I am finally getting back to my blog. With making wreaths, and then cleaning house for Christmas, the past month has flown. It's hard to believe Christmas has come and gone, and a new year will be beginning within hours.
With our income, there is not much shopping done for Christmas. I had one thing I wanted, and I got it. I wanted to have my 3 sons together with my parents and grandmother. I wanted to get pictures of them in their uniforms, also. By Christmas morning, all 3 were in the area, and one uniform bag had finally arrived a day after my oldest son, at the Ithaca airport. After Aaron drove to Ithaca, and then to my sister's house near Rochester, all was good.
Here are some of the photos I took. I had to do a lot of photo fixing, due to some water spots I didn't notice until printing out a couple of the photos. My lens got a bit water spotted during the ice photo shoot. The spots aren't noticeable in my landscape-type photos, but the uniforms really showed me the problem.
From left to right- Aaron, Zachary, Nicholas
It is a little easier to get them to all behave for photos now, but hard to get good smiles.
In the middle of this one is Andrue, Aaron's son, and my first flesh and blood grandson (we have 4 more grandkids, my stepdaughter's kids in NJ). He is really hard to photograph because he is always saying cheese and making goofy faces if he sees a camera.
As I got ready to shoot this photo, Andrue jumped up on the hearth to join in. The 2 Air Force guys were kidding their Army brother that their hats were better than his. I just think they all look so great in uniform.
My guys with my grandmother, on my dad's side.
Nick with his stern, no nonsense military look. My grandmother will be 94 in a month, and still lives on her own in her house across the road from my parents.
The guys with Mom and Dad and Andrue. I really like this one, Andrue is so interested in the book Mom is reading to him that he doesn't realize I am taking the photo.
I think it is great that the old games we played as kids are popular again. Cootie entertains all ages.
This is enough bragging for one day. I will post soon, showing what I am doing now. It's really dangerous going to a Michael's store with a friend. We ended up spending 2 hours there, and I found a simple paper making kit. It's fun to see what happens when you grind up paper that would have been thrown away, and turn it into new paper. I've been adding all kinds of fun things such as glitter, fabric pieces and scraps, threads, flower shreds, and more. A couple pieces will be perfect for a FFFC piece.
To see the list of books I have for sale, scroll down, or click here.
Wow, what a morning! The rain began late yesterday, and kept on coming
through the night. We woke up to an icy wonderland. Everything was
covered in dripping ice! I began my day with my camera and an umbrella
outdoors.
The tree on the right is a very old and knarled pine that always reminds me of an oversized Bonzai.
Iced pine needles on the left.
These Sedum flower heads are totally covered, with their drippy icicles. The flash on the camera helped to show the ice better.
The cats really love it out there, near the stove. That's Baby in the chair (not a very original name- I called her that when she was a kitten, so that her new family could give her a real name... we never found her a new home, so she became My Baby), I love the patches of color on her belly.
I began by mixing paints in various muddy colors. I was looking for colors in the stones and rock outcroppings I have been studying. This is a change for me, I usually use clear, pretty colors, not the colors of mud.
This would be one of those "don't do this at home" things. Never leave painted fabric near a wood stove unattended. With the way heat rises, the fabric did not get warm at all.
The same fabric a bit farther along the drying process. It was really starting to make some great drippy patterns from the angle of the board and the salt.
It's a good thing the floor out here is made for water drainage, I can hose off the drips that hit the floor.
In case anyone is wondering..... Yes, the toilet is still out here, and not where it belongs. We are still taking showers in a very cold bathroom with a huge gaping hole in the floor, the other bathroom has no shower or tub- way at the other end of the trailer. For that matter, it doesn't have a finished floor either. At least it has a smaller hole, and now with a space heater, is not quite as cold as an outhouse. So much for the weekend fix up job. Did I mention the remodeling contractor husband??
During the past 3 weeks, It's been smelling a lot like Christmas, here!
One thing I used to do at the greenhouse was make the evergreen wreaths
for Christmas. Since you don't need a greenhouse to make wreaths, we
decided to keep some of that part of the business alive. This year, we
have filled 2 large orders for fund raisers, and a few other orders for
single wreaths or grave blankets, so far.
This is how things begin. Ken and his brother cut overgrown trees from a nearby Christmas tree farm. This is a pile of the Fraser Fir that is the main evergreen we use. We also mix White Pine and Scotch Pine and sometimes some Concolor Fir. That is where creativity can come in. Most mass produced wreaths are made of only one variety. I like the look of the mixed evergreens much better. Mine are also much fresher- usually no more than 1 week from tree to finished wreath. It definitely smells nice.
I have used over 500 yards of red velvet ribbon for bows to go on wreaths and swags, so far this year. Many nights of really sore, cramped hands from holding the bows while making them.
Here are stacks of wreaths, decorated and ready for pick-up. I made and decorated all the wreaths, but did get Ken to make and decorate all the swags you can almost see on the floor. With the fibro, my hands have had a real hard time with cutting the branch tips and the repeated gathering of the bunches of greens for clamping. I found I could do about 20 wreaths a day before things really flared up. I ended up icing my hands when I finished for the day, and went to bed with them on hot packs. Thankfully, I'm done with the big orders and only have a couple of blankets and larger wreaths to do.
Here is one of the swags that we make. Ken made most of these. My hands are not good enough to cut the heavy branches used for these. With a new pair of pruners, cutting the smaller branches for the wreaths were a little easier on my hands. I did have to make al the bows, though. Ken hasn't tried to do them, yet.
I now have to get myself back to my sewing studio. If my hands will work again, I need to be getting more pins beaded. They have begun to sell well, and I have them at a few stores as well as well as on my Website and Etsy Store.
Well, back to pins. Tomorrow's task of the day is to update the jewelry page on my website with new pins. Too many sold ones there, now. It's hard to sell what people can't see.
I'm still working on Wreaths, which I will post some pics of later. For
now, here is a sampling if items from my Etsy Store. You can click on the photo to go directly to it's information page.
It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving 2007 is over already. We were surprised with the visit from our North Dakota son. He will be leaving tomorrow, and we have not seen too much of him. His wife and our grandson will be staying in the area until Christmas. It is also hard to believe that Andrue is nearly 4 years old already. Where has the time gone??
We had a nice day, yesterday at my sister's house, and my parents and grandmother were also there. The weather was playing it's usual wintry games in western NY. We left home here in PA in the temperature at a balmy (and rare for this season) mid-upper 50's. By the time we arrived at my sister's, near Rochester, it was getting pretty cold. About the time we ate dinner, the snow started falling, and blowing. It was not a lot of snow, but the conditions in spots were a bit icy when we were ready to return home. Luckily, the snow slowed and the roads dried, the farther home we got.
This morning, I got up to fridgid winds blowing outdoors. I left home at 5AM to get to JoAnn's Fabric and Crafts Store to get a new rolling tote for my sewing machine. I got one last year, but found that they don't hold up too well to being backed over by the van- a BIG OOPS! I was lucky that there were a couple of the sets left that were on sale. If not for that one item on such a good sale, I would have slept in today. I did also get a bolt of white fabric for painting with a 50% off coupon too, so I made the trip worth while. I was home by noon, and only went into 3 stores that were not too crowded- I sayed way clear of the busy places.
I now finally have some of my postcards, pins, notecards, and bookmarks
in the Tioga County Historical Society Gift Shop, in Owego, NY. I
should have gotten my work there sooner, but getting my hands on a
vehicle that will run has been a challenge. The mini van, which is now
misbehaving regularly, now has a workshop of tools in it. Ken has been
using it for work, and our son's Jetta needs 2 fuel pumps and is not
trustworthy more than to Towanda in a pinch. I claimed use of the van
for today and got a lot accomplished with it.
My fabric bowls have been selling this week! One customer bought all I
had listed at Etsy, then I added one more, and it also sold. I spent
this afternoon taking photos and uploading more bowls. My Etsy Store
now has 5 new bowls listed, along with another 5"x7" mini quilt. The
two in the above photos are not uploaded to the store, yet. I need to
take more photos of pins, and upload some more colors of those. I also
need to do some more updating at My Website, and add more pins there, too.
I will also be making another large batch of Christmas evergreen wreaths. The order I am working on now, is up to over 90 wreaths to be ready by next Saturday. I have 7 whole days to go! Last week's order was really hard to do. I only had parts of 4 days to get nearly 100 wreaths done, and a bunch of the were quite large ones- thankfully they did not need to be decorated like the present order. Lot's of sticky fingers and clothes from all the pitch. I will post some wreath photos when I get some done.
Here is the latest post of my latest batch of sunprint mini art quilts.
The pieces in this post are all the same size, as in the previous
posts. Each of these are appx. 5"x12" in size with a narrow ribbon loop
stitched to the top for hanging, or they can be framed. I found that
they will fit into a frame designed to hold two 3 1/2"x5" photos.
This first group of little quilts above, are constructed by satin stitch seaming fused quilt sandwiches together. Fused crazy patch areas are used around the sunprints. Most of these have a white or ivory yarn couched to the edges. Crazy Flowers has an interesting yarn as it's binding- a black yarn with fuzzy fibers in a rainbow of colors. The photo cuts off some of the longer "fuzzies". The lower left piece has an example of a fabric dying "failure" that ended up finding a place to be used. The brown fabric was meant to be a dusty rose, but ended up a mottled rusty brown- definitely not a color I use very often. I have now used up most of that fabric with sunprints in the colors of the above Nicotiana flowers, and some of my fall oranges with rusty purple undertones.
Maples, Maples, and more Maples- I love Maple trees and leaves. Here above, are four different pieces using sunprints of Maple leaves. This group shows that the bottom edges were cut off in the process of scanning them- the bottom edges are finished like the other edges. The quilting detail shows the best for me, when I use the scanner instead of the camera. Each of these pieces feature center sections with the Maple sunprints with sections of commercial or my fabrics on top and bottom. The two left ones have prints done on pastel colored fabrics. The two right ones use prints from the same panel that combines blue and green, resulting in seafoam looking colors. The two bottom pieces are listed in my Etsy Store .
These two pieces showcase flower sunprints. Left has a print of more Nicotiana flowers, and the right is from one of the panels I printed while making my Echinacea quilts. The long Nicotiana print was set off by two side strips of a tone on tone white fabric, free motion quilted with variegated thread, using my "usual" vine design. The Echinacea sunprint is done on a fabric painted with rose, yellow, and purple blended to give the rusty, rosy mottled look. it has been overpainted with Super Sparkle for added sheen. The upper and lower panels are from another fabric painted with the same colors, a bit lighter, and scrunched before drying to give the patterning. this piece is also listed at my Etsy Store.
The last two in this group have sunprints of grape leaves with confetti arranged for the grapes over rosy purple colors, and one with a single fern on green and blue. The grape sunprint is highlighted with a medium laender commercial fabric, while the fern has panels of a mottled navy blue commercial fabric. Both pieces have the same vine quilting in the colored panels.
If interested in purchasing any of these, or other little quilts shown in my blog, please email me.
For all of those celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, Have a wonderful day.
Now I need to begin making evergreen wreaths for our second order of the season, along with baking a few pies. The last batch of 90+ wreaths and swags were done in 4 looong days, I don't want to do that again!! Talk about throbbing hands.... I have just over a week to do the next order of 100+ pieces. It still seems like Christmas is coming way too soon this year!
Well, as I wrote yesterday, I have more little quilts to show. The little art quilts in this post are 5"x7" in size.
The flower in the bottom photo of the left quilt and the flower in the lower quilt has a bee and butterfly visiting it.
The right piece is another green one with a sunprint of ferns and viola flowers with a butterfly. The side panel in this piece is a "scrunched" and salted fabric in seafoam green with pale blue. The vine quilting can also be seen in the white and blue-green sections.
And now for the snow. Last winter, we did not have any measurable snow until way into the new year. Last night we had our first measurable snow for this season. I had to take a few photos, and here they are:
This was the view out the front door this morning. The photos all came out quite blue. The snow stuck to all the trees. We were lucky that we did not loose power, especially since many trees still have leaves on them.
This was the view from the deck. The mountains and Towanda are hidden in the snow still falling. The branches of the Walnut tree make a neat frame for this photo.
The best thing about the snow will be that our well should now be getting some more water back. We have had a couple of rains, but the snow melting should soak into the ground very well.
More quilts will be posted in a day or two. I am also adding to my Etsy Store, so keep checking back there.
I finally have photos of some of my most recent mini quilts that I made
before my last show. The ones in this post are all 8"x10" in size.
A fern sunprint on a rose, green and blue rainbow, with a faded sunprint leaf on soft blue with touches of green and rose. Stitching around appliques in pastel variegated thread. Free motion quilting accenting the sunprints and filling other areas.
A fern sunprint on fabric painted with rose and yellow, which mix to add peachy tones. All of the colored fabric pieces are from a single sunprint panel. An ivory with gold metallic flecks fabric separates the colored sections. Free motion quilted heart vine fills the corner section, while vines fill the ivory strips.
Maple leaf sunprints on rose to peach fabric with lower right section from a more rose area of the fabric. Upper right section of a peach commercial fabric with the ivory with gold metallic flecks. Free motion quilted with clear thread in the sunprint section, and vines and heart vines in other areas.
This piece is done with colors I don't use very often. I have been doing a few more prints on shades of orange, peach and yellow for those who decorate with those colors. I had a couple small pieces of commercial fabrics that coordinated very well with this sunprint of ferns and a butterfly. The deep brown fabric has a mottled look, and the angled piece is a deep gold with rusty leaf designs, and metallic gold flecks that are the same as the ones in the ivory fabric. The whole piece is free motion quilted with clear thread. The vine design can barely be seen in the lower left, as well as in the lower brown section, where the quilting does not show in the photo.
All of these quilts are available for sale, just email me if interested. I am still working on photos of many of the 5" x 7" mini quilts that I also made, and will post again soon.
Now that the weather is feeling more fall-like, I have been staying
indoors, and trying to get something accomplished. I finally have had a
few days in a row where I have felt able to do more than surf the web.
I have been collecting used dryer sheets for a while, and finally decided to paint a few. This photo shows a few of them on a paint board. (I think I need to do some board cleaning- they are getting a bit of a pant build-up on them) The upper left piece is a shimmery organza painted blue. I used metallic and Super Sparkle paints on the dryer sheets, and tryed to do an assortment of colors.
Here is a group of dryer sheets that have been heat set, and pressed flat. Wonder Under release paper or parchment paper is needed on both sides while using the iron to be sure they don't melt. You can see how sheer they are. I really like how they turned out. I have been thinking of using the orange ones for fall leaves. Now more ideas can start forming in my cluttered my brain.
These quilts will be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to Alzheimer's research.
At first I had no idea what I was going to do, but then I began to think how I have been feeling lately, and some ideas began to form. I have been dealing with some bad fibro flares lately, and some days I can't remember friend's names, or find the words I want to say. It feels like my brain has chunks missing. That gave me the idea of making quilts with pieces missing to represent the memory loss from Alzheimers that so many people have to deal with. I feel lucky that my memory losses are temporary, and can't imagine knowing it would never get better.
Missing Pieces and Butterflies is made of pieces of my painted fabrics, a couple partial sunprints, and commercial fabrics. It is satin stitch seamed with some of the pieces missing, leaving holes. The Echinacea flowers are photos printed onto cotton fabric, cut out and appliqued, with a couple petals missing from one flower. The butterflies were added to show there is hope. I backed the holes of this quilt with a painted dryer sheet in blues and greens.
I will be sending these two out this week, and in a month or so, they should be put up for auction or sold some other way with the full profit going to Alzheimer's research.
This is the first quilt that I made using the leaves from above. I made this for this past Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. Each month we are given guidelines for a quilt to be made in a week. This month, we were to make a quilt using something as embellishment, to show movement. Now that fall is really here, the first thing I thought of was the Oak leaves I had, and the fall winds that blow the leaves around outdoors. I began with a piece of fabric sunprinted with oak leaves, cut apart and arranged, using a metallic gold-flecked ivory fabric as a background.
I couched a yarn with the colors in the fabric over the edges of the sunprinted fabric pieces. I used a variegated thread in fall colors for the free motion quilting around the sunprint leaves and to add the veins. There are also wobbly curved lines quilted in with clear thread. The quilt edges are bound with the yarn used around the sunprints. I then added the "silk" Oak leaves over the top, as if they were swirling in the wind. I only stitched the veins in the leaves, and let some of them drift off the edges. The photos show the quilt on a pre-stretched artist canvas. The quilt is 11"x14" in size, on a 16"x20" canvas. I am trying to decide just how to mount it. I don't know if I will leave the canvas white, or cover it with a colored fabric.
If anyone has any ideas, feel free to add a comment.
Now off to work, getting ready for my next show.
