ThreadStory

2009-12-23T21:15:00.001-06:00

season of busy

2009-12-09T04:58:00.003-06:00

It is December. A birthday month for me. It is a month of busy. It is dark too soon . It is light too late. It is a month of two full moons....
We all have much to do. Holidays. I love the festive lights. The songs of the season. There is much I simply enjoy about this time of year. I will not dwell on the negative.

I find time to stitch a bit here and there on this and that. Snow fell. It looks so serene in the early dawn light. It is raining now, more snow to come...

Once in a blue moon I find time for a blog post...

Girlfriends page done!

2009-12-05T05:03:00.002-06:00

Bad photo but since I nearly sent this off before photographing it tis better then nothing! This one is for Cathie's book. http://www.clevelandgirlie.blogspot.com/ I had the toughest time with this as she had a request to use a quote we liked and go from there...I don't have favorite quotes. Its not that I don't think them worthy, I just rarely remember them. But, I love music and when listening to the radio the John Lennon song was playing and I just really liked the line " We all shine on, like the stars and the moon and the sun" So that line fostered this page. Everyone shines in some way.

I talk to myself when I stitch

2009-12-04T05:14:00.003-06:00

Do you talk out loud as you stitch? Even when there is no one else around? I do. And here is a sampling of the mutterings uttered while working on the pillows and baby quilt...

mistakes are a learning experience.mistakes ARE a learning experience....I am learning waaay to much...
RIGHT sides together dammitt....
uh oh.....cut the wrong edge...
that wont be noticeable...
RATS, it sticks out like a fur coat in august...
where did I stick that needle...
How did THAT happen?
the ruler must be off...
OW! found the needle, good idea putting it in my foot....
expletives deleted..
It is relaxing, its just that this one part is a bit off....a teeny tiny bit...off...wheres my needle again..( this last said to husband when he questioned my claim of stitching relaxes me)

Photos coming as soon as I get home when it is light enough out to take them!

pondering

2009-12-02T04:58:00.003-06:00

copying..or influence.. My current work in progress, well one of the three anyway, has me shy to show it as it is similar in some ways to an artists work I much admire. No, it is not a copy. There are marked differences. It is the subject matter. That being one that I closely associate with her work. I drew the design with no thought to her work conscious in my mind, played with it for days, committed it to cloth and fiddled and fuddled with it. Now I look at it and see the influences. Is it my work? Did I unconsciously copy?? Yikes! I know I drew it, started stitching etc. Is it 'mine' enough to really be mine? I know it is but the question niggles at me and has me insecure about this one. I look at it anew. No it is different. the similarities are in materials and subject matter . I am sure there is influence here in my approach to the workings of it. I will send a post to my influential artist to see what she thinks. ...In a cosmic coincidence as I was pondering all this I see Arlee has posted a similar bit about this sort of thing on her blog. http://arleebarr.squarespace.com/designjournal/2009/12/1/etheror-an-interim-post.html I wonder if we all face this from time to time. Especially when attempting something a bit out of our usual realm. What do you think?

Working on...

2009-11-22T14:54:00.006-06:00

I have decided that the pillow top needed to be quilted...have finished the first one and am working on the second one now.

Pillow #1 above and #2 below. The blue tint is not true to life. It is a creamy white.
And since I have so much free time (lunatic giggling commences here) I have decided to do something that has been playing around in my head for a long long while. I have turned a sketch from my lowly sketchbook into a larger fabric drawing/painting on whole cloth. This has been a trial of starts and stops as I attempt to recreate my original drawing into a quilted work. There are mistakes. I am overlooking them as I go on with this. A bit of a learning experiment and flying by the seat of my pants as I have NO clue how I will quilt it. IF this works out I have others that I would like to turn into fabric/textile/quilt art.
Above is the original drawing. 8.5 x 11". Below is the whole cloth painting 17 x 22".

progress on the pillows

2009-10-22T19:14:00.003-05:00

the embroidery is finished for the first pillow. It will be a fourteen inch square. I just need to make it into a removable pillow case for the form so it can be washed easily. It has been washed once but not pressed at this point. The second pillow top is moving along nicely. Photos later.
As for the baby quilt..it is basted and the major in the ditch stitching is done. Nothing fancy going on with the quilting for this one. I will take pictures when I get to the binding. Hopefully sometime before Christmas....Where does the time GO??

2009-10-11T07:36:00.002-05:00

The trees are turning into such beautiful fall mixes of colors. Temperatures are dropping into the freezing zone early here and most of the trees will now just drop the leaves before they get the chance to really show off. I have finished the embroidery of the pillow and need to do the final sewing of the case to cover the pillow form. Pictures will be taken then. The new grand baby is here and the baby quilt is NOT finished....where oh where does the time go??? Again pictures will be posted when that is done. sigh.

favorite places

2009-09-11T04:54:00.022-05:00

Kate of Kates Korner http://mykatiejane.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-secret-place.html )posted about one of her favorite places. Inspired, I thought I would do the same.
Take a break with me. Enjoy one of my favorite places.
There is the pond, just beyond all these wild flowers.

yellow stars.

hmmmnnn...I wonder just what that is? Some one gave this tree an early Halloween mask.

wild flowers are everywhere.

The bees are busy busy busy.

reflections like watercolor washes.

Butterflies!

Algae colors that inspire.

Purple!

a purple loving butterfly flits from blossom to blossom.

These exposed roots look like fairy hair to me.

royal beauty of Queen Ann's lace.

texture of pods and thistles stark in black and white.

I love the layers in this shaggy bark.

I sit and stitch with a cool breeze that makes the leaves whisper.Do you see a face in this tree?

Seasons ending

2009-09-02T05:08:00.002-05:00

The mornings have turned cool enough to wear a sweatshirt.
The summer birds are gathering for the trip south.
This year around Cardinal sang a beautiful song while sitting in a heart of green leaves.

above her the tree was beginning to blush.
Fall is coming early this year.

Murder of Crows finished

2009-08-23T09:37:00.003-05:00

The binding is done. It's finished. Well, the sleeve has to go on the back yet but thats easy enough.
Final size is 27 x 21". Cotton fabric and batting. Cotton DMC floss. Hand stitched and hand embroidered. Scattering of black glass beads.

2009-08-18T06:32:00.002-05:00

Today the rain has moved on. For now. For a bit. I will sit in the garden and stitch while the butterflies dance.

Sunday in the Garden

2009-08-16T10:59:00.008-05:00

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock I took these photos from my garden. Sorry no music or mud. 40 years...wow. Perhaps I should put on some tie dye and a spot of mud on my forehead to pay homage to the idea of peace and love.
beautiful yellow blooms against the brick of my home.

a nearly spot free lady bug keeping the leaves free of aphids. tiny white flowers growing up to become poblano peppers.

bits of orangy-red tomatoes ready for picking.

A lush and ripe little strawberry escaping through the bunny proofing fence.

pale purple eggplant blooms.

turning into fat round eggplants.

today's pickings.

Needle and thread on slow cloth.

2009-08-01T10:06:00.004-05:00

This is a close up of the rug that my Mother bought. I love its simple lines and bold colors.

This is a detail of the pillow I am embroidering to compliment the rug. The colors are more like those of the ones in the rug. These show a bit off on my computer. I have a ways to go yet but it is coming along. So now you know what I have been up to!

2009-07-17T17:58:00.004-05:00

photo: 6am foggy morning drive to work.

It has been very busy for me here as of late. Nothing earth shattering or anything just little busy things. I have been working on a few things. The Crows still isn't bound...it will be...soon. The forest muse is a joy to work on and I bounce back to it often. I am finishing up a quilt. Yes a 'real' quilt. It is a baby quilt for my youngest daughter who is awaiting the birth of her first child, a girl, in October. I have all ready finished the baby grab ball and pieced the top but have yet to baste it to backing etc. I have some time there....lol..sure. Sorry, no pics just yet. Haven't had time to get going on that! I am also working on a wonderful pillow for my Mom. She bought a pretty rug from Pottery Barn ( don't you just love that store?) and I have worked out a design from the rug and am embroidering the pillow now. This is fun. I am all about functional art right now it seems! I just finished a really good audio book too. Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea. Highly recommend this one. I may be quiet for some time but I am still here and popping in on your blogs too. Pictures soon I promise!

slow stitches,slow days

2009-07-12T18:55:00.006-05:00

It feels as if summer has hardly even started. Yet, the deer are sprouting the beginnings of antlers now. There are young animals in the forests.

Little rabbits munching in the yard. Blocked from my garden by wire fences.

There are little birds every where in my neighborhood. Bird song fills the air with the perfect background music for stitching on this quilt.

The forest muse slowly ..becomes..

Bits and more bits

2009-06-28T08:44:00.005-05:00

A summery butterfly postcard.

A little sneak peek at what I am stitching now.

Detail of the sky portion from the Murder of Crows. I have run out of black fabric needed for the binding and it has stalled here for a bit. I will post the complete photo once it is finished.

Spring Dancer progress

2009-06-21T14:56:00.003-05:00

I am deciding if this is finished. I may add a few more beads and some embroidery to it yet. It is just a tad under 12" square. Never try to squeeze in an extra bit of work when you are just too tired. I cut this totally forgetting to add seam allowances. It has a pillow-cased backing as I didn't want a frame look around it by adding binding.
I have taken the Murder of Crows down off the wall and will be finishing it up now. I got a good long look at it over the last few weeks and am ready to get back to it. It is nearly done and with a good bit of creative time I should be finished soon !
It has been so wet here. Raining nearly every day. Not little summer showers. No. Big heavy downpours that last for hours. Winds have knocked over small trees and ripped branches off the larger ones. Puddles are in the deep recesses of the woods breeding a multitude of biting little nasty creepy mean spirited stinkin' expletive mosquitoes. I have bites on top of bites. This has made my beloved forest nearly impossible to really enjoy.
On the other hand it is so very beautiful with its extreme lushness as this photo I took the other day shows.

You cant see the little blood sucking vampires in the photo but they are there!
Thankfully there were some beautiful winged creatures to admire. I do love these butterflies with their iridescent blues!

third page of round robin

2009-06-20T14:51:00.003-05:00

This one is 6x10". I tried something completely different for this one. It is primarily paper. Panted with inks and some oil pastels here and there. I mostly followed the instructions from the Quilting Arts article by Jill Amanda Kennedy( http://www.craftsontheweb.co.uk/) as she laid out in the magazine. I kept some butterflies as I have been using and went with Mims page (http://www.ammdh.blogspot.com/) theme of houses. attaching it to the previous page was a challenge. I just hope those strips hold for the duration. This has seven more people to go to! I think I actually like the back better...

GIRLFRIENDS a round robin experience

2009-06-07T17:39:00.003-05:00

Finished!! The first page from my contribution to the Girlfriends round robin sketchbook. This is 6x6 inches with an inch on the left side for adding a ribbon,string,thread or whatnot to it when I have all ten pages back to form into a book. This will be heading off to Kate while I will be working on the next book. I have the pages from Suki here and have started mine but it is not yet complete. More photos when I get that one done.

Spring Dancer

2009-05-23T04:28:00.005-05:00

The 'Murder of Crows' quilt is very nearly finished. I have it hanging where I can get a good look at it to see if or what it may need. Once I have decided it is done I will put on a simple black binding and take some photographs of it to show here.

Meanwhile I needed something to do! This time I wanted lots of color. Picking up this small embroidery that had been laying around unfinished for a long time I set about adding more color to it.

It is a beautiful spring season here and everything is so lush and green from all our recent rains so a good deal of spring greens are used.

wild flowers of various shades of purple are everywhere so they found their way into this too!

Sun dapples leaves fill up the forest with jewel tones of green on green. Budding vines twine hither and there and now here on this as well.

Moving a bit off my usual course I added some border stitching for the circle shape.

This is a small piece. Not even the size of a fat quarter. I didn't measure it but I think it is somewhere between 12 and 16 inches for each side. Not square but close. I don't know exactly where it is going but I am enjoying the ride!! For now I am naming this one Spring Dancer.

Trillium's bloom! It must be spring!

2009-05-11T17:28:00.005-05:00

All stitching was set aside to wander the forest in search of spring Trillium's.

shy blooms peek out from beneath dark woods.

This one choose to stand alone as if on stage bursting out from a downed tree.

While some enjoy the crowds beneath the shady trees.

Hidden among the lush greens a burgundy Trillium stands tall.

Happy Mothers Day!

2009-05-10T13:04:00.000-05:00

Murder of Crows moves ahead slowly

2009-05-03T08:49:00.001-05:00

I am adding the river rock like quilting to the bottom half of this. Scattered beads for a bit of added interest. The stitching moves ahead bit by bit.

Spring!

2009-04-22T17:29:00.005-05:00

The weather is warming up at long last.

Its really spring! The grass is getting very green finally!

Little purple buds are showing up soon to turn into Lilacs. I can hardly wait!

Springtime daffodil's yellow basket.with glass beads along a green band.

these are the ATCs from the trade. The photo is not so great, they look better in person.