Flashback Fridays - Relations

My friend started a new feature on her blog (which she found on another blog) called Flashback Fridays. She is using it as an excuse to scan her old pictures onto her computer and blog about them. I think this is a great idea and I've decided I will copy their idea! This week I will be using some photos I already have on my computer, but each week my goal will be to scan at least two photos, and then after a year, I will have over 100 new photos scanned into my computer. Wahoo!

I will start this flashback with a photo of my dear husband and I celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe that was 5 years ago! I had a great time feeding the giraffes. I couldn't stop laughing! As you look at this picture I want you to notice one thing: my chin.

Got the image solidified in your mind?

Next is a picture of my sistah when we went to a Cub's game in 2003.

Look at her chin. Notice any resemblance?

Next we have a picture of my maternal grandmother from her retirement party, which I think was about 1982 or 83. Isn't she beautiful? I love the color of her hair. I hope my hair is this color when I go totally white, which seems to be happening faster each day!

And here are Grandma's sister, and her daughter.
I took this during one of my trips to West Virginia about 1995.

Can you tell we're related?

Kirbaroni

My dear neighbor, who has been a generous supporter of my art, asked me to draw our friend Kirby in charcoals as a gift for his people. I hated the charcoal drawing I tried at first. I just couldn't get Kirby's fluffiness into the charcoal and his personality wasn't coming out. I put the drawing away and after a day of thinking about it, I decided that Kirby would best be created in a simple line drawing. And then in another line drawing -because I got a spot of something on the paper! Ugh, I hate redrawing, but it's good for me, and now he is finished.

This is What 49 Looks Like

Just in case you were wondering, this is what 49 looks like. . .

My darling husband turned 49 today.

Isn't he cute?

He would not let me take a regular photo of him, and so he is going into my blog looking just as cute as can be with his old man face! It's his own fault. But in all honesty, I LOVE IT! This photo makes me laugh, and laughing is very good, especially when you laugh as hard as I do every time I look at this picture.

Speaking of good, this not so lovely looking cake pictured below tastes FABULOUS!

It is a Lemon Glaze cake and so easy to make. You might even say that it's a piece of cake, but that would be silly, so I won't go that far.

Happy Birthday Old Man!

Snow Peas

It's a good thing peas don't mind the cold weather. . .

because after a week of almost 70 degree temperatures,

we are back to the 30's and snow!

I LOVE SPRING!

Sunset Swim

I thought about writing something melecholoy about getting old, but decided that would take too long. There is sunshine to enjoy and books to read, so I'll just give a brief explaination and post the pictures of my latest creation and get on with life!

I call this "Sunset Swim." I intended a double meaning because the woman is swimming at sunset and she is in the sunset of her life. I think both sunsets are beautiful. I created the piece for a "Life's a Beach" reader's challenge in a magazine called Cloth, Paper, Scissors.

Above is the complete piece as photographed on my back lawn (can you tell it's nice and sunny today!) and below is a close up of her swim cap and the sunset.

Hope you have a great day! I'm going to go read a book in the sun!

Peas and Thank You are the Magic Words

I have been giving myself a guilt trip for weeks now about my garden. It is March. It is time to plant peas. We had some beautiful days a couple weeks back and a few of my friends planted their peas and I have felt guilty that I didn't join in the fun. But every time I drive in I see this:

Weeds. I hate weeding, especially grass because the roots are as long as the Great Wall in China! I mean really, it's March, don't weeds know they are suppose to take a break and not grow until at least July?!

So at 10 this morning my dear daughter, who is sacrificing her spring break time to help out, and I set to removing the grass and weeds. I then made a quick run to Home Depot for some compost (notice the van has switched parking spots in the carport) and pulled out the rototiller. Thankfully the tiller started right up! Wahoo! I really love using the rototiller!

Aren't I cute?

This is a big girl toy I bought for myself a few years back.

I let my husband use it when I don't want to.

And here is my darling daughter, who is sacrificing her spring break to help me out, smoothing out the soil with a rake. She did an awesome job. Such a good job that she had to redo the smoothing I did on the other side.

Then somehow when I was putting the tiller away I got an owie.

After dumping on the compost, tilling and smoothing the planting begins! I planted two rows of snap peas on the outside and two rows of shelling peas on the inside. In between I scattered on some parsley, spinach and lettuce seeds.

My clever neighbor and her cute dog came over to inspect the job because she couldn't believe I was actually outside.

I have worked very had at burying myself in my basement with my sewing machine all winter.

No wonder I have a Vitamin D deficiency.

And Viola! After covering the seeds and giving them some water we have a full bed planted and one waiting for the last frost date so that I can put in some zucchinis and cucumbers.

And it's only noon. Ho hum. (I'm exhausted and ready for a nap!)

Tomatoes will go on the other side of the house this year. I am hoping to ask my darling husband to build a couple of raised beds on the other side of the house so that the tomatoes can have a nice home too. I'm going to show him these instructions for making a raised bed, and hope he feels inspired. Maybe if I say "Peas."

Spring

No more than the size of the tip of my pinkie, this little daffodil caught the eye of my observant daughter when we were out for a walk the other night. We had to stop and admire it's determination to grow, as well as its ability to be so perfect and cute. The picture does not do it justice. However it was dusk when we discovered the tiny beauty, and I took the picture with my camera phone because the picture had to be taken then and there. Who knew what could happen to it overnight if we didn't capture it at that moment. Honestly, how could we let one of the first sweet flowers of spring be passed by!

Why didn't I take a picture?

. . . because the phone rang and woke me up at 5:25 a.m.
. . . and I am cranky when the phone wakes me up
. . . and I was in shock to hear my husband say, "What?! Fire?!"
. . . and I jumped out of bed and stubbed my toe to get to the window
. . . and I was amazed at what an SUV on fire really looks like
. . . and the fire was really Big and amazing
. . . and there were sparks, and popping noises
. . . and I was hoping no one was inside the car
. . . and I was glad the fire was in the Church parking lot across the street away from houses
. . . and I didn't want to miss one minute of what was going on because I'm nosy
. . . And okay I'll admit it, because I was just too dumb to even think of a camera until after the news crews left and I knew they hadn't been able to get any good shots of the car on fire because the fire was out by the time they arrived a half hour later. Slow Pokes! And now I can't find out why the SUV was on fire because the slow news people haven't broadcast anything about the fire because they don't have a great shot of the fire to put on the news.
Silly news people must think other stories are more important.

A Tribute

I just finished writing a post about comfort, and now feel the need to comfort myself by writing a few memories about a dear friend who passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 12. His name was Kirby. My girls and I are deeply saddened by his passing. We met Kirby for the first time a number of years ago when he was out for a walk. We were instant friends. He was sweeter than anyone you've ever known. His joyous life was cut short because of a cancerous growth. Unfortunately you won't find his obituary in the paper as Kirby, the tall handsome blond, wasn't a human. He was a "just a dog." But what a dog he was. He didn't realize how big he was and thought he was a lap dog, or at least the size of a puppy. He never lost his puppy spirit. He wanted so much to play to the end, but his body just wasn't able.

My girls and I will always treasure our memories of the blond beauty. We loved seeing him out on walks with his people, John and Ramona. If he saw us, or his best friend Dawn, he immediately came running, actually he would come bounding across the street and if they weren't careful he would be dragging his people behind! Finally his people kept an eye out at our corner and let him off leash so that he could come running to us. He greeted us with love in his face, and immediately began looking for a toy or a treat. He loved to walk between your legs, and if your legs weren't long enough for him to fit through you were raised up onto his back so he could pass through. He didn't judge anyone except for their willingness to play with him. If you threw a stick for him he was your best friend. He loved treats, squeaky toys and sticks. He also loved to carry his own leash.

We will miss you, our dear friend Kirby.

We look forward to seeing you again one day sweet boy,

when I'm sure you will bound up to us all in your joyful way!

Words of Comfort

Some friends from my quilt group decided to start a 12x12 quilt project inspired by this group. Basically each member would submit a word, and then we would each make a twelve inch by twelve inch quilt inspired by these words. Each time we are given a new word we have two months to complete the quilt. January 2009 was our first start date, and the word chosen was Comfort. It was MY word and I was very shocked when my word came up because I didn't really want to think about it.

The reason I submitted the word Comfort was because I couldn't think of anything else at the time I had to submit my word. I was struggling with how to comfort my sister whose close friend had recently committed suicide. Shortly after the word was drawn I was struggling again because one of the siblings of my daughters friend committed suicide as well.

I contemplated what it meant to comfort someone and the words that I try to offer. So often I have felt that the words mean so little but that they were all I had to give at times. I knew I wanted to have words on the quilt. This was something I've never done before so I researched pens for writing on fabric and found one fabulous pen: Pentel Arts Gel Roller for Fabric. It writes like butter on a hot roll. Delicious. But it only comes in black, blue and red. I really wanted brown so I also bought another marker which writes okay on fabric, but not as smoothly. I played more with the gel roller because it wrote so well. I then decided to play with some images of physically comforting someone. My girls laughed at some of these and said they looked like the people were kissing. Something that is still icky in their lives (thankfully)!

Then I played with some simple images in Photoshop and finally found one I liked. I played around with the colors a bit too, trying to decide what color comfort is. I felt like blue was a color of comfort because it seems soothing, but my dear neighbor informed me that reds and oranges were actually comforting colors because they are warm. I pondered these thoughts and continued playing around.

I really liked this image (above) but the couple of people I showed it to didn't get it,

so I played with other images.

This image got a better response so I went with it. I decided I would write the words on the embrasing arms. I'm not sure why ended up chosing the colors in my first attempt. I liked the fabrics together when I started out, however after I put the quilt together I hated it!

I quilted it to see if the quilting would make a difference but I still hated it. The image had too much contrast and was too busy and not the least bit comforting to me. I hung it on my design wall and tried to forget about it for awhile.

A few days later I was watching Quilting Arts TV. One of the artists on the show was talking about the color wheel. Listening to her reminded me about using color combinations to portray a feeling. This is when I decided that the quilt needed to be monochromatic, and that it really needed to be all warm. (I admit it, you were right dear neighbor!) At this pointed I also decided that the embrace was more important than the words, and so I wrote the words with the brown marker on the background where they could still be somewhat visible. The embrace is what I hope stands out and brings the feeling of comfort.

You might need to click on the photo to enlarge it and get a closer look as it seems to blend together a lot in the photo.

Our word for March and April is Sandstone. This word isn't as emotional for me, thankfully, but I've already started hatching a thousand different ideas. I'll post the next quilt after our reveal. Thanks for letting me share!

Mister Man goes to Market

Actually Mister Man is about to fly through the mail system to Massachusetts, as well as through the internet to your screen.

Here he is:

Hopefully the photos I have posted here will give you an idea of the quilt. The quilt is only 12"x12" and was created using raw edge applique of mostly batik fabrics, followed by thread painting with Superior cotton and Sulky rayon threads, as well as extra highlights and shadowing from Paintstiks and colored pencils.

Here are a few closeups:

I think the red fruits on top are tomatoes. And the produce in the basket started out being heads of lettuce but because of their extreme size and the watermelon below, they kind of look like watermelons too, so we'll go with that.

This is a close up of the tomatoes. I thought I loaded a close up of the peaches at the bottom, but - well they look similar so you get the idea!

And a close up of Mister Man himself. He represents the grandpa's I always see at the farmers market. He casually peruses the stands, carefully looking over the produce before finally picking the freshest produce and haggeling for a killer deal.

I won't know if I am selected as a finalist until Friday, April 10th.

Until then keep your fingers crossed as I'm sure there will be some tough competition.