Blueberry Picnic

I've finally finished this piece and it's time to say goodbye and send it on to it's new home. One problem - I haven't added the sleeve because I can't settle on an orientation. So, dear A., flip it around a few times and decide for me.

another start

I skipped adding the hand appliquéd elements to the second one in favor of letting the focus fall on the rusted fabric but decided I needed to come back to the hand appliqué and take more time with the design of each block. Stop hurrying. Stop time. I made a big selection of colors and loaded up the basket so they would be at my fingertips. I have another idea for the monkey teeth this time also. The Summer Lightness is catching on. Look where Margaret is taking it.

Fireplace finds new purpose

Remember this piece from one of the first dyefests of the year? I am deeply gratified when an artist uses one of my hand dyed pieces in their work. As much as I loved it, I was at a loss for what to do with it beyond wash, iron, fold and squirrel it away for "someday". I'm lucky that "fireplace" fell into Jude Hill's magic hands. See what she's made of it at Spirit Cloth.

people will think I'm unemployed!

A basket full of handwork represents purpose, productivity and comfort to me. Lordy, next thing you know, I'll be darning socks. My grandmother had a carved ebony darning egg and I watched her darn a sock once and thought "that's nuts" but then, I was six or seven and not in charge of keeping decent socks on a hard working husband's feet. I also seem to remember getting in trouble for gently whacking my sister on the head with the sock egg. This is the second not-quilt in what is sure to become a series but none destined to languish on walls or in art galleries. In time, these will be gifts. It seems kinda like cheating as they seem to manifest out of thin air and some otherwise aimless hours. Just as I was tossing it over the railing to be photographed this little feathered jewel stopped by for lunch, gave me the hairy eyeball and went about her business freeloading at the Hummer Bar.I was about three feet away and afraid to lift the camera to my eye so I just tilted it up and clicked. My first ever decent shot of one of these little buggers.

Colors and Emotion

Here's what came out of those jars from yesterday's post. So full of joy! I left them hanging over the railing just before the rain got serious. When I went outside to retrieve them and watch Jimmy cooling off in the pool (despite the thunder and lightning) there was a tag team of hummingbirds staking out the feeder on the lower deck. It warmed my heart to witness both.

summer rolls on

Each day boils up bronze, green and wet. The cicadas riot in the trees. We have troops of golden orb spiders camped out in the ivy. I imagine I can hear them muttering to themselves, testing their lines with a hairy legged pluck. Maybe they are why we have seen so few hummingbirds this season. The deck boards are too hot to walk barefoot but by by 3 or 4 in the afternoon the clouds loom over the treeline and thunder revs up in the west. I think I'm finished stitching on Summer Garden and have started piecing a new one. This time I'm using some of the wonderful rusted fabrics hatched earlier this year.

Summer Garden

I had to piece the back together out of scraps of white and ecru muslin but Summer Garden is nearly done. Not a quilt - there's no batting - I want to spend some time doing some sort of hand stitching to hold the back and front together but it's so grisly hot and humid right now I think I'll put it aside awhile so I don't rush through this last step. The blues and greens for the border came from deep in the magic cupboard. I found a whole group of hand dyes of that soft, gauzy James Thompson Mills cottons from OHCO. I had forgotten all about them. I half contemplated inserting a handful of monkey teeth (think Prairie Points without precision) around the edges but got hasty with the heat and stickiness. This was fun to make so I'm sure there will be another time to try this again. I had forgotten how much I enjoy free form hand appliqué.

I've zeroed in on what's drawn me to those Blues in the previous post and making me quietly repeat my quilter's prayer. It's this spectacular painting by a young painter living in Halifax, Nova Scotia,Ambera Wellmann. I keep staring at it an wondering what it's making me feel. Something I can't put my finger on. Art with deep emotional content has been pulling me in lately at every turn and making me realize that I want this from my own work and have no idea how to capture it beyond obvious moodiness. I turn away from the anxieties of reality to times past both real and imagined with escape in every stitch. Instigated by Jude's wondrous Fling, I've tried to escape the heat with my own version, A Summer Garden. Dye junkie that I am, you cannot imagine what it took for me to come up with some white fabric for this. It's only 45" square and I'm fresh out.

The Blues

I've finished cherry-picking the dyefest results. These are the ones I've gravitated to over the past few days. Perhaps a reaction to the heat and humidity? There has been no real work for the new Featherweight as yet but this fabric is making me think of piecing something functional. In the meantime, the rest of the harvest has been posted over to the Hotcakes site for sale.

Last of the Mystery cottons dyed

This china platter hasn't seen a turkey's backside in years mostly because it weighs at least five pounds all by itself. These are the last of the mystery cottons and a few new colors that I cooked up from the original concentrates. You can always count on a critic or two at the Lawrenceville Frankenstein Dyeworx. Now it's time to "clean" the pool.

more hand dyes

Awright....I'm going upstairs to iron. It's only 99 degrees, sure, why not. Hey! Gunga Din! over here with that water skin if you please! I want to thank everyone who anted up their two, twenty and 99 cents regarding my photography quandary. Combing through the wisdom I think I've distilled an answer. It's going to involve my Goodman building me a portable hard wall and some cooperation on the part of the weather but the job will get done and the results will be what I have been looking for.