painting for sanity

I had to take a break from the endless shoveling out of the house. I was mentally exhausted. I needed to make something. I longed for the feeling of being in the creative groove. So I gave myself a few days off and started slapping paint around. For inspiration, I loosely followed the 2-for-1 backgrounds technique in the article by Chrysti Hydeck in the new issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. Except I painted one piece of fabric and one piece of paper instead of 2 papers. The fabric is the top photo. It was a good exploration of how different mediums behave on different surfaces. OK, mostly it was just a lot of fun. I think these 2 are done for now. Ready to line up some more fresh white and start again.

Strawberry Fields

Mom and I drove up to Siemer's Farm on Greenbluff Saturday to pick strawberries. Lots of other people had the same idea, but there was plenty for everyone.



Yummy.

Sunday I puttered, potted plants, watched Amelie, had a lovely lime dinner party to celebrate my birthday. Havana Garlic and Lime Chicken, Strawberry Limeade and Key Lime Pie. I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures.

It was a lovely, summery, strawberry and lime-y birthday weekend...

I am woman...hear me weed-whack!

I weed-whacked today! I'm so proud of myself!

OK, to really grasp the magnitude of this accomplishment you must know that the weed-whacker is a ginormous gas-powered super-duper weed-whacker. The better to whack Canadian thistle with, my dear. When we bought it I could barely lift the thing.

So when I say I weed-whacked, what I really mean is, I've been on a steady workout program for several months now and it's paying off. I'm strong enough to whack humongous nasty thistles with the Ginormo-Whacker. I'll be 37 on Sunday and I'm stronger and fitter than I was at 27. Yay me!

Ah, Summertime...

My very favorite season is finally here! I am loving the warmer weather and the beautiful flowers and the blue blue blue sky.



Here's my farmer's market bounty from Saturday. Well, most of it, I didn't think the hunk of smoked salmon would look very charming in the picture. The farmer's market situation in this area has improved quite a bit over the last few years. Now you can even get kittens. I was very tempted by an ADORABLE grey-striped baby cat at the humane society table, but cooler heads reminded me that I had an ADORABLE giant baby cat at home. They were right.



There's a little bit of art happening as I plug away on my piece for the Kress Gallery show. Mostly though, I'm busy with a major haul-out and clean up of the house as we get it ready to sell. For entertainment, I've begun house-stalking, looking for the perfect little place to turn into my bright funky cottage. Wish me luck!

Sometimes you get poppies...

Gardening up here on the West Plains is always an adventure. In addition to whatever you plant, you also get "blessed" with whatever comes in on the wind. Usually it's Canadian Thistle.



But sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get poppies.

Time to get (a little bit) serious

Eeek! The Kress Gallery show has been expanded to two months this year - August and September. Which means I need to get very busy getting my new piece together. This is a design I began developing in a Caryl Bryer Fallert workshop a few years ago. I learned a ton about coming up with and developing abstract designs, in addition to the skills necessary to actually put them together. Monday I started cutting and sewing. It felt REALLY good to get absorbed in the process again.

Lucky Lucky Me...

I'm the happy happy happy owner of this beautiful quilt:



My excellent wonderful talented friend Julie Huffman made it for a challenge/lovely gift for me! I was so surprised and happy, I think I spent about an hour petting it when it first arrived. The colors! The circles! The quilting and the beads! The awesome friend who made me a beautiful quilt!

More about mottling

The excellent mottling effect I've been getting with my fabric dyeing experiments is mostly a product of laziness. I like to use the simplest methods possible. The basics of the mottling are: squish as much fabric as possible into as little dye solution as possible in a fairly small space. I've been using generous fat quarters in a 1/2 cup of dye in small tupperware containers from the dollar store. As you can see from the photo, there's nothing scientific about the mottling. I just smoosh the fabric down into the dye and then leave it alone for 3 hours. No stirring. I use the methods in Dyeing to Quilt Quick Direct Dye Methods for Quilt Makers by Joyce Mori and Cynthia Myerberg.



Here's my batch of yellows. I did squish the fabric around a bit about halfway through the dyeing with this batch, so there's still mottling, but it's not as extreme as the earlier batches.



Here's Pistol pretending he's the mighty king of the savannah.