October is Here??

It’s only been a couple months since my last post… Getting better with posting… It’s hard to believe that October is here and almost gone already! September flew by in a blur. I accomplished nothing in the gardens, other than taking some photos of the blooms and weeds. I did accomplish a lot of pattern designing.

The center section of the Maple Tree Garden stayed full of blooms all summer, despite the deer and bunnies trying to eat everything. For some reason, the Vista Bubblegum Petunias didn’t seem to be tasty treats like the other Petunias I planted. There are only four Petunia plants in this area. I took this photo before the lime green leaved Sweet Potato vines were eaten down again. They must be like candy, as the deer have munched on these since I planted them. Various repellents helped some, but all the rain we had washed it off frequently.

Due to the constant loss of plants to the critters and too much water, gardening this year was quite frustrating. Tomatoes that I planted late didn’t like the excess water, so my crop was really small. The only plants that didn’t get eaten down were the ones in planters. We got only enough tomatoes to eat fresh, with not enough to can for later use. The Squash did a little better… It took three tries to get Zucchini to grow.

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Above is a little group of Summer blooms from the gardens. It was a challenging growing season, but I did get some pretty flowers.

September brought a new large collection of designs that started with a Spoonflower Challenge. To promote their new dyed Petal Solids, the challenge was to use three of the new colors. Lagoon, Cotton Candy, and Mustard were the colors we were to include. A couple other colors and white and black were also allowed, so I added Peacock and Peony. My Teardrops Flowers Collection was born.

All of the flowers in this collection began in a single sketch. I pulled all the little parts out of the sketched flower to make the different flower types. The photo below, shows the original sketch. It also shows stages of the flower pulled apart and the bits and pieces colored. Once I got the parts and pieces ready, I got carried away playing with the different coordinates.

The next challenge was much more challenging for me. The colors were Mushroom, Pine and Sky Blue. For some reason, this color combination didn’t light up the creative juices like the previous one. We were allowed to use one, two or all three of the colors. Additional colors as well as black and white were also allowed. This time, I ended up using just the Pine green with white Paisleys. It was fun to play with the different Paisley designs, adding swirls and curls. I also had to add some little flowers in and around the Paisleys. The photo below, shows some of the process.

Here is the finished version of my Paisleys, shown as a table cloth on Spoonflower. It is available in many types of fabrics and Home Decor items. They are also available in more colors in my Paisleys Collection in my Spoonflower Shop. In the next post, I’ll show my newest Calendar Tea Towel/Wall Hanging made for another challenge.