A Very Productive Weekend

I did a ton of art work this weekend. That means I spent way too much time in the basement, where my sewing area is. There is a project going on to make the attic my new work space, but it is all contingent on my husband, and whether or not he feels like working on this project. The summer is a complete loss, he only wants to ride his motorcycle(s) and his bicycle during the summer. He lives to be outside, and he is not wasting any summer day being inside. Unfortunately, he starts getting depressed during the fall, so that also stands in the way when the summer is over. But I digress.

The fact is, I work in the basement. It's dark and damp and here is a new twist, we have CAVE CRICKETS lately. I don't think they hurt you, but they are really scarey looking. The icing on this dreadful cake is that I am a terrible slob. My space generally just gets worse and worse, until I can't take it anymore and then I clean it up. It takes hours and it is hard to spend that much time down there, even doing fun things, much less cleaning a hellish mess.

Despite everything, art was made. I wonder what I would be like if I had a lovely, well-lit space? The really good news is that I got Kate to make a quilt. It is hard to get her going, and she does not seem to be able to get it together enough to self start a project like that. I began by inviting her to make something. I pointed her to her small stash of fabric. She has some novelty prints and a few otherr fabrics that she has picked out. She also has unlimited use of my fabric. She picked out a fairy themed fabric, and she was off and running. We chose some background fabric. I usually make suggestions like, "You will need a fabric for the background. " and let her pick, then I will say, "What else do you want to put here?" She decided she wanted mushrooms with her fairy. So we went through the process of picking fabric for those, then she drew mushrooms in her sketch book, and we copied them to the back of the Wonder under and she cut them out and ironed them on. Then she decided she wanted logs with moss. I did not think it was such a great idea, but she definitely wanted it. She also angled the logs in a way that I would not have done it, but I have to let her have her own way, because otherwise, I might as well make the thing. In the end, I think it turned out great. I will do the machine quilting, but I will get her to do some hand work. She has sold three little quilts in the past on our etsy site, but hasn't sold much lately. I have no pictures right now but I will see what I can do this week.

I noticed that I have a couple of new followers on this blog (which is a miracle, since I hadn't posted for 3 months) so, for those who don't know, my daughter Kate is developmentally disabled. She is a member of the ARC and a Special Olympic athlete. She is nearly 27 years old, has a job and travels to it on public transportation. She doesn't read or write very well, but has really taken to Facebook. In some ways it is like having a young teenager in the house forever.