RedBarn Studios

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Looky hear….one of the blocks I made for Susan’s new book “Applique Petal Party“\’a0 by C & T Publishing is on their Facebook page. How cool is that? Check it out here. My block is the 1st one.
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I had fun with the hand applique but wanted to enlarge the 12″ block so added the purple squares in the 1st border and then the solid green border. This was one of my first pieces using only batiks and I love the way the colours in the flowers worked so well together.
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The hardest part was knowing I had only so much of the light blue background and, to boot, some of what was left was already cut into strips! That’s where the idea for the purple squares came in, I would have enough if I cut it up what was remaining into pieces but not enough to use as a large background piece.
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It is now hanging in the hallway that leads into my studio.
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft,

Tags: Art by k grace howes
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Yesterday, my son lamented the trials and tribulations of life as an 8 yr old. Someone was “being mean” and calling one of his friends yucky names.
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He came to his friend’s defense but then retreated when he realized the spotlight was now on him for rightly speaking up. I talked him thru that but the conversation tossed around in my head for a while about how we as adults deal with similar situations…till this morning.
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I don’t always get a chance to check out Christine Kane’s blog but it seems when I need clarification on random thoughts rolling round in my head, her post of the day puts things into perspective.
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In her latest post, “Standing Out and Standing In“, she talks about stepping into one’s own light and not letting the darkness of another encroach on one’s own ability to shine.
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When we do good and someone’s compliment makes us feel uncomfortable or, even worse, someone making us feel bad because we did good, we tend to want to retreat, to step out of the spotlight and make excuses for our good behavior, like my son did.
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Instead what we need to do is to feel proud of our accomplishments, our good deeds. Here’s how Christine describes it…
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‘When we \’93Stand Out,\’94 or when we \’93step out\’94 into what we want (to be), what we\’92re actually doing is moving deeper inward. In fact, I\’92d wager to say that the inward movement is required in order to hold our center.
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So, it might look like Standing Out. In the spotlight, into clarity, in a bigger playing field.
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But what you\’92re really doing is Standing In. Deeper within yourself. Centering your intentions. Grounded in awareness.Few people understand this.\’a0 Few people ever discover that this is the ultimate reward of standing out.’
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So another lessson for me AND my son
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…to remember to stand out by standing in
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…to remain steadfast in what our hearts contain
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…to be true to ourselves thru all the madness and strife that others choose to bring to our doorstep and,
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….to know that all the good, positive things we do will always far outweigh the negativity that abounds.
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,
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Tags: community, family, life etc., ponderings by k grace howes
4 Comments »

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…to all of you who dropped by to see the video tour of my studio. I have not had as much fun online as that. We all seem to be in a fever pitch to view all the studios that were available. I got some great ideas from some of you and marveled at how darn organized everything is in our studios. I think that really blew me away cause we artist can be a messy bunch sometimes.
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Thanks also to Pokey and her staff for getting us all together. Loads of fun was had by all I’m sure. Now I will sink down in my semi-comfy chair ( according to hubby) and read the magazine issue of Studios that just happens to have my good friend, Susan Brubaker Knapp in it (check out pg 72 me amigos!). We are all so very proud of\’a0 her. Woohoo!!!!\\\\
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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Tags: community, organization, thanksgiving by k grace howes
1 Comment »

Today is the Quilting Arts/Cloth, Paper, Scissors Virtual Studios Tour. PEOPLE…..I actually created a video and was able to upload it to Youtube as well. Woohoo!

I had loads of fun making my very first video but (oh my!) you should see the many, many flubs I made along the way. Now, I will let you know that in some places the colour is a bit off and in others I just didn’t have enough lighting but other than that…welcome to my studio.

So…on with the show!!

MY STUDIO TOUR

**To see more virtual studio tours pop on over here…

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See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Tags: Art, community by k grace howes
32 Comments »