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.

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.

Memorial Day....

Well, I'm posting this on Memorial Day, but I actually took the pictures yesterday on our trip to Ouray, Colorado. We were invited to celebrate the HS graduation of a cousin's daughter, so we also took the opportunity to stop at the cemetery where Paul's parents and other family members are buried. It's called Cedar Hill Cemetery and the land it sits on used to belong to my husband's grandparents. Their homestead is across the road from the cemetery. These pictures are not in chronological or any other logical order; that's just too much for my brain to take on today.
We drove south out of Grand Junction, and there was rain off and on all the way to Ouray. Here are the still snowy San Juan Mountains as seen from Ridgway.

We arrived early, so we killed a little time by driving around the outskirts of Ouray. This is the Uncompahgre River that flows through the south side of town. The roar of the high rushing water was deafening even from this distance, so I'm thinking that the people who live in those houses have it for a constant background theme until it slacks off in summer. I suppose you'd get used to it after awhile.

At the cemetery, it stopped raining long enough for us to wander around a bit. This grave marker belongs to Martha Cresto (who was no relation to my husband, I just thought it was beautiful) and is dated 1869-1910. I love the carvings on it; especially the drapery on the side.

One of the roads that meanders through the cemetery. The lilac bushes were in full bloom, and as many times as I've been there, I didn't realize how many of the bushes were lilacs. There are lilacs everywhere, all different colors, and the scent when I opened the car door was heavenly....

This little plot has a charming wrought iron fence around several graves. The two tall markers seem to be for people who lived and died in the late 1800's to early 1900's. The information on the left one is in some language other than English, possible Austrian, as I believe it states the person was born in Austria.

My husband's parents' marker. The poem on it was written by his mother. It's called Peace and reads:
I have rejoiced
In every day
Loved life most well,
Therefore death
Holds no qualms for me
For if God's love
Has made this life
So rich, pray tell
How unspeakably glorious
His presence
Makes eternity


And on the way home, again rain. The clouds were very dramatic at times, obscuring the mountains and offering little openings for the sun's rays.

Flotsam and jetsam...

...because I've run out of synonyms for odds and ends and this and that.

I've been enjoying the iris blooming around the neighborhood and marveling at the variety of colors. This beauty is in our front yard and has had 5 flowers on it, one after the other, so it's been blooming for about a week and a half.

A page from a little book I bought at the library's used book sale a couple of weeks ago. There's a verse that goes with it:

The Song of the Iris Fairy
by Cicely Mary Barker

I am Iris: I'm the daughter
Of the marshland and the water.
Looking down, I see the gleam
Of the clear and peaceful stream;
Water-lilies large and fair
With their leaves are floating there;
All the water-world I see,
And my own face smiles at me!




Corbin knows what to do with a strip of fabric from my stash bag. Get Grandma to cut some holes in it and voila! it's a mask.

Get another piece, and complete your disguise.


Paul's boss gave us two wonderful handmade wooden rocking horses for the boys. This one is the larger of the two and sturdy enough for (even) me to sit on. It's the perfect size for Corbin, so of course Zack prefers it to the smaller one meant for him.

With a grin like this, who could deny him?

Zack is turning two

Next week will be Zack's second birthday, though we believe he's been practicing for those terrible twos for months now. You'd never know it by looking at him, would you?

Are those horns? Are they support structures for his halo? Time will tell...

Black and white; county fair project

This is my current project, which is small (24"x28"), but done on one large foundation piece. I've cautioned people before about how unwieldy it is to embellish a large block, but here I am doing it anyway. I hope to have it done by mid July so I can enter it in the county fair.

The center piece is one motif panel from the fabric I had printed with Spoonflower. They are an online company that will take your design and print it on fabric for you. The original drawing is one I made for our Christmas card in 1998, and has always been one of my favorites. Inside the card is Psalm 90:4. I added that one and two other angel related scriptures using the waste canvas method.

I used two of my favorite ties in this, the paisley-striped up in the left corner and the grid with flowers in the center just above the angel's face. I can't imagine someone wearing them as ties, but they are bold and beautiful! Some of the last patches I put in, like the black with white dots on the right, came from Lesley in Norfolk, UK. She's been cruising Ebay lately finding fabric treasures and was kind enough to share her bounty with me.

This won't be all black and white as the embellishments are added. I do tend to like botanical embellishments, so there will have to be greens and perhaps some flower colors.