Men Quilters exhibit

An artist friend of mine, Luke Haynes recently opened a show at the Craft and Folk Art Museum near my house. It's a show of quilts made by men, and it was a wonderful, very creative and liberating show to see. The emphasis was on the creativity and message and some of the quilts there simply blew my mind. Luke once introduced me to the artist Joe Cunningham, and I was excited to see he also had quilts in the show.

Joe's quilt, the black/white/chartreuse one that I have details of here was so stunningly quilted that I nearly cried with inspiration. There was also another quilter who I had not yet heard of, named Jimmy McBride, who made this Mars moon quilt which took my breath away.

I would have loved to stay so much longer than I did, but alas, I had a date with me names Dax, who was getting a little bit squirrelly by the end... His buddies Dash and Vaughn were also there (since their mom, my girlfriend, Hollie) was there as my real date. We figured that as quilter moms of boys, this was a great way to expose our babies to quilts as art.

A birthday celebratory giveaway

I have so many things to catch you up on... Dax is now almost 8 months and my feet are finally underneath me, I think... Though my house is a mess! I'm starting to get my energy back and a little of my creative mojo too.
This Christmas only one family gift was homemade - if that doesn't tell you the state of things!

But here we are in February and it's a great month to be born in. It's always made me feel a little weird and a teensy bit special to have my birthday on Leap Year - this year I will be 9 - again, for one last time. 😊

I've decided to celebrate my birthday month by giving away some treasures. This first one is a 9 piece collection of red fabrics. Which I seem to collect, but never use. Well, no more... Each of these is 1/4 yard of something I bought and have been sitting on way too long. So I'm sharing them instead.

The giveaway is being handled completely on Instagram, but you can find it there at #libbydibbybirthdaygiveaway

There will be more too, so keep your eyes open

Charity quilts

I love sewing. Like really love it. And there just aren't enough bodies or beds in our family to justify how many quilts I make. So a favorite way of mine to help the quilts find homes is to sell them and donate the money to good causes. Here are some I sold in the beginning of this year.

Advent collages

About 4 years ago, I was invited to have a solo art show at a gallery in North Hollywood.  The show was to be advent themed, and I made 10 collages for it. They were all made from junk mail and catalogs, then blown up really big onto canvases. I haven't pulled them out or looked at them for a while, but I thought now would be the perfect time to bring them back out. 

This one is called "Messenger"

Half Square Triangle baby quilts

When I first started quilting, I was terrified of anything having to do with triangles. They can be fussy and really show mistakes. These days, I've still made some major blunders with them, but I have really come to love what are called Half Square Triangles (HSTs by quilt nerds). They are super easy to make and really versatile in their possible outcomes.
I actually have a bunch of HST quilts to share, but these three baby quilts are some recent favorites that I've made. You can see how the layout changes everything and the fabrics really get to show off.
It seems like my world is really full of boys these days, only about 2 out of the last 10 or so baby quilts I've made have been in girl colors... That's okay, these color schemes are currently in the top 10 for me.

Pillow-palooa

Everyone knows pregnant ladies nest in different ways. Since I had no nursery to paint (Dax sleeps on our room) and no house to remodel, it made sense that I would sew. And especially towards the end of my pregnancy, the only thing that took my mind off of my discomfort was sewing...

I quilted commission quilts until I was too tired to make deadlines, I basted every top I could
Finish until I was too big to baste, then I pulled out all the bag patterns I've bought over the years to try out those (fun)... And I made pillows (I think about 14 in all) that I have as teacher gifts at the end of the school year. They were small, short term projects that required minimal effort of moving my big body around.

The pleated design became so much of a favorite that I made a bunch of them. I plan to write a pattern for how to make them.

So I had this baby

The most wonderful thing I made in the past year was this beautiful little boy. Meet Dax. He's 4 months old and a giant "fun size" ball of joy. He doesn't give me much time to sew or do other creative stuff, so I have to sneak in moments between crashing facedown on the couch at 8:30pm and waking up to take care of the family in the morning. But he is SO worth it.

Hi. It's me again.

So it's been somewhere around 18 months since I said goodbye to this blog. I never took it offline because my hubby encouraged me not to- because I might want to pick it up someday, but I really did think it was gone forever.
I've spent a lot of time on Instagram. And also incubating, too. Our family is now a family of five (a biological baby!) and I've been sewing and creating a lot too, though these past four months have been a little less artistically productive as I nurture a very chubby and joyful little person.
I've been asked by a number of people if I would ever start blogging again, and I have started listening to those ideas.
I'm not starting this up again with a goal in mind, just a place to record these thoughts and projects that is more permanent than Instagram. (Find me there at "libbydibby"). The blog had gotten really personal with my foster journey, grief and recovery, and I can't promise that I'll be going there this time around, but that's okay, too.
I've been quasi-blogging on my Quilting Facebook page, too - Liberty Worth Art & Quilts - if you find that interesting.

I'm not really sure where this new chapter will take the blog, but that's okay, I just enjoy recording this stuff.
See you around, if you're around...

To be continued - offline....

Well, here we are. At the end of this blog adventure.
(I wasn't sure I would ever write that)

Lately I have felt more and more that my blog has become homework for life.
If something great happens, I must blog about it.
If I complete something, I must blog about it.
If I see something inspiring, or go somewhere exciting, I must blog about it.
Then there were all the Re-Building Joy entries - how could I walk through my grief and healing without explaining where I was at? How could I gloss over pain and pretend it didn't exist? So I shared it all.

And in a way, the blog itself - after 1115 posts and close to 6 years of regular blogging, has become a task for me to do - something else hanging over my head after each experience that I encounter.  I've been aware for years that my blog is different than others - it's not just crafting, quilting, art, family, foster care, adoption attempts, grief and healing, inspiration, skirts, business promotion (when I had one) - It was kind of it's own animal. It's been my online journal where I've allowed people into my head to see what makes me tick. And that was fun. Years of fun.

But recently, after some thought, I think it's time for this chapter to close. I am not promising that I won't ever blog again... Who knows what the future holds? This past year, J and I have been talking a lot about living a life less public, relishing some privacy and allowing ourselves and our family to have things we don't share.  This is a huge change from who we always were - starting with our huge wedding and big announcements over the years.... and then having to reign a lot in when we were foster parents and unable to share hardly any of the details of what we faced, while it was possibly the most formative thing we have done together as a family other than our multiple cross country moves. Now, though, we really desire to live somewhere in the middle.

Not that I am completely offline...
If you want to find me still, you can follow me on Instagram - I'm addicted to the fun of IG. You can also find some of my artwork on etsy.  Other than that, my friends - you can see me in real life and know that I have really loved this adventure with you as readers... 6 years of blogging makes for a habit that will leave a hole for sure. But that is good. Change is good.

I wish you the best, the brightest and the most hopeful future... and I'll see you around.

Daring Adventures in Paint

My friend, Tori, encouraged me to take an online painting class with her by an artist named Mati Rose. The class is called "Daring Adventures in Paint" and it's really well organized - a daily email comes to your inbox, encouraging you to try a new technique, read about an artist, watch a video.
Honestly, I've fallen way behind with the core material, but it has motivated me to get the canvases and brushes out and just do some art.
These are all pics of some mid-progress work, none that I absolutely love quite yet, but we are getting there....