LOL

overall peek.

Here they are, sans ribbon. I need to go today and choose some. I also need to make a top to go under, or find one the right color. The search is on....

LOVE these Heather Ross fabrics for Kokka! Such a soft linen and how CUTE is the pattern??? After the ribbons are sewn on and I find / make a top I will get DD to model for me. :)

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I would also like to tell you how AMAZING this book is:

Not only are the quilts incredible and breathtaking, the interviews and information included is a real treasure! I can't recommend it enough.

My first bag!

I have been wanting to sew myself a bag. It is the Amy Butler sling bag pattern and I used the Ginger Blossom fabrics I love so much.
I also saw these CUTE overalls for Ellerie:

I have been working on drafting a pattern for the past few days for these overalls. I have the perfect Japanese linese fabric to make them from. So yesterday I sewed up a muslin and they are SO cute. I love being able to sew!

The best mother's day ever.

It was the best because Ellerie made me this:

The inside says "I love you Mom".

This is she and I riding a unicorn beneath the sun and a rainbow.

Ah. May there always be unicorns and rainbows in life!

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I also got the sew a couple of outfits for little guy! I love sewing boy clothes.

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well hello there!

Today is Weston's 2nd birthday if you can believe that. 2 already!

He is SUCH a boy. Oh Lord. He loves to cruise no, haul ASS on his plasma car. Those Plasma cars are too much fun! I highly recommend this toy.

So I am leaning toward putting Ellerie in school next year. We are wrapping up our first year of homeschooling and I have a serious bought of mommy burn out. I am proud of what we have accomplished so if she does go in the fall then she will be ahead of the game which will be great for her Aries confidence since she loves to be the best at everything.

I have been trying to work out on my fluidity bar (I love this thing!) but my monkeys think it's a monkey bar.

We spent the entire month of April SICK. blech. But all is well now...and now, on to the fun stuff!

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I created another commissioned piece while being ill and taking care of sick kids:

And...I have been looking for studio space! I want to start my own business finally. I feel that it's time.

So I went looking in the so called "arts district" AKA ghetto the mayor is trying to convert into the arts district.

Seriously. The arts district in Las Vegas is pi-ti-ful. I do SO want to move but then that would mean DH would have to travel 75% of the time for work and that would really suck.

So I am trying to think that home is where you make it.

And we ARE getting a summer place. Because the desert heat and I do not mix well and at least we can escape on weekends....anyway, I digress!

Back to the business. I want an art studio and want to teach classes, especially to kids.

So i am trusting that the right space will appear. I do love the space I looked at but being in the ghetto...not so much.

I am also working on a wall art quilt for myself. Sneak peeks to come!

My new treasure!

I have been on a mission for the past month to find a perfect storage solution to my...ahem...fabric problem. I searched and searched and found this:

It has lovely doors too but I need to replace the screws.

DH of course thinks it's w horrible piece of crap.

He has no taste. LOL.

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My little monkey turned 6 this week.

SIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She is so grown up all of the sudden. I just adore the person she is. So funny and sensitive and intuitive and driven ad thoughtful and smart as a whip...

Here is Ellerie and her cousin Amyin their fake mustaches (fake mustaches, incidentally, are a HUGE birthday party hit - even for girls!)

Always Marry An April Girl  

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;

April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --

I love April, I love you.

Ogden Nash

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I have been meditating on CH 7 of New Earth. I will write about it later.

Chapter 6 - releasing the pain body

Ok - if you have been wondering what all this Eckhart stuff is - then watch Oprah today. She is doing a show about how this has changed lives.

Chapter 6 held the most "aha" moments for me - by far.

I came to understand so much more about myself and my pain body.

One of my biggest questions was about learning to feel and be in touch with my feelings as they arise. I have a very hard time with this.

And now I finally know why... and how to change it.

Eckhart states that children will shut down their emotions if they are painful - but they are still there and stored in the body. I know I shut off as a child. The pain body is the emotional part of the ego.

My ego was damaged - and I know how I shut off my emotions - I eat.

I have memories of sneaking at midnight to eat cookies s early as age 8 or so. I started using food to replace my feelings a long time ago.

In order for me to get in touch with my feelings again I simply need to stop the pain body from emotional eating. I say simply...

Grace hides in every form of suffering.The cross we bear is the same cross that is used to free us.

How amazing and HUGE is that?

Stop identifying with the pain body. I totally understand that. I understand compassion and love... I am really practicing being present. Now I will practice not eating and allowing my feelings to be. I feel anxiety at the thought. Yay!

Does anyone else doing this find that their pain body is really fighting to stay alive? When I become aware...my pain body starts up in other areas - trying to get me to do things that will keep "me" locked in the shame spiral. It's amazing. When I see it however, just as Eckhart says - it vanishes!!!

I have many more questions - which I am sure will be answered in time.

One of which is when a pain body marries a pain body...and you are conscious of being a pain body and your spouse has no interest in addressing the pain body...

what then?
 

 

Art Quilt workbook lesson and a cute decorating idea.

I saw this cute decorating idea in a magazine:

I had this funky wall space I wasn't sure what to do with. All I did was glue 2 12 x 12 sheets of scrapbook paper to 2- 12 x 12 canvases. Then I painted the edges to match and hung them.

It took me less than an hour!

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I have started making time to start art quilting. This is what I want to do more than anything...I am doing the workbook and this is my 9 x 12 for my 2nd lesson.

I think it's OK. Not spectacular, not terrible. Just OK. But I had a lot of fun making it, and found myself - if you can believe this - limited by commercial fabric choices. I am thinking of maybe dying some fabrics. This is something I never imagined I would even be remotely interested in doing!

I free-motion quilted the entire thing and I save my selvedge edges - for some reason I really love them. LOL - so I used one for the flower stem. It represents for me the incredible intelligence of nature. The flower knows when to bloom. The tree knows when to blossom.

It amazes me.

And yes, I would love to live under a polka-dot sky with ginger blossom clouds.

mmmmmmmmmm. Heaven.

as above so below.

Here is a piece I am working on now. It is obviously inspired by my spiritual revolution. I call it "As above, so below".

I am not sure if it's done yet. I have to live with it for a while and see what it thinks.

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So - the chapter this week was the pain body. The paaaaaaaaaaain body.

I am not sure about you other dense pain bodies out there, but I find my pain body really really fighting for survival within myself. There is literally this internal war happening.

And the consciousness within me feels delicate, like this lotus. It comes up quietly. Delicately. lady-like in her strong silent mannerism.

And pain body is a loud obnoxious twit. Who screams at my consciousness and tries to lure me into eating, or other thoughts that are totally pain body related.

And consciousness either retreats, or just stands there, forcing pain body to go slithering away to its hole.

I have a lot of stuffed feelings that make up my pain body. Like Oprah - I was also severely abused as a child and in my world it was eat or be eaten - NEVER let your underbelly show.

And soon I didn't even have one anymore.

Or so I thought.

It's there alright. My children brought it out in my. Love. Gentleness. Goodness.

Feeling.

And pain body hates it. My pain body is so ugly. She hates me so. She hates herself.

And she can fight all she wants to.

She's not going to win because now I know. I know.

I have recently discovered the work by Byron Katie and all I can say is WOW. It compliments Ekhart's teachings well.

It helps you to SEE  yourself clearly. Really eye-opening.

If you like to know the truth about yourself that is.

scenes from the desert.

I just returned from visiting my sister in AZ and the desert is alive with flowers! The drive was so beautiful. So without further adieu....

(this picture was at the butterfly habitat at the desert botanical garden in Phoenix!)

We have to drive through Hoover Dam on the way to and from AZ and the new bridge they are building is INSANE! I happen to be afraid of heights so the thought of ever driving across this bridge really freaks me out.

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My sister and I sewed matching skirts for the girls (my niece and Ellerie are only 2 months apart). We used the Michael Miller Ginger Blossom line. I LOVE this line! So bright and colorful.

Incidentally, these skirts were a cinch to sew up - I taught my sister who had never sewn before - she did Amy's! I will have to write up instructions post them here.

Great ones like me....

First - I am the guest hostess this week at Just Be Connected - so thank you Melba!!!

Second - my daughter came up with another gem.

She fell and I thought she hurt herself. And she said to me, "Great ones like me never get hurt!"

I love it!!! She cracks me up!

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I hope everyone had a happy easter! I made the kids matching bunny pants! I will post later. Weston is fussing for me...

And this chair is hurting my butt. LOL.