Quilted Colour Wheel

We haven't had a theme to work on collectively the last little while, so we've each been doing our own thing.  Chantal is decorating a clear vase with autumn leaves (painted and embellished with gold/metallic pen, and glued on with Mod-Podge).  Jordan is close to finishing his painting of the spider with the face of an old man (that's my description of it, but Jordan may have another).  And Ellen started a gorgeous painting of the Toronto skyline a couple of weeks ago over Skype, which I hope to see completed soon.

I finally finished the quilted colour wheel I started at the beginning of the month.  Here are a couple of photos of work in progress, to show just how much the beginning and the end of my projects resemble each other (usually not much!).

To add a bit of texture to the final quilt, I stitched in (free-motion) a bunch of wool/felt 'nuggets' (loose, pebble-like bits of felt, brightly dyed).  I love the final effect (though I had to struggle with my sewing machine to get it done, and only finished after breaking 5 needles...).

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins last week!  Jordan carved a big orange one, Jess carved and painted the big white one, and I (Michelle) carved and inked a butternut squash, while Jessica looked on and knitted.

I don't know what kind of squash the white pumpkin was, but it was much heavier and denser than the orange one, with walls at least an inch thick when hollowed out.  Jess turned it into a painted clown.

Jordan did an elaborate carving of a headless horseman on his orange pumpkin.  The photo below is work in progress.  The final work ended up being eaten by a squirrel, before evidence of the intricateness of the final carving could be photographed.

I recently discovered the art of Zentangle doodles, and drew some in with black ink (pen) on one of the 4 layers of my carved butternut squash. 

And so as not to waste perfectly good vegetables, I made pancakes out of the carved pumpkin pulp, and roasted the seeds (sprinkled with salt, pepper, garlic salt and paprika, and tossed in canola oil - yum!).