Here is the last 12 x 12 challenge. It was titled “Spring Fling.” My inspiration was a photo taken at Jamie and Natascha’s wedding rehearsal three years ago by their friend, Yevette.
In Spring A Young Man’s Fancy Turns To Love
It was a lovely wedding.
I could make a book of photos that I’ve taken of signs. One of these days I’m going to sort through all the pics and put them all together as a collection. These three were on the side of an old church pointing to parking space in the rear.
I think it’s going to work. This is the old strawberry bed; slightly raised in old railroad ties. A PVC frame already existed for anti-bird netting when there were strawberries but there are only two plants. Now it’s for an early bed of greens – spinach, chard, Oriental mustards, etc. I may have to nail the north and west sides, windward, down. Tomorrow will tell. It’s very windy today.
Here’s a beautiful harbinger of Spring. New growth on the Tree Peony.
And the first Dandelion
I know the weather is trying to be Spring and that I knit this sweater last Fall, but I just got the design wall cleaned off enough for me to pin it up and photograph it.
All wool. VERY warm.
The Uncommon Threads art quilt group’s latest challenge is “My Favorite Tree.” At first I found that trying to limit myself to just one tree was very hard, but as I reviewed some of my old photographs I realized that I really do have a favorite. Or did. A Wahoo tree (Euonymus atropurpureus), native to this area. The tree starts in the Spring with green leaves first, then flowers with rather insignificant small brown flowers and in the fall it’s foliage is red and gold with little red pods opening to red berries. In the winter we used to see a flock of Cedar Wax Wing birds feast and strip it of the berries in just a few hours.
In 2009 we were hit with a terrible ice storm in which you could literally hear tree limbs cracking and breaking and falling. It was a terrible two days. When it was all over the beautiful little Wahoo tree in my back yard had “exploded” and all the branches were broken. All that was left was a trunk.
My first attempt was to print a photo image of the Wahoo foliage onto canvas and then fuse another photo image of the broken trunk onto that. I was not particularly thrilled with this so used it for the back.
Next I used a purchased hand dyed fabric on Etsy for the back ground and fused to it a free hand cut out of the trunk in brown fabric. The trunk, branch and berries are embellished with machine embroidery. then quilted with a free hand leaf motif.
“Boo Hoo Wahoo”
Lesson learned – don’t quilt through the canvas. The needle leaves holes. You can see the other members work on our UT blog here. Enjoy.
This week included a trip to Joplin to meet other art quilter friends for lunch and to see the traveling SAQA exhibit “Sightlines.” Lunch at the Red Onion was delicious and “Sightlines” at Spiva Art Center was exceptional, in my opinion. I would urge you to see it if you can.
On the way home we passed this sidewalk exhibit and couldn’t pass it by without making these two photographs.
That’s my New Year’s resolution. I’ve been sort of slogging around, not too motivated about a resolution for 2013 until today. It was below freezing for three days when I needed to go to the city yesterday and decided to dress up a little with my alpaca yarn, hand knitted lace shawl.
I discovered a hole in it. %#$%. Most of today has been spent looking for the extra skein of yarn that was used to knit the shawl and I’ve yet to find it. But – in searching I have found all kinds of beautiful yarns that have been squirreled away under the work table, in the corner, and wherever else one squirrels away yarn.
Here’s the shawl that needs repair:
I’d show you the hole but it’s held together with a big safety pin so that it doesn’t unravel further. All the yarn has been “organized” now. Meaning it’s all dumped into a big plastic tub. And a basket. And a big plastic bag.
This is all the sock yarn and a pair that is almost finished.
And this is yarn that just arrived Monday,
to make this scarf with a Classic Elite pattern. That’s the next project.
I shall continue to look for the white alpaca shawl yarn and will probably find it when I’m looking for something else. And, I’ll unsubscribe from the yarn site which tempts me. As I’ve stirred through the yarn I’ve gotten inspired with combinations and ideas for more projects. Maybe I’ll take a little rest from quilting. HA!
I am a fiber artist whose always been in love with anything "fuzzy." My evolution has been from a weaver to knitter to silk painter to quilter. I knit for relaxation and currently do pieced, fused, and/or appliqued, art quilts inspired by my photographs.
