Happy February!

It's 71 degrees here today and it shouldn't be. It should be between 30-40.  I miss winter. 

But it is still February so instead of painting Christmas trees and snow I painted a bunch of Valentine Hearts.

 

And now It's also 2023 and I haven't posted an update in a long time so this is a quick bullet summary of what I did in 2022, besides grow marigolds.

So what did I do last year?

Some crochet: Another Project Linus Crochet Along blanket.

Some more crochet: This time tiny baby aliens with my own mods. I ended up making 4. They are a lot faster to make than their big brothers.

 

Started a new quilt: I saw these Plaid-ish quilts all over Instagram and loved them. The pattern is free and I have more fabric than any one person ever needs. I did finish piecing the top but I still need to quilt and finish it, hopefully this year.

 

Gardening: Lots of porch gardening, in addition to the feral marigolds.  The Celosia is my new favorite flower. They bloom and they stay 'bloomed' for months! I named this one Groot. It's just too obvious. Right?

Lots of different color Coleus, several Celosia of different types, Red vine, Morning Glories, and a Poinsettia.

Lots of watercolor art: Experimenting with paints, brushes and methods.

 Swatching all the watercolor paints I have.

 

Some bookbinding: Call it an art journal or a junk journal? I'm not sure? But it is just a collection of papers I'm painted.

 

 

But almost every day just filling this giant book with abstract acrylic art.

This is the first 100 pages of that big book of acrylic painting experiments.  There are also videos for the other 200 pages on my YouTube channel.

That's it for today. Not sure when I'll be back.

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

What year is this?

Still here. Still well. Still busy. 

Hello from me and my friends.

Just checking in here. I post photos of stuff I do more frequently on Instagram @aileenbiser

I do some kind of artwork every day, mostly acrylic painting lately. I took a long break from sewing in 2021, mainly because I spent months rearranging, sorting and reorganizing my craft/sewing/art room. I do almost all my hobbies in that room except for crochet or drawing. Crochet is a sit on the couch and watch TV activity and drawing can be done anywhere. 

So I did more crochet in 2021.

Another Project Linus Crochet challenge quilt. Lots of fun new stitches to try out.

And my first attempt at a crochet sweater. This was the practice sweater to test the pattern for fit and shape using an inexpensive acrylic yarn.  I may make it again with a nicer yarn.

And I finally got back to doing some sewing in October and made another Project Linus quilt top. Not sure when I'll finish it.  It's on the To Do list.

 This is the room where it all happens. A place for everything and everything in it's place.

 I do plan to post more often. We'll see how that goes...

Thanks for visiting.

Aileen

Quilting 2020

I know it's March 2021 but it sure feels like 2020 2.0. Nothing has changed and I really haven't done much in the last couple months. So I decided to write a few different post summarizing more of my 2020 craft activities. 

Quilting 2020:

 

I started 2020 finishing a very large queen size quilt. That of course involved lots of sewing, machine quilting separate sections and solving some construction problems because I made the quilt using the Machine Quilting in Sections method as taught by Marti Michell. She has an excellent Craftsy class on the subject that I referenced multiple times.  It was the only way I could achieve my goal because I don't have a sewing machine that can accommodate the machine quilting of something that large.  It was the end of April before I finished and was thrilled to be done and happy with the results.  But by then I was pretty tired of sewing.  It was the third queen size quilt I made in a row. I'd made two in 2019 before I started this on and I needed a break from sewing.

I moved on to other crafts for several months.  After taking a long break I didn't do any more sewing until the annual Project Linus quilt challenge in October.  That is always a fun easy quilt to make and a fundraising event for Project Linus.  The challenge only last about 8 weeks and you receive complete instructions and access to video tutorials if you need them. My problem is I love finishing the quilt tops but take forever to get around to finishing the quilts. I have several quilt tops sitting in my cabinet now just waiting to become real quilts one day.

After I finished the Project Linus quilt top I was ready to finish a Christmas project I'd planned a couple years ago or so.  I have collected a lot of different winter and Christmas themed fabric and planned to make a table runner for a  coffee table out of some blue and white snowflake fabric prints.

 

 

 

I have a list of planned quilt projects that I already have the fabric for.  It's just a matter of deciding what I feel like working on at any given time. But then there are the unplanned projects usually made from leftover fabric pieces that are the remnants of previous completed projects. They end up becoming any number of things. Having just finished three queen size quilts I have a basket full of extra cut fabric pieces and scraps from both the fronts and backs of the quilts. I experimented with some strip piecing ideas and ended up with enough blocks to make another table runner and I have some random small quilt blocks made from leftover project Linus fabric. They may end up being zipper pouches or place mats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Aileen

Other stuff I did in 2019 and 2020

I had on my To Do list last year to write a blog post in Sept, then it became Sept + Oct, then it became Sept + Oct + Nov, etc..... So here I am in February 2020 July 2020 to summarize the last 6 11 months.

More art, lots of art, acrylic painting, watercolor experiments, some sketching, and there was sewing, lots of sewing, cutting, piecing, quilting, bookbinding, gardening, crochet, etc. ...

Here are some photos of my projects and much of my artwork is already posted on Instagram.

Christmas Card Art - Dec 21019

Scrap Queen Bed Quilt - July 2019 (just for the practice)

Queen Bed Quilt - November 2019

Project Linus Challenge quilt top - October 2019

Queen Bed Quilt - April 2020

Project Linus Crochet Challenge - May 2020

Coptic bookbinding - old construction paper - May 2020

Painted Canvas booklet - May 2020

Thanks for reading.
Aileen

Sewing and Doodling

When I'm not very focused on any specific project I resort to finishing up something from my collection of already sewn quilt blocks. Two benefits to this, I get to check something off my list of things to do as completed and I don't have to think too hard. I just sew.

Small and mini quilts I finished in May:

When I'm not sewing I'm just doodling or painting something abstract. I think the doodling and abstractedness is all a reflection of my unfocus. 

Well, this turned out strange, a collage of nothing and everything. This collage never looked finished to me and I didn't have a clear direction I was going with so I just kept writing various symbolic information on it until I got tired of doing that.

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen