9:15 today, so I thought I would share the pretty pics I took yesterday from my back deck.  Here it starts...

And here it comes!

And it deepens...

And check out those colors!

And then about five minutes later, the sun was up and behind an overcast cover, and everything went grey.  The sky changes SO fast!  It got nice and sunny later and we spent nearly 2 hours playing on the frozen lake across the street in the mildest weather ever. Our family enjoyed turkey dinner and opened gifts last night to celebrate 'the longest night of the year'.  It was awesome!  Here's crossing my fingers that I can put these paints to work soon on those skies...

Happy Holidays everyone! ; )

Things I Love Thursdays

I love massage therapy.  I had a a one hour intensive on my arms and now my hands feel warm, nimble, and pain free.  It's been a couple days and they still aren't going numb when I type!!  Sweet!

I love these now paints I got.  I hope to use them in my upcoming fibre classes.  I definitely want to start painting our prairie skies and making my own background cloth for my art.

I love today!  It's the Winter Solstice.  Although we have no snow and above freezing temperatures, we celebrate tonight with food and gifts as we welcome the return of the sun.  From here on in, the days grow longer.  Right now, it's gets dark around 5 pm.  We did discover that the lake is frozen enough to skate on!!  I love skating!