I got this in the mail recently from Terri Stegmiller. Isn’t it wonderful? I won it from her blog. The photo doesn’t really do it justice – it is wonderful. I’m going to frame it and hang it in my studio for inspiration!

And this was in the box with it. Two wonderful key chains made by Sue B. and Terri S.

Here are two of the books I ordered from Amazon. I’ve got one more on the way. They are gifts from my sister and her family. Thanks R!

This didn’t come in the mail but is from my friend who knits. She’s the one I gave the knitting case to. This is a hot mitt that she knit and then fulled. It’s quite thick so now I won’t burn my fingers getting things out of the oven!

Well Sharon B. posted the TIF challenge for January. The concept is a feeling of admiration for another, who do you admire and why. Sooooooo….

I’m doing this challenge in hopes of improving my design skills. So that I can take a concept and develop it into a design. I don’t feel at all comfortable doing this right now but that’s why I accepted the challenge. And it is going to be difficult! I’ve been trying to not let in fear and negativity and just go forward. I would like to be able to design in a sketchbook and then carry forward into a finished piece of fiber art. I am not happy with my skills at sketching but I’m going to show my sketchbook here so no snickers please!

I’ve been thinking about the challenge and jotting things down on a separate piece of paper. I’ll try to be a little neater when I transfer to my book. I don’t really admire any one person. I admire qualities in lots of people. Here are some of my list of admirable qualities: outgoing and friendly, passionate about what is important in their life, humor, honesty and truthfulness, creativity, innovative, courageous and optimistic. So do you know anyone that has all these qualities?? So now I’m thinking along the lines of symbolism both for the admirable qualities and also for colors and what each color represents. That’s about as far as I have gotten.

I could take the easy way out and choose to use the color scheme that Sharon picked instead of the concept. I could use those colors easily – I like them. But I think I’m going to follow the challenging path and see where it takes me.