HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

I hope you all have a lovely day. It is rather special for us as my husband (Bob aka Pat)and I

met 55 years ago tomorrow -- knew each other for 3 days -- decided to get married - shortly after I flew down to Camp Borden, Ontario where he was stationed

(Army) and 3 days later we were married. Needless to say, no one thought

we had a chance but it has gotten better every year.

I am so fortunate to have him - he is my best friend, my constant supporter and the love of my life!

I doubt if I would have made it through the past year without him being there

for me constantly -- He has 'loved' every art work I have ever done - and

I do so appreciate it. Shirley

OLYMPICS 2010

I am feeling so sorry for the luge team from Georgia for the dreadful

accident. I feel so bad for his family. He was only 21 years old I understand. I know that the organizers, and all of Canada are devastated.

However, they have not cancelled - I understand they added some height to the

fence - and made some other adjustments.

I have been watching the l000 meter speed skaters- my they do a good job!

I am also looking forward to the curling - as my nephew, Dave Merklinger

is in charge of the ice making. He is our top icemaker for curling .

Dave is also an excellent curler and won the world

championship in l985. His sister Anne is a wonderful curler who just

retired. She is head of our Summer Olympic "Own the Podium" program

which is a program to improve our resources, and training for the

Summer Olympics. I am very proud of them both.

The venues for the winter olympics are here in Calgary and

at the ski hills around here. The cross country skiing area is in Canmore

(Canmore Nordic Center). Most of the venues we built for the 88 olympics

have been used. We have our olympic oval for speed skaters - it isn't far from our place, here in Calgary.

We are usually glued to the television during all the olympics.

I hope you all enjoy them too. The weather is not cooperating. None of our

weather has followed the usual patterns here in Western Canada-- much

colder and snowier here this year but milder than usual in BC.

WELCOME TO CANADA!

The winter olympics start today - Vancouver is a gorgeous city and will be a great

setting for the Olympics. The opening ceremony will be starting in a few hours.

We held the Winter Olympics here in the 80's and what a great time we all had!

I send all the Olympians congratulations and I hope the games go well.

Shirley

My little artist

Hayley spent 3 hours painting a wonderful ceramic horse. She amazed me as

she decided to use the primary colors and mix her own. I was surprised she knew how! She is very focused and ended up with a very pretty horse.

She is so focused for a 6 year old and is showing a lot of talent. (not that I

am prejudiced!) I think we have an artist here - grin.

Aurora Borealis

I have been fortunate to see the northern lights quite a few times, especially when we lived in Edmonton. They are so unbelievable and so beautiful. I thought you might be interested in seeing some pictures that were sent to me - I am not sure who the photographer is - but they show the 'northern lights' so well.

I hope you enjoy them.

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I am still working on my "coyotes" I have the bottom 1/3rd quilted and am

starting the sky right now. I should have it finished (the scene ) and will do the borders tomorrow.

My husband likes it - which is good as it is for him.

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My mind is still on the new Challenge and I think I have decided on

what I am going to do. I promised myself I will finish my WIP's before I

start - that will give me more time to think about how I will accomplish

my goal which is to get out of my comfort zone -

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It is a glorious day today -- it is bright and sunny (we are fortunate that even though it can be bitter cold we gets lots of sunlight) I do much better in the

sunshine and feel quite down if I am in an area where there are a lot of cloudy

days, even if the weather is warmer. The snow is melting and even though it

is early in this part of the world, I feel spring in the air. I think about the

West coast and that the blossoms are starting to show - I love the spring in

Vancouver and Victoria -- I just am not fond of the rain.

They are busy getting ready for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Shirley

Challengingourselves

is the name of our new Challenge group -- we have our own yahoo group and have chosen our first challenge --" Hidden treasures" - what a great choice. I think I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go with this. I had decided I wouldn't say much about what I hoped to accomplish, here. However I think I will post generally about my struggles -grin.

My goal is to branch out with my work. I have done so many landscapes of the Rockies, winter and places around where I live. I have decided not to go in that

direction - and hopefully do some of the things I have wanted to do over the years.

I am happy with my work, but it is time I forced myself to try new directions.

I have decided - especially for this first challenge that I don't want to change

completely - I prefer to use what I have learned over the years, but try new

ways to accomplish my goal or even change my goal still doing what I love to do.

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We have such a variety of ladies signed up in this new group, that it will be fascinating to see what each of us ends up with. I think the subject is perfect for our first challenge - so many different directions we can go.

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2010 My work Coyotes

I finally finished the top of my 'Coyotes' It is

45" x 35" and I am glad to get the top finished.

It is the first one I have made for ll months so it is nice to know the creative part is finished.

I will machine embroidery and quilt it quite

tightly, and will put a variegated thread on the border. I enjoy the quilting just as much

as the designing - I haven't got a name for it

yet -- This one will be in our living room.

It has been a very good week for me.

My grand daughter Hayley's 6th birthday! She had a wonderful time with her kindergarden friends at the Science Building for her birthday party. She is very aware of the universe and amazed my husband because she told him the name of all the planets! She is

such a joy for us!

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We were talking on our Learningfa group about a wonderful challenge blog one of the girls had told me aboutArt quilts around the world . As the group was full, and as the idea appealed to me so much, I suggested that some of the girls on the learningfa group would like to start one of our own. Within about 30 minutes we had 20 people and after a lot of work, we have a yahoo group called "Challenging ourselves" and have chosen our first Challenge. We have Canadians, Australians, Americans and an Irish woman in the group - Some are traditional quilters, others have lots of Art quilt experience some have none and we really should have a variety of different challenges when we

finish them for May 15.

The first challenge is "hidden treasures' and there are no rules as to how we interpret the theme. I will post as I take this journey. I

have so many ideas of things I might want to do -- I want to try new things, but

to be honest - I think I will follow my own thoughts with this one - even if

I use tried and true techniques.

I hope to learn something about photo shop, but doubt I will ever really get

into doing abstracts as I love what I am already doing. I just hope I can come up with something that speaks to me - as that is what the new group is about.

We already have a waiting list but have decided to limit the group to 20 people.

Once we are near finishing our challenge I will open a blog so that we can show our pictures of each of the challenges and continue to do so for each new challenge.

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Our weather has improved as we had a Chinook wind this morning which

causes the temperatures to rise very quickly. It makes a nice break and today a lot of the snow on the side roads melted. We have had a very large amount of

snow and the it will be great when the snow goes and the streets are cleaned. Oh well, this is Çanadian weather! It is hard to believe it is February already

and soon we will see our first robins. After this past year, I am looking forward

to a happy 2010 with no unexpected surprises.

Coyote wall hanging 2010

My two coyotes are now attached to my scene. I am not going to post the whole scene right now. (It looks better when it is quilted) but I want to show you how I added the coyotes to the bottom forest.

Coyotes blend into the forest and I think they do here. It would be good if people, when they look at the piece, find the coyotes which are not too noticeable as that is the way you see
them in real life.

I am enjoying doing this wall hanging
it is nice to get back to normal.

I am also busy preparing a new set of thread painting workshops for the Learningfa
group. I have a large number of students signed up and will be starting the classes
in the middle of February. It will be ongoing and I will also be posting information and examples on my blog.

We really have had a tough winter here in Calgary -- it is snowing again and the roads
are treacherous. It is nice that we are retired and don't HAVE to drive anywhere. I t
never used to bother me to drive in winter. We spent 9 years in Arizona and I got away from winter driving - I really prefer to avoid it at all costs - grin!
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There is a wonderful class happening in learningfa right now. A One BLock Wonder quilt and the girls are having so much fun with it. I am looking forward to seeing the results.
It is one of the most fun quilts to do and each quilt is different - they are having so much fun.

Well, I had better finish putting the first narrow border on my wall hanging and cut the outer border. Then the fun part - the free motion quliting. I have 3 small wall hangings to finish binding, and a couple of round robins I want to quilt and finish.

I also want to double check my "Skating on the pond" which will be my next class on learning fa - see header picture. I have the class prepared but want to see if I need to add any more information. These 'chores' should keep me busy for at least a month or two.

Have a happy day! Shirley

Coyotes

Here are the two coyotes I thread painted for a wall hanging I am doing.

I enjoyed doing both of them and hopefully they will add to my scene.

I am also including the original pictures which I copied onto a fabric sheet.
The larger coyote wasn't clear as far as the colors were concerned so I
checked out the smaller one and tried to approximate its colors. I have done many
subjects without the color guideline, but this is much easier and much more true to
life. I will continue working on the wall hanging and will show it to you when it is
finished. Shirley

Coyote

I spent a couple of hours doing a coyote for my latest wall hanging today. I was really happy with the coat but I put the eye too high in the face. tomorrow I will cover where I did the eye and then thread paint an eye a bit closer to the nose, and put a 'cheek' in rather than have the line under the chin so straight. I have another one that I will also thread paint for
the same wall hanging.This one will be for us - I hope you like it. I really enjoy doing the animals from a printed copy of one of my photos or a photo in a magazine or a newspaper.

This one was one of mine , the second smaller one which will be further back was taken
from a photo in our paper. I printed them on the fabric and then placed it on top of
the timtex and thread painted using the photo fabric as the color source. I don't draw animals well (or faces and people) so I usually take photos instead.

The bear above was done the same way. Shirley

Each year .........

the girls in Learningfa who finish class projects - put their name in for a draw for one of
my wall hangings. I do a lot of samples for classes as well as wall hangings for my own
pleasure - This year TERI MARX won my wall hanging "A summer Morning".

Teri finished two of the classes and is an active member of the group so I was
pleased to see her win. CONGRATULATIONS TERI - I hope you enjoy having
this wall hanging in your home.

We will be doing the 2010 draw in December.

MY WORK

In 2000 I made my first hand painted southwest quilt -- I made a total of 5 - sold two and I gave the first one I finished (hand painted and hand quilted) to my oldest Son Rob.

2 weeks before he died he asked me if I would like to have it back and I said yes. I plan on getting it cleaned and will use it on our bed -- it means so much to me that he wanted me to
have it to remember him by. I painted it with acrylic craft paint and textile medium and hand quilted the quilt although it isn't quilted the way I would quilt it now.

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The brown bordered quilt was made with my quilting group in Arizona - I painted the panels and they helped me put it together. It was quilt as you go. The other two pictures
are of the top and one of the side panels of the quilt that I kept. It is much like Rob's. I rarely paint my fabric any more as I enjoy the thread painting so much These are
amazingly, not difficult to look after - although I was worried that the paint would fade - not so, thankfully.

The orange bordered quilt (one of my favorites) was donated to the Crisis shelter in Strathmore in 2002 and they raffled it off - they made 4500.00 for their new shelter -- this quilt paid for their playground and childrens' room which really was exciting for me.

ALBERTA SCENERY

We take lots of drives around Alberta (usually into the Rocky Mountains) and I want to share some of our beautiful scenery with you.Some of these show
our Skies, and most are of the mountains.

These photos were all taken on our short trips in 2009.

CHINOOK ARCHES

"CHINOOK - "a warm dry wind that blows down the east side of the Rocky Mountains in
the winter -- Temperatures can change in a few hours up to 30 degrees."

The winds cause an arch in the sky and are seen in northern Montana and Southern Alberta.
We know that warm weather is coming if only for a short while.

I have seen hundreds of Chinook arches over the years and never tire of them as each one is different from the others. The wind pushes the clouds into an arch (often a perfect arch) and they are so welcome. Sometimes at sunset they are spectacular -see photo.

I am going to post some pictures of my part of the world for the next while. I live in
an interesting place -- on the west are the Beautiful Canadian Rockies, then the foothills and to the east are the prairies and ranch and farm land. I hope you enjoy my pictures of some of the beautiful 'arches'. Shirley

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

My six year old grand daughter just phoned -- it seems Santa brought her a set of drums and an
mouth organ ! (I am glad they are at her house rather than mine!). She 'played for us
on the phone and I promised I would help her play a tune on the mouth organ. We are having a quiet family get together tonight.

I am finding this Christmas difficult, but that is to be expected -I know it will be easier as
time goes by. I hope to get back to normal this next while - teach my classes which were
promised last summer and do another wall hanging.

Our weather is so much nicer today - we have had terrible weather this past month-but today it is bright and sunny, not bitter cold and a typical Alberta Christmas. I wish I could
share it with my friends in the warmer climes. (Maybe they could send a bit of their
warmth this way.

We spent 2 Christmas's in New Zealand and I remember having a 'barbie" on the beach
with our friends - wonderful sea food right out of the ocean- pipis, clams, etc. It is
one of my favorite memories of our two years there.

Once again, have a wonderful Christmas everyone! Shirley

My dear friend Deb, who is

like a daughter to me is celebrating her birthday today - (a very special one) .

Deb -- has been a big part of my life for l0 years and
and has been such a wonderful friend, especially this
past few months when things were very dark in my life. I wish you good fortune,
good friends, and all good things dear Deb. Shirley

Here are some of my winter scenes,

made over the past two years. Looking out my window I think they are appropriate right now! I actually love to do winter scenes
but don't love the winter.

We have had
some really bad
weather this past 3 weeks.

I feel some enthusiasm
and will start working on my classes after Christmas. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

It was a----

tiring day, but the celebration of Rob's life went very well. It was a gathering of his friends
and family - which was what he wanted.

I am going to take it easy for a few days and then decide what project I will start - and
what class I will get ready to teach on Learningfa.

This is the 'Emma's tree' I have up on my wall at home. Today I received some Christmas
decorations from the girls in a 'Decoration swap' on the Learningfa group. I was so pleased as I wondered what their decorations would be like. I decided to put them on my 'Tree"
and here they are. Thanks so much if any of them are reading this blog. The other tree I made for a gift was much appreciated and I have decided to make them for all my friends next year. I am very tired and will take a few days to get back to working on my 'stuff'.


Shirley

Rob - February 20, l957 - December 13, 2009

Beloved son, father, brother - May you rest in peace Rob. Mom