More Ketchup please...

When this playing catchup (or ketchup as some folks say) is tough! It is definitely a better thing to keep up than catch up!

I sometimes get a one track mind, focusing on only one of the many endeavors I have cooking in my brain. And I by no means meant to overlook that I had also created both the March Fairie Goddess of Good Luck and the April Fairie Goddess of Rebirth or Spring, who are challenge blocks from the Fairie Goddess Mothers yahoo group I belong to...March did get waylaid for a few weeks, but here she is in all her glory. Our colors were green and gold, nothing better for celebrate the wearing o' of green, in my humble opinion. I am more Irish than anything else, although can also lay claim to some Iriquois Indian as well as Scot, German, French in a very minute quantity, as well as a tad bit of Dutch....simply put, I am an American!



And here is my April Goddess... Colors are yellow, pink, green and white...I think it turned out nice. Plan to add some yellow flowers, perhaps daffodils by doing a bit of machine embroidery on this block prior to setting it into a quilt. Now up to having 4 of these beauties completed, this is going to be one fantastic quilt come the end of the year.



Today I had to bid farewell to a faithful companion, my Brother 180D embroidery only machine. I sold it to a member of one of the groups I am on, and I know it will have a good home. It was and is a terrific machine. I hope she loves it as much as I did. I upgraded to a Brother ULT 2003, and am loving it. As I do a lot of my own digitizing, I like being able to digitize designs that are larger, I find I can get more detail in them. This friend I sold it to will be very surprised when she sees the bounty I included with the machine...I sent her all the fixings to get started embroidering right away...stabilizers, thread, designs, and all the necessary advice I could jam into that carton! I just hope I did not overwhelm her with the advice...I do have a tendency to get wordy when I am passionate about a subject!

I have been creating...

March update...

March was a whirlwind for me, was kept busy with the Fiber Art Traders group assigning members to be mentors for new members to our group. We are now over 200 members and haven't even turned 1 year old yet!

A winning result of this endeavor (besides the membership expansion) is that I have met some wonderful artists and am corresponding with them on a regular basis now. That is my big plus for the month of March.

I digitized 5 Celtic inspired designs for a prize that was won by one of the teams of member/newbies (Trees in The Netherlands and Elaine in San Francisco, CA each won a set of 6 9" quilt blocks with Celtic designs machine embroidered by myself).

A Celtic Cladaugh, oftentimes used on wedding rings...


A horse is a horse, of course, unless the horse is....(no not Mr. Ed!)...a Celtic Horse!


I was raised on a farm/mini ranch, and we had some of the most fierce Banty roosters, but this one is just fierce looking...my Celtic rooster...


I have a passion for hearts, have a strawberry birthmark in the shape of a heart on my right forearm, and anything to do with hearts strikes a chord with me...may I present my Celtic Love Knot...


I have a cyber friend who goes by the name of Blue Rose Dragon, and I dedicated this design to her....my Celtic dragons...


I wish I had digitized this design, but have never done lace before, this is actually an ornament, but the digitizing is so superb that I wanted to share it with the participants of the March Mentors...it was a free design I got from Embroidery Library, and I know you never go wrong with using their designs...


And on to April...

Since April has greeted the Pacific Northwest with less than admirable weather, more grey, cloudy and oftentimes drippy days than sunny ones, but I live for those warmer days when I do not have to bundle up to the ears to keep warm. During this hiatus of Old Man Winter not quite being ready to release his hold on lousy weather, I have kept myself busy indoors creating postcards to mail in trades, working a little on my altered shower curtain, which is beginning to take shape, thanks to my attempt at thread painting in some details on the elements in the curtain.

I joined the Easter Decoration Trade last month....my entries....



Just finished the trade on our Goddess dolls for Fiber Art Traders....I created a spring Flower Goddess, be she fairie or butterfly, she is wonderful all the same...


I sometimes wonder why I am drawn to dolls...I love them all, be they porcelain (as I have created in the not so distant past), the goddess dolls, or a doll that is posable, but I do have to admit that she is not completely dressed yet... This was another trade on Fiber Art Traders, a Bendi Doll, 14" tall, all legs and arms, posable, and we are to finish the faces, add hair, and a group of 8 of us each made part of her outfit. I contribution was the pinafore and bonnet. As soon as she is properly clothed I will add another photo of her for you....


I really did make some postcards during the past couple of months...here are a few of them...
Garden Fairies and Gnomes...my submission was a little fairie lying upon a primrose blossom and talking to her friend the ladybug...I like to think she is asking if it is really spring!


A quilted postcard in honor of National Quilting Day, March 28th, to be mailed on April 28th...


and in honor of Cinco de Mayo, a postcard to be mailed on May 5th...



I am making a promise to myself to do this at least weekly, but more often if I can pull myself away from my projects...

Hugs y'all!