Valentines

I have not been idle even though I have not posted in months.  I don't know exactly why I am doing this anyway.  I do have a couple of larger pieces in the works, but most recently I have been working on these little valentine quilts.  I carved the stamps and played around with the various paints that I have.  I really was surprised at how the paints layered-sometimes the first paint acting as a mask to subsequent layers.  I added some beads, fused a quote on the back, and applied a fast and dirty fused binding that I am not totally satisfied with but these are valentines, not great works of art.  Some day one of my grandkids will open a box full of all these silly things that I have made for them over the years and call to their brothers and sisters, "Hey, come see what I found!  Can you believe that crazy old Grandma made all this stuff."

Part of the exercise was to test my new sewing machine.  When I was in Anchorage for New Years I purchased a Bernina 440 QE. I have waited years for this.  I knew that I needed a Bernina but could never justify the expense before now.   I really have been to busy to play with it much-I have felt very virtuous that I have been tending to business rather than playing!  This project gave me a chance to play around with the stitch regulator.  It will take a while to become accustom to using that.  I knew that I loved my machine when I start using different metallic threads and she didn't eat them!

Anyway,  Happy Valentines Day to all of my friends.