Yesterday was a play day...

Yesterday was a day of exploration and play. I started out by getting a new hair cut. I had the appointment scheduled for months and I was originally going to just get it trimmed up but I wanted a little change so while I was in the waiting room I looked at a few of the style books there and found a chunky layered look that I liked a lot and said let's go for it. So here is the new style.

It doesn't look great this morning as I haven't done anything to it yet except run a comb through it and fluffed it a bit. I will get some highlights and low lights in another week and a couple hair products to help keep it in the chunky layers instead of going flat. I needed something a little more youthful and playful.

After the haircut, I headed over to Tina's for a play day. We are working on an eagle. It is all fused which means a lot of tracing patterns, fusing and cutting out hundreds of pieces. We started out by working on the beak area and before we knew it it was 5:00 already.

This is Tina's. I didn't get as far.
I packed up my stuff and headed home, changed my shoes and went up to the school to walk. I have started walking this week. That is another one of those tasks that I have been putting off for far too long. I don't know why I think that things will automatically change without putting any effort into them. As I left Tina's this is what we saw when we went outside.

The picture really doesn't do it justice. The sky was the most gorgeous red and pink. It was beautiful.

I also got a little more quilting done on my Christmas quilt. The Christmas plates are getting a dahlia like quilting motif that is done with an oval and a round template and then I am adding a secondary motif in between the plates. You can see these in the photos.

This was one of the motifs that I learned on Craftsy.com in Kimmy Brunner's Machine Quilting with Templates: Creating Design Perfection class. These classes are great. They are video lessons that you can go back and review as many times as you need. You can post questions to the instructor and post photos of your projects.

Once all the main motifs are quilted, I will go back in and do some background fills. I know that I want to add pebbles in the center circle of the secondary motif and right now I am leaning towards stippling around the plates. Stippling is not one of my favorites but I am not sure what else will work. I am still on the fence about that but I have lots of time to think about it and try to come up with something else while I am finishing up the rest.

Today, I am off to town to participate in the food drive that the OR nurses and employees at the hospital put together and do every year to help raise funds for local organizations that provide food to needy families for the holidays. They always have wonderful gift baskets etc. and it is for a good cause. First though, I am going to spend 1 hour sorting through that stack of papers that I have. Sort today. File tomorrow. Baby steps, good plan.

So have a great day. Why don't you share with me your most dreaded job that you put off for far too long? I won't judge you. I have plenty of my own follies to judge anyone else. If you have any tricks up your sleeve to make these jobs easier share them also with me. I need some ideas to psych myself into doing them more consistently.