I can 'bearly' contain myself.

I love my new 3-day weekends!!! The very best thing about them is how much more hooking time I seem to get. And for me, more hooking time means I get to pick and choose which projects to focus on. This weekend, I spent time on three different things. I know that for some that appears a bit ADD, but for me, I like to think of it more like a curriculum – a way to divide my time and get a little bit done on lots of things.

So Friday after I did all my errands and grocery shopping, I spent a bit of time working up some more sketches for my 5 x 7 series. (I had a little exercise last week that convinced me that not every idea will work in this format. I would show you the result, but I’ve ripped it out already and will use the frame for another piece.)

After doing that, I designed a couple of pillows for our new quilt on our bed up north. I decided to base them on some cotton pillows that we have around the cottage that are piecework with a featured item in a centre window. I decided to make R and W be the featured visuals, and this picture is the first one well under way. They are polar fleece, which makes them really soft on the bed.

On Saturday, I decided to get back to the giant Max project and ended up focusing on the bear’s head, which is shown here. I ended up giving him quite a snout after doing some black bear research and I think he has real personality. He will definitely hold his own against the raccoon and the moose.

To put the size of his head in perspective, two of the little 5 x 7 sketches are equal to his head. That’s another reason why moving around among projects is so much fun. Scale and perspective are very different, as you might well guess.

Next weekend is an in-town rarity with a workshop on the Saturday, so who knows what projects will get my attention. But the city weekends end up being more work-oriented with less time for hooking, so Bear and the initial pillows will have to wait until I am back in Parry Sound.