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This week finds us all thinking about the year's highlights, challenges, hopes and plans for 2023.

Highlights that I want more of; family bonding, great friends, creative exploration. Challenges include my "getting older body": a part of our ever evolving self.  Plans - DESIGNING what I want 2023 to look like.

Designing for me has always been a mix of excitement and daunting doubt. We all feel it at the start of every new quilting project. (Another gift Quilting has given us.)  We know there will be some Eureka highs and ........inevitable seam ripping, but we've GOT THIS! Quilters perservere in  creating beauty and extending  kindness into the world. My days of turning out 3 competition, complex quilts a year are down to 1.5. In person teaching is going to be very limited from here on out. Rocking my new grand baby, loosing a checker game to a 9 year old, and long conversations with my middle school grand daughters is going up. Life long learning, time to pursue my endless curiosity is also on the rise! 
The design for my slowed down 70 year old version, is going to be filled with adventure, people I love, seam rippling and gratitude!

News

AQS Paducah - I will be teaching and emceeing the awards ceremony next year. Sign up for classes early as they fill very quickly. I am excited about my line up including; spirit owl, Audubon blocks, Innovative Borders, Sea turtle, trunk show and special effects lecture. 

Apliquick supplies - we got this in todays e mail   "We hereby wish to inform you that due to the constant increase in prices of raw materials and transport of goods, we are forced to increase our price list as of January 1, 2023."
                           
                                 Prices will not go up till the first.  If you need anything - Order NOW!! Apliquick supplies

Quilt sale - "The gift" my latest Christmas quilt has sold. It will be in the Road to CA show and go to it's new home after.  It is featured in the AQS 2023 calendar and Ricky Tim's featured it in his Christmas concert. The creation of this quilt is filled with many happy family memories from my childhood and in its creation with the grands moving the Unit appliquéd birds and presents around on my design wall during construction. 



The quilt began with a story in my head of a little girl offering Santa a gift. All the animals have gifts to give to give too. The joy of giving was especially exciting for my family this year, as all the Christmas gifts were hand made. Quilted pot holders, paintings, yummy treats, bird feeders, a bridge over my creek. It was amazing. 



 I want to give you all a gift!
                         Click here for my  " Springs promise" pattern. A digital download that you may enlarge to any size you 

want. 

  

Use any coloration, but be sure to include lots of variety in your feather fabrics. I used my inktense pencils to mark the small breast feathers. They are especially helpful for adding small details. You can see that I enhanced the lines between the lighter back wing feathers with them also to add 

 6 Inktense pencils and 3 specialized scrubber brushes in 3 sizes.
These stiff brushes yield the best results for using inktense on fabrics.

 Inktense pencils deliver vibrant and versatile colour. Perfect for a variety of projects, the watersoluble Inktense pencils can be applied wet or dry to fabric to achieve different effects.

• Pencil provides added control for fine detail. Round 8mm barrel; wide 4mm core.
• Ink-like pigments come alive when fabric medium is added. Apply dry pencil to dry fabric and paint over with the special scrubber brushes to "POP" the color and set the ink. Liquitex fabric medium available on Amazon or at Michaels.