Christmas Traditions Day 2

The truth be told, ok I am confessing here, I was inspired to do this daily traditions postings after visiting a special persons blog. She is such an amazingly talented person and although we have not met, although I did try, she inspires me with her amazing art and wonderful recipes that are perfectly displayed on her blogs. Yes I said blogs, she has a art blog and a food blog. I don't know how she finds time to cook the way she does and paint but she not only manages it but she excels in both. Her blog is never boring or dull but full of entertaining musings and insights that keep you begging for more. Picture from My French Kitchen

Thank you Ronell for being my inspiration once again. Check out Ronell's French Kitchen blog for a wonderful Christmas tradition that her family does on Dec. 1. I think it sounds wonderful, I may have to add it to ours. I would love for her to come during the holidays and fix me some of her wonderful treats like that picture of white chocolate panacotta and dark chocolate mousse. In the US we need to use a conversion table to make the recipes but it is well worth it. For an added treat check out Ronell's Art blog called Africantapestry for her wonderful sketches of her beloved France. While Randy and I were in Paris this year we did try to visit but the timing didn't work out and we missed each other. We are determined to try again!! I look forward to spending some painting time with her as she creates her magic.

December Traditions

This month I thought it would be fun to share Christmas/holiday traditions that we all have during this time of year. I will be sharing some of our families traditions and I will be sharing other peoples traditions with links to their blogs so you can share the season with other people around the world. If you have anything special please let me know so I can post it and share a link to your blog. I will also be posting ideas and projects.

Every year I like to paint my cards, I paint one painting and then send it out to have cards made. It is a way to personalize the holidays for me and I get to share my artworks with family and friends. I start early, usually October so I have time to get them printed.

In the USA it feels as if Christmas has started to encroach on all the other holidays, I even saw decorations for sale at the end of summer! I know its all about moving the merchandise and not about the meaning of Christmas. So my family decorates for fall, pumpkins and leaves, gourds and sunflowers. We don't allow ourselves to decorate for Christmas until we have finished with the Thanksgiving celebration, remembering the importance and being thankful is the best place to start the whole Christmas celebration.

We usually start to decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving. Filling the house with decorations and a tree. I usually decorate outside too, our yard has a outdoor fireplace and room that is lovely during the holidays.

We fill the fireplace mantles with bows of greeniery and lights. Hang stockings and I love to set up my villages low enough that the grandkids can come in and see them. I have a ice skating rink in the village that has skaters that dance around thanks to a magnetic turning motor underneath. But the kids think they are skating. The fireplaces all have fires and the house is full of Christmas music. I love this time of the year, when all the popular singers are singing Christian music!

So here we go into December, I hope you will check in often to see what new things I have found to share. Send me your links or traditions so we can all share together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Fuju Persimmons

My mom loves when the Fuju persimmons are ready, she buys them and eats them like apples. I gathered a few from her last shopping spree to paint. I am playing with watercolor, trying to get more of an oil painting feel. Here is Fuju, a 5"x7" watercolor.

My FIRST EVER CONTEST!!!!!

Hi everyone, as you all know if you follow my blog, my very first fabric line was released at Houston last month. The fabric is being ordered and wont even be shipped to stores until Feb/March of 2010. But I have some, I have it in my hot little hands. So I thought it would be fun to do a contest to win some of the fabric. So here it it my first contest!!! More to come.



Rules:Post a comment on this post of who in your life would love to have a set of "Horsing Around" pillow cases (I provide the fabric/pattern, you sew). Tell us about this special person and why you are thankful for them. From the comments I will select a winner(using Random.org) or two if need be. The winners will be able to choose the colors of their pillowcases, I will send a pattern and the fabric, of your choice,to make your special person their own pillowcases. I hope to see lots of comments and hear lots of stories of those special people in your lives. This will make a great holiday gift and its always nice to think of the things we are thankful this time of year. Good luck!!! Tell your friends to come over and comment! Hurray the contest will end on Dec 1.

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Summer is winding down and the garden is giving up the last of it's
fruits. I start to get a bit depressed during this time of the year.
it could be the time change or the leaves falling. It could be that
the yard is not in full bloom anymore or the approaching cold. Once
the holiday decorations go up I will feel better

My Blue French Dog

When we were in France on one of our many walks exploring the city we came across this dog. He was tied to a sign and stood looking into the store where his owner disappeared. No matter how many people passed by his eyes never wavered off of the door. He was not one bit interested in anyone else. You have to admire that kind of devotion. I am sure that is how we are supposed to be with the Lord. Watercolor 13"x 12"

500 Art Quilts, Two of my quilts will be in this book!

Two of my quilts were selected for this book coming out in March of 2010. My quilt "Transformations and Crepe Paper Poppies" will be featured in the book!

An inspiring collection of contemporary work by Ray Hemachandra and Karey Bresenhan

500 Art Quilts

A beautiful new addition to the successful series.

A vibrant growing communtity of crafters has embraced quilting, and this outstanding international collection will inspire and captivate them. Juried by Karey Bresenhan, one of the most promonent figures in quilting, it presents
500 contemporary art quilts, made in fabric and other media, and showing diverse design,materials and techniques.

From their very inception, these quilts were destined for display rather than practical use,with an extrodinary quality of image, form, line and compostition.

Feastival at Houston

Lauretta told me about a blog that did a wonderful job at displaying alot ofthe beautiful quilts that were at Houstons Feastival this year. She also mentioned that that Susan Brubaker Knapps blog, bluemoon river, mentioned my quilt so I had to go check it out now! Thanks Susan for such a thorough tour of the feastival. Congrats on your new book and I hope we can meet soon!

Birthday Lunch

Birthday Lunch
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Today Dawn and Marta took me to our favorite Mexican resturant at the
Mission Inn. It was so great to just visit with them after Dawns
marathon and Martas vacations. That's a pomegranite margarita and it
was yummy. Thanks for a great birthday lunch!

Lone Pear

A small painting I worked on this last week while being sick with the flu. Its not easy painting in bed! 3x5 watercolor

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Flying home above the storms, the sunset was just amazing, the flight
was perfect, glad to be going home

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Another beautiful quilt

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More fabulous quilts

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A project quilt very similar to the one our art quilt group did. The
description in the next post

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One of the amazing quilts at the show

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There is a wonderful exhibit called"through the eyes of a quilter"
with fabulous photos. My friend Phyllis has a piece in that exhibit.

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The display for my fabric line at Red Roosters Booth. Thank God I had
my quilt finished. More on the show later

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We found Glass Beach and saw they used it to advertise the Edges
exhibit in the catalog, then a few more pages and there was my fabric
line!!! We are having fun!

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I have my booth set up and we are ready for the buyers. Sample Spree
went great!

Houston here we come!

I am ready, I got everything plus more done in time thanks to all my sewing angels, Dee, Debbie, Karen, Shirley, Dawn, Randy, Marianne!! Thanks to all of you for helping to make my trip so perfect. I think one of the greatest blessing from having all these wonderful women here was that I got to visit with them and had such a great time just sewing with a friend. This is probably what the old sewing bee's were all about, sewing and visiting. I did manage to get this quilt thrown together, it also uses my fabrics and creates a non-western look, its called Bluebird Somersaults. I managed to remember to ship my "Sumi" artquilt to the Pacific International Show that is going on at the same time as Houston. I was afraid I might forget in all the rushing around that was happening here. I am leaving tomorrow and wont be back until next week. Be creative while I am gone!

It's Here

I know I have been sharing bits and pieces of my fabric line but now its all together on a info sheet. I wanted to post it for you to see the line in its entirety. I finished the quilt and need to bind today. It is going really well besides the fact that I keep pinching myself because I can't believe I am sewing my own fabric! Happy Tuesday, it is Tuesday right?

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My fabric that I am sewing into this quilt for Red Roosters booth in
Houston

Studio Tour Oct 3

I promised more photos, I hope you have time to view the different areas of my creative processes! LOL This is the view from my painting table to my yard, heaven.

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Sun coming in on my ironing board, my artwork hangs on the walls

My studio - OCT 3

Hi everyone, well today is the studio reveal through Quilting Arts. Everyone who signed up is supposed to post pictures of their studio spaces. I will be posting different photos during the day since I have two work areas now in my home. Although my husband says that the whole house is a work area before a show or during a project. It happens to the best of us, we nicely organize a space to sew or paint, but then we need just a bit more, so, we borrow some space from over there. Then that space is full so we take a tiny corner from over there! LOL Does this ring a bell with anyone else?

My studio is a converted bedroom, I have tile floors and a design wall for quilts. I always have a ton of projects hanging at anytime on my design wall. I hang some of my quilts and some of my artwork on the opposite wall. I love to have the walls full of "my" things. The room becomes an inspiration and motivation just being in there. It is my refuge, I love it. I have a TV also that allows me some company when I am working but I often find the family loves to just come and sit with me while I work. Isn't that how it always is, just like when the kids were small and followed us into the bathroom. I usually do not hang other art in my studio, only my own. Other art can be found around the house along with mine.

Since I also design fabric and paint for a living I love natural light. Although my husband installed all kinds of good lighting its just not the same. So..... in our bedroom we have a sitting room, it is a large area that we basically don't use and I love the view and the light from the octagonal windows that face the backyard. I love to sit and watch "nature" as I paint. The windows are tinted so often birds will play within inches of me painting. There is no TV here, the view, the area is enough, and I love this spot too. Combining painting, pastels and fabric didnt really work, I always had to clean up one before starting the other. I love having multiple project going at one time so this allows me that luxury. We have a big house and I am making the best use out of otherwise usless rooms.

Look for pictures throughout the day today sent from my phone. We are frantically working on quilts etc for Houston since my fabric just arrived yesterday. So I will post some of us working from varies spots.

My auction piece for the quilt retreat that I am going to miss again!

I will be in Houston during the weekend the quilt group is having their retreat. It is a great group of women who have been meeting together for over 20 years. Through lots of laughing and crying, the group is stitched together pretty tightly. One of the fun things we do, just to mention one, is an auction. You can bring things to be auctioned off on Saturday, the only rule is that you have to have made it. Every year during the retreat we pick the theme for the following camp. This falls theme was "Going Green", here is my wall art quilt for the auction. It is done with collage, tissue paper, paint, glue, and lots of quilting.

Fall Card Exchange

On Painting Friends we do a few card exchanges during the year. Often during Easter, Christmas and fall/halloween. This year we sent cards a little early and they are now starting to arrive. Everyone who wants to participate signs up, then I go through and randomly assign names to everyone, that is their exchange person. They will paint an original piece of art for their person and send it. The person on the receiving side doesn't know who is sending to them until they recieve their card. Lots of fun and we end up with little masterpieces from other artists. The card I sent to Regina arrived today, she loved it so now I can post it. It is a Rubeckia called Cherokee sunset, watercolor, 4x5".

Pears and shadows

Cindi in our watercolor group "Painting Friends" challenged us to do shadows. I decided to paint tonight and this seemed perfect. She had posted two pictures, one of a statue and pears, I "picked" pears! I think I was too tired to paint as I felt like I was struggling from the start. Somedays you just know instinctively, don't paint! Well, I decided to keep going, I mean, its just a practice piece, right? well soon I was getting mud. Mud is never good in watercolor painting, so I told myself, pretend your an oil painter. So now I was going for mud, colorful mud. I ended up with this, I do like it, it was fun. I want to get dark darks that still have color. That arent dead blacks or browns. So these practice pieces are great, thanks Cindi!

"Pears" watercolor 5x7

One of my new patterns

This is called "Fabulous Folded bags" it is one of my new patterns to be released at Houston. They are so fun and easy to make, plus there is a folding process that takes them from a square to a bag, but is a secret. Hope you like them!

Postcrossing

Jennifer and I decided to do a postcard exchange with people from all over the world. Since traveling for us if challenging we thought it would be fun to explore the world through the eyes of those who live in it! Its a great idea for teachers, moms, etc. Its called Postcrossings and we recieved our first postcard today! Yippie, it came from Finland. We have sent several to Russia, The Netherlands, Belgium, China, Japan, South Korea. The website keeps track of them for you on a map so you can see where you have sent and where you have received cards from. We are going to travel a bit through our postcard exchange!

Mushrooms

We have had mushrooms growing in our lawn, even with all this heat! It either means we are over watering or we have some pretty tough mushrooms! Randy got our camera and took some close up shots of these little beauties. They are so wonderful and unique. They come up in a day and are gone almost as quickly. I think they are a challenge to paint since they are so overly simple and not very colorful. The challenge here is to make them interesting. I had a piece of left over primed watercolor paper. Although it only had a green wash on it I found it hard to capture any good light areas because of the green. I will paint these again but here is my quick watercolor painting of Mushrooms.

Fractured Quilt by Sub Q Art Quilters

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Our Sub Q Art Quilters group did this fractured quilt. The participants received a piece of a photo and was asked to blow it up 400% and recreate it in an art quilt. They could use any techniques they wanted to use in recreating their section of the photo. Oh I forgot to mention that I gave them their section in black and white, so they had to add back in the missing color. It was a study on value and I love the results! There were so many different techniques from applique, to paints, inks, piecing, even paper towel collage.

Follow up post: I asked everyone to send me the techniques they used to do each of their pieces. I have that information and wanted to share with everyone. The first piece was done by Nancy Mastroianni, she used
paper piecing, beads, crystals and colored pencil. Piece #2 was done by Kay Davis, she used hand/machine applique, art pencils, ink and thread play. Piece #3 was done by Phyllis Campbell, she used tsukineko inks, fabric pens,oil pastels, pigma pens and thread painting. Piece #4 was done by yours truly, Desiree and I applied used painted paper towels, tissue paper, papers, and fabrics to create a collage. I then used paints to add more color. Piece #5 was done by Ann Turley, she used machine applique and paints. Piece #6 was done by Carol Colbert, she used hand applique, paint, colored pencils. Thanks to these amazing women and there efforts in completing this quilt.

Randy reading

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Sketched in watercolor in my sketchbook

Taking a minute to enjoy

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How often do we just end up working outside in the yard and never really just stop to enjoy it. Although we love working outside its nice to just stop and really take it all in. Breathing in and filling my lungs with satisfaction. Laying in the shade and feeling the breeze as it flows over my arms and cools me. That is what we miss when we get caught up in the work of it all. Today, we had one of those special resting days. Ahhhh I love it. Randy brought out the Kindle (electronic book reader) which he has practically taken over. I had some art magazines and my sketchbook. I sketched and quickly painted one of the border dahlias and Randy reading. Its so nice out here, I think I will just take a nap.

Party

Party
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Chris and I trying to get a photo together with my phone

Robs 50th

Robs 50th
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

We went to a neighbors 50th birthday party last night. It was great,
catered food, dj, hypnotist and this custom cake. It is wine barrels
and a plate of cheeses all part of this awesome cake!

Fall Gifts

Its almost midnight but I wanted to post my little watercolor sketch from my journal before going to bed. I noticed on our morning walks that the pine trees are dropping their pine cones. Some are open, many are not. These unwanted gifts are nothing but litter to some, a nuisance to the gardeners,but as the Holidays arrive they will be gathered and appreciated. They might be in a table decoration or sit on a fireplace hearth. Some will be painted with white paint and glitter to look as though they are full of snow. I think I may start to collect my gifts early this year, while the selection is prime! I think a basket full of pine cones would make a wonderful and challenging painting!

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Marta was making pastel paper the last time I visited and I grabbed
one. She had based them all in different colors, so cool. Last night
at 11 I started this French waiter, what was I thinking? I am not
overly thrilled with my results. In my photo he is doing this weird
persing of his lips plus the shadows are so dark no eye details show
up which I tried to fix... Hmmm. The paper was not quite 8x10 so it
was small to do a bust. Yet I am happy since I think I got his
porportions right, captured him and I love the background.

My garden is still trying even in the heat

My garden is still trying even in the heat
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I uploaded this picture from my iphone today, I love my phone. We were working outside and although I was taking out my bean plants I realized that the rest of the garden was really still producing and looked pretty good. We have had such a long stretch of super heat, I am even amazed it all hasn't just shriveled up and blown away. We actually had fresh squash tonight for dinner. In my magic box garden I have potatoes, basil,onions, beets, squash, bell peppers. On the back side is a tomatoe plant. I used to have a huge garden, I spend many days putting things in the freezer or canning or pickling. But now, this box holds just the right amount for us to eat fresh veggies almost everyday.

As I pulled out my very tired bean plants I realized that fall was on its way. The heat from summer was still with us but the plants knew it is getting late in the season. My pumpkins (across the yard) are dying back and the green pumpkins are starting to turn orange. The coral tree is starting to get yellow leaves as it prepares to sleep through the winter. I love and hate this time of the year. I so love the long days, so thinking of it getting dark at 5 is depressing. But I love the color of fall, the warm pink/orange the sun turns everything it touches. The cooling nights and the approaching holidays. It is a bittersweet time.

Cupcakes the latest DSDF challenge

This biweekly challenge was a photo of cupcakes, I loved it. I actually love all the pictures she posts but my schedule hasn't allowed me any time to paint for fun ! LOL I took a few hours this afternoon and did this pastel painting of cupcakes. It is a bit blurry, I hope to get a clearer picture next time. There is just something about painting food that is so enjoyable! Especially when you re on a diet. Soft Pastel 10"x 20"

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A Video of my quilt

At the Long Beach Quilt show the IQA did a video of our exhibit, my quilt is in this video along with many of the others in the exhibit. I hope you enjoy http://www.quilts.com/lbqf09/enVivo/

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Close-up

Sneak peak

Sneak peak
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I have been working on some new quilt patterns for Houston. This is a
youth quilt called Just Ducky Sports. Comments are welcome