Tuesday, June 16, 2009

CQ and more....

This is a portion of my black and white WIP (work in progress). The orange and blue flowers are done in silk ribbon embroidery, and the butterfly was done in counted cross stitch with waste canvas.

A blue WIP that will eventually be the cover of a scrap book/photo album. Here is it naked;

....and with some of the embellishment stitching done. Again, an SRE bouquet done in hand dyed blue ribbons. The orange in the black and white WIP is also hand-dyed.

When one has a black thumb, gardening is a real trial. So this year we decided to try container gardening. We bought 3 of the Topsy Turvy planters and put two tiny tomato plants in each one. They are actually doing very well. We don't have them hanging high enough for when they get really big, but we can move them later. Right now I'm enjoying having them right outside the pation doors.


I had already bought tomatoes to put into the hanging pots, then I read the directions and realized I'd bought too big of plants to fit through the hole. So the bigger tomatoes ended up getting a regular pot, and the rectangular pot has 4 different bell peppers in it. One is lavender, one red, one yellow and one orange. They'll probably cross pollinate and we'll end up with Jackson Pollock peppers. We also have a pot of Anaheim chili peppers. We've had a really damp (well, for here) and coolish June, so everything has gotten a great start before the really hot days kick in.


And finally, what happens when you have a two year old boy who really needs a nap, but really doesn't want to take a nap? He makes himself as uncomfortable as possible in order to keep from falling asleep...







...but it just doesn't work.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Finally!! A Crazy Quilting Post!!

I celebrated my 50th birthday last week, and this is the cake that my daughter bought for me for a surprise party she threw. It was lovely, and half white cake, half chocolate.

This is the work I did on Lauri's block for the spider RR. Her theme was fairy garden, so I used a fairy silky that I printed myself, and "grew" foliage around it, like you're looking through the leaves into a secret thicket. Click the picture for a closeup, so you can see the tiniest spider I've ever made. She's got a body of two French knots, one for the body that's two wraps and one for the head that's one wrap, and legs made out of black sewing thread. I found some fun beads in Glenwoods Springs and used the frog one there on the left of the flowers, and a hummingbird one that is higher up (and may not show in this photo) on the block.

This is Debbie's block for the second spider RR I'm in. Her block is done in autumn colors, so I made a variegated ivory rose spray in silk ribbon embroidery, and built the web on it. The spider is done in two black beads that have an iridescent overwash on them. Then I did the gold upside down heart charm with the turquoise flowers growing out of it.

Lastly we have Lindy's block. I'm the next to the last person to work on it, so it was getting pretty full. I limited myself to the upper right patch, and did a hand dyed meandering gimp trim with some embroidered flowers and a gold thread web and bead spider.

Funny faces

These two pictures were taken at Christmas last year. They just make me laugh every time I see them.

Starting on the left, that's great-niece MacKenzie, family friend Cara ( aka super-nanny), great-nephew Korde, grandson Corbin, and Michaela. They mugged for the camera for quite a long time, so I have some gems of them.