Priorities

The last week was spent making Christmas stockings to be filled, and  given to residents of a woman's shelter and, and any children involved.  There is no Christmas fabric in my stash, and I don't like to have to purchase anything for my charity work, so they have turned out red and purple, blue and while, and scrappy blue. ( The charity work is definitely aimed at stash reduction) The pattern we had been given, without instructions, was a technical challenge, but I figured if it had been super important that they be made in a specific way, we would have been told, so I did the best I could.  But each still took about 6 hours of steady work, with the last one being finished last evening.  Sorry no picture.

Lately, it seems like I've been working my heart out, in the studio, with little to show for it.  The mandalas are now all finished, backed, and labelled.  Two are being saved for the gallery show in November, and the other four are committed to a boutique sale during the quilt show in April.  So much of my time over the last year has been devoted to that November gallery show, that now that I'm ready, I felt the need to develop a concrete plan for my studio work over the next while.  I now have a list, of about 11 potential projects.  Then, today, while giving some thought to those future projects, I found three more pieces that will make up very nicely into beaded mandalas, so they go on my list, since I have a least one potential outlet for them.

I have also wanted to make another reliquary, even to the point of assembling the fabric, braid, thread, and beads for three of them.  So today I took a look at this stock pile, and selected one colour-way to pursue. The reliquaries feed my creative soul, and I usually try to make about one per year.  I say "try", but maybe the word should be "need"?

But the priority for the immediate future is some actual dress-making, something I haven't done in years.