starting tomorrow morning we will be on water restrictions
we had decided a couple of weeks ago that we would not plant a garden this year
but that means there is a large garden area that will pretty much just lay fallow over the summer
which may not be all that attractive in terms of marketing the house
yesterday when we did some work in the yard, I mentioned to the DH that it would be cool to create some large wood flowers (sort of like the sunflowers I have in another part of the yard) to "plant" up there to at least create some color
later in the day while I was at the sewing machine, he cut these out of some scrap lumber that he had in the garage
Neat!
we need to get some narrow lumber to use as "stems", and there will be more cutting and painting --- and we'll probably paint some of the little bird houses he built too and add them to the garden area
this should be fun!
the new technique that I was considering worked great
I took a sheet of soluble stabilizer and used a Sharpie marker to draw right on it the pattern I wanted to stitch for the the last feather
I was a little worried that either the Sharpie marker would bleed or the soluble part of the stabilizer wouldn't work properly, but all such concerns have been banished now --- it worked great!
now I need to do some quilting in the top corners that are not stitched to finish the "test" for what I will be doing on the actual quilt
meantime, the applique work on the actual piece is going well ---
before I start the quilting on this piece I will need another package of that stabilizer, but I'm feeling pretty good about this now
(which of course means my brain is already starting to design the NEXT project!)
the big oval didn't work in the place I first tried to use it, but in the end I'm glad I had it all bezeled and available to use
once it was added, I went right back to the "chain" pieces, and those are almost done too
this piece will probably be finished either today or tomorrow -- still a couple of days ahead of the deadline entering it in the challenge
(now, which of the two projects I have designed in the meantime will I start next)
a whole lot of buttons that my grandmother had collected over the years
yesterday I went through the tins and found this matched set -- the perfect color, size and number to put on the sweater I have just finished knitting for the DH
I laid them out on the sweater so he could let me know if he liked them -- and he did!
last night I got both seams of the sleeves stitched shut and one sleeve set in -- another project that is very close to being finished!
(heh, yeah, and I've got the next knitting project already waiting in the wings)
for the first time in a long time, it was not accompanied by a week or more of internal doubting about rather or not I'm doing anything worth while
I can say that I think what I do from day to day IS worth while
I'm volunteering my time to a couple of organizations that promote things that I believe in
I'm making art on my own terms
most importantly, I've quit beating myself up for having made mistakes in the past
as I was listening to a program recently, someone said that when we are in the middle of struggling with making ends meet, of going to a job every day that we hate but must keep because we carry the responsibility of feeding, housing and clothing someone else, we do not see what else is going on around us
I realize that I spent a number of years in that mind set, and I feel blessed that I have been able to leave it behind
words have power --- I'm being Brave
1 comment:
You're one of the most creative, productive artists I know.
And yes, that necklace is what it was waiting to be, now. Very nice.
It rained last night and should tonight, too, and we were much in need of it. I like your idea of birdhouses: if you can't grow tomatoes, bringing the birds close to home would be a powerful draw.
When we moved here there were two Modesto ash trees and the stump of a third, left at about ten feet tall. Which we thought was odd--until we discovered that at the crook in the tree just below the cut-off point, above our heads but low enough that Richard could lift one of our small children to be eye level with it, there was a birds' nest every year and our kids got to see the babies wailing for food and to watch the parents, who never flew straight to the nest but zigzagged and feinted and tried to throw predators off before darting in at the last.
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