The razzmatazz is over, the food is disappearing from the fridge and one’s mind turns to carbohydrate guilt and delight at the same time. We eat things that are not supposed to be good for us, however, the delight at eating the forbidden manifests in a quiet smile. We know it’s not going to stay on the hips, but it was a great delight hitting the lips.

Arriving home after 2 months working on the road just days from Christmas, and being thrown into the day to day life of an entire family community takes a great deal of juggling at times and indeed a great deal of diplomacy in a way. Several of the family have given us surprises with health issues and so this is how I find myself sitting in the hospital with a Grandie.

The Family however are taking most of the responsibility, harder for some than others but it works if we all take time to work through the complexities. I have the deepest respect for their commitment and compassion.

I have a short turn around time before heading to the Dominican Republic for class, then the USA to work on publications and down to Mexico for a tour all in 4 weeks.

For me it means working to a daily schedule here at home and if it has to change I just have to accommodate the work load, so I sit here in the hospital room with the quilt I’m working on and then I also slept under it last night.

Not everyone understands and I can hear some of you telling me to ‘relax’ but when contracts are made years out and folks have invested thousands of dollars to spend time with you… it’s a commitment. This is not my first rodeo folks and trust me I’ve paid my dues.

This is new.

Doing something formally that I’ve not done before in this format is exciting.

I’m an artist and I love thread painting, and I can do it in several different genres. One style leads to another, and I often combine the styles for a finished product.

I will finish the quilt above in the next few days, but I’m actually working on several projects at once.

Being in hospital has afforded me time to work the art pieces on the iPad, using photos taken in travel…. it all works into an exciting mixture, blends and comes out the other end as a product.

I’ve been gifted an amazing new machine from Janome… an M7 professional continental. It’s an revolutionary reactionary machine and I’m doing most of this batch of samples on it. It’s responsive time is exacting and I have only had it week, but it’s been worked hard each day in many different genres. I’ll certainly give it a good work out and share my information, thanks to Janome. It will do much more than just sew up strips into a pieced quilt. It’s an instrument for my art and I intend to use it to its full potential and share it with you.

Hopefully today I can finish the Giraffe, I’ve had to do it in stages, I’ve never completed the thread painting and then painted the background before, how scary is that, but there are techniques to conquer and I think I’ve done it.

Now I will quilt it and then finish the mane over to top of the quilting… so there are some very different steps in this genre.