Archive for June, 2012

Mary Elmusa Workshop

Monday, June 25th, 2012

The Mary Elmusa workshop was fun. Mary brought lots of things to try.

We explored various techniques for printing on cloth including painting, sun printing, stamping, stenciling, silk screening, mono printing,  gelatin printing and resists. The green one in the foreground has Elmer’s Glue resist that can be washed out in two weeks to leave a white pattern. I don’t know if these are something I would want to try to use in my own work, but here is what I did in the workshop.

There wasn’t time to overprint which some of these certainly need!

Meanwhile I have been working on the Bignonia, here’s how it looked a few days ago. I did try to post earlier in the week but the server was down.

And when I started this morning:


Catching Up

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

The new project is finally back up on the wall and I even found he time to cut a few pieces yesterday, but I’ve been pretty busy. Sunday was Father’s Day, with company. Monday we had to go to town for lunch and errands. It was SO hot it just drained me and I came home and took a nap. Monday evening there was a board meeting of the Art Guild to attend. Tuesday, I went to the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild meeting where KAQ member Mary Elmusa was the speaker. I was so intrigued I took the last available slot for her workshop today! This evening I will go to Topeka Civic Theater to see “39 Steps”. Tomorrow I have an appointment for much needed perm and then I think I have a few blessed days off!!! On the way home yesterday I stopped and bought PhotoShop Elements for the laptop and perhaps I will find a bit of time to load that tomorrow and process some of the earlier trip photos.

Or maybe I will take another nap!

More Glacier Park

Monday, June 18th, 2012

These Mountain Goats were on a faraway distant slope. Very difficult to see with the naked eye and hard to focus on so I just pointed where I thought they were and hoped for the best. It was hard to tell what was goats and what was rocks or patches of snow. Cropping the photo brought them in closer, but it is a bit fuzzy.

Same with these Mountain Sheep! Now we can see the curly horns.

These goats were at a different location, GoatLick, where the goats come to lick the rocks, I suppose for the minerals they contain. Here we were able to get much closer, but it was a steep and slippery trail to get there! This rock face is nearly vertical and they navigate it with ease. Amazing!

This Crow? Raven? came right up to the car looking for a handout I guess.

We saw this Loon family in a roadside pond, quite unconcerned at our presence.

The handsome Daddy Loon stayed between us and his family and treated us to several choruses of his loony laughter. Or maybe he was saying “Don’t come any closer”.


Mama Loon meandered nearby with her babies alternately swimming and riding on her back.

 

A Day At Glacier Park

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

It was a long day Monday, starting out at 8am and returning around 10pm, but what an amazingly beautiful place! Joan H, owner of the Quilt Gallery drove Ruth McDowell, Del and me around the park and we were so lucky to see lots of animals. The weather was overcast on the Kalispell side of the mountains, but on passing the summit to the other side it was immediately sunny. The vegetation reflected those conditions with large evergreens and other trees on the wetter side and more open grasslands on the other. This shot shows a sampling of the beauty around every curve of the road.

It is spring there, and the Road To The Sun was not yet open as the rainy week that we had had in Kalispell had dumped 10 more inches of snow up there!  We saw LOTS of wildflowers, some familiar to me and others not.

We saw so many animals! Mountain Goats and Sheep, Mule Deer and Whitetails, Grizzly and Black Bear, Coyote, Ground Squirrels and many birds including Golden Eagle. We did not see Moose or Elk. Hmmmm – may just have to go back!

More tomorrow!!

Home Again!

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

I had to unexpectedly cut my trip short and return home on Thursday. Trips are fun but it’s always good to be home. After sleeping in, yesterday was spent catching up, unpacking, and putting away. Today I hope to get the new project up on the wall and work on it as I think it is going to be gorgeous!

After a spell of very hot and dry weather, in spite of my husband’s diligent watering things are looking pitiful in the gardens. Except for the fruit which is doing quite well!

The peaches in their second year of production are just beautiful and so juicy and sweet!

The plums, not quite ripe yet,  are not as loaded with fruit but better than last year.

The Blackberries and Raspberries are doing well and we had them both for dessert last night in a homemade shortcake. Yum!!

I have started to process the photos from the trip and hope to show you some tomorrow.  I got some great animal shots and some beautiful scenery. Montana is indeed, a beautiful place with wonderful people!!

RMD Day Three

Saturday, June 9th, 2012

Yesterday was pretty productive! I got a whole large section sewed and more pieces cut ready for today. I took a picture of the first day’s progress and that evening we went to Best Buy to get Photoshop Elements for this computer so I could re size, but they were out of it. There are free programs to download but I am reluctant to do that. PE came on my other computer and so I am comfortable with that. In the meantime I will just keep taking photos to show you later.

By now most everyone has something up on the wall and fabric out on the tables. The room is a colorful, messy productive place. There are 3 or 4 dog quilts started, a cat, a lizard, landscapes and some with people or flowers. An eclectic assortment with ladies from all over the country. Many of them have been coming here for years.  Ruth has been doing this workshop here in Kalispell for 18 years, I believe and she is retiring after the last workshop of this trip; she’s doing four here, all 5 days long. We are buying so much fabric I wonder what will be left for the last group! At least they should have better weather!!

Ruth Mc Dowell Workshop- Day One

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

It is 30 degrees ! this morning, but clear after rain yesterday. When I packed for this trip I did put in a light jacket and two sweaters with the thought that the evenings might be a bit chilly. I may wear them all today!

The workshop started yesterday with most of the day spent watching Ruth McDowell do her magic on everyone’s potential pictures for their projects. She doesn’t do it all but gets a nice start with a few section lines and some of the other lines that will become seams. I always learn some new thought processes as she talks and demos. She makes it look easy having done over 500 of these quilts. I came with my pattern already prepared and I probably will not make any changes.

The shop we are working in has an amazing array of fabric and they let us run a tab for the duration, but do not tally it til the end so we don’t know how painful that might be but I have a pretty good pile started. I do have to think about my luggage weight for the return flight though!

This Cormorant was a photo that I took the last day we were driving up. Del re sized it for me and sent it back. It is a little fuzzy but I had the camera set a very low resolution hoping that it would be small enough for the blog . Not!

Kalispell

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012

Well here we are in Kalispell! Yesterday was a long day of driving, we started out in Butte and spent about three and a half hours driving through the National Bison Range. I REALLY enjoyed that! We saw herds of buffalo and their calves, antelopes, deer and a spotted fawn, all pretty close and unafraid, lots of birds and flowers. We did not see the mountain goats or the bears though. Inside the visitor’s center we watched a short film about the program to restore the buffalo. I got some nice photos along the way but I need to find a place to buy Photoshop so that I can resize them for the blog. be patient! In the meantime here is one from Del’s camera:

We spent so long at the National Bison Range (we were told it would take a hour and a half to two hours, but spent much longer) that we arrived late to Kalispell. We debated whether to drive on, or stop sooner, but could not find a place to stop and eat other than McDonald’s so we ended up going all the way, part of the time in a heavy downpour. We found a gourmet burger place and were glad that we had not opted for McD’s. By the time we found our lodging and unloaded we were both ready to crash and slept through til 9am!

This afternoon we need to shop for breakfast food as we are at a long stay suite with a kitchenette. We will also go by the Quilt Gallery to claim our space and set up for the start of the workshop with Ruth McDowell that starts tomorrow.

Utah

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Tonight Del and I are in Ogden, Utah. This is the first time I have ever tried to blog on my laptop so I am not sure if it will work. Last evening we were in Cedar City. We had spent most of the day at Zion and it was SO hot. Over 100 degrees. We had thought we might go to Bryce Canyon but it was just too hot to enjoy it and since we both had been there before we passed on it.The scenery is amazingly beautiful and I got some nice pictures but I don’t have Photoshop on this computer and I don’t know how or even if it is possible to resize them in iPhoto so they are to big to post right now.

We drove a little way up into the mountains tonight to eat at a restaurant that had fresh Rainbow Trout. It was really pretty good and the location was gorgeous. The road was narrow and twisting and the rock formations were awesome; there was even a waterfall and a rushing river, or maybe brook. It wasn’t very big but it was fast and beautiful!