Musing Crow Designs

No art filled news this week, but the week became unexpectedly momentous for me. I officially handed in my resignation and will retire on the day of the summer Solstice, June 21. I knew that it would happen, I just hadn't been certain when it would happen, or how it would look when it happened. During a discussion with my most excellent 'boss lady' this week I knew that the moment had arrived.  For some months I had been having inner dialogues with myself and dithering about the practicalities, the "what if's", the good, bad and indifferent considerations. How much notice to give, would it even matter how much notice I gave? Was I even sure that this was a change I wanted to make? Of course, I think that we all struggle with retirement, and I don't mean just on the financial "what-if" level. There are so many things to consider. We have our family family, our friends family and our work family. These connections are not severed willy n

One of the side trades over at heARTist  Trading Cards is for 'thrincies'; or  three inch squares. I plan to use the thrincies that I get to make a small treasure box with. heARTist Trading Cards is all about the love of small art. Our regular, monthly, trades are made in the standard ATC format of 3.5" X 2.5". The fun thing about this group is that we always have side trades going. Our side trades are always optional to participate in, and the trades are, generally, all focused on 'small art'. I love being able to explore a variety of shapes and themes, and the group is short on rules which makes participation even more of an exploratory bit of fun. For this set of 'thrincies' I used a muslin piece that I had, at one time, used to wipe a printing plate clean with. I overprinted it with a simple pattern and then added paper bits and a quote for added textural appeal. For the backs of the 'thrincies' I monoprinted another muslin

At our recent retreat to Vashon Island last month I worked on 25 patch blocks until I could do it no longer and still manage to maintain a smile on my face.  In order to break up the '25 patch blues' I decided to make a much needed 'designer' cover for my sewing machine. I have it all 'put together' (see the image above) and I am working on what sort of free motion quilting I want to do on it. The fabrics are all from various Kaffe Fasset fabric lines. Vashon Island boasts the most amazing quilt shop, Island Quilter. They have the largest selection of Kaffe Fasset fabrics that I've ever seen. They specialize in Kaffe. The vibrabt flowers fabric above is actually a home dec fabric. The same pattern was available in a 'regular' quilting cloth but, for some odd reason, the colors in the quilting fabrics were far more subdued than the colors in the home dec line. Below is the '25 patch blues' project that I am slogging through. I hav