More Storage in the Studio!

March 12th, 2012

Thanks to seeing various blog posts on the web, showing other quilt artist’s studios, I got a wonderful idea to add more storage to my cramped little studio. Check out the Postmark’d Art blog to see regular studio tours where members show where they do their creating.

Ironing Board Before

I have shown many views of my “cubicle” or studio before, but usually have tried to crop out the view of under the ironing board. Not a pretty site… lots of stuff just stacked there… My paper cutters have been pretty much floating around the place… I use them a lot and it’s too hard to heft them up onto the shelf above the ironing board, so one usually sits on the top in the way… the larger one is shown in this photo above on the Wonder under box on the floor.

Ironing Board Shelves in Kitchen

My first step toward getting the shelf unit I wanted, was to create a drawing with measurements for Ken to use to do the job. He finally got them together, but when I walked into the workshop to look at them, there was a BIG problem…. The shelves were not in the places shown above…. When Ken got to the point of installing the shelves, he didn’t read my numbers right for the first shelf, then things really got strange… he realized things were not right, but by that time he needed to have the tools in a vehicle to drive to GA.  Nick’s house was narrowly and blessedly missed by a tornado a week or so ago. The trees, sheds, fence and pool didn’t fare so well…. lots of clean-up is  needed and Nick and Megan came over from Germany to get things taken care of. My shelves were not tops on the list, so last minute before tools were leaving for two weeks my shelves were done.

I ended up taking the shelves apart and got them put back in the proper places…. they were planned to meet up with the ones on the end wall of the studio so I can still access those shelves.  The  photo above shows the completed and primed shelf unit, ready for the final coat of paint. As you can see, the kitchen became my workshop…. a pretty crowded one, but cramped spaces are not uncommon around here.

The Doorway

Once the shelves were painted, the main challenge was to get them into the studio… this is what it looked like looking from my sewing machine to the door into the office area.  The  shelves are 20″  wide… the space is not that wide as you can see… I have the doorway well blocked with the cutting table and an office table with a plastic drawer unit under it also in the doorway space.

I decided the only way things were going to work would be to get the shelves in on the tops of the tables (after they were cleared).  A rolling chair in my office helped me to get the shelves from the livingroom floor to the table tops. It took a  bit of wrangling, but I got them where they needed to go…. A lot of stuff did have to be moved make room.

New Ironing Board Shelves

And TA-DAAA!! Here are the shelves with their new coat of pale lavender paint left over from the master bath remodel for the finish coat. I did ding the paint in a few spots, but that is fixable…. I don’t know why I never thought of this earlier, but now my paper cutters, Wonder Under box, die cutter and dies, a bunch of fusible backed fabric pieces, and more have homes now… there is even a bit of space still available… The trash can fits perfectly between the shelves and machine cabinet (I did plan for that).  Despite all the trouble to get the thing re-made and wrestled into place, it is wonderful!!! It also gives me a MUCH sturdier ironing surface…. the ironing board was an old one that is sturdier than most new ones, but still pretty wobbly.  I just happened to have been using the purple spray bottle…. It coordinates so nicely with the lavender  of the shelves….  The bits of lime green on the ironing board are for the next batch of art cards in the works.

Now I better get back to finishing up preparation for giving two lectures in the next two days for a guild in State College, PA…. I probably could have waited until I got home to finish up the shelves, but this has been on my mind for a lonnngggg time.  Now If I could magically be able to get down to GA…. Not only are Nick and Megan there, their new little baby boy is there, too…. I soooo want to get my hands on that little guy!  They have been in Germany for over 6 months now, but still own the home in GA.

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February Quilt Retreat! and Red

February 21st, 2012

February is now passing very quickly and has been quite event filled…. The best part of the winter (for me anyway) is the local quilt guild’s retreat. A big group of quilters from the Endless Mountains Quilt Guild got together at Watson Homestead, a large retreat center not far from Painted Post, NY. We spent 5 days quilting and socializing, with everyone doing whatever projects they wanted to bring to work on.  I always end up taking too much with me… I never know what I will want to work on before I go, so I take a mini van load.

Design Wall at Watson

The first thing I did upon arrival and getting  things relatively set up to work was to pull out the bunch of Works in Progress I took along. This photo shows my 4′x6′ piece of foam board covered with flannel that was perched on a piano in the corner of the huge room we were in. The clamps were clipped onto the  piano with padding to protect the wood. This worked great because it sat at an angle that let everything I put on the wall to stay…. except for the canvas I was trying the tiny Wisteria piece on… I did have to pin that.  This photo was taken on nearly the last day and has two little pieces I finished on it- The Pansy piece below the “Blowing Snow” middle left, and the little “Roses on the Window” piece lower center.  I did also get a bunch of quilting done on the woodland piece lower left that was started at a retreat 2 years ago and hadn’t been touched since…. Finally a little progress!

Pansies and Butterflies

Here is a photo of “Pansies and Butterflies”- 11″x13″ in size. I had the flowers and  leaves fused to the background before I left for the retreat, and finished it there. I created the Pansy flowers by cutting up and combining parts of large die cut flowers and a small leaf die cut. It took a lot longer than I expected to finish it and I found out a few things I would do differently in another piece.  I used paint and Derwent Inktense pencils to add shading to try to get the flowers to stand out from the foliage.

Pansies and Butterflies Detail

The photo above shows the flowers up a bit closer. I used white pearlescent paint for shading on the flowers that looks brighter in the photo than in real life. The Pansy faces were stitched on using black thread, and the centers began as dots of pearlescent paint with yellow French knots of heavy rayon thread stitched on. The one main thing  would to differently would be the largest butterfly… It needed something, so I added some organza fused onto the wings. Then, I found that using thinned white pearlescent paint worked even better… I used the paint on the other butterflies and prefer the look of that…. The organza seems to overpower that butterfly (not quite as much in person as in the photo).  The leaves were quilted with green thread, while the flowers and sky swirls were done with clear thread. The outer border areas were stitched with a variegated thread in soft baby colors, and the edges are bound with a yarn in shades of blue.

Rose Garden Window- 4.5"x7.25"- $55.00

“Rose Garden Window” is another little piece that I finished at the retreat. I had the base with the stone wall and window done with the couched yarn Rose vine. I had the Delphinium clump fused and arranged, ready to add probably a year ago. This finally got it’s flowers and the leaves fused and more leaves stitched on. The Delphinium leaves needed a bit of touching up with the Inktense pencils, since they were a bit too bright a green.  This is bound with the same green yarn used for the vines. “Rose Garden Window”  is available for purchase in my Andrus Gardens Quilts ArtFire shop.

Just before I went on the retreat, I had designed and practiced a craft project for the Wednesday Kids at church. While doing the practice pieces, I found a problem that I hoped would not be an issue while doing it with the kids with a bit of a modification, but with 18 instead of the usual 12 kids the first night we tried the project, I ended up with some messy failures. (Even Epson ink printed onto Crayola Glitter paper will dissolve when brushed over repeatedly with a thin glue mix.)

Red Art Cards in Progress

I printed a bible verse on the glitter paper that the kids love to use, and thought that gluing some of my bleeding tissue paper over it would allow the verse to show and add some bright color. NOT! If the text was just brushed over with the glue one time all would have been fine, but kids love to keep on brushing so the ink smudged and smeared. I was able to guide the kids to cover up the smudges then re-printed the verses after taking the projects home and finishing them.

In the above photo, you can see what I did to some of my failed practice pieces of paper that I decided to use as the backings for the “Arts in The Cards” group February cards. The theme this month is Red, so I used mostly red tissue with a bit of yellow and pink added too. In the photo, you can see the piece of paper that hadn’t been cut up yet, and some of the text shows a tiny bit. I worked with half sheets of paper and was able to get 4 cards from each. Also in the above photo you can see some of the hearts I die cut from fused Angelina fibers, and some embroidered organza that I had backed with Wonder Under and cut motifs out of.

Red Card in Progress

One of the cards in progress is shown above. The pearlescent paint on the paper and the Angelina fiber heart reflected the flash when I took the photo. You can also see the white embroidered motifs from the organza.

Reds Finished Set

Once all the lacy motifs and hearts were fused on the cards, I added a bead of glue around each heart and added fine pink glitter to add even more sparkle.  Then edges of the cards were colored with a bright ink pad  brushed over them.  Each card has it’s own personality. When finished they seemed to look pretty romantic, so they were named “Romance”  If I was a week or so faster finishing they would have been perfect Valentines.

Kids Puzzles in Progress

This photo above shows what I ended up doing with the kid’s projects. The tissue paper and  glue covered paper was coated with gel gloss, then run through the printer to re-do the verses. If you look close at the upper right one, you can see that there is a shadow of the original text.  Each half sheet of paper was backed with cereal box cardboard fused to it, then I cut the pieces to nearly the finished size I needed to run them  through the die cutter with the puzzle die. Each project was cut into two puzzles that butt together. Extra paper cut off gives each kid a couple pieces to use as bookmarks.  The upper right one has been cut and I moved one piece out to show the puzzle a bit better. I have 18+ of these all cut and bagged ready to get to the kids this week.  The cereal box cardboard fused to the heavy paper gave a nice thickness for puzzles.

I still have to finish up another batch of the projects that were done by the younger group of kids by Wednesday night.

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A Spring Walk in February?

February 6th, 2012

Another post already!!  Today was finally a beautifully sunny Spring-like day…. in February?? Not normal for us here in NE PA, but it was a nice one today.  The temp. got up to 50 or more so I decided to take a little walk through a couple gardens with the camera.

Witch Hazel Bud

I mostly used the macro lens today  and this was the first thing I found!  I had some papers to burn, so I took them to the brush pile that is still in the yard from the creation of the Bird Sanctuary garden last Fall, to try to burn a  bit more of the pile… Little by little the pile is getting smaller.  I started my walk by checking all the new baby trees and shrubs I planted just a couple months ago. I was afraid the deer had gotten all the Witch Hazel buds, but when I looked really close, I found a few tiny buds beginning to unfurl petals…. What a treat!  I love the fuzzy texture of the buds and bark.

Lilac Bud

I walked through the Lilac Garden and amazingly got a fairly clear shot of a Lilac bud. With my shaky hands and a bit of a breeze that was starting, I was surprised to get it this clear…..

Juniper procumbens Nana Variegata

Just below the Lilacs, is the Variegated Juniper that I can see from my studio window… Right now the tips of the branches are a bright yellow. They will fade to creamy white in summer and then green as they age. The photo above shows an area not much over an inch wide…. I got really close with this…

Iris in February 2012

Usually this time of year, most of the perennials are hiding underground or under a blanket of snow… not this winter, at least not yet… This Iris almost looks like it has some new growth….

Fungi on Wood

There is definitely a lack of flowers this time of year, but there is a bit of color if you look really close…  this almost ferny looking fungus is on some old logs from the dead Catalpa tree that are still around.

Shelf Fungus 1

There is a nice crop of this pretty shelf fungi on another log I found. You can even see a little of the flatter kind on the bark if you look close.

Shelf Fungus 3

This photo above shows another grouping of the shelf fungi… Some of the stripes in it look nearly blue… These were also pretty small… the largest in this group was around 1 inch across…. Loving the macro lens!

Aconite Surprise Feb 6 2012

These little guys starting to peek out were a real surprise! The Winter Aconites have been blooming in March most years, and last Spring they didn’t even show anything until the end of March…. This is only February 6, and they are already beginning to show peeks of  color!

Fungi on Rock 1

The Aconites are growing next to a stone wall and a set of old stone steps. I sat down and took  a closer look at some of what was growing on the rocks… The photo above shows a number of different varieties of fungi.

Moss on Rock

This little clump of moss is just over an inch in diameter. Here is a really close look at it.

Moss and Fungi on Rock

This photo shows the  whole clump of the moss along with some groups of various fungi… You have to get really close to things to see much pretty color this time of year.

Granny Smith Apple

This apple was sitting in the fruit bowl and the light was shining on it just right for this closeup….

African Violet Petals Feb 6

The African Violet in the kitchen window is still blooming, too… Here is just part of one of the flowers…I love this shade of pink.

It was nice to get out into the gardens again, even if there isn’t too much going on right now. There are some little bitty treasures to be found if one looks close enough.

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Flowers and Gardens in the Studio

February 4th, 2012

It has only been just over 2 weeks since my first post of the year, and I am already posting my second one…. Maybe hope for keeping up better….  Since creating my “Too Many Two’s” art cards, I have been cutting more flowers with my die cutter.

Flowers out of Fabric

The photo above shows a couple of charm squares of fabric backed with Wonder Under that were cut using my flower die… As you can see there is a lot of fabric left between each flower cutout. This bothered me, so I decided to take things into my own hands….

 

Fixing Flower Die

This photo above shows the die as it originally was. I used a cutting wheel on my Dremel tool to cut the individual flowers apart from each other… I drew lines to help to guide my cutting.

Rough Cut Die

Above is what the die looked like after a lot of sparks flew as I cut the sections apart.

Cut up Die

After using a grinding wheel to round some edges and clean up the cuts, this is what things look like now… Each of the flowers are now separate from each other. With the flowers as separate dies, it is much easier for me to cut just the flowers I really want, and it is much easier to use up smaller fabric pieces.

Group of Dies

As you can see in the above photo, I have some other dies from the Spellbinders Shapeabilities series of dies. The leaves and butterflies started out with each shape separate from the others, and with the leaves, there are multiple sizes that nest within each other when stored. These dies are considered “wafer thin” dies and meant to cut one sheet of card stock or chip board and also will emboss the papers, too. With a bit of experimenting, I have figured out that I can cut two layers of fabric successfully. The cutting base is 6″ wide by 9″ long, so if I want, I can place as many shapes as I can on 6×9″ pieces of fabric and cut quite a few pieces at a time.

Cut Flowers and Leaves

This photo shows a bunch of flowers and leaves that I cut after “fixing” my flower die. In the lower right corner, you can see some little strips I cut from some of the leftovers to make tiny Delphinium flowers. After I cut up a bunch of the shapes, I fused them to pieces of the Wonder Under backing paper until I can use them in a project. You can see some flowers fused to the left of the photo.

 

Compound Flowers

I didn’t have any projects in mind, so I just got a bit creative with the iron one day and put together new flowers by combining larger and smaller flowers like I did with these that somewhat remind me of Dianthus flowers… just not “normal” colors.

 

Lots of Flowers

This photo shows  a lot of the flowers I came up with… Pansies, Delphiniums in different sizes, Coneflowers, and a bunch of Random compound flowers. There are a lot of possibilities with the different flower shapes. I can cut up some of the larger flowers to make the Pansies, group multiples for Delphiniums, and more.  Not long after I fused up  these flowers, the most recent FFFC theme was released- Memories of My Childhood. Hmmmm…. From just a little  girl, I have loved flowers and remember helping my mom in the gardens. There even is a photo of me at about 3 yrs old with a bud I had picked off of one of my mom’s rose bushes in one hand, and “bouquet” of weeds in the other. The random compound flowers are not “botanically correct”, not what I usually use in my quilts. With my horticulture degree, I usually make my flowers as close to nature as possible. This challenge gave me a reason to just play like a child would.

 

Garden Play Base

I started with a base that was to be one of my Botanical Applique series pieces. I roughly cut some green fabrics for grass and stems. I wanted it to have the look of a  child’s crayon drawing.

 

Garden Play Fused and Quilted

Once I had the grass, I added flowers and leaves. I packed in a lot of flowers, and then added a few butterflies. After the fusing was done, it was ready for quilting, but I had to put it aside for a couple days to get paperwork in order for a visit with a new doctor. I was going to see her for the first time yesterday, in the hopes of finding out if there is something other than my fibromyalgia causing my pain levels to be increasing so much this winter, and my Rheumatologist has no answers at this point. The appointment proved to be very discouraging, and by the time I got home last evening, I needed massive doses of chocolate…  I almost went to bed early to just hide from life, but I saw this piece still in need of quilting. My mood improved quite a bit as I lost myself in the stitching…. I didn’t even care if I followed lines perfectly…. I just stitched wherever I felt like stitching at the time….  Great Therapy….

 

Garden Play Finished with Wet Glue

Once the quilting was done, I trimmed some of the white border off then couched yarn on the edges to finish them off. I had a sparkly pink ladybug button and a couple dragonfly ones that I added. I also had some plastic flowers with single holes in their centers to add more to the piece. I normally would have stitched on the flowers, but since I was dong a child-like piece and it was late, I decided to glue on the critters and flowers. I added various sized pearlescent beads to the plastic flowers and some of the fabric flowers. The photo above shows what  I had just after gluing things… You can see some of the still wet glue.

 

Garden Play Finished- 10.5"x13.5"- $195.00

This is what it now looks like… All the glue dry and a better photo taken with better light in the studio. “Garden Play” is now available for purchase at Andrus Gardens Quilts on ArtFire.Here is a detail shot showing the little plastic flowers, ladybug and pearls. A change in the way I look at what I was creating was a fun change…. Sometimes just playing like a kid is needed….

I’m not sure what will grow in the studio next… I do know I will be cutting out more flowers with my dies and there is lots of gardening to do…. Things are pretty dreary outside these days.

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“Two” Many Ideas and More

January 14th, 2012

The first post of the new year…. now that we are nearly 2 weeks into it….  I have actually finished a few little quilts in addition to my latest set of art cards for the “Arts in the Cards” group.  Each month a new theme is chosen as a guide for the cards we send out to each other. I have only been a member of the group a year or so, but this  month is the second anniversary of the creation of the group, so the theme was Two.

My Inspiration

The above photo shows one of the inspirations for my cards. Actually, I had originally thought that I would do a tiny quilt with a pair of Tulips blooming on it… Two Tulips, but while experimenting with a new die cutting machine, I happened to notice that some of the vine and leaf die cut pieces looked like they could be twos, and another idea began to form. I then thought about “two peas in a pod”…. another idea (see little “peas” upper right in the photo above)…. THEN came the Google results…. I found that the traditional gift for a second anniversary is cotton (ok, cotton Tulips would work), then I found that there was a flower for that anniversary- Cosmos…. I love Cosmos and more ideas were flowing.  I should have stopped at that, but I pulled up a dictionary which had the definition and tons of extra information, too…  I did some playing with the definition and other words from the dictionary in a word cloud program. The program put the words in different sizes and colors in random order and I did a print out (also showing in the photo- upper left).

Printed Insides

By the time I got  done with playing on the computer, I  realized I had too many ideas to put into one little art card, so I decided that I’d add another two… Two cards.  The photo above shows the text I ended up with along with more that I added, printed over photos of Two white Cosmos flowers. I decided that the two cards would be connected in a hinge fashion with one long piece of the printed card stock. The photo above shows 3 of the inside pieces printed and in the process of being cut to size.

Creased Insides

Once the insides were cut from the card stock, the center creases were made. I also ended up fusing some little “scraps” of the vines that also looked like 2′s in the inside.

Peas

When I first thought of doing “two peas in a pod”, I needed to figure out how to make the peas…. I squeezed out drops of a metallic pea green paint on parchment paper and allowed them to dry over night.

Tulips Start

Above shows one of the little Tulip sides that I decided to make as tiny “quilts” using a thin interfacing as a “batting” so that I could do the stitching.

Two Vines Fused

In the photo above, the die cut vines with leaves 2′s and single leaves fused and “smushed” to make little pea pods.  The background fabric for these is a white with silver glitter that was then fused to a thin fusible interfacing. The one upper right is the first I played with, placing the flowers and butterflies… I decided it would be much easier to stitch the vines first, then add the flowers and butterflies after that.

Beginning Stitching

I used a green variegated thread to stitch around the edges of the vines and leaves, and added little curly tendrils to the pea pod.

Ready to fuse to inside

After the green stitching was  done, I switched to clear thread around the tulips, butterflies and flowers. The little quilts were now ready to fuse onto the inside that would connect the two little “quilts”.

Cooled Under Pressure

This photo above, shows the stitched “2″ sides after they have been fused to the other side of the inside printed card stock. Once both little quilts were fused to the outside of the inside, the pieces were folded and cooled under a weight to keep them flat. When fabric is fused to card stock, things tend to want to curl, so the weight flattens things while they are hot, then when cool they will stay fairly flat.

Outsides of the Double-Sided Cards

This photo shows most of the cards after they had cooled. To finish the edges, I dabbed them with a stamp pad with purple ink. You can see Two of the cards standing up like little sign boards. I did find I had a problem with the ink. After I put it on, it seemed to want to rub off, so I ended up brushing on some gel medium to seal it.

Cosmos and Peas Finished

Here is one of the Cosmos, 2, Butterflies and Peas sides… you can see a bit of the inside printed card stock. If you look really close, you can even see the two little peas made from the paint tucked into a fold in the pod.

Two Tulips

This photo shows the Tulip side of one of the cards…

Two Many Twos Finished Group

This photo shows a group of the finished cards, with some showing the Tulip side, and some showing the Two Peas and more side, along with one open to show the inside of a finished card. “Two May Two’s” were then packaged in archival art card sleeves and sent to their new owners.  I really never thought I would end up with so many ideas for what one would think was a simple theme….  If you would like to see what other members created for this round as well as others (if you want to do a bit more scrolling) see the Arts in the Cards Blog where each of us have posted our creations.

Big Shot Machine with First Cut

This is the new tool I have been playing with that led to many of my ideas. It was one of the vine cuts shown in the photo above with the machine. The die shown is the first one I got with the machine. I also got a couple others, but this was the one that I have played with the most. I wanted to see just how many different designs I could make using  just one die. The die cutting machine is designed for scrapbooking and paper arts to cut paper and other similar art materials. I had seen a video online showing one being used for cutting fabric, and that got the wheels turning. I do a lot of fusible applique and have been doing more with tiny pieces and even with my straight handled scissors, cutting is hard on my hands and takes a lot of time.

2 Motifs

This photo above shows two full motifs that were cut with the die. I cut two pieces of Wonder Under backed fabric right sides together using the whole design on the die. Most of the designs I have come up with have just used parts of the motif with fabric folded in different ways.

Die Play on Dyed Fabric

This is a photo of one of the first pieces I played with. I took a 6″ square of white fabric, folded into quarters on the diagonal, run through the machine just using part of the die design. I pulled the vine pieces out of the square and fused them on the outside of it, giving me what you see here.

 

Vine Heart 5″x7.5″ SOLD

This little piece above is one of the little experiments I began with and finished. This is 5″x7.5″ in size, and I arranged the vines to make the heart shape and swirl below. I began quilting with green thread on the vines and added little tendrils, then I added more quilting with the clear thread to fill things in. This ended up going to a new home after I showed it at my local quilt guild’s show and tell…. My first sale of the year!

I now have some more dies to play and see what new things I can come up with. So far this little tool has been helping me to get the old creative juices flowing again. If you are interested, I have been adding photos to a Die Cutting Album  on my Facebook profile page.  I have two more little pieces finished using die cut fabric and have photos there. I plan to get any new pieces listed in my ArtFire Art Quilt Shop also.  If all goes well, I hope to add new posts more often this year.

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The Birth of a New Garden- Step One

October 13th, 2011

As anyone knows who has seen many of my posts here, I have a LOT of big gardens…. Much of the past few days has been spent doing the beginning preparations for my first New garden in over a decade. Like I really need another new garden…. Well, this one had been dreamed  about for many years, and it will be where the “Back of the Workshop Mess” photo in the previous post is, or should I now say it mostly WAS. This area has attracted a lot of birds in the past few years, but the area is full of weedy Sumac trees and have fallen over. I have always dreamed of this becoming a beautiful bird sanctuary with various trees, shrubs and perennials to attract the birds in a much prettier way.

Future Bird Sanctuary 1

Shortly after the photo in the previous post was taken, I started breaking up and piling what I could with the hour of daylight I had left after the last lawn mowing. The pile of branches in the left of the photo is from my Diablo Ninebark bush on the side of the Lilac Garden. It should have been trimmed years ago, and I finally took the pruners to it and gave it a severe “haircut”. The pile far back is what I was able to break up of the ugly Sumac trees that fell over into the lawn years ago.

Future Bird Sanctuary 2

I finally got put on Ken’s calender and Wednesday the chainsaw was put to the mess. You can see from this photo above how many of the trees were laying on their sides.

Future Bird Sanctuary 3

The bonfire…. The first day of chainsaw work we had a fire going constantly as Ken cut and we both dragged limbs to the fire. In addition to the Sumac trees, there also  was great abundance of overgrown wild grapevines. Those made getting the tree limbs out pretty tricky…. we had to cut the vines to free much of what had to go.

Future Bird Sanctuary 4A little bit later, more of the workshop trailer can be seen. We kept working till it got to dark to see where we were walking.

Fire at End of Day 1

I wanted to see what the new camera would do, and took a few photos of the fire as I left the area for the night. This one came out pretty good even with not too steady hands. One thing about all the rain we have had since August, the ground and everything else is still really saturated and we didn’t have to worry about starting an unwanted fire somewhere else.

Future Bird Sanctuary 5

By the time I got my body to allow me to get back to work the next day, Ken had gotten most of the trees cut and burned a lot more. Now most of the trailer can be seen, There are still some Sumac, wild Roses, and a lonely Ash tree left on the south end of it. The Ash tree will be the only thing left by the time all gets cleared. The trunks of the trees were left high enough for Ken to hook a chain onto them and pull out the roots. Sumac is really hard to get rid of because of all of the roots running just under the surface of the ground where new babies pop up. The more roots out the better, but I have found with the Lilac garden that if I keep a deep mulch of hay, any babies that pop up can be plucked easily and after a couple years less and less try to grow.  I am still amazed when I see some garden catalogs offering various Sumac varieties for sale…. They do have pretty fall color and red fruit clusters in summer, but they are huge invasive weeds!

Maple in Woods

Here is one of the young Maple trees that has kept growing despite having Black Walnut trees not far from it. Most of the rest of the woods is Green Ash which in some areas are being attacked by a borer, so I am glad to see other varieties finally taking hold.  I plan to find a not too big one of these Maples that might be too close to another to flag with ribbon to dig next Spring for the Bird Sanctuary garden or somewhere around the workshop to provide shade.

Baby Ginkgo Tree Leaves

Here is one of the two Ginkgo trees I purchased in the Spring. One of these will go in the North end of the new garden. They can get really huge, but that will take probably take more than my lifetime for that to happen, but I will still give them plenty of room. I also bought another Acer griseum (Paperbark Maple), a pink  Dogwood, and a Carolina Silverbell. I joined the Arbor Day Foundation and received another group of baby trees, and also have some baby shrubs from my gardens in pots. These will be used as some of the understory bushes.  I am now trying to plan how everything will be planted. Not all will fit in the new area, but many will go there. The nearly bare area after removing the junk trees is over 50 feet wide at the far end of the trailer. I have some tall trees, medium height ones, and the bushes, then will fill in with various perennials. The new garden will look a  bit sparse and the birds won’t be too happy for a while, but eventually it should be alive with them again, and more enjoyable since I plan to have some paths and seating areas in there.

Fungi on Stump

And now for some more random woods and garden pictures… Above is another rotting stump in the woods with three different kinds of fungi on it.

Steps Stone

This good sized stone looks like it has had steps cut out of it… It was near one of the old stone walls on each side of an abandoned roadway that goes through the middle of our land.

Walnut Trees

This is the back yard group of Black Walnut trees as viewed from the edge of the woods. They have really gotten huge in the 21 yrs we have lived here. The only shade that comes close to our trailer. It’s still dangerous to stand under them now with the huge crop of nuts falling, but they make the nicest shade in the summer.

Walnuts on Steps

Here on the steps that go to the back yard, you can see some of the nuts… I think this year is the biggest crop yet…. and many are Huge!

Blooming Grasses

The Ornamental Grasses in the Maple Tree garden are in their full glory! I really need to put a person in one of these photos… these grasses are huge… Miscanthus Goliath is the largest clump on the right, Pannicum Cloud Nine is the really light and feathery one, and way in the back just coming into bloom is Miscanthus giganteus…. a perfect name for it…. It is over 12 feet high. Goliath is around 10 ft high.

Variegated Grass in Bloom

Here is the Miscanthus variegatus blooming in the Arborvitae end of the Maple garden. This plant  has only been here for 2 seasons… There are two, but you can see the left one is pretty scrawny. It was a smaller chunk when I planted them and is just starting to take off.

Pink Clover

Here is a closeup of a Pink (Red) Clover flower… I keep practicing with the new camera and am getting more good macro shots.

Queen Ann's Lace Closeup

One of the last Queen Ann’s Lace flowers in the field…. We have only had a tiny touch of frost, but it won’t be long now till the flowers are done for another year….

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Posted in Flowers and Gardens, inspirations, Landscapes and Skies | 1 Comment »

Playing in the Studio Again!

October 11th, 2011

Well, I’m slowly getting back to posting here more regularly. Since the last post I ended up doing Waaayyyy more organizing in the studio than I had planned to, made my cards for the Arts in the Cards exchange, got behind with my weekly journals and caught back up again. In the middle of everything else I even got a little bit started toward cleaning up one of the biggest “eyesores” in the landscape around here.

Neat Shelves!

This photo above shows my shelves after I emptied every one of the “cubbies”, sorted and organized my fabrics. I have mostly my painted and dyed fabrics on the shelves now and will be selling off and storing what I keep of most of the commercial fabrics on the shelves in the office. Since my pot of pencils, pens, etc. seems to always be in the way on my table, I left a couple of the spaces free of fabric to keep things off the table.

 

Computer Parts

Once I got the cutting table cleared of debris again, I was able to get some of my projects done. The AIC exchange theme this round was Hardware…. Perfect, there is a lot of that around this place. My first thought was to see if I could find some little bits left from various computers that are stored in boxes… I soon found that nothing was small enough for an art card (and I wasn’t really into taking things apart… I leave that to my guys), I decided that I would use a photo of some of the parts as the background. I took a bunch of photos, and decided on a pretty simple layout.

 

Hardware Printed and Stitched Canvas

A photo of a circuit board of some kind? and one of part of some sort of hub-like purple thing (yea, I’m not geeky enough to know what is what) worked great together giving the feeling of sky and grass. You know me…. flowers always seem to pop up in my art.  I printed the photo onto cotton fabric, then fused that to some canvas I had to give some stability. I knew I was going to have flowers, and after playing with my card (the 7th one that included a printing boo boo) I had an idea of where I wanted stems and leaves that I stitched with silver metallic thread.

 

Painting Washers

On a trip with Ken to Lowes last week, I did wander down the hardware isle and check out all the little fun goodies they had. I only bought a package of little copper coated nails. While looking for the computer parts, I had to walk past Ken’s woodworking and hardware stuff. I found some of the cute little lock washers that look like gears on their insides. He had lots of each size, so I “borrowed” one each of 3 sizes for each of the 7 cards I needed to make. I also picked out some small “regular” looking lock washers (again… I’m no hardware expert..:). Since my little nails were copper coated, i pulled out my Lumiere paint and turned the plain washers into copper colored ones. Working with those tiny little pieces, I got as much paint on my fingers as the washers.

 

Hardware Card Wet Glue

I made two stems for each card out of copper and silver colored wire, and stitched them onto the bases (I only hit the wire once even with  my terrible eyes). After laying out the washers and nails, I realized things looked too sparse, so I pulled out some tiny grommets for paper crafting that I had collected years ago, and decided since computer parts were used for the background, I cut up an old software CD to make a couple more “flowers” for each card. The photo above shows one card while the glue was still wet. The grommets were attached using a hammer and grommet tool, and everything else was glued on with gel medium. You’d think I would have learned after painting the washers that working so tiny, I should have found a pair of tweezers to help me out. Instead, I ended up getting as much glue on my fingers and under my nails as got on what was being attached to the cards.  Once dry overnight, I printed up backs for the cards using more computer part photos, printed on a Radiant Gloss photo paper. The backs came out nice and shimmery, but the photo paper bubbled a bit with the heat of the iron when I fused it to the backs… Ahhhh another lesson learned.

 

Hardware Cards Set of 6

Above is the photo of the finished cards ready for mailing. There are 7 in this trade, so the 6 “good” ones get sent out, and the “guinea pig” one is mine to keep… Not exactly like these… it has all the trial and error boo boos on it :)

 

Week 5 Journal WIP

While doing my sorting and organizing in the studio, I found a bunch of unfinished projects dating back many years. As with the previous week’s journal quilt, I am using the smaller unfinished pieces for my weekly journal quilts. This was from my days of selling at art and craft shows, when I would work in batches. I would make up the bases of the pieces and then add the applique and quilting. This already had a few pieces fused on for fall leaves, so I finished it up with a tree.

 

Coloring Fabric

My tree needed more bright leaves, so I decided to color up some just for this one. The fabric is a leftover Wonder Under backed scrap from my placemat making days (that’s why the wierd shape). This piece is a white leaf print on slightly ivory fabric. I began by scribbling with my Inktense Blocks in orange, yellow, red, and a touch of mossy green.

Coloring Fabric Adding Water

I am still amazed at what happens when water is added over the Inktense blocks or pencil.

Coloring Fabric 1

The colors were too light and I wanted a bit of shimmer, so I pulled out the metallic paints. This was a gold color and looked too brown to start, so I scribbled with the Inktense blocks on the parchment near my thinned gold paint.

Mixing Paint

Look what happened when I pulled the Inktense pigment into the metallic paint… much nicer color.

Coloring Fabric 2

I liked the fabric a bit better after adding the mixed paint, but it still needed more, so I later added some more shades of metallic paints that I had on hand.

Week 5 Tree and Grass

While the paint dried, I turned back to the quilt itself. I cut out and fused on the tree trunk and branches. Then I added the stitched grass using one of my variegated threads in shades of green. I just did a sweeping patch of the grass to give the piece some movement.

Tree Texture and Outer Quilting Done

With the grass done, I needed to figure out what to do next. I added texture to the tree trunk with yarn couched on and added more branches by free motion stitching using a zig-zag stitch. This gave me heavier lines than straight FMQ would and it was fun to see how it turned out! I knew that because of the dense stitching in the grass and tree, I needed to keep the rest of the stitching and quilting dense, too. I used a pale variegated blue thread for the sky-like background, then I used a nearly matching thread in the green border and did a lot of tiny leaves vining around in the border. I also added more grass-like stitching along the bottom that would blend into the border. I fused a few fabric bits for fallen leaves and stitched the grass over most of them.

Week 5 Falling Leaves- SOLD

Once all the background quilting was done, I added the rest of the leaf fabric bits (some from a bright orange section of one of my dyed fabrics), and then stitched over them with a variegated thread in shades of orange through deep rust. I did this stitching to mimic the angled shapes I cut for the leaves.  After steaming it out, “Falling Leaves” is just about 8″x10″. This is the firs one I think is “sale worthy” (others may have differing opinions :) so I decided to list “Falling Leaves” is sold!  See more in my Art Quilt Shop on ArtFire.

Once I had my week 5 journal quilt done, week 6 was due, so I pulled out another WIP and finished that piece, too.

Week 6 WIP

This was a piece I started back in 2006 on the trip to Houston’s Quilt Festival as something to keep me  busy for at least part of 3 days in a car. I had fused the sunprints to the batting with the white accent fabric, then I hand couched the bulky yarn over the seams. I never got any farther with this until now.

 

Week 6 Detail

Since I have been wanting to play with my threads and stitching during this journal project, I decided to try something a bit different from what I normally would have done. I began with my “usual” vine quilting in the white areas using a pastel variegated thread that has all the colors of the sunprints. The stitching was pretty pale in color so I added more over the top with a purple metallic thread. Some of the yarn is stitched with a rosy purple metallic embroidery thread, so I thought I would add some metallic to the  vines.

 

Week 6 Sunprints

I didn’t do much new with the quilting in the sunprints themselves… I still like that the clear thread adds just enough texture to accent the prints without overpowering them like other threads I have tried do. To finish this off, I bound the edges with the same bulky black yarn with the colors in it that was used on the seams.  A lot accomplished in the studio in the past weeks! Finally!

 

Back of Workshop Mess

And to let you know that I have not totally been ignoring the gardens, here are a few photos. This one shows one of the worst “eyesores” in view of my studio’s North window. You can barely see the singlewide trailer that is a bit narrower than the one we live in that Ken is finally using as his woodworking shop. It is also where I make the wreaths in November and December. It is barely seen through the overgrown, falling down and obnoxious Sumac trees. The ones on the right of the photo fell down many years ago and are still lying there… I have had to mow around them and it’s not fun. In one way I hate to totally clear everything from here because the birds really love this mess. I plan to plant many of my baby trees in this area to have a neater and prettier bird sanctuary area. I have one huge pile of dead stuff ready to burn, and more is on today’s schedule to be  hacked and burned, too.

 

Salvia "Monsters"

I am also still learning my new camera… Here is a closeup of a couple florets of the Salvia Black and Blue… Probably the only Salvia I really like (most of them have red flowers). This photo came out pretty neat, with the florets looking like open mouths of some sort of monsters. The color even is pretty true without playing in photoshop!

 

Puff Balls and Moss on Stump

Thanks to Vladdi and Roxie chasing through the woods, I found this moss and puffballs on an old rotting stump. Vladdi and I were looking for Roxie who he left behind… She finally came slowly through the woods by the time we got too far.

 

Woods View

The last photo for this post… A shot of the trees in the woods. Lots of young trees, mostly Green Ash and Black Walnuts…. But a few more Sugar Maples are getting some size on them… They don’t seem to like the Walnuts… We usually get tons of seedlings, but very few live more than a couple years. There aren’t many Walnuts in the North end of the woods, and we are finally seeing some Fall color in that direction!  Walnuts and Ash aren’t great for color… A little yellow for a short time.  The Sugar Maples are the best! (in my opinion).

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Posted in Art Cards, inspirations, Landscapes and Skies, Weekly Journal Quilts | 5 Comments »

Back in The Studio!

September 26th, 2011

Since my previous post, I think it has misted or rained part of just about every day. Thankfully, nothing really measurable, and only a couple brief downpours. We certainly could use a dry spell.  One thing about the soggy outdoors, is that I have been back in the sewing studio…. Finally! Since starting the Weekly Journals, I actually have been able to make a small piece each week!

Sunflower Photo

This photo is one that I have taken of my only Sunflower. I didn’t plant it, the birds did, and this is the only one that I allowed to grow… This one grew at the end of the row of planters along the walkway to the driveway. The Black Oil Sunflowers are much shorter than most varieties, and their petals are much shorter… Not  as striking as many other varieties, but this one did add a splash of yellow out front. If you look closer at the photo, you can see a few visitors… 3 different typed of bees.

Week 3 Sept 18 Sunflower

Since my creativity has been near non-existant, for my week 3 journal I decided  to print the Sunflower photo onto cotton and play with different threads and stitching over it.  Since there is nothing that a colored thread can do to improve upon the beauty of the petals, I used a clear thread there.  For the flower center, I played with one  way of following the rows of florets. They seem to swirl toward the center, so I did a bunch of repeating “S” curves intersecting in the center. I used a variegated thread in shades of golds and browns, but if I were to do this again, I would use a different thread. In this, the darker brown shows more than I would like… Trial and error… Just what these journals are for….

Week 3 Sunflower Detail

This photo shows a corner of the piece close up. I used a deep green to tanish variegated thread for the fill quilting behind the flower. I didn’t really want the quilting to stand out, so I played with a “sort-of-herky-jerky” kind of stippling. I have never been able to successfully stipple and have always avoided doing it. Since I often have shaky hands these days, I thought I would try the shaky look. With the values in the thread going from very dark to quite light, I tried to get the lighter stitching in the lighter areas and the darker thread in the darker areas… Not sure about the thread choice here, either.  Something with less shift in values would have been better, I think. The piece is bound with an earthy, mossy green yarn couched on the edges. Finished size- 8″x10″.

 

Studio Organization- Cutting Table Pile

The Sunflower journal was finished in little bits and pieces of time during a very busy weekend, and as usual, I ended up with a major fibro flare (or should I say total Crash). It was a very enjoyable weekend, but I paid for it with days of barely being able to sit up. Finally by Thursday afternoon, I was a bit less wobbly, and while trying to figure out what to do for week 4′s journal, I ended up in a cleaning, sorting and purging mood. It all started out innocently enough when I decided to poke around some of my fabric shelves and then pulled everything off them (piled onto the cutting table of course).

 

Studio Shelves

The shelves in question are mostly covered by my design wall, so I really didn’t know just what was there… In the photo above, you can barely see those shelves to the left of the design wall with the batting flapping over them. I found all kinds of forgotten treasures….The main group of shelves that are seen in this photo are just a part of the wall to wall shelves that Ken made for me that cover two of the studio walls. Most of the end wall shelves are behind the design wall.

 

Studio Organization- One View from the Door

From this view, you can see my ironing board and machine past the cutting table. The pile on the table was shoulder high at this point. Buried on the shelves I had emptied, were rolls of Contac paper, Freezer paper, various types of stabilizers and more. I decided that these would be much more accessible if they were on the shelves to the left of the ironing board….  Next step… empty those shelves too…  The photo above was taken after those shelves were filled back up.

 

Ironing Board Shelves

All the rolls of various stuff that is necessary for creating are now neatly on the shelves where I can easily see them and use them. I did have to do a bit of fudging to make the shelves deep enough to hold the rolls so the ends would show…. Foam core is wonderful stuff (inside the empty Strathmore Paper boxes)! I even have a shelf that I will use for stacks of Wonder Under backed fabric pieces that are too big for the containers I store them in. There are clear containers of various sizes and shapes with the smaller “Wonder Undered” pieces on the shelf that is even with the ironing board surface…. (buried in the photo above).

 

Studio TV Corner

Well, as any cleaning session tends to go…. cleaning one area led to clearing and re-organizing other areas. The corner shelf above the TV was a real problem…. I had nearly a garbage bag full of Wonder Under backing papers that were stuffed on that shelf. I usually save all the backing paper because it comes in really handy, but there is a limit to how much of the stuff I really need. Now with the excess gone, I now have a couple of tubs of fabric there.

 

Buried Machine Again

The cutting table is not the only thing that got buried in the cleaning process…. Why is it that things always look so much worse before they get better.  I found a lot of random blocks, WIP’s, and odd fabrics. The painted piece on top of the pile is a piece of fabric that I played with years ago…. Lots of random flowers and leaves, etc.

 

Studio Neat Shelf

Here is a photo of the TV corner before I put the tubs of fabric on the corner shelf. The shelf above the window was another disaster zone that had random UFO’s, tissue and other papers, and whatever… I cleared everything off, and decided that this would be a better place for my backer boards, mats, archival bags and wide format paper. These things were on the shelf over the ironing board, and  needed to climb on my chair or use a step ladder to get to them.

 

Studio Paper Organized

Above the shelves by the cutting table, there are more shelves to the ceiling. This area is a bit out of the way, but I can access things without too much trouble, so I decided that the papers could be stored on the lower shelves. Things higher up are used rarely. There is a tub of random, fun collage goodies to the right of the rolled papers.

 

Studio- Under Cutting Table

This area under the cutting table is also a bit neater. I am not happy with where the paper cutters are stored, but for now it will work. The laptop case contains my “traveling beading  studio”. More white and off white fabric pieces and scraps are in the plastic tubs.

 

Tub on Wheels

This is the space between the cutting table and the design wall… just enough space for this plastic tub. During this cleaning spree, I even took everything that was piled on top of this off (and added it to the cutting table), and sorted out what was inside. I thought it would be great if I could have it on wheels, and was going to do a “Suzy Homemaker” job of putting casters on a piece of plywood, but Ken did this up for me! A much nicer job that I would have done. Now I will be able to move this out of the way much easier if I need to access the shelves or electrical panels behind my design wall.  I won’t kid myself….. this will probably be stacked up again, but it will still be easier to move (so far only two flat boxes of scraps are there now).

 

Studio Chair Space

Just to be sure no one thinks everything is in order…. it’s Not!  The counter to the right of my machine with the laptop and printer and drawer units isn’t getting organized this trip…. I don’t think…. the area my chair is in is not that roomy…. While I am sitting in it right now typing this, the corner of the cutting table is at my back…. The floor does need cleaning, but it will never be pretty again… most of the black that shows is where the top surface of the tiles has worn off from my chair rolling over it. It was supposed to be commercial tile, but it didn’t have the nice glossy finish that it should have had on it. In order to have the room I do at the design wall end of the room, the table is rolled to block more than half of the doorway…. Pretty cozy…..

 

Studio- Empty Shelf Over Ironing Board

So far, the shelf above the ironing board and sewing machine window is pretty empty. This is where I stored the backer boards, mats and bags…. really hard to access because it is higher than the top of the shelf units which are 6ft high. I will probably be stacking clear plastic tubs up there with various fabric bits and pieces. Ken made the two shelves over the windows too. I can use every bit of wall space for storage to the ceiling on every wall.

 

Painting Sample

Here is a photo of that fabric painting sample that was on top of my machine a few photos back. I was experimenting with painting flowers. This has been hiding out for many years…. I think I did this before I really got into sunprinting. Since I ran across this, I thought it would work for this week’s journal piece.

 

Painting Sample Pink Flowers

I decided to play with various threads like last week…. I began with a cranberry to light pink variegated for the bright pink flowers.

 

Painting Sample Quilted Detail 1

I did some of last week’s jerky stipple type stitching for the paint dabbed floral areas. I started with some of the cranberry thread, then switched to a purple to rose to lavender thread for more of the random flower look.

 

Painting Sample Quilted Detail 2

I used the purple variegated for the rest of the purple flowers, then used a variegated green with deep to lime shades for the foliage. I tried to make the purple painted blobs look like Tulips. I used the greens for a grassy look along the bottom. I also outlined the  leaves for individual flowers and did a sort of upside down scallop for random foliage.

 

Week 4 Sept. 25 Journal- Painted Sample

And here is the full view of the piece. It is just over 8″x10″ in size. You can see the Irises and to the left, what looked to me to be an attempt to paint a Delphinium, so I stitched it that way.  This is by no means very artistically correct, but as a piece to play with I learned more about what I do and don’t like about using variegated threads.  I didn’t bind this piece because it may be screaming to be cut into small sections that would look better separate from the whole.

Now that I am 4 whole weeks into making these journal pieces, I am feeling really good about getting myself into the studio and actually stitching something at least once a week. Now that the studio is almost reorganized again, maybe it will be easier to find things and maybe I’ll get that “creative groove” back!

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Posted in Dyed or Painted Fabric, Play, Weekly Journal Quilts | 3 Comments »

A New Beginning?

September 13th, 2011

My last post was 3 weeks ago, and the perennials in the gardens are beginning to look a bit shabby… It didn’t help that we had nearly a week with no sun and 4 straight days with rain… One of them with 6.5″ in less than 24 hours….

Soggy Hibiscus

The above photo shows the Pink Hibiscus after one day of rain on Sept. 6…

Back Yard Rivers before digging

September 7th- The Mound Garden river was flowing again…. This time, I had a ditch dug in the dog yard to divert some water to the woods… It took a lot of water (near the back fence), but there was more water going through the Mound Garden than in any previous storms of the year….

River outside Studio

This photo shows the river as it passed in front of my studio window… The water running by the propane tank headed straight for my studio wall and ran right around it, then flooded much of the dog yard… Poor pups! They didn’t know whether they wanted to go out to do their business or not… Some water had puddled under my sewing machine and the towel I keep along the wall was soaked, so some re-routing of the river was required.

Back Yard rivers after digging

During a slower rain shower, I was able to dig the ditch in front of my studio deeper and also dug the ditch to the woods deeper to give the water a place to go. As you can see in this photo above, there is a lot of water in the ditch in the dog yard, and very little in the garden… That helped for a while, but a later heavy downpour caused breaks and overflows in the ditches, so I had to choose another break in the rain to do more digging…

Van in driveway

We usually park the mini van in the lower parking area, but we had gotten groceries the last time it was driven, so it was parked and left in this part of the driveway… The water was getting really high, and when I went to move it before my second digging session, the wheels were already partly buried in the gravel that had washed from the upper part of the driveway.

Flooded Dog Yard again

This was one of those helpless feeling moments…. The latest heavy downpour had overflowed the banks of the ditches and broken part of one of my new levees (left side of pic, inside the dog yard).  When I got out there later to do damage control, I found that grass, leaves and other debris as well as LOTS of driveway gravel had plugged the wire of the fence and caused water to stand everywhere and return even worse to the mound garden.

Dog Yard after Flood

Sept. 8th, after the bulk of the rain had fallen, this is what the dog yard looked like… The two piles of mud and gravel along the back fence is what I dug out away from the fence, trying to get the water to go under instead of through it. I had 3 areas where water was flowing under the fence, and the middle one clogged again…. The gravel came from far up the driveway….

Culvert by Upper Parking Area

This photo shows some of the deep gullies formed in the driveway… I am really glad I added the big rocks by the pipe before the storm… This culvert has been washed out too many times this year.  There was still a big ditch from the previous storm, so I filled in much of it with rocks…. Some stayed! It’s amazing how much damage water just from 1/4 mile above us could do…. all that water ended up heading to the Susquehanna after collecting more along it’s path…. We were very lucky living this high up. The river flooding was near or above record levels with many homes and businesses being affected.

Wet Mini Rose

Here is a lonely bloom on the mini Rose bush….

Harry is still trying to grow!

“Poor Harry” seemed to like all the water…. He seemed to put out some pretty good new shoots!  The poor thing has been munched on much of the summer… it seems every time he has put out new growth, it has been eaten off. This time I gave him a douse of dear repellent before he became deer snack again.

And speaking of “Poor Harry” (a Harry Lauder’s Walking stick bush), he was the inspiration for my latest batch of art cards for my trade group.

Harry in the Petunias

The full view of Harry shows the dead branches that he was left with after being mauled by deer. I liked the shape of these branches, so I left them even though they are dead. A bit of “sculpture” in the garden. I took this photo and removed the background in photoshop to  use for the art cards.

Balance ATC's Printed

The theme for this trade was “Balance”… My gardens have been about the only thing to give ma any balance to my life lately, and Harry makes a pretty balanced “sculpture” in the garden, so he was to be the star. I began by fusing random scraps of fusible backed fabrics to parchment paper until I had  just a bit larger than a sheet of paper. I wanted to print Harry’s picture on this fused background, so I painted over the fabrics with titanium white to soften the colors, and a bit of gel gloss to seal and snaggy edges.  I then set up the document to print and it  worked! No Jams!  The above photo shows the printed fabric  base.

Balance Pair started

This photo shows two of the cards after they were cut to size and Inktense pencil was added for the Petunias in the garden. I had only dampened the pencil for Harry’s leaves, and not the flowers yet.

"Poor Harry" Balance Cards

Above are four of the finished cards… See how much more vibrant the colors from the Inktense pencils are after I painted over them with very dilute gel medium. I added some more deep shading on Harry with the pencils and thicker gel gloss to give him a little shine like he has in real life.  I finished these cards the day before the heaviest rain hit, and they got in the mail just in time… I’m not sure how many days we were without mail after that….

Studio Window Garden

Since I have been pretty creatively blocked lately, I have been trying different things to get things moving again…. A member of the Quiltart list was about to turn 49 a few weeks ago and decided she would make a little journal quilt each week during her 50th year. She invited others to join her, and since I just turned 50 last month, I decided it might be something to get me back into creating.  For the first piece, I used the photo of the view of the garden I see from my studio window when sitting at my machine.

Week 1 Sept. 4

The “due date” for the first piece was Sept. 4th…. Thankfully the rules for the group are pretty flexible, and I only had part of the piece fused together by then, but for me that was better than I had done in a long time. Yesterday, I finally finished it…. It took a while to do the quilting with all the thread color changes I did, but Free Motion Quilting seems to be like riding a bike… I was a little rusty at first, but moved along pretty quickly. The photo above shows the finished piece!

Before I started quilting week one’s quilt, I worked on the second piece.

Week 2 Beginning with Photo

Since week two included the storm, I just had to use a part of one of the photos of the water flowing through my Mound Garden.  Above is the photo I used with the beginning of the quilt before quilting.

Week 2 Sept. 12

Here is the finished piece for week two. I played with different shades of beige and brown threads for the muddy water and gravel in the quilting. The main fabric in the middle of the piece is a bit of a small piece of a batik I had that gave the feel of much of the upper part of the garden. The lower part of the garden is a piece of my pale hand dyed fabric with Inktense pencil used to add the green for the leaves of the plants. I used little touches of titanium white paint for the Phlox and Echinacea flowers, and quilting with a variegated bright pinks thread makes the Vinca flowers.

While these two little pieces aren’t a lot, I really hope they will be the beginning of my creative mojo returning…. Maybe I’ll even finish a quilt that I started nearly 1 1/2 years ago.  I’ll take any creative bursts I can get!!

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Mid July to Early August Gardens

August 20th, 2011

This summer has been flying by quickly…. We began with a very wet Spring, followed by no rain and high heat in July, to mist, drizzle or downpours many days so far in August. The flowers have been blooming through it all.

Pale Pink Phlox Seedling

This pale pink Phlox was one of my many pleasant surprises this year. This is a seedling I moved from the Front Door garden to the top of the rock wall by the deck. I think this is my favorite of the Phlox Seedlings. Probably a cross of the white and one of the pink varieties. When new seedlings pop up, I never know just what colors of flowers I will end up with…. So much fun to find new colors!

Phlox Fireworks 2

One evening when I was walking through the gardens, it started to get dark and  my camera decided I needed a flash. I usually will turn the flash off, but decided to see what I would get by taking photos with the flash. Many of the photos made me feel like I was looking at photos of fireworks.  Here are a few of my “floral fireworks” photos.

Echinacea Fireworks

Sedum Buds

Echinacea Fireworks 2

Double Cutie in the Evening

Schwartz Cat in the Dark

This is not a flower, but Schwartz was hanging out in the Lilac Garden and even though I couldn’t see her enough to be sure the focus was right, the flash gave me a good photo of her. It seems I always have at least one cat following me around the  gardens.

Purple Glad 1

One of the Gladiolas that wintered over from last year. I found that just about every bulb I planted last year lived over the winter. Even the ones I didn’t find while weeding and buried with hay poked their way out.

Peach Glad 1

One of the first Peachy Pink flowers.

Curved Pink Glad

The Glad flower stem above drooped then grew up again, giving it an interesting curved stem.  This year I found some perfect scrap lumber in Ken’s workshop to use for stakes, and tied them with strips of pantyhose to keep them from toppling over. Last year I didn’t stake them so I ended up cutting the flowers as they opened and fell over so I could enjoy them more. This year I could leave the flowers in the garden with the stakes holding most of them upright.

Front Door Garden from Kitchen Window

Here is a photo of the Front Door garden that I took from my kitchen window as the first Phlox were beginning to bloom.

Morning Glories Pink

Here are a couple of the Morning Glory flowers that have been blooming. More of my free flowers that came up from seed in the planters on my deck. I also have some pretty purple ones, too!

Walnut Mess

When the dog yard was fenced in, the Catalpa tree was taken down and most of it was piled near the Walnut trees in the back yard. I wasn’t able to mow around the mess, so I ended up piling most of it between the trees so I could mow the grass. I burned a lot of the small branches while cleaning up and found that Catalpa branches send out lots of sparkler-like embers…. Not a good thing for campfires with the grandkids, so what was left had to be hauled to a brush pile for burning.

Tractor and Wagon

By the time I got to cleaning up the Catalpa remains, we had a storm come through that caused a bunch of Walnut branches to fall, so I had a Very Full wagon load. I have gotten a lot of use out of the lawn tractor and “little red wagon” for hauling hay and other things around.  You can see where the pile of branches was on the lawn… much of the grass died out. Thankfully, with the recent rains it didn’t take too long for it to start growing again.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly

One of the “Flying Flowers” I caught with the camera on the Echinacea.

Echinacea Surprise Seedling

Another fun find!  An Echinacea seedling that I planted in the Maple Tree garden that bloomed with a really interesting flower with green petals. As they opened further, there were more tiny “flowers” forming around the center.

Volunteer Petunia in the Squash

The squash finally started growing and a petunia popped up  in the middle of the patch. It looks like a version of the Tidal Wave varieties I used to have growing near the Arborvitae.

Baby Lupine

I planted some Lupine seeds a few weeks ago, and this is what they looked like a week after planting. One little baby has it’s first true leaf. The rain we have been getting really helped these little guys to sprout.  If I am lucky, I might get a flower or two before frost, but should have a nice bunch of flowers next Spring.

Arborvitae Point 8-3-2011

The Wave Petunias that I purchased and planted late June to early July are finally beginning to fill out and show more color every day. The Purple Wave  variety coordinates pretty well with the Summer Wine Monarda.  “Poor Harry” can be seen mid photo… the red leaved  Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick that has been munched on too much. It does keep putting out new shoots…. He’s not giving up…

Sparrow Nest

Here is a little Sparrow nest I found in the lawn after a storm. You can see the colored plastic from hay bale netting woven in and it looks like Schwartz Cat’s fur lining it. There have been a lot of Chipping Sparrows nesting in various bushes in the gardens.

Mound Garden During the Storm

A nasty storm the day before my birthday seemed to want to wash away the Mound garden again…. The water did stay in the gullies formed earlier in the year. The grasses were really whipped by the wind.

During the Storm Back Yard

The rain was pouring off the deck roof and  the water from the driveway was flowing through the Mound garden, across the lawn and into the Shade garden at the edge of the woods. This was the first big storm since June, so I finally got to see just where I needed to dig a ditch to get most  of the water to go straight to the woods where there are no gardens.

Broken Glads

After the storm I ended up cutting myself a big bouquet of Glads…. The wind and rain knocked many flowers over even when tied to stakes. I had a pretty birthday bouquet.

Wet White Phlox

The sun came out bright after the storm and I got this photo of the still dripping white Phlox flowers.

Last Double Cutie Bloom of 2011

The day of my birthday, the Double Cutie Hemerocallis opened  it’s last flower for the year.  A pretty gift!

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