One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

Valentine's Day came and went. My sweet boyfriend took Sophie and me to a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant and then Sophie wanted to meet some friends to see a movie. Ernie and I decided to go see the Lego Movie - Everything is Awesome! It was very clever. Go see it if you haven't already. The Master Builders of Legos are pretty amazing. What a job they have! I just read an article yesterday and they described a day in their job life - how cool would it be to just create things out of legos all day?Sophie was supposed to be seeing that as well but they ended up seeing Monuments Men - she said it was really good.

On Sunday Ernie and I went to the Cortez Heritage Commercial Fishing Festival. We were there early so we were able to enjoy some nature before it got too crowded. It was a beautiful Florida morning! Just a little crisp and the sun shining on our faces. Just gorgeous!

White pelicans on vacation

Pelicans on parade

 

The Cortez school house was built in 1912 and in 1921 when a hurricane struck it was where the people of the fishing village sought refuge. They closed the school in 1961 and a weaver and artist by the name of Robert Sailors bought it. He added this "secret garden" and waterfall. It was actually much prettier in person! The building was always the center of the community and Robert would still hold the annual Cortez Native picnic on his lawn and still invited entertainment to perform for the community at his home. The county purchased the property after he died and renovated it and turned it into the Maritime Museum in 2006. It is still used as a community center of sorts and holds community gatherings and has a small library tucked inside. 

All in all it was a beautiful day. I am so blessed to live in Florida with it's sunshine a turquoise waters. It was really fun to see a little glimpse of a fishing villages history and get out and enjoy nature, good food, people watch, and check out a little bit of art too.

Screech Owl! He was playing with a cat toy mouse.

Beautiful Gulf Coast!

Sarasota Surface Design Guild

I promised myself that I would get more involved in life this year. Creative life, community life, etc. So, the boyfriend wouldn't let me back out of going to the monthly meeting last night as I so often do. I joined in December 2012 and went to 3 meetings all year :( Poor sportsmanship. Epic failure on my part. I joined again last night and plan on getting more involved. Such a lovely group of ladies from all walks of life! The creative energy in that group is astonishing! Weavers, painters, quilters, art quilters, jewelry makers, nature printers, fabric dyers, doll makers…I could go on and on. Plus they do play days once a month and you can try your hand at something you may never have thought of doing. One meeting I learned how to hand dye silk and made a beautiful scarf. I'm not sure why I talk myself out of going to the meetings. Maybe because after 3 meetings I still knew the same amount of people? ZERO. This time I brought a show and tell.

An art piece that I have been working on. I will finish it as soon as I get my other sewing machine up and running. I need the free-motion quilting foot. Oh well, I need it anyway for the Modern Quilt Guild meeting I am going to join this Saturday. They are doing a workshop on free-motion quilting too so it is perfect timing! 

I met some really amazing women last night and am very glad I have a boyfriend as stubborn as me who pushed me to go. Calamity Kim is a member of the guild and is a bit of a renaissance woman. She did a presentation/history of fashion and talked about losing your inhibitions and creating your own style. She talked about cutting up old pieces of clothing and reverting them back into just fabric to create something new and useful. I loved her quirky style and she was too funny! Such a great spirit. It is not my style to wear but I would love to make an artist apron using her techniques. Hmmm…just what I need. A new project…

Cheers!

Winter Cleaning…Kinda Like Spring...but Not

So, I finally got fed up with my creative work space and took the time to do something about it. Our little duplex leaves much to be desired but I am so grateful to have any space at all that I should at least make it user friendly! When we lived in Texas we had a 3 bedroom house and the 3rd bedroom was my sewing/craft room. It was wonderful! Somehow I had to cram that entire room into 1 wall. I read a few of my favorite blogs and took tips from their spaces. Let me give you a quick tour. Now don't get lost…I know the space is enormous ;)

My very embarrassing "before"

The lighting is better than it looks. We have a wall to wall sliding glass door to the left of the space and a light on the hutch behind it. I moved the Ikea basket shelf thing to the side so that I have more useable table top space and can watch Netflix and my favorite obsession of the moment. 

I added a little cheap bookshelf (Target $22) and found a little hexagon shaped tray, some cute heavy paper boxes with ribbon handles and a pack of stick on labels in the Target dollar section. I may have to go back for more before they are gone. I labeled one little box for scraps and the other one for selvedges. The blue containers on the new bookshelf are from the dollar store and I labeled those with current projects I am working on. One is for a Split 9 Patch Quilt and one is for an Art Quilt series I am creating.

All in all I love my new space! All together my "remodel" cost $27. Whoo hoo! I guess sometimes it helps to have a lot of crud you can reuse and repurpose. It's still a work in progress but I will tell you this past Sunday morning was bliss. It's so much easier to sew when you can find everything and not trip over boxes. Off to sew for the last 30 minutes of my morning…

Cheers!

Yay for Saturday!

It is so nice to wake up and not have anything pressing to do. I can just enjoy a cup of coffee, peruse emails, news, social media, or a good book with a warm puppy at my side. I think Ernie and I are going hiking later to look for Bald Eagles so I will enjoy my quiet morning for now.

I finished my Blogger Girl's January Block of the Month II Thursday. This will be very cute by the time I am done with it! It's fun to watch the other bloggers put theirs together and see all of the different color combos.

On another note…I have to have a proud mama moment. My daughter just turned 15 the week before Christmas. She has always had a talent using color and shading, etc. When she was young we would buy her more blank drawing tablets than coloring books. She loved to draw and when she colored in coloring books she would use the crayons like pastels and she would shade whatever she was coloring to give it depth. This is something she is working on for her 9th grade art class. It's not finished yet but it is already pretty amazing. It's been such a blessing watching her talent grow. 

Well, I will jump back into the book I am reading for a few more minutes of solitude before the troops are up and wanting breakfast.

Cheers!