when life gives you zucchini -- and other profitable enterprises

it had been a long time since I made pickle relish, and we were in the very last jar of that batch

and since my zucchini plant turned up it's toes and died on me, I had to send out a call for donations

(I know, who does that?!)

fortunately, someone my daughter works with had an overload of large ones, so over the weekend I turned them (and a few other ingredients) into a 10 jar batch of fresh pickle relish

that will hold us for a while

work on the backing of the leaves continues

last week I said there were 7 leaves -- actually there are 9 -- and as of last night I had finished 8 of them and I'm working on number 9

as is usual when I get to this point in a project like this, I'm getting impatient with the speed at which it is getting finished -- I want to be done so I can move on to the next project!

must be patient and not ruin the finishing by getting in a hurry

the leaf project was not the only bead work in process

these three sample pieces are done now too

I plan to use these as examples on an Etsy listing that will involve doing custom "memorial" pieces that will involve the person placing the order sending me a file of whatever they want put under the glass

we'll see if that gets any orders

and then there are these

I made them for my daughter because I got my hands on a package of these cute charms and she and I have an longstanding joke about someone dropping a house on the witch

I made her this wall hanging a few years ago as part of the ongoing quilt gifting

I think she'll like the earrings

 

so last week I thought I was ready to quilt this piece

but there was something about it that I still wasn't quite happy with even though I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was

so I did other things, thinking that I might figure it out

 after a conversation with a friend, I pulled the photo of the piece into my photo software and changed it to a black and white photo

right away I could see that the dark gray on the right hand side and the really big white patch on the left hand side were distracting

the black and white version of the newly changed top confirms my feeling that it's much better this way

NOW it's ready to quilt

this piece is ready to quilt too

and this photo is a good explanation of why this piece was one that is hand stitched, not fused since it's wider than my design wall!

since the truck piece has moved on to the next stage at the sewing machine, I have started working on the bottom edge of the fire piece

it's nearly ready to be attached to the sky -- looking pretty good

the city is the next piece that is up on the design wall

but when I started thinking about the materials that I want to use for that tall building I decided that I need to do some testing before I do a lot of work and then have a materials failure

so I'm going to test those materials by creating a smaller piece that is just a section of the piece with a bit less detail

if what I want to do works well, I will finish this piece and set it aside to donate to the SAQA auction next year

this week's activities include a meeting with other quilters, a trip to the dentist, a critique meeting and a family gathering --- never a dull moment!

An Actual FINISHED piece!

it hasn't had it's final pressing and it doesn't have a label, but otherwise this piece is DONE!!

doing a little happy dance here because it actually looks like the picture in my head -- whoot whoot!!

and that's not the only thing I worked on this week

the background for the truck is really coming along too -- today I should get to start on the applique of the cracked dirt on the bottom edge of this

it's exciting to see these things coming together

now that both the gold colored leather and the tubes of beads have arrived, I'm back to working on this gold and white Greek inspired piece

two of the seven leaves have been backed and edged (I love the way that gold leather looks, and it's super soft too!)

five more leaves to go and then the neck band -- rolling right along

and the third of the memorial pieces is completed -- now I just have to figure out how to write up the listing for my Etsy store

I'm sure this picture doesn't look like anything that anybody would think should be talked about

it represents my taking a step toward creating my own fabric to use for a specific part of another of the Parched Earth quilts

my plan is to do a piece that involves a windmill -- but it needs to look beat up and rusty

I will be taking this gray fabric and trying to create some real rust on it to use for this purpose

the plan is to spread out the fabric, shred up the steel wool and spray the entire thing with vinegar and let it set to do it's magic

we'll see how that goes

a couple of weeks ago I posted the picture of the batch of strawberry jam that I made

this batch of apricot jam is all finished and stashed in the pantry too ---

the next preserving needs to be a batch of pickle relish -- which I prefer to make out of zucchinis not cucumbers --- need to shop for zucchini -- the plant that I put in just croaked, so no home grown ones this year -- bummer

time to get to it!

moving along......

since I totally blew past the deadline for this piece

I decided to work on a new idea while I'm waiting for the beads to arrive to finish it

so this week I worked on these

the idea is to create some samples so I can do custom orders -- either as memorial pieces or like Mother's necklaces

each of these is a clear glass cabochon with a photograph sealed to the back of it -- and since I needed a photo to use, I decided to use the photo of the memorial quilt I made

these are coming together nicely -- I will be doing one more -- a round one and I plan to use copper colored beads around it

then I'll get to work creating the Etsy listing for the custom orders

at the sewing machine this week I finished quilting the bottom of the background for the Parched Earth II:  The Tree piece

this week I hope to get the sky done

making good progress on the Parched Earth III:  The Truck -- the sky and the mountain are done and I'm working my way across the fields and the fence

the farm piece on the design wall is coming together nicely -- I did some new techniques when I created the barn and the silos by building those with all their little "fiddly" pieces on a piece of parchment first then installing them in a whole piece

what's left to do on this now is the big round bales of hay at the bottom

since the farm piece is nearing completion it was time to create the next piece in that series

this is the map for the city all ready to go

a few weeks ago we made a tough decision -- not to keep this little fur baby with us

adorable -- absolutely

but she never connected with us enough to ever want to do anything to please us

we agreed to foster her until the rescue group we got her from could find her a new home -- she needs someone younger or just more physically able to take her out and get her the exercise she needs -- and we would never be able to do that

this morning she went off to a new home --- perhaps Gypsy was absolutely the right name --- we hope to hear more about her adventures from her new family and we wish them all the very best

write it down

when my daughter graduated from the 8th grade, her teacher talked about having a top ten list (a la David Letterman)

her top ten list began with:  #10 -- Write it Down!

in the past few months I have tried to focus on working in a series for my pieces -- or rather two series!

either way, it's a good thing to keep a list of what the ideas are for each series - preferably in a place that I can't loose them

this was my solution -- a small white board hanging in my studio to write those ideas on

and oh yes -- it's color coded -- the goal is to have every one of those ideas be written in red -- that's the "finished" color -- one down and many to go

the quilting on the background for the parched earth tree has begun

and of course as soon as I started selected thread for this I found that I had the color I wanted to use, but only a tiny bit of it

so that meant a trip to the local quilt store to get a spool of thread -- uh, since when can I buy just one spool of thread?  I came home with 5 spools -- all of them to be used on the Parched Earth series

one of those spools of thread is specifically for the bottom edge of this piece


I solved the issue of the "floating trees" by putting a small section of the "parched dirt" looking pattern at the bottom under them -- only in this piece that will be shades of gray for the ash of the fire

the pattern pieces for this have been prepared, so I can start on that applique work soon

as soon as I finish appliqueing this one that is

the entire sky for the background of the truck is done and I'm now working on the mountain --- looking good!

at the design wall the sky and most of the fields for "The Farm" are in and it was fun to put in those gloriously red trees

about 2/3 of this is done, and I'm getting antsy to have it finished and off the wall so I can start the next one

not long ago another fiber artist said to me "you need to have something you can carry to show your work to people"

at the time I didn't take that very seriously because I really didn't have a lot of work to show

this week for the first time I wished I had taken her advice when someone asked me to tell them about my work

ok -- I get it (I'm slow, but I do learn!) -- so I have ordered one copy of a small (8"x8") paperback book that has 23 pages showing my work

and my plan is to update it at the end of the year so it will reflect all of the 2016 fiber art projects

it's actually kind of exciting to see that on the screen -- and I'm thinking having the actual book in my hands will be even more so

the last of the leaves for this project are complete!

now I'm waiting for the leather for the backing and the beads for the edging to arrive -- hopefully this week

onward and upward!

art is where you see it

Early in the week I decided that I needed a tall stool in my studio so I could work for longer periods of time without my legs and back hurting so much.  I figured it was going to be a while before I could find one that gave me what I needed at a price I could afford.

I was pleasantly surprised during my trip to Walmart to discover this lovely one that is exactly the right height, has a nicely padded seat, swivels and is actually attractive -- all that at a price I could afford!!  Whooot!!

And when I headed home from my local Walmart, I went the back road around and the DH spotted this awesome barn, so I pulled off the road and took some pictures.

I'm thinking that at least part of this will make it into a piece of work for the Parched Earth series.

It's all about being aware of what is around you.

This week I've continued to work on the leaves for the beaded piece I'm doing.

These are beaded leaves 4, 5, 6 and 7 -- moving right along here

I've just ordered the beads I need to do the outside edges of all of this piece (since I've decided to enter it in a Fire Mountain Gems competition, I'm being really picky about the finishing process).

By the time those beads get here I hope to have all the rest of the leaves finished and ready.

The quilting on the first panel of the Evolution series (The Forest) is done.  I haven't decided yet what I will be doing for the edges of these, so I'm going to defer the binding for now

The work on the design wall continues on the second panel of the Evolution series (The Farm) -- the sky is done and I'm working my way down the fields to the barn

Since the quilting was finished on The Forest, it's time to change the thread color palette and move into quilting on this piece #2 in the Parched Earth series -- no green here -- just blues, grays and browns and I'm ready to go on it having gotten the silk layer pinned on top of the colored panel

And here is the week's progress on #3 in the Parched Earth series -- at this point it doesn't look like much, but I see progress none the less

Once again this week there are wild fires filling the news. 

This is the concept "drawing" for a piece I'm working on that is tentatively titled "Fire" for the Parched Earth series

I'm not sure if I'm done "tweeking" this design yet -- right now the trees and warped studs look like they are "floating" and I'm not sure that's what I want it to look like

Still thinking about it

Not every moment was spent working on art this week

Some time was spent making up a batch of strawberry jam -- and it's quite yummy

It's been a good year for strawberries, and we didn't have any more strawberry jam in the cabinet, so it was time

I'm hoping to get my hands on some apricots to do a batch of jam from them soon