animals and art work

this is Elphie

she is the big black dog that lives at our house

the past few days she has taken on a new moniker -- Mr. McGregor



seems we have a new yard visitor

I've seen a little cottontail out there -- though so far he doesn't seem to have figured out how to get into the garden because of the fencing we put up to keep Elphie out of there

I think Elphie just doesn't want to share the carrots that are growing out there

I can tell when the rabbit is there -- Elphie goes into her best "I'm a big dog" act, complete with hair standing up and growling

and when I let her out the door she runs full tilt toward the rabbit -- which of course runs faster

its a good exercise program for the dog
this morning I went out to turn on the water in the garden

as I was hooking up the hose I could hear a bird in the tree above me so I paused and turned around to take a closer look

one of these birds hopped down onto the fence, less than three feet away from me

I stood still and just watched until he decided he'd seen enough of me and flew off to another tree

I headed straight to the bird book because I hadn't seen one of these before

the bird book says this is a Baltimore Oriole

way cool!!
yesterday I spent 4 hours in part one of a machine quilting class

what a blast!

this half of the class (the other half is next Saturday) was about the materials -- especially the different battings that are currently available -- and how to use that newly acquired walking foot -- I love the walking foot! and my favorite thing was the pseudo free motion work we did at the end of the class with it

next week we'll be doing true free motion quilting -- which, while more difficult (I'm told) gives you a lot more artistic flexibility and control

can't wait

after all that fussing about what to do next to this I decided that the best thing to do was just turn that bead embroidery work into a cuff bracelet

sometimes less is more

I'll be working on the competition entry information today







and since that piece had been declared "done", I started on a new beaded piece

another bracelet in the Africa series -- this one is giraffe


we'll see how quickly I can stitch this one up

new jewelry

for my name badge lanyard anyway

the box arrived yesterday with this year's Hoffman challenge quilt in it

since it didn't make the cut for the show it has returned home

(which means I have it in hand to hang in the solo shows later in the year -- a good thing)

in the box with it was this cool cloisonne pin that I put right on to the lanyard that the name badge I wear for guild activities is on -- its kind of like merit badges for Girl Scouts

the pin was not the only thing in the box with the quilt however

there was also a fat quarter of this cool fabric and two spools of Sulky thread

the NEW Sulky thread that is variegated

cool!

not sure yet what I'll use that fabric for, but I'm sure it will be useful somewhere

this morning I'm heading off to a class at my local quilt store -- going to learn about using my sewing machine and the newly acquired walking foot to do machine quilting

time to get moving!

Pounds of Produce

from the garden at least

cucumbers, ripe tomatoes, zucchini, a basket full of beans, a test carrot (to see how they are doing and it went to the dog as a treat)

and three green tomatoes

which are being fried for breakfast as I write this -- mmmmm, I love fried green tomatoes!


produce from the studio -- meh, not so much --

I am working on the trees -- the new trunk is stitched down and I've started on the added branches

and the quilting on the window landscape is moving along nicely too

Christmas sweater knitting is going well -- finished the second sleeve last night so now it's on to the hood

the bead work has been set aside for now -- I have not yet been able to solve the "how to" issue of what should be the next step, which means it probably won't get finished for the competition deadline -- {sigh}

for the last week I've been dealing with insurance agents and roofers trying to figure out how we'll ever be able to afford how to put on a roof after the HUGE deductible that we didn't even know we had -- it applies only to wind or hail damage, which of course is what we have -- figures (and don't you know that the insurance company knows that about this area which is why they write the policies that way!)

time to go eat those green tomatoes

cooking in the rain

platter? check
spatula? check
tongs? check

umbrella?! huh??

the DH was the chief cook last night and just as he had gotten everything on to the grill it started pouring down rain (we ended up getting 1/4 inch according to our front yard gauge)

so the cooking on the grill got done and while I put things on the plates, he put on dry clothes before dinner

and the up side of that little downpour is that there will be more zucchini and tomatoes to grill without my having to water them today

nice

design repair, new beginnings and frustration

my idea to run another tree trunk in the redwoods worked!

after fiddling with size and spacing I settled on this arrangement, and I've actually started stitching the branches down now

it feels much better












the thread for doing the quilting on this project took a while to select

the spools for the landscape were pretty easy -- shades of blues and grays for the sky, mountain and water; white for the snow; browns, oranges, rust and tans for the vegetation

the wood framing --- not so much

it looks like old weathered wood and other than the dark brown that separates the planks, it is an unusual combination of purples, greens and a sort of silvery beige

I actually started working on the quilting of this last night by stitching vertical lines of dark brown in the yellow orange band so it looks like the trunks of little scrub oaks -- I'll use the oranges and yellow to do swirly quilting around those to finish those little shrubs

a nice beginning

the bead work project is just making me crazy -- the original idea of what was to happen next is just not working -- I know, another design opportunity -- just haven't found the work around yet

time to get to that laundry

Hawaii is finished

the last stitch went in last night

amazing

still need to take some "entry" quality photos, but I can move on to the next project now

how cool is that?

now I just hope that I get some bright sun shine in the next couple of days so I can do the photos I need to do






and this is the next piece that goes with all that yellow stuff I've been beading

the pieces are slowly coming together!

stepping forward

yesterday I finished the quilting on the Hawaii piece and did the steam pressing to smooth it all out

this morning I plan to cut the edges (bring on the carpenter's square!) and hopefully get the facing on as well as preparing the sleeve and the label

this is definitely one of those "did I do that?" pieces




as soon as the hand work on Hawaii is complete I'll be headed full steam into the quilting of the next landscape piece

so I'll probably be searching through the boxes of quilting thread to pull out what I'll need for that today too







the yellow beads are all completed on this piece

after I put in what I though were the last beads I measured it against the metal bracelet blank this will go over and found a strip on one edge that needed a few more added -- better to find those at this stage than later when it would be much harder to fix

so today I'll start on the paws



step one of the required changes have been completed

all of the branches that had not yet been attached have been turned so they grow downward as they should

now there is just one little problem -- the branches on the left side of the big tree that had already been stitched down and are intertwined with the aspen branches -- with leaves stitched over that

the best solution I can think of is to run another redwood "trunk" up the right hand side of that closest aspen tree to account for those branches

I think that will work -- I'll try the pinning and see how it goes

think "design opportunity"

most people do this sort of experimental design work on small pieces -- heh, well, think Moonlight Sonata as a beginning piano piece!

yellow beads -- and more

or just more yellow beads -- you decide

I might have actually finished this yesterday except I needed to get ready for the guild meeting

so that will probably happen today




I have a hard time just sitting still in any setting, so I usually take something with me to my guild meetings (and I'm not the only one in the group that sits and knits!)

here we have a completed afghan square -- I can do these practically without looking at them, which makes them ideal meeting knitting (unlike the sweater I'm working on that requires a bit more counting and keeping track)

we had a great speaker and I finished this block and did almost half of another one too



have you ever seen what happens when the caretaker comes with the fish food and dumps it into the koi pond?

last night as I was standing at the put and take table chatting with someone a guild member came in with a large shopping bag full of quilting fabrics and started dumping them onto the table

I can tell you it looked just like the feeding frenzy at the koi pond

I got some very lovely fat quarters as well as some smaller pieces that will be good to use in art quilts

there really wasn't anything that would be good for charity quilts this month, so I'll be taking a walk through my personal stash for that purpose this month

seems it was a good thing that I didn't start in on the stitching of these newly added branches

it has been pointed out to me (thank you Alison!) that these are growing the wrong way

so today I'll be pinning them turned the correct way

(and perhaps that's why I hadn't started stitching yet -- they just didn't look quite right to me yet, but I couldn't figure out why)

ok -- DUH!


time to get busy

climbing into the trees

and maybe swinging from the branches!

after looking at the tree for a while yesterday and fiddling with strips of paper I worked out how many more branches it needed and cut them out of the fabrics

I even included a circle that is where a branch came off the tree and the trunk has "healed"

so now I have lots and lots of stitching to do to attach these



I worked on the Hawaii piece some too -- I had hoped to have all of the quilting finished by last night so I could take it for show and tell at tonight's quilt guild meeting, but that just didn't happen

oh well, there's always next month

work continues on this too -- should be finished soon

working on the redwoods

finally got the table in the studio all cleared off so I could spread out the trees piece

I mixed two different shades of green airbrush ink then added textile medium and started stamping

about an hour later I decided I'd stamped enough and I needed to let it all dry so I can decide where I need to go next

and that is probably to the sewing machine to create some stitched parts to attach

I also think there need to be branches that look like they come out of the center of the trunks

there will be some more research and sketching

just another design opportunity

2 more hours of beading done yesterday, and now each "row" goes faster because they are getting shorter

so I'm starting to think about the next step on this piece

foot prints and tails

all will be explained in time!

its a "Return" -- and going to the dark side

this quilt was completed over a year ago and sent along to its destination -- but the image keeps returning -- how cool is that?

yesterday I got an email from the curator of the exhibits that it is in, along with a link to the Flickr gallery view of the exhibit

of course I went to check it out -- and it was really cool that this is the first image you see -- WOW

you can check it out for your self by using this link


for all of the years that I have been a quilter I have been a hand quilter -- the piecing, the appliqueing and the quilting all put in with my ten little fingers

not long ago I decided that if I am ever to have a chance get all the many ideas for pieces that are in my head finished, I need to learn to use my sewing machine to do some of the work

so I signed up for a machine quilting class at my local quilting store which happens in a couple of weeks

yesterday I went and bought the required (and expensive - $100+) presser foot for my machine

the gal that checked me out asked me if I had ever put one of these on a machine, and when I said no, she took me to a machine and showed me how to do it so I'll be ready for the class -- how sweet is that!

like I said, I'm going over to the dark side -- but I'm starting to think of it as chocolate -- dark is good!
more of the yellow beads have been stitched in place, and we're on the home stretch now

looking good


and last night I finished quilting the sky of the Hawaii piece, so now I only have the quilting of the ghost hibiscus in the borders to do -- neat!

time to go mow the yard

transformation

I have to say I was amazed at how different this looks now than it did when I started

a couple of hours in the studio with fabric, markers, scissors and the iron to do the fusing and now I'm happy enough with the way this looks to say I'm ready to do the quilting

one of the things that I did to soften the raw edges and keep things from sliding around was to put a layer of tulle over the center of the picture, using the framing to hold it firmly in place when I attached those pieces

today I'll dig through my stash and find some batting to do this with and pin the "sandwich" together

should be able to have this ready for a November show with no problem

time to get to the laundry

the envelope please --- aka be careful what you ask for

the envelope arrived yesterday

the one from the library district with the jury results

I could tell by the feel of it as I carried it in from the mail box that there was more than one sheet of paper inside

it was the waited for FAT envelope, telling me that my art work had been accepted for not just one show, but two! -- one in November and one in December

which of course doesn't give me a whole lot of time to get ready for them -- and to add to that, I don't really have any idea where either of the libraries where my work will hang it -- I'll be making a couple of "field trips" to check them out

I don't think this has quite sunk in yet
let me introduce you to the next PIT (project in transition) on the drawing board

(keeping in mind that I need to have about a dozen pieces to hang for those two shows)

I began this piece last summer in a workshop (where I totally digressed from the instructor's pattern and directions)

the bottom of it is just not finished -- it had some rocks fused on there when I brought it home, but I pulled them off because the scale of them just wasn't right -- I recently found the water print fabric and my new plan is to create a stream in the bottom third of this piece

time to get working!
this is the newly re-landscaped front corner of the yard

for several years we have tried every summer to kill off the weeds and get grass to grow in this spot along the sidewalk and the driveway to no avail

this year we got drastic

the DH spent a couple of days digging up the old grass and weeds, creating a neatly shaped area and yesterday we put down the weed stop cloth, the landscape timbers, the mulch and planted two new little fountain grass plants that will eventually fill out to cover much of the space

I think it looks much better
and in the later afternoon I worked on this some more

the bead embroidery field is now over 50% complete -- YIPPEE!!


I'm moving right along in the quilting of the Hawaii piece too -- now working in the area of the sky, so the end is getting closer!

time for some breakfast

waiting to exhale

sometimes when I'm doing something difficult I find myself holding my breath

this week I held my breath, took photos of the finished coneflower quilt (both the whole image and a detail shot) and packaged it up to mail it off for the competition

it has to be there by a week from Monday (Aug 15), so it really was time to stop fooling around and get it in the box

as I write this the mailing tube is waiting for my post man to come and pick it up

so now I'm trying to get the Hawaii piece complete so I can take similar pictures of it

because I'm working myself up to applying to a really big competition and I only have until August 31 to do the paperwork

no actual quilt piece required here, just really good pictures of five pieces that I've already done, and the competition is to be one of 32 people chosen to create a specific size piece for a future series of exhibits

I really want to get to do that

must.quilt.faster!

the field of yellow is growing

it is almost half finished

feels like this one is moving like the proverbial molasses in January

just because its so - so - boring!

ok, I just keep telling myself that the results will be worth it

today we're going to do some work in the front yard where we're redoing the area around the mail box -- the necessary evil of being a homeowner!

time to get something to eat before heading out to work

chugging along

another couple of hours and this has progressed this far

(are we there yet?!)

it is looking pretty good though


and in the meantime, the first sleeve on the Christmas sweater knitting is finished -- maybe -- I followed the pattern worked the cuff and I'm not sure I like it because it may not be tight enough, and I'm not sure it's long enough for the recipient's taste either -- but I have decided to go ahead and knit the second sleeve, make the changes on that one and then decide -- fixing the cuff won't be hard because I haven't woven in the ends yet

we'll see

the art corner, the new toy and some work

well, it only took me 7 months to make it happen but yesterday I finally got the picture my son in law painted hung

this little corner of the room is all original art work -- and I love it

(the DH, however, thinks those two pictures are too close together -- so there's a chance here that one of them will get moved slightly, just so it doesn't make him crazy!)


and sitting right in front of the bookcase that you can see the top of in the first picture is this new toy

a gift from my sister after her DH bought her a new wheel that will actually travel well in the front seat of her VW bug

it needs some oil and a new spring for the brake (being old enough that it originally just used a rubber band!)

this also means I have to remember all the little ins and outs of using it (it's been over 25 years since I actually used one -- hope it's like a bicycle!)

guess there was a reason I hadn't been successful in finding someone to spin that Jacob's Sheep fleece I have -- I'm supposed to do it myself!

since my sister was here to visit yesterday I didn't work as much on projects

I'm okay with that

I did work on this beading a bit though, and it is moving along

looking good

first UFO

here in Esmerldas Studio we have a very narrow description of what qualifies as a UFO

because we may have as many as half a dozen projects in the works at once, almost everything is being designed, being stitched, being quilted or is currently classified as a "project in transition"

so for the most part we have no UFOs only PITs (heh, yeah)

this piece, however, has been officially deemed the first true UFO

when I created it about 8 years ago my intent was to use it to create a sign to hang in my craft booth at shows with the studio name and city on it -- because of that I made it as a very basic, simplified piece

well, fast forward 8 years and the past couple of weeks we've been working on drawings for a piece that is loosely titled "Colorado quilt" -- and our original intent had been to pull this piece out and use it with some additions as the center of that quilt

except my style and ability to work in smaller details has changed so much that it just won't fit in the vision we have for this project

so this one is going in the box to be held until next July when my local quilt guild holds their birthday party and we bring UFOs to exchange in a spirited game of "pirate" -- fun!

and we'll be designing a whole new center for that new project

two more hours of work put in on this project yesterday -- looking very good

if I can continue to put in that daily time this should be ready for the next step by this time next week

not bad!

no fair

no, this is not a whine (ok, maybe just a tiny one)

after spending some considerable time perusing the booklet of categories to enter at this year's State Fair I have decided that the five or six entries I would have do not warrant making three trips to the fairgrounds -- or even the mandatory two trips

maybe next year

another hour and a half of stitching and the project is progressing

looking good

and yes, because of the very disciplined format of this piece, my brain is already on auto pilot while I'm stitching -- thinking about the next piece already

heh, not even surprised

more art work from the garden

this is what I picked yesterday morning -- another zucchini, more beans and the first tomato and peppers

I've been picking about this many beans every day for several days, so now there are enough that we'll be eating a batch tonight

and the little zucchinis have been being cut into small pieces and tossed into salads -- very tasty

we're finally beginning to be rewarded for all of the hard work of tilling and planting and weeding

and we continue to do the "No Hail" chant


my dad is notoriously difficult to buy a gift for

at 85 there's just not much "stuff" he wants to acquire

in fact, for the past couple of years my Christmas gift to him has been a year long process of making up frozen meals and taking them to him during the year

yesterday we were walking around the new Antiques/Art Mall that has recently opened in our area -- I've been trying to decide if I should put some of my art in there, so I'm keeping an eye on what's there and talking to vendors as the opportunity arises

while I was strolling through this red pick up truck reached right out of the glass case and grabbed me -- it is a die cast metal model of a 1956 Ford pick up -- and (as you can tell by the picture) the hood, doors and tail gate move -- and since my dad only ever had Ford pick ups, it seemed to be just the right present for him

neat

and then, in another booth there was this

this is an additional house that goes with the set that were my grandmother's (which my mom gave me a couple of years ago)

there actually were two little houses like this one and another, larger structure in the booth, but the larger structure was too big and this was the one I liked best

the colored cellophane is in really nice condition and the tree is nice too

it was fun to add to this little collection with a piece that is the same vintage as the original set

so for now it's sitting on the bookcase in my studio, and it will go in with the rest of the pieces when we do the decorating for Christmas

time to go get some breakfast

things to do on a hot day

crank up the stove and make jam of course!

seriously, we got a great deal on some blackberries, and there is a limit to how many of them just two of us could eat before spoilage becomes a problem

never mind, we like jam, and it is an ages old method to preserve fruit

nothing like the sound of the jars "pinging" as they seal on a hot afternoon -- nothing except the sweet taste of summer on your tongue when we spread some of this on toast in the middle of a winter storm

so after that adventure I went into the studio and finished this pair of pants that had been waiting for elastic

cool

I have two brand new pair that will take me into the cool weather months

(and most of the time in the cool weather I wear sweat pants around the house)

this fabric is pretty neat -- I like the pattern and the colors -- maybe should have bought a bit more of it to use for some other project


the beading has begun!

this is an hour's worth of work

for a long time I have kept really good records on what materials go into the jewelry I make -- and how much they cost -- and used it as a guide for what to charge for a finished piece

the problem with that approach is that it is perfectly possible to make a really elaborate piece that uses materials that are really inexpensive -- but takes hours and hours to complete

so beginning with this piece I am also going to start logging how much time goes in these -- it should be interesting

time to get to the laundry

Blue necklace finished!

like with quilts, when I'm doing something as free form as this blue necklace is, part of the challenge is knowing when to stop

after every addition on each side I ask the question "are we done?"

yesterday the answer was yes

so here is the finished necklace -- and I'm really pleased with how it looks

and even though it appears very spiny, it is actually very soft and comfortable around the neck - the result largely of using that flexible right angle weave tube as the base

nice

this is the beginning of a piece I'm working on as part of the Etsy Bead Weaver Team's September Challenge

(I know, yellow ink on white is pretty hard to see - I'll probably be hating myself for that decision when I get into the beading!)


and today's pictures are the result of a enormous work around -- take picture with camera, download picture from camera through laptop computer to USB drive, take USB drive to desk top computer and use software to edit/size/etc., take USB drive back to laptop computer to access the internet -- time consuming, but for now it's what I've got -- and about now I'm really glad I hadn't gotten around to getting rid of the desktop -- think I'll be hanging on to it a bit longer!

geesh!!