Halloween 1966

I found this relic in my archives.  It was 1966 and I had a Halloween party in the garage.  In the back row, from left to right, as best I can remember is me, Julie, Margaret, Runell, Valerie, Nancy.  Bottom row is someones little sister, I can't remember who's, the head of Runell's little brother, Cathy and finally Suzanne Noonan.  Not sure who that character is hanging around in the background.

It was a fun little party and this photo is a great memory sparker.  I am not in contact with any of these girls any more although I'd love to get in touch with some of them.  Especially Suzanne.  I've tried to find them on Facebook but no luck.

Happy Halloween!

Blogger gifts

Corrine at dosfishes sent me this gorgeous piece of art that she made.  It arrived on a gray day and it was as though a piece of sunshine came out of the box.  The photo does not do it justice, believe me, this piece just glows.

Close up on the hanger.

close up on the work.  You can get a small idea of the glowing nature of this piece.

She also enclosed these fabric rolls, all tied up with their own ribbon.  The ribbon will eventually go into my ribbon box and the fabric may end up being incorporated into a crocheted rug one day.

I sent Corrine this hat I made awhile back.  I used some fabric pieces she had sent to me.

It is reversible.  I am afraid it is rather big for her but I told her to just use it as a fabric bowl instead.   The blogging community has shown itself to be made up of some very giving, kind and caring people.  Thanks to you all and especially thanks to Corrine for these gifts and the gift of her friendship.  I cherish both.

Be well.

Cute Goats!

Nothing much cuter than a baby goat.  My neighbors have these little pygmy goats.  I got to take care of them one weekend and snapped these pictures then.

I don't think these guys will get much bigger.

Indoors, I got the rest of my firewood into the shop for keeping my studio warm this winter.  Tonka helped.

Wait a minute!  That isn't cord wood!  That is zucchini!

I made these feather hanging things and hung them out in my woods along the trails. 

Some wild art.  I will be curious to see how long these pieces survive.

Been having trouble with blogger lately, it won't allow my photos to show.  Lets see if these will show up.  I hope so.  Such a hassle trying to put up a post only to have the photos not show up when the photos are really what makes my blog.
Oh well.

Dagnabit!

Rats. Ran out before I was finished.  I thought I had more of that varied blue print in my fabric stash but nope.  It is gone, and I still have 6 inches left to crochet.  So I searched for something close.

What do you think?  It will have to do. There is enough of this other fabric to go around the rug a few more rounds. It's only a rug after all, not great art.  I'm just trying to use up some of my rayon fabric stash left over from my garment making days.  I've got a ways to go yet.

Be well.

Life is like

Life is like a bowl of fuzzy caterpillars.

Be well.

Making a free style bed quilt

In between my outdoor activities of gardening and wood gathering and general getting ready for winter, I have been in the studio working on a double bed size quilt for Chainsaw Man's mom.  I'm not one for using a pattern so I picked a couple of fairly large print main fabrics in Donna's chosen colors, blue and yellow, and started in.  I decided to use the quilt as you go method and cut up 12 inch squares of my backing fabric and batting and started stitching and layering fabrics on top of those.  Above you see many of the finished squares waiting to be put together. 

Above shows how they progress with sashing putting the blocks together.  One good thing about this method of construction is I was able to use bits and pieces of left over batting and reduced the contents of that particular drawer by quite a bit.  I didn't have to cut one inch off of my roll of batting.  Yay!

I found a nice fabric that had lots of variety in it so each piece I cut from it for the center of my blocks is different.  I like the mixed media feel it has to this print.

My other main center fabric is this yellow flower one.  I used a stitch and flip method of adding the fabrics around the center theme fabrics until I had my 12 inch square covered.

I had a basket full of strips of mostly flower print fabrics left over from a previous project so I stitched them all together to make this yardage and I then cut six inch panels from it for my borders.

This shows the quilt mostly finished except for the binding.  I like it!

Here is the back of it.  You can see  how I used two different fabrics for the back and I allowed them to fit in a random pattern.  I used only yellow for the joining strips on the back and only blue on the front.

Here it is with the binding and label on it, after spending nearly an hour with my lint roller, removing dog hair off of it.  I didn't used to have long haired dogs and I must say their hair sure does get around!  Pit Bulls don't shed a lot and when they do their hair just falls to the ground instead of floating around the room.  Now that I have a Golden Retriever and a Border Collie, I find a lot more dog hair to deal with.

This was a labor of love and served to get me restarted in the studio after my summer lay off.  I want to make more bed quilts this winter, I really enjoyed making this one and think it turned out well.  I need to decide if I want to save this to be a Christmas gift or just give it to her now so she can start using it.

 As I was getting ready to turn out the lights last night, something at my dark window caught my eye.  It was a tiny little frog.  That Eeyore block at the left side of the screen is only two inches square.  A tiny night time visitor.

I hope to have more art to begin sharing again, although my commenters seem to like my nature posts just as well.  I appreciate you all visiting here and leaving comments no matter what I post.  Makes me feel like part of a wonderful global community of other artists, photographers, writers, teachers and readers.  Thank you!  I hope you all are enjoying a peaceful autumn or springtime season.

Be well.

 

Garden produce

I know I've been absent for quite awhile. Now that the rain is returning I hope to get back to blogging more regularly. Today I'm going to show some photos from my garden. But first, I thought I'd show you my little cactus, it has never bloomed for me before but it is really flowering now!

Close up of center of cactus bloom.

The tomatoes didn't have time to come to full ripeness because of the late summer we had. We are still getting plenty, but not as much as we'd like. They are gorgeous, aren't they?

Because of the rain we decided to pick and bring in the biggest to allow them to continue to ripen indoors.

If we left them out in the rain they would start to split and rot out there, so we bring them into the house.

The lovely rainbow chard.

Drying some chard and herbs near the wood stove in the house.

Tomato butt.

Lettuce bolting.

Squash doing its best to ripen before the first frost kills it back.

Squash beauty.

Wooly bears are plentiful right now.

The tobacco is flourishing and flowering.

Penny brocolli heads.

Lovely veining in the kale.

Canna's did their best with the cool summer, the leaves are nearly as pretty as the flowers but last longer.

More chard. I love looking at it as much as eating it.

The apple tree is loaded. If you look closely you can see Tonka, Sadie and Charlie lounging.

I should have taken a photo of the potatoes. We dig them as we use them and I haven't dug any today for a photo shoot. They are the best potatoes I have ever tasted, melt in my mouth like they have butter on them but we don't use butter.

Earlier this year I showed this same view.  Now the  Italian dill is dying back, the tobacco is growing mature, and there is smoke coming from the chimney of my cozy little house.  Autumn has arrived.  Enjoy Nature's bounty.

Be well.