Inspiration In My Garden

While deadheading and cleaning in my garden today, a butterfly came to visit!   So, I quickly ran in the house to grab my camera and these are a couple of the pictures I took.




The first of the daylilies that I purchased last year at the Caledonia Daylily Farm opened today.   Isn't the color gorgeous?   I think it is even deeper in person.   I always like taking closeups of the inside of the flowers!

Cloth/Paper/Scissors Flag

My flag for the Cloth/Paper/Scissors Magazine "Create" Challenge.   The base is purple sparkly felt with blue fabric adhered to it.   The butterfly is stencil painted in 3 colors with an angelina fiber bead for the body and 2 sawarski crystals on the antannae.  The lettering is from a "scrapbooking" alphabet and the purple embellishments at the top are from India, courtesy of my friend Priscilla Kibbee who brought them back from her travels.

It's much simpler than many people will do - but it says it all for me.   Purple is my favorite color, the butterfly is my favorite graphic to use in many different forms.....and it does personify "create".   Simple and uncluttered is the way I prefer to work.

Swan Song Before/After

When I was first learning to quilt, my husband bought me a kit with an applique swan in the center, appliqued flowers around it and a batik border.   What did I know about applique?   Nothing....so when I learned about Heat 'n Bond and that you didn't even have to sew it on - I thought I was golden.   I did up the kit, and at a loss as to how to quilt it, just did a stitch in the ditch around the frame.   I recently decided to repurpose or rework the quilt.   Below are before and after shots.   I hope you'll agree that it is much more interesting to look at now.   I love it!

I highlighted the swan with Jacquare Lumiere Paints, used artificial flower embellishments and beads to cover the heat-n-bond flowers, and added free motion quilting where there was none.   The design in pink, although not really clear, is a pattern from Leah Day 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting called "Paisley Flower".   I love the pattern and it was easy to learn to do.

 

Thought For The Day!

Creativity flourishes in solitude!  With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourelf, you can focus!

Today I was inspired during my morning walk around the "track" at Cedar St. Pond.   I had lots of things in my head the last few days, but nothing would come out in the form of a solution to a problem or any creativity.  

During my walk:
1.  I figured how to possibly mount my felted fish to show in the GoArt Show (I might have even found it at our local Michael's)
2.  How to organize my morning to get everything done (and I did);
3.  Which quilt to focus on next for the quilt show in October.

Lunch

On day when several of my art quilt group had lunch together at Applebees, we commented that since you can make art from anything, we should make something from our receipts.   Apparently Elaine was the only one who took the challenge seriously.   Anyway, this is my finished product!  Strips of fabric cut on the curve were woven together and then the receipt was "gessoed" on top.   I got a bit too much gel medium on the whole piece so it is shiny and "pasty" in spots.......but I still like it.  After reading an article about how people were inspired to make an art quilt out of what was in their car and someone had a "fast food quilt", I thought I should finish it.   Two layers of rick rack around the edge finished it off.  If you look closely, you will see that the buttons spell out the name of the restaurant!!!   Pretty cool, huh!

The newest flowers in my gardens - the lilies have started to open.   Aren't they gorgeous.