Working in Series

I'm off to work in a bit, but I decided to finally post the pictures of my artwork while I was on retreat back in March. I'm not sure where I was going with these, but I did put them up here in the order that I made them. I was really concentrating on the image of living beings connecting the earth to the heavens. My friend Cookie decided that some of them are men and some are women, but I wasn't even thinking about that aspect. Just beings-- connected. And as always I sort of feel like there is a quilt in here somewhere. ;-)

Well it Nakita won’t be joining our family.
It seems that someone else got their application in a few weeks earlier and decided today that they wanted her.
Never mind that SHE wanted US,
never mind that the STUPID Elton John song about Nikita has been playing in my head for 5 days now, yes it's spelled differently but it sounds the same, and I can't turn it off!!

(and did I mention that the shelter director commented on how much Nakita liked US?)
Not that I’m bitter or upset or anything. I’m sure she went to a very wonderful all American family who will adore here and love her forever, and get her a heated water dish and a very trendy dog couch, and organic food.
And really, there is no reason to be sad or upset when there are much much worse things in the this world than not getting a dog.
There are sick people~
there are poor people~
there are people without homes~
there are people that think that gas station cappuccino is real coffee~
It will be fine, someday a dog who needs us will come along, a wonderful charming dog,
Is there a dog fairy out there who can bring us our perfect dog?
I know—“chin up” “ this too shall pass” “ if it’s meant to be then it’s meant to be”
Blah blah blah
As soon as I get over the whole suckingness of it I’ll be fine. I always do land on my feet………….. sometime after I’ve landed on my butt, my head and a couple of sore knees.

Doggy Tales

Pineapple muffins! Yes, I'm still doing the muffin thing. One of my favorite SNL quotes, "Pineapple, it's neither a pine nor an apple-- discuss"

Make sure you read that with a Jewish accent.

See these socks? My sweetie brought them to me at work today. Does this seem like a strange work present?

Well a couple of weeks ago I hemmed and hawwed and finally came out with "Well, maybe we should think about getting another dog."

You know that commercial where the wife comes in and says "Well maybe we should get a new TV" and the husband goes flying out of the house like his tail is on fire? Well, that was how Jim reacted. See he has been ready for a few months now, and trying to nudge me along but I wasn't having any of it. I didn't even go see our friends new "adorable puppies". Nope, nothing doing.

well............ maybe. Then last week Vanessa convinced me to go to the animal shelter to look. Here is Nakita. She really is a sweetie, and she is winning me over. We got to play with her for a while today in a visiting room and when the shelter lady came to take her back she said "Well! Nakita, this is a different attitude for you." Ever on the alert I asked what she meant and she explained that with everyone else so far Nakita had been very shy and stand offish. I guess when a dog this size tries to sit on my lap I can't complain about her being stand offish! I did explain to her that I was pretty sure she wasn't a lap dog though and the floor might be a better option for both of us. Whereupon she rolled over and begged for a tummy scratch.

And then we have my latest needle felted creations.

Someone asked about the process. I did these just with my felting needles and dry roving. I did get most of my roving online, which is totally dangerous. Why do I let myself shop online? It doesn't feel like real shopping, it's more like winning!! And then getting a present in the mail!! woo hoo!

and Granny, your package is headed to Alaska tomorrow!!!

The Green Dream

Well, I went with Granny's choice for the quilt "Green Dream"

You can visit granny here: http://grannysfullcloset.blogspot.com/

So, Granny, if you send me your address I'll pop that tea cozy in the mail right away! I didn't think about the different sizes of tea pots when I made it, sort of a duh moment for me. Live and learn? It seems to fit my Brown Betty pot okay. Not great mind you, but okay. I have a collection of tea pots even though I don't really drink the stuff. I think the pots are adorable.

So, next to the tea cozy are some of my latest needle felted wool pincushions. They have become totally addicting to me! I got my greenapple, which for some strange reason led to a cupcake, which led to a banana, which led to a strawberry............ I'm currently working on one that looks like a cinnamon roll, and I have ideas for about a bazillion others! I wonder if there is a twelve step program for pincushions too? It's totally fun though, like sculpting fiber. Okay, it actually IS sculpting fiber, but since I've never done it before I'm quite smitten!

Bake on Saturday???

Well it wasn't sew on Saturday. I'm not sure what got into me, but it was another baking day. First I needed to use up some ripe bananas, so here we have banana chocolate chip muffins.







Then I wanted to try something different so here we have white chocolate raspberry muffins. Now normally I don't really believe in white chocolate. To a real chocolate lover it's an oxymoron, sort of like jumbo shrimp, or government intelligence. White chocolate???? Still I have to admit those little pale anemic chips go pretty well with raspberries.



Next we have oat scones. These are for my mother. I'll be braving the wild winds and visiting the parents tomorrow. My poor dad had his supply of diet coke sadly depleted when he was fighting off some sort of virus so I must go and fill up his closet again. The scones are the ultimate comfort food for my mother. Not getting real baked goods where they reside now, it's a special thing for her. She made these ever since I can remember being able to walk to the table. They are not sweet like Americans think scones should be, these are traditional Irish oatmeal scones. And no, mother is not Irish, she's just traditional. ;-)

Of great importance is the French press you see here. A lovely present from my sweetie. I was in very desperate need of coffee this morning, and this came through beautifully. I fully intend to take it on retreat with me next fall so I don't have to rely on the bad coffee there, or submit to endless cups of herb tea. Notice the cup is getting low........... time to make more!!




Now we come to the fiber portion of this post, (because there isn't all that much fiber in the muffins-- but the scones are pretty full of it) anyway, I digress, this is my newest wool purchase. Isn't that pincushion the cutest????? I'm working on my green apple, but I'll wait to post a photo until it's done. I'm also figuring out a cupcake pincushion.
The tea cozy however turned out a bit big in my opinion so I'm going to work on that before I draw a name for it.
So that was my Saturday.

wooly for me!!

It's not a greenapple, but it's MY FIRST WOOL FELTED PINCUSHION!! I have to get some more colored roving, this is fun!! I made a pincushion!!!

tra la la la la la

tra la la la la

Behind it is still the "Green thing", I'm still in the market for names, though I've been given some good ideas. Please see my previous post for the reward for helping me!

Other notable happenings in the Green household.......... This is the 2008 science fair project.

It seems to involve grape juice, pencil leads, and a battery. I have no idea what it actually is, but the two junior scientists are having a good time and (so far) nothing has blown up or caught fire.

We won't mention the zaps they got when they crossed certain wires now will we?

On a tastier side note, I seem to have caught muffin fever.

It started about a week ago with some overripe bananas, which became banana chocolate chip muffins.

Those were pretty popular so next came apple cinnamon muffins, also popular.

Then the grocery store had a special on frozen fruit............... so there were blueberry muffins (trite, yes, but yummy anyway) next came raspberry muffins - very popular with the college contingent who were visiting. Then Mango muffins, which I highly recommend. And today we have strawberry mango muffins. Next I am going to attempt pineapple coconut. (I don't care for coconut so those will be safe from me) Then perhaps peach............

The Green thing

Not much going on for once on Saturday so I did get a chance to work on this green "thing". I haven't come up with a good name for it yet. I used the disappearing 9 patch idea but did it all in green, and I controlled the center square to give it a bit more definition. I'm making this one for our grade school gym/health teacher. She has had all four of our daughters even though we switched schools for the last two. Small parochial schools often share teachers so that's how that happened (in case you were wondering) Anyway, she is a wonderful teacher, and I will never forget her telling me about how she came to be a gym teacher. She attended our local catholic high school where she had her first phy ed class. She came home that day and was so excited and happy and told her mother, "this is what I want to do". And then she went out and did it, and in her words "I'm living my dream". She teaches so much more than phy ed, she teaches the kids about life and hope and spirituality. She has started a program where positive happenings are noted around the school. Every month the school recognizes kids from each class and a teacher and parents who are making a difference. I think she deserves more than a quilt, but this is what I do.

Meanwhile, as I'm working on the green thing ( help I need to name it) The needlefelting starter kit we got at the Chicago show is whispering to me to come and play. As such things often do, it stopped whispering eventually and started screaming at me to come and see what I could do with it, and brother, if you have ever heard wool scream you just have to drop everything and go do what it wants!

(which is one reason there are no borders on the green thing) So I started playing around and did the little flowers and things on the hunk of jean fabric, and the little roundy thing laying on the spongie thing that you use to do the needling thing. Now you know some of the technical terms for this!

Then after pacifying the wool for a bit I was able to go back and finish piecing the green thing top. Having finished that I tried to decide:

1. if it needs borders

2. if I have fabric to make said borders in my stash

3. what it should be called

4. what other stuff I could play with

(note the ADD kicking in again, my sewing room has that effect on me)

Which brings us to this! This is going to be a tea cozy. Now, it would be even more impressive if I actually drank tea, or if I made tea in a teapot on occasion. My mother certainly did, but I discovered coffee and the rest as they say is history. So why the tea cozy? Well, I found this adorable springy green cotton sweater at the thrift store and made the body of it into a sewing machine cover (yes another one, but it's okay it's for someone else this time). So there were these little purses and flowers that I had to take off part of it, and there were these sleeves just sitting there looking like they could become something. And tea cozy popped into my head. So, what I thought was this, if anyone has a GOOD name for the green thing, and an opinion on borders, and likes to drink tea, drop me a comment and after a week or so I'll draw names for the tea cozy. I know, it's a lot to ask which is why I may even stick some tea in with it.