Presenting, and Projects Progress

Saturday found me in Sarasota, Florida, visiting members of the Sarasota Modern Quilt Guild to present a program I call Scarping Your Scraps. For those of you not familiar with term "scarp," it's a funny misspelling of the word scraps. All blame credit for the term goes to my friend Char at Cloth Stitched. I'm sure she regrets the day she posted that typo. That's when, reading her blog post, I was thinking, "Oh, I'm going to learn about something new that Char's doing!" Scarps. Ha, ha. 😂

So, my scarp presentation involved sharing scrappy makes - everything from quilts to blocks, bags to coasters, and peg loom and braided rugs to confetti pouches and twining - 22 items in all.

I developed the program after Lois, a blog-reader in Sarasota, noted all my scrappy makes, and asked if I could come to share them with her chapter. Pulling together the presentation involved quite a bit of organization on my part, but the outcome was good. I have a better handle on my unfinished scarp projects (just a few), including what they are, and where I'm keeping them! Thanks so much for inviting me, Lois!

My latest knitting finish is a 24" X 36" baby afghan that I'll donate to Children's Home Society of Florida.

My friend Sandy gave me the donated yarn along with a simple pattern using two strands of yarn with a four-row repeat - something easy for me to hone my rusty knitting skills. Edited to add: This "Beautiful Texture Baby Blanket" pattern is found in a book. Here's the link to information on Ravelry. 

Using what remains of the pastel variegated yarn, and another skein of blue yarn, I've begun knitting another baby afghan. 

This past week I also spent some time on the Scrap Play project, begun January 3 in Sherri Lynn Wood's free virtual workshop. Feeling stumped about how to move forward with the improv-y nine patch and HSTs I'd made, I pulled out her book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, and found inspiration. 

I'll be moving forward, using chartreuse-y green prints and solids to make this into something somewhat visually appealing. 

Some of my time has returned to trying to salvage the "Ocean" diamond painting kit, purchased last June from Diamond Painting Pro. While the canvas and square resin drills are both excellent quality, the colors selected and keyed for the chart are less than accurate or attractive. The company tried to resolve my problem, but did NOT come up with appropriate color assignments and drill colors. 

In the top picture, you can see what the sunrise looked like, after I'd painted it according to the Diamond Painting Pro chart. In the bottom picture, you can see how I've begun to slowly correct their mistake, removing pink drills and replacing them with colors 5200 AB (aurora borealis) for the sun, and attempting to paint a gradual color shift of yellows. 

I think it's looking better, but what a tedious job. Removing drills is bad enough (they retain the stickiness of the glue on the canvas surface), but it's been trial and error to choose and place four shades of yellow drills. Argh. 

But I still like the original picture. so I'll keep going. 

We've had a couple nights of freezing temps here in Central Florida, though I don't mind a bit. I still travel to activities in my golf cart (with the canvas sides down, zipped and snapped in place). I've found I mostly have the roads and multi-modal paths to myself!

Also, for the first time in more than a year, I dressed in long long pants! Linda