Progress and Portraits

It has been a busy couple of weeks here. I finally finished the boots and hats for the shop on the Square. They all turned out pretty cute AND I managed to print some tags for them on fabric before my printer ran out of ink. As I am still mastering the sewing machine, they are all pretty much hand sewn, but it's progress. I really wanted to get them to her before Christmas, but there were lots of other things going on around here. While I was in sewing mode, I decided to make a new pair of shoes for Zion. I had a nice wine colored wool sweater that I made into a pair of cute, warm winter Mary Janes. I also used my new hole punch (that I found for $5 at Walmart) to add some nice detail to them.


My shoe making was slowed a bit by a large family portrait that I was painting. My friend offered to trade me a washer and dryer for a portrait of her family. Can you ask for a better barter?! We have been in need of a washer since we moved into this house (a year ago). This is by far the largest family I've done, but it was good practice. I usually pride myself on being able to complete a portrait in a day or so, but this time I had to paint seven people. That stretched my work time, well, seven times (at least). I signed it and scraped my palette today so that I will not be compelled to keep touching it up (I'm prone to doing things like that). Hopefully she likes it.