Sunny Jim

Right now I am in love with designing these little elements one at a time. This must be the same jazz that drives the folks who make the journal quilts. I'm just making sure that there is something magical in each one of them before moving on to the next one. Some of the more vivid yellows here came from the old damask I just bought on Ebay and the first summer crop of hand dyes that Jan and I worked on yesterday here at the marvelous Outdoor Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx. I have finally found a way to kill a particularly nasty patch of weeds growing in the back yard - dump the salty water on them. There's a full basket upstairs waiting to be ironed but the pool is blue, it's pushing 90 degrees outside and the Braves are about to take on the Dodgers here at Turner Field after sweeping Chicago. I think the fiber will have to wait a bit.

Green Monster

In pieces on the design wall but it's well underway. This will finish out to be about 50"x65". I've decided that I'm going to have to break down and buy decent fabric for the backsides of this one and Picnic in Hell since these are going as real QUILTS. Keep-warm-in-the-backseat, cuddle-on-the couch, picnic-in-the-park QUILTS that will come with sleeves just in case they look good on the wall too. {{{{Delicious shudder}}}}

Gardens

Every spring I grow jealous over postings of beautiful gardens from all over the world. Although I'd like to blame it on the miserable clay here in Georgia, I'm sure other southern gardeners would have me flogged so I'll admit that my lack of garden is due to my unwillingness to break a sweat over the whole process. Where I grew up in the Hudson Valley region of New York we had real top soil, the kind people pay actual money for down here. I just threw down the seeds or popped a plant into the ground and it flourished. Here, if you don't pour a fortune in cash & sweat into the dirt, you are not likely to reap much. After ten years I have finally figured out which perennials will get by on little more than dog piss and a brush with the lawn mower. I never water and only pull weeds when they get taller than the flowers. That's a coreopsis trying to escape into the street - I'm sure the mailman will run it over soon. A Confederate jasmine and a few different varieties of ivy that we rescued from a dumpster loaf around the pole that they refuse to climb. I have no idea where the poppies came from and the peonies on the back row were taken from a plant that my grandfather originally planted at my parents house fifty years ago. And this is Jinx doing her bunny rabbit imitation while stalking squirrels.

Series Wrap up (for now)

That's the Old Liver on the left and Blue Liver on the right. Don't count on clean living for long life! . I've run out of stuffing for now (thanks, Kitty!) so it's a good time to pull back and take a look at these as a group. Tomorrow I will scooter on up to the hardware store and buy a package of brass swivels so I can hang them. Piling them in endless configurations is entertaining but something is always obscured and I am not a good enough juggler to consider any performance art.

More Internal Exploration

There are so many different ways to say GUTS! These on the left are three different views of "Gall" which is about 14" at the widest point. I have decided to attach brass fishing swivels to these pieces and suspend them at different heights from an acrylic rod about six feet long. And this piece is titled "Parts Unknown " which is where I seem to be heading but is really old home ground for me. Last years "Alien Autopsy" has been sold. This is so cool I can't stand it and I may do some beadwork on it. Bigger than the others, it's about 18" long but don't ask me on what axis.