Memorial Day

May we all remember why we celebrate Memorial Day. Thank you to all  members of the military past and present that have served our country and kept us safe. May God keep you safe while you are far from your families. Iowa has the largest number of National Guard soldiers in a combat zone since WW  two.

Spring Musings

Here I am STILL in a boot with one crutch and wanting to get outside and enjoy the nice weather (in between the rain, that is). We have had about 5 inches in four days, but we were pretty dry and needed it. Our sump pump hasn't even kicked in yet. It will be great for our newly planted tomato and pepper plants and it will help our zucchini,cantaloupe, and cucumber seeds sprout. Now to keep the rabbits and deer away.
 So far the deer have stayed away from my hostas, but I am sure this won't last long. My Sum and Substance Hosta is amazing. The leaves are just huge this year. They are supposed to be, but they have never been this big before. The rest of hostas are looking really good. They really have liked the last two cool and rainy summers plus the good rain with cool temps this spring.
  I go to the foot Dr. today and I hope to be out of this boot, but doubt it. My foot will start hurting while wearing my boot and using one crutch if I walk very far--like to the back of a large grocery store and back to the front. I can only walk for about 5 minutes with a shoe. Just wish my foot would heal faster. It is really harder with this foot because it is spring and I want to out in the yard! Oh, well, I have plenty of applique to keep me busy.
 I am almost done with my May BOM from Sue Spargo. I will get the June BOM the second week of June.
I have my new original wool applique piece sketched out. I decided that Martin's Jungle will take a long time and wanted something smaller that I could use as a teaching pattern at a later date. This one has 1 large flower with lots of embroidery and 3 birds or chickens (haven't decided yet if it is folky enough for the chickens).
 I am using some of my own hand dyed wool for the background. I do not have enough wool dyed to use all of my own hand dyes for the whole piece as the only large pieces I have are values of blue, fuchsia, green and a dull orange. I haven't been able to dye fabric since the end of March, so I am having dying withdrawals!!
  I must get back to my applique.

Sue Spargo's Block of the Month #5

 Here is the May (#5) Block of the Month from Sue Spargo. I just have the pieces pinned onto the background and am ready to start the applique. On the lower right are the Valdani pearl cotton threads that are to be used in this block. The fuchsia fabric in the center is hand dyed velvet while the stripped and leaf fabric are cotton. The rest of the block is Sue's hand dyed wool. The Valdani and Silken Pearl that will be used in this block are all provided in the kit. You can see then the Green Leaves Silken Pearl from The Thread Gatherer in the lower left corner of the bag.

April Block of the Month

Here are 2 photos of my finished April block of the month by Sue Spargo. The applique pieces that look white are actually a light blue velvet. We learned 4 more new embroidery stitches for this block: eyelet wheel stitch on the small red circles, closed fly stitch as stems for the blue circles, double threaded back stitch on the green leaves, and French knots  above the blue circles. I really like the double threaded back stitch. It looks lacy, but is easy to do. I added, as Sue suggested, bullion stitches around and on the top of the lime green center with lime green size 8 Valdani thread #V18. The small blue circles on the green center are  made by using a 1/4 hole punch. Who knew??? I would have never tried to punch out wool with a hole punch, but it works really well. Sue just sent us a notice that the new hole punches are not quite as good as the one I have, so if you purchase one use it right away to see if it works. The punch is made by Fiskers and has a purple handle. Then I decided to add 1/8 inch blue rick rack and couch it around the  blue circles on the upper flower part with the Genziana wool thread to match the rick rack.
Sue, also, suggested that we add a back stitch with orange sea grass around the orange wool flower pieces, and pistol stitches to the upper part of the ribbon stem using size 8 variegated Valdani #V16 which I did. I then decided to outlined the multicolored cotton pieces with the stem stitch using the same thread and to add purple pistil stitches for stamens on the flowers. I used Shepherds Silk from The Thread Gatherer.

DO THE TWIST

 This is a mini quilt that is 20"x20" that was made for our Bitty Bees first challenge 'A Traditional Block With  A Twist'. The first thought that came to me was 'twist'. That made me think of the 60's, my high school years, the dances and ,of course, THE TWIST. Then I started thinking about what would represent the 60's--love bugs (VW's), bright colors,polka dots, paisley clothes, dances, the Beach Boys  surfing, the slang words we used and this quilt was born. It is a machine appliqued and machine quilted original pattern. The 4 corners do have the traditional star block, but I used Gwen Marston and Freddie Moran's liberated piecing method. There is no measuring and it makes it lots of fun with no two blocks exactly the same. I added some of the slang we used like: flower power, surf's up, tuff, cool, peace man and hang 10 with embroidery thread. This was a VERY fun quilt to design and make. I had found the fabric with the large bright flowers at some time and the Volkswagen (Love Bug) fabric when I  made our son a pillow case. When he was 2 or 3 the Disney movie "The Love Bug" came out and that was his favorite. Since the car's name was Herbie, all VW's were Herbies.
   This quilt, also, was the reason my business and blog are named-Folk Art With a Twist.

Just a Thought

Everyone is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid.
Albert Einstein

This is for all of you  that feel you do not fit into the box that people want you to fit into.....Be true to what you know you are supposed to be.   Many artist say they do art because they just HAVE to, that is why they are here.

A Counter of Color

Here the island counter in my kitchen covered with dyed wool. Aren't the colors fantastic? On the nearest end is yellow green, gold green, dark blue green, and one piece of bright yellow green wool. Next are the blues with the third row consisting of the turquoises, royal purple, blue purple and lavender . Last is red, bright orange, soft pink, bright red, bright fuchsia and orange. It just makes me happy to look at all this color.
   It has been a little hard to  have my husband gone for three days and trying to get all my meals while on a crutch and in a boot (so can use only one hand) than I thought it would be. I did not realize how many steps it takes to make a meal in my kitchen, especially when you can carry only one thing at a time! It was a little tricky to put things in and out of the oven, but I was able to stand against my Aga so I did not have to use the crutch.  I am VERY thankful that the tornado and hail did not come our way last night. I did not relish going up and down the stairs with my boot. Well I would have just scooted down on my rear and back up the same way.
 Since I can't sleep with hubby gone, I stayed up last night organizing photos in my Shutterfly account. I love that web site as they make it so easy to organize your photos, crop them, and make photo albums that you can print or not. I know all my photos will be in a safe place forever no matter what. Now my HUGE job is to scan 30 years worth of family photos onto my computer and then download them onto Shutterfly. I thought I had found them all and put them upstairs by the scanner, BUT, yesterday I found lots of them stored in boxes in a cupboard in my hubbies office. And then there are the photos in frames on the walls and in albums including our wedding album. I have no idea how long just scanning them will take, and then to crop and organize them...it makes me tired just thinking about it! I know I did not put dates on lots of them, so I will have to guess what year by guessing the age of our children and where some of the photos were taken (ie, Disney World, Colorado, Mexico, cruises, and so on). After scanning them, I will need to write captions as to date, place, ages of children, and names of people in photos. This is a great and big project to work on while my feet continue to heal this year, I just have to be able to get up the stairs with arms full of photos and my laptop computer! After all this is done (probably in a few years!) I have several family history photo albums from both my mom and my mother-in-law that are full of old photos which will need to be scanned, dated and the history written about each photo as well as who are in them. My mom and mother-in-law have done a great job documenting all the photos in the albums, so at least I do not have to spend time on that.
  I'm off to get lunch and then to finish  my new Benny Harper quilting mystery book by Earlene Fowler. This one is Tumbling Blocks. Her books are all named after quilt block names and are easy reads with a murder  mystery in each book--very fun. I think I have all 15 of her books and she is not done writing them. Sometimes I just need a fun easy fast read.

Spring #2

This is Bellwort and blooms only in the spring. After that the leaves die and it does not appear again until spring.

T

Above is one of our wild Columbine in full bloom. The hummingbirds love these, although they have not arrived at our house yet.


At the right is a close up of my Bleeding Heart.

This is a patch of ajuga. The blue so so intense,I wish they bloomed more that once a year.

 Here is one of my two Bleeding Hearts. I just transplanted it in this bed last spring so I think it is doing well. If you notice the stalk sticking up on the left you will see what our deer do to my flowers---EAT THEM!!

 This is our two crabapple trees. In the last post there is a large photo of the Indian Magic on the left. Golden Raindrops is on the right. The buds are pink, but bloom white and the crabapples are golden. It is my favorite crabapple tree and is in bloom today (Tuesday). This photo was taken on Sunday.

This is a close up of one of my Hellebores.



Here is our latest water feature. It is by the drive and the sidewalk up to our from door. We found this large pot and my husband made it into a water fountain that the birds love. The deer almost drain it dry each night.

Below is photo of my Hellebores. To the left is a hardy Geranium that loves dry shady places and the leaves smell like apples when crushed.

Spring

This is part of our Japanese Maple with a beautiful spring sky in the background.

This is one of the prettiest years for our crabapple trees. This is Indian Magic.

Here is a sure sign of Spring-a robin that has a nest above our deck.

This is a close up of the Forget-Me-Nots

This is a close up on one of my three Hellebore plants.

On the left are Forget Me Nots, in the center is variegated Solomn's Seal with ajuga on the right

 Here is part of the 7 lilacs in my lilac hedge. They held off blooming until Mother's Day as we had a cool spring. The smell is heavenly. These are one of my favorite spring flowers.

This is our water garden that is 30'x8' with a 5 foot waterfall. The waterlilies will be blooming by the end of May.

Here is a close up of one of my 7 lilac bushes.

Purples and greens, etc

Here is the outcome of some more dying sessions. All these fabrics were dyed using the Fusion Dying book and the jar dying method. The bottom wool in the front left is actually a gold green formula #44. It looks brown, but is a dark gold green.  The soft green velvet on top is actually from the same formula. Hard to believe, but true. Velvet takes the colors very differently than the wool and silk.On the top of that pile is silk dyed with a bright yellow green formula # 34 with some wool dyed from the same color underneath. All the colors I have dyed so far from this book have turned out fabulous.  I am hoping to be dying soon, but I went to the foot Dr. yesterday and I can't wear a shoe full time for about 2 more weeks. I know standing and dying fabric would be too stressful for my foot for a few more weeks after that. The Dr, basically told me just to sit and take it easy.Well, I guess I will just look at my wool, velvet and silk and drool!!
 Here in Iowa we finally have warm and sunny weather. It has been a cloudy cool spring and I am very happy to see the sun. The lilacs are in full bloom, hostas are up as well as peonies. My lungwort  is in full bloom and the wild columbine is about ready to bloom. Due to my foot I will not be doing much, if any, gardening this spring, I definitely will not be digging up anything with a shovel. That would ruin all of the gains I have made with the tarsal tunnel surgeries---NOT going there!!!
The pile on the  left in the back (on the bottom) is  royal purple #17 and above that is lavender # 14. I believe (as I do not have my notes and sample swatches) that the color on top of the lavender is and the blue is # 19 blue purple.
On the right bottom is #6 soft pink wool with the soft pink silk on top of the wool. Next is #1 bright red, and then is #11 dark fuchsia with #43 orange  above that. I think the silk on the top is dyed with the dark fuchsia. In a later blog I will show all the colors separately with their values so you can see the colors better.

In the Pink (magenta that is)

 Here are a couple of photos of my magenta dying day. There is silk charmeuse, silk velvet and wool. In the top photo the wool is on the right and the shiny fabric is the silk charmeuse. I used the microwave to dye the silk and velvet and the lazy swatch method for the wool.
I mixed 1/2teaspoon of dye to 1 cup of boiling water and then spooned it onto the silk and velvet before setting the dye in the microwave. I spooned on some yellow (see orangey spots) and blue (see violet spots) along with the magenta and let them blend into new colors. Lots of fun. In the top photo you can see the different values I got from the wool.