Pages

Friday, June 28, 2013

Day 12 - Camouflage

You thought I forgot about Day 12, didn't you!  LOL.  I was waiting for Thursday to come around for it to happen.

Day 12 is Camouflage. 

Ann and I had appointments at The Secret Garden, a lovely place set back in the wild area off Government Street.  Not the kind of area you would think of for this, but then the Red Shoes and Circa 1834 is off that area too, so maybe some would think of it.

I had this marvelous facial, that altered my "wisdom" lines and made them blend into the background!  If you have not ever had a facial with its neck and hand massage components, you are missing out on one of the joys of life.

And they can do so many things now with their smelly ointments and flavored steam vents to make you feel relaxed and wonderful for days!

Ask for Jan, she is the owner and a great friend of Carrie's.  You will love her, I know I do!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Day 13 - Tea

Oolong Tea has properties that cleanse the liver.  So I generally have a cup or glass a day.  I will pop a tea bag into my measuring cup full of 2 cups of water and let the tea bag sit for 3-5 minutes.  If you like bitter tea, you can let the tea bag sit and soak its goodness until you finish your drink.

I saved my bag from yesterday, knowing I would be playing with it today.  And it still was not dry!


Here are my tools:  tea bag, ice pick and light colored plate on a clean (even if it doesn't look it) tea towel!

I appreciate my ability to move tiny tea leaves around on a plate with my ice pick and ultimately my fingers.  Tea leaves stick to everything.



Here is where I started from.  A mighty pile of sticky tea leaves.  Even now, I had tea leaves everywhere!

Simple blocks first.  Half Square Triangle.  HST, the workhorse of the quilt world.  Wait, this might just be the Drunkard's Path.  It is hard to tell in tea leaves!





Yep, that was the Drunkard's Path, this is the HST workhorse.








A Nine Patch.  How many of these have I made?  Millions!  Well,  maybe not millions, but a lot.  They are great second blocks, leaving the first block to take the glory.  They are very versatile, filling in places where you have no idea what to do next!





Oh, the Rail Fence.  This block is also a staple basic.  If you turn them on point you get a really nice zig zag!







The Block in a Block.  Nice to use in a Signature Quilt, or if you  want a wonky look you can make the edges uneven.  Sort of like my block here!

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Caroline's Day 6 - Fruit

Caroline is eagerly awaiting her book.  We decided it must be coming on that slow boat from China!  Although I have heard about the supertankers that can move so fast they get here in 3 days!  But then they have to dig through tons and tons and tons of merchandise to get to the book, which is probably at the very bottom of everything!



Day 10 and Day 11 Combined with little effort!

I had a bad day physically yesterday so I didn't get anything done on my 365.  I set out to catch up and found these two days combined very easily!

I can envision Sophie's feathers floating down an idyllic river, or Caroline collaging a beautiful blue lake reflecting the brilliant teal sky.

I went for utilitarian!

Day 10 was the water day.  I use distilled water in my iron because it has none of the minerals that can clog up those little holes in the sole plate.  I have needed to add it to the grocery list for, like, two weeks and I keep
forgetting.  I only remembered this time because they stacked a huge pile of bottled water near the exit door!  So 96 cents later, I owned water.

Since I am a total klutz, I have three Tonic Water bottles that hold the water in smaller units to
make it easier to pour into the iron.  They are quite attractive and may make a nice art quilt piece.  Hmm.  I will have to see about that.

Day 11 is working with your non-dominant hand.  I am right handed so I took the camera and manipulated it with my left hand.  Not so easy to do, mind you.

The first thing I did was hit the wrong button and turn the whole thing off!  I re-ignited it and see that I was a little off on the straight!

I then switched the gallon jug over to my left hand, and overpoured the smaller bottle by a bunch.  Do you know what a funnel does when there is no more room in the bottle?

It slowly pours out the water all over the countertop, the dishwasher and the floor.  Looks like musical notes on that towel. I wonder what song it might play!

But luckily, I had Bassets underfoot and they took care of the excess water.


Caroline's Day 5 - The Collection

Caroline's whimsical approach to her collection day brings a smile to my face.

 Here is the little bird hatching from the egg.

An intruder tries to convince the little one the nest is hers.
Then there are others looking enviously at the nest as well.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Day 9 Breakfast is now Dinner

The Purple is where
the snake was hiding
I made the most beautiful salads for dinner.  It is supposed to be breakfast but we had so many things going on.  We had lunch with Carrie and Andrew, so so nice!

Andrew was coming over to work on my modem and he reluctantly killed a four foot water snake
in the Wandering Jew by the back patio.  Yes, I gave the order to execute.  No snake is a good snake in my back yard.

So by the time I read what Day 9 was it was way past breakfast!  Dinner was looming even.

There is chicken salad with pecans and blueberries and safflower mayo, cucumbers, bosc pears, cantaloupe, rosemary olive oil beets, a huge tomato, blueberries and raspberries sprinkled with these wonderful bleu cheese crumbles.  All from the Farmer's Market yesterday!  Well, not the chicken.  Or the safflower mayo.  But everything else!

Do you like it on the green plate or the blue plate better?



The REAL Day 8 - Day 9 will have to wait for supper!

Day 8 dawned with lots of expectations and a CAAWS event.  We got rained on pretty badly at the Mash Bash Run for Wounded Warriors.  The CAAWS Dogs were there to let the racers and soldiers and ex-soldiers pet them for Pet Therapy!  But the rain came down in buckets.  This needed to be the water day for 365!

So this is Book Day.  I bought some fabric for a journal cover for friend Theresa.  So since I don't have a book to manipulate, I will manipulate the journal.

Here is the fabric.  Bikes, she is a big biking enthusiast riding
in marathons all over the country and does 20-30 miles a day here in the summer heat even. She is constantly in training.

So I think a nice bike Journal Cover will be perfect!

Here is Caroline's Paper Day, I think it was Day 3.  She is concentrating on collages.  This one was torn paper!  Inventive!






Saturday, June 22, 2013

Day 8 - The moon

All I can offer you today on Day 8 is the photo of the moon.  I was at a CAAWS event all day, in the rain, and didn't get my 365 done.

I promise to do two tomorrow!

Wasn't the sky beautiful after the rain?


Friday, June 21, 2013

Day 7 - Lets Try Another Linky Thing

OK, Patty!  If you can see through the pain, I can walk you through this.

You should see the blue button below this somewhere in this post. Click on it and just add the info it asks for. aIt should be on the left bottom, but above the photos if other people have added their links.Everyone else, do the same!




Day 7 is working with stencils. I had no stencil material so I got creative, dug a notebook out of the trash and used the plastic cover for my stencil. It was a bit thick but I used my new sharp rotary cutter to make the slashes.

I decided on a sun stencil since it is the Summer Solstice and I wanted to celebrate the sun and the heat while I stenciled away.

 Some things work out well, some things don't. And somethings have bassets happen to them.

 Nuff said.

 I gathered my supplies, which included a box of Setacolor paints I have had since the beginning of time. I found a
paintbrush, loaded the cup pourer I use for the iron, and headed outside to paint. Once I made sure there were no snakes that would be jumping out at me, we live in Louisiana you know, I settled down with my red and my yellow and my little cup of water. OOPS! too much water in the red, oh well, try to do better on the yellow. Not much but a bit better. That is OK, watery is fine.

 Maybe. I began painting in my yellow sun and the bassets came over and drank all my water. It is not like they don't have 5 bowls of water already, they had to have mine.

 Then I was painting in the red center a basset sat on my parsley I just planted last week. I yelled veiled curses at him and he moved off, stepping on the poor parsley with each short, misshapen foot. 

When I looked back at my suns, I decided there was too much water. They are drying in the sun. Befitting for a sun portrait on the Summer Solstice.

 And the bassets are no longer thirsty.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Patty The Quilt Lady is Creating, Too!



PattyA is creating even with a bad tooth.

She has a pothole (don't we know about those here in Louisiana!) at the end of her driveway.  She got creative with her photo to the city asking them to fix it.  For Day 4 she tweaked the message and took a walk down her driveway, leaving this for the pothole fixers to smile about!

On Day 5 - Collections she put together some of her rocks.  I see these when we are hiking in the western states along the trails.  This is a nice way of displaying rocks.  My mother kept her rocks all over the house.  I have them sitting in my fountain now.  I will have to send PattyA some rocks.

Can you tell what this is?  Day 6 is kitchen veggies or fruits.  Can you see those beautiful rose prints?  Celery! 
Who knew celery was so beautiful in ink?

Day 6 - The Lowly Orange Elevates

I have a huge pile of oranges on my table right now.  So when I walked into the kitchen it was literally the first fruit I saw!  And wow, where he took me!

Oranges and fabric, how was that going to collide?  As I studied the orange I randomly grabbed from the pile, I noticed it actually had a face!  Like a little old Croatian lady for some reason.

When I was young, my mother made all our clothes.  And with the leftover fabrics she would make a babushka.  You know, those triangles with tie stings that you wore on your head.   Well, every dress I had had its own matching babushka!  I hated them.

But that is just what this little Croatian Orange Lady needed.

That was way too easy!  I needed more for my new orange pal...........So he got a wig of vintage black and white houndstooth.


And in honor of Noah Scalin, inventor of this 365: Journal of Creativity, my orange friend got a skull tattoo.

And haven't you heard, Orange Loves Company?  Here he is fraternizing with my large orange rick rack.  On top of my orange fountain.

Here, showing his manly side, Orange Guy is acting rustic.
Or heavy metal.  One of the two, he proves he is a wild and crazy guy!

LOL........am I the only one old enough to understand that one?

Now I have to go eat him since I stuck pins all in him.

In the Beginning - Days 1 through 5

Since I already began to blog for my 365 project at Quilts and Dogs, I am transferring the first week here in this post.

Day 1 - Small

Day 2 - Animal

Day 3 - Paper

Day 4 - Walk

Day 5 - Collections

Here are Caroline's projects:

Day 1 - Small

Linky tool

Creation Day

Noah Scalin wanted to expand his creativity beyond barriers he created in his own mind.  He decided on a skull project a day, and he opened up a new world for himself.  And me.

If you search Blogland, you will find many other 365 converts who make a project a day and change their lives in the meanwhile.

Here is my journey.  By adding inlinkz I will share your wonderful creativity here as well.  This is a place we can meet, enjoy each other's amazing talents and grow together.  

 Please join us.  You can find his book on Amazon, 365: Make Something Every Day.

As for my journey, I want to work with fabric.  I am a Renaissance Quilter of a sort.  I fit in with the traditionalist, the modernists as well as the artists.  In the first week, I have realized the beginning of the transformation into Creative Artist, and I am loving it.

Go find the book, check out Amazon, the prices are great there.  And join us.  

Remember, his only rule is that there are no rules!  So you can't lose on this one!