Creating Again.....and it feels so good!

If you have read my earlier posts, you know that I am in a new house....filled with boxes to unpack and treasures I can't find!   I have been missing the creative bug and the quilting,.   I really wanted a quilt to enter in the RAFA Arts Council show this year and thought I had a whole lot of time to do it.   Well, moving intervened, no quilt had been started and I about gave it up as a lost cause again this year.   But I kept thinking of this idea I had and the fabric I bought for it.  So, I decided if I could make good headway on it this weekend, I would fill out the required paperwork that is due this coming Thursday.....and I would still have a month to finish the quilt before it had to be handed in.   So, I dug out my fabric, my photo that was my inspiration and I have to say it has just moved right along.   Quite often I find that a quilt that is really inspired, just needs to be started and it practially makes itself.

So - here is a teaser.   These are the free motion threadwork embroidery leaves that I will use on my background!  Each leaf has at least 5 different thread colors.   I loved doing these and they came together so easily, it is almost scary!!!    I think I can do it........I'm filling out the paperwork tonight!    This is all you get right now.

I Have Been Busy!

I know, I know.....I've been very remiss in posting - but I have an excuse - we just moved.   It has been full of joys and sorrows - leaving the house we lived in for 33 years and raised our family in and the house I tried to make a beautiful home from what was a basic house that we could just afford at the time.   But the neighborhood changed and we changed and it was time to change houses.   It hasn't been easy and there are times "I still want to go home", but it is getting there - little by little.   It has been tiring and exhausting physically, emotionally and mentally - but hopefully we'll soon be able to "live" in our house and not feel like we're still setting it up all the time.
Here are a few pics:

 Front Yard of our former home.   This was one of the hardest parts to leave - my total front yard garden.

On the deck in our former home.

Another view of the front yard

Our new home!  Front yard view!    What is it about us and a blue house????

The living room this morning................ we like the hardwood floors, but needed some fabrics to absorb the sounds!   (You'd think that would be no problem in a quilter's home, right?)

The living room tonight!   I just love the big bold graphic on the rug.   My husband picked this out all by himself.   I think "he done good"!!!!!

Another view of the living room - showing the piano placement in front of the big picture window.

I am remiss - but with a good reason!

A friend commented to me today that I must be really busy because nothing new has been on my Blog for ages.   She's right - it's quilt show time and I feel swamped.

But,   in happier days, the picture to the right was my home for a week in September.   It has to be one of the most fun, most relaxing, most special weeks that I have had in a very long time.   My husband and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a Canada/New England cruise aboard the Carnival Glory, with very good friends of ours from our college days.   In fact, they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on the very same day!!!   This was such a special vacation!

Mark and I on the 14th floor of the ship - the VERY, VERY top.   I had to prove to myself and everyone else that I could do it!

With our very good friends, Janet & David at Bug Lighthouse in Portland, Maine

My Redbud Tree

This quilt is really nothing super special - except a way to use one of my sun-dyeing prints that I did.   The center leaves are from my redbud tree - I laid them on the specially treated cyanotype fabric and put them in the sun for 15 minutes.   After rinsing, I got this gorgeous leaves print.   So I put it together with some strips of green fabric - meant to be random and not meant to be super straight or perfectly the same size - so as to represent the trees.    I quilted the veinage in the leaves and added 3 sets of beads to represent the little pink flowers that come first in the springtime on a redbud tree.   The small pink piping is from a piece of snowdyed fabric that I did last winter.

Bras for a Cause

My friend Kathi, talked me into doing this - taking a Bra and decorating it - it will be on display for a month at the GoArt Gallery at the Senior Center.   It was fun and I could keep going - but it is time for it to be done.

Pics Below:

Before...............and  After  

I made the wired shell in the center

See closeup

Some ruching, pearls, yarn, appliqued fish

ribbon, pearls, crystal bubbles, seashell buttons

Lighthouses & Water

I often say that my quilts are inspired by nature.   I'm not sure yesterdays walk or activities will inspire any quilts, but it was a beautiful day on the water................

For those of you who think - "yeah, so what?" - this was at the end of a long pier........I never walk out on long piers - phobias are a horrible thing!

This photo was taken part way out - looking towards the end of the pier - yes, I'm proud of myself!

Mark, my handsome husband of 40 years!!!

The newly remodeled lighthouse at Point Breeze on Lake Ontario

Isn't she beautiful!!!

Look at all the gulls lined up on the pier!

My sunflower in the front yard - taken after I got home from the lighthouse tour

I love closeups of flower centers!

Rust Transfer - how fun!!!!

I tried to find a "quote" about the beauty of rust.....but no ones seems to think there can be any beauty in rust. I beg to differ. This is rust transfer or rust dyeing onto fabric. My friend Kathi, who has the best source of fun shaped metal objects to experiment with, brought this home from her job. It was a large circular something (?) - completely rusted. Look at the different colors, textures, swirls etc.

We laid white fabric over the object, spritzed it totally with vinegar water, smoothed it out and put it into a plastic bag for heat. After several days, this was the transfer. What to do with it!!!!! My husband says it is perfect just the way it is.

Look at the perfect center and all the texture around it. How can you not see beauty here?  On the right, Kathi says the dark spots are where the fabric absorbed actual rust from the rusted object.

More Flowers

I really need to finish something- quilting wise - to post here.   But, I seem to be stuck, for whatever reason.   I did a lot of sunprints and am trying to do something with those - but my sewing room is a mess and there is too much "non-sewing/quilting" stuff that has gotten put in there temporarily and so I hate to even venture in the room.   Anyway - I took these pics this morning.  We had a good rainstorm last night, and I like all the raindrops or waterdrops still on the flowers.

The most perfectly formed little pink waterlily I have seen in our water garden.

Look how it is centered so nicely between 3 of the lily leaves.

Part of the Convoluvulos plant Martha gave us.   My flower is SOOOOOO small.

I can't remember what this is...........SIGH

"Still" Loving the Sun Printing!!!!

I did more sunprinting today - finally tried doing a photo.   This is my Grandson Aaron - 11 years old and I think it came out really well.

On the left side, Aaron-done in Cyanotype - Sun Printing! August 2, 2010.

On the right side is the original photo used to create the transparency for the cyanotype.

I love the results - maximum results - minimum effort involved.

I took the original photo and sharpened the contrast a couple of times.   Then I made a B&W copy and sharpened the contrast a couple more times.   Finally, I used Adobe Photoshop to create a negative and printed it out on transparency sheets.   After that I laied the transparency on the specially treated fabric, in the sun for 15 minutes, and VOILA!!!!

New Waterlily

The second posting of today (no new quote) - I jsut discovered our brand new waterlily is blooming!!!   It's called Georgia Peach!

Mandevilla Privacy Screen

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. ~John Ruskin


I have a mandevilla at the end of my porch - trained with twine to climb high!!!! It creates that much needed privacy screen between me and my "crude" neighbors! Take a look!!!

Side View of Mandevilla at edge of porch

Mandevilla climbing High         

                                                                                  

First Hisbiscus of the Season - a deeper red than shown here - a little more than 6 inches in diameter!!                                          

More Sun Printing

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art. ..................Paul Cezanne------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm still fascinated with the sunprinting process. I've done nothing more than printing a few objects on the small 8.5 inch squares, I must get to actually putting them together or in some sort of quilt. Undoubtedly I will use the leaves first. Here are a few more of the ones I did the other day!!! Two are fern leaves from my HUGE hanging fern on my deck, the other is a geometric graphic vortex print. Not sure what to do with this last one.....but I'll think of something.

Vortex Graphic

Griffis Sculpture Park

Last weekend my husband and I visited and stayed in the southern tier for a few days to take in some different sites & parks etc.   One such place was Griffis Sculpture Park.   It required a lot of hiking and it was hilly and it was HOT, but it was MORE than worth it.   Here are a pics of my a few of my favorites:

Simply titled...."Ten"

On the right - "Pineapple"

A Giant Mosquito

Love the Giraffe eating from the tall trees.

Mask - this was open so you could get inside

(assuming you were agile enough and could

stand the heat!!!)

A whole bevy of "sunbathing ladies"!

 

The Dancer

Abstract Landscape (on the right)

 

My husband getting in on the fun!!!!