I’ve been down with a cold, lots of coughing and feeling yuk for the last couple of weeks. Not getting a lot done. I have been watching den cam periodically for a week or so where you can see inside of a black bear’s den. She has two cubs and I was lucky enough to see them the other day. Mostly Mom curls herself around them and you don’t see a lot, but you do hear them and they are very vocal. They sound just like a human baby when they get to screaming. I suppose as time goes by they will become more active and we will see more. The one I am watching is Jewel, but there are others. Occasionally the camera is down, so keep trying if you want to see them..

I took my sewing machine in for it’s annual maintenance yesterday. This seemed like a good time to let it go for a week as I don’t feel very creative right now. Maybe I should work on taxes…..

Still working, still changing, still sewing and unsewing— slow progress!

The redbud tree fabric was in my stash, purchased a few years ago because it reminded me of our back pasture in the springtime.

Harriers are here year around, but using this fabric sets the season as Spring and the piece eligible for “Celebrate Spring”.

It’s been a crazy week around here, my husband had surgery on Tuesday. He’s home now and going a bit stir crazy I think. He usually does the cooking so I am having to do that now, so all in all not a whole lot of sewing getting done.

My next project is going to be for “Celebrate Spring”. I have a nice fabric in my stash of redbuds blooming just like up in our back pasture in the springtime. So thinking about how to use that, I remembered seeing a Norther Harrier last spring. A very striking bird that is pretty unmistakable, a ground nesting low flying hawk with an owly face. I googled for research pictures and found this amazing bird photographer and was so taken with one of his photos, I wrote and asked permission to use it and he graciously consented! So Ashok Khosia will be credited for the inspiration photo. I am in the process of plotting out the sewing lines now and have pulled fabrics that I think may work. It’s always exciting to start something new!

When we go for our walks on the property we often see deer and turkeys and other wildlife, but what a surprise on Thursday to see an EMU!! We put out feed which it ate in hopes that it would stay around til we could investigate who might own it. Friday we found them and they came out after work to see about it. By then it was nowhere to be seen, But Saturday morning there she was across the street in a barbed wire enclosed field how did she get in?

We called the owner who came with a tranquilizer gun but it didn’t stop her! Against good advice he then chased her and she went right through the fence and who knows where she is now! I hope she is not hurt!

Friday at the art gallery I saw a garland someone made from rolled brown leaves that was used in a display of art glass objects. I thought it was a neat idea so Saturday I collected some leaves and made one of my own that I will use in an arrangement of gourds and stuff. This is 37″ long.

Kansas doesn’t have the prettiest of fall colors. The darker ones are Virginia Creeper, I think and the lighter ones are Wahoo. I also picked up a couple of cottonwood leaves which are yellow and have more substance. I may collect more of those as they are drying to a nice gold color. Even the brown though, was very attractive!

It is raining today!  That is very GOOD news here!!

I tried to get into my blog yesterday but I guess it was down for some reason.

I finished “Majesty”, 35.5 x 42″, last week and wanted to post the pictures! This is the first time that I have done a faced edge instead of a binding.

I am not sure about facings. I read that it gives a more “art” finish and less of a “quilt” finish. It does hang very nicely. It takes longer and there is more hand work because whereas when I do a binding I insert the raw edges of the sleeve under the binding and sew by machine, with the facing method I had to sew all of the sleeve edges by hand. All of the facing edges are hand sewn as well, just like a binding would be. We had the most gorgeous weather last week though, so I was able to sit outside for two afternoons and do the hand work.

It’s done except for hand sewing the twinkle in his eye – what you see here is the white head of a pin that I use to see where the stitches should go. I am pretty happy with the way it came out. There is a LOT of quilting on it!

Saturday I took a workshop with Patty Hawkins from Colorado through the Kansas Art Quilters; she has had many entries accepted to Quilt National, and the subject was landscape, so I thought it might be fun even though it was on raw edge bonded applique/collage which is not a method I enjoy. I was hoping to learn something, which of course I did! It’s always nice to just get away for a while and play. Here’s my start on a piece from a photo that I took on our Alaska trip.

I’m so lucky to have such a nice stash of “nature” type fabrics to work with! In fact I have so much fabric it is overflowing the space I have to store it so I was very happy last week to hear of a local group making clothing for Haiti that was in need of fabric. I boxed up two large boxes of calico type prints that don’t really work for me anymore in the type of work I do now.  They would have been quite expensive to ship somewhere, so I was really happy to have found some place local to take it. A win-win situation for both of us! And now most of what is left fits on the shelves!!

I was accepted to participate in “Seasonal Palette” an exhibit through Studio Art Quilt Associates which will debut in Houston next fall and travel for a year or so after that. Thirty-eight were accepted out of hundreds of entries. We each will make a piece that measures 32″ wide by 78″ high and my assigned season is winter. So, as I have been going through the fabrics for stuff to give away and stuff for the workshop, I have been pulling out possibilities for this new work. I am starting to feel excited about it and anxious to get started……

Tuesday I took some time off and went to the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild meeting to turn in the Butterfly piece.  It was well received and it was fun to see all of the other offerings which were all very different! It will be fun to see them all laid out together at the silent auction in the fall. After, I shopped at Sarah’s for some large scale grass for the foreground of the elk – found three possibilities, but nothing really better than what I already had.

Yesterday I worked at filling in some background and sewing together some of the sections. I’m liking how the yellow areas of the green hand dye bring in some light and life to the background. Also cut and laid in some of the dark body areas, but they are not ready yet for sewing. As the background areas come closer to the viewer they need to have more detail and yet still work with the more abstract distant background. It’s also important to keep contrast between the elk’s body and the background to overcome nature’s desire to have the animal disappear!

I thought it might be fun to make a quilt based on Kansas wildflowers, so this morning I picked a sampling of what is blooming now. Even at 9 o’clock it was over 80 and they wilted and some even lost petals even though I did bring a container of water for them!

I guess I will need to stop giving the computer the coolest hours of the day if I am going to get my walking in!

YES!! There was NO spam this morning, just real messages from real friends! What a relief…… Loretta, all three of yours came through fine.

Yesterday I had a machine quilting class at Stitching Traditions in Topeka, what a fun group of ladies. Makes me want to get sewing again and I am nearly ready to get started.

What’s up next? I’m planning to do an Elk.

Photo by Tammy Patterson © 2009 all rights reserved.

The photo was taken by the same photographer that took last year’s Mountain Goat Kids and it needs to be finished by fall for another “Inspirations” exhibit. That’s the collaborative one where the artist interprets a photographer’s work and I am so lucky to be working with Tammy again!

Since getting home I have been trying to catch up, but I am so far behind it doesn’t feel like I am making much progress!

I am still way behind on the emails, having taken orders and such that need timely responses, I am now chipping away at the lists that have backed up.

Lots of rain recently has made the weeds jump up. I thought I had them pretty much under control, but WOW! they’ve taken over again in spite of Preen and mulch. Yesterday I spent most of the morning pulling and pruning. Even desirable plants have taken over to the point they must be considered weeds and I dug several armloads of daylilies out.

These bluebells are going as soon as their blooms fade as they are crowding out a rose.

This iris showed up in the water garden several years ago. I didn’t buy it, so I don’t know where it came from but I think it is a lovely color.

I had never seen a moth like this before. Quite a nice surface design, don’t you think? Could be a batik fabric–

Didn’t realize till enlarging the picture it is laying eggs. I looked it up on Google and it is a Leopard Moth…well, duh, what else??

I am also trying to catch up on my book-keeping which is embarrassingly behind. Once I get it caught up I always say I will do it every week but so far that has not happened!

I did a couple of contest entries before I left, but somehow overlooked IQF-Houston who’s deadline is today and I missed it. So this will be the first time in a LONG time that I will have NOTHING there, unless there is something from SAQA that I am not remembering. I can’t believe that I forgot Houston!!

And then of course there is this blog which always needs my attention!