More updates

I went to the One of a Kind Craft show in Toronto today with a friend and was very inspired. Beautiful work there - an incredible amount of talent in Canada! I wish I'd been buying for me - I could have gone mad. I went as far as a beeswax candle for me. Maybe at the spring show..

http://www.oneofakindshow.com/xmas06/

Here are some of the artists I loved there: Tracey Martin's Martin House Garden Art, www.martinhouseart.com, Cora Brittan's lovely gilded paintings (I'm a sucker for gilding), www.brittanart.com, Studio Surette, www.studiosurette.com (I have a great piece of theirs from the Burlington Art Gallery), Morin Choiniere (I have a lovely mirror of theirs I bought about 11 years ago at the show)..more to come, but now to bed for work in the morning.

I did the 2002 Told in a Garden Angel for our tree. I did another year's below, but I'm unsure of the year. They're lovely works. I've got a Celtic Christmas pattern on stretchers and barely started.

I think I did the nice gingerbread cookies 3 years ago at Christmas. It was quite an assembly line but I had fun with it. No sign of inspiration so far this year.

I'll be catching up over the next while with pictures of older works.

I made this William Morris repro quilt during a workshop with Rosemary Makhan a couple of years ago, and sent it to my aunt in California for Christmas 2001. Sue Patten did a pantograph that echoed the acanthus leaves in the fabrics.

This Jacob's Ladder quilt, made in 1999 has since been anihilated by our cats. The pattern was from Fons and Porter's magazine, and was one of a number of patterns you could make from 2-1/2 inch and 4-1/2 inch strips. I made my sister a similar quilt in a colourway which she chose.

I made this Autumn Leaves quilt from a pattern in a Quilt Sampler magazine. I hand quilted it and gave it as a Christmas gift in 2000.

ATCs I made in a workshop I ran in October

I had a great time doing a paper ATC workshop at the Ink Spot Shop in Oakville. These are the ones I played with and traded out at the end of the workshop. I did a second last night at the shop and we did a few Christmas themed cards. ATCs are such a fantastic little way to test a theory, play with stitches (I also teach fabric ATCs) and just let myself play. I can't wait for the next one. My next fabric ATC class is in April at Ginny's in Oakville, and I think we'll do another paper class in January. I love seeing the creativity that just flows out of class members when they realize how quick and harmless these little works of art are. You don' need perfection, just inspiration.

First post

My first post. I've been inspired by other blogs, which appear far easier to do than webpages. So long as this doesn't become the sum total of my output going forward, I'll continue this. I hope it forces me to create things to post.