resurrection fern

Lilacs and Abandoned Homesteads

The end of May means two things to me LILACS and my nephew Nick's birthday. Happy Birthday Nick !!!! The air in and outside of home is filled with the wonderful , gentle scent of lilac with a little honeysuckle thrown in. Lilac were brought over to north america hundreds of years ago on ships with the pioneers . They are a very hardy breed. One thing I love to do is find lilac bushes growing in the middle of no where . They draw me in like a little gentle hook, to have look around and sometimes I find the foundation or other evidence of an abandoned homestead or farm. I find the " wild lilacs" have the strongest scent. In the last week I followed the lilac scent to find a very special secret ( I like to think) place down a path I had never noticed before in one of the forests I love to walk in. Follow me , I walk slowly so you won't have any trouble keeping up.

I tried to imagine living in this very special location with the forest in my front yard . It was so peaceful an magical and there were no signs of electricity so it must have been abandoned some time ago. I loved the galvanized tubs and buckets with grass growing in and around them. The color palette found here was very inspiring and I may try to use it in some future project. Follow the scent of the lilac and you may find love ( the traditional idea) or the remains of days gone by and a gentler era. Yesterday I collected some lilacs on my way home from work. Five different shades of purple lilac and one white .

Mr Bumblebee and I will be away for the weekend. We are heading to the Eastern Township area of Quebec. See you on monday.

Launching a different Kind of Ship

I have been so overwhelmed by all the kind comments and encouraging words from the launch of my victoria day boat jacket that I decided to start on a different kind of ship. This one was inspired by the bayeux tapestry and the fantastic soft toys of sandra at herzensart.

The process was the same as the last ship. I draw the basic ship's shape on to the linen, cut and sew the bits and pieces of vintage fabric, lace , ric rac and trim directly onto the fabric. I love unfinished edges as you can see. The fabrics , buttons and trim are almost all thrifted except for one linen ribbon with the sewing notions on it. I added the twisted ric rac mast, embroidered the details of the ropes and " chicken/dragon details" and some fancy stitches on the sail in white thread, added the vintage buttons and the last thing I did was add a "net" made up of tied embroidery thread. I am not sure if it is finished because sometimes after looking at it for a few days I might decide to add a few more details.

I was working on this project on the beach last sunday. The sun, sand and beautiful gentle waves were very inspiring. I dreamt of launching this textile ship and sailing to Iceland, a country I would love to visit one day. How many days sailing would that take?

For now this viking ship I have named Leif the Lucky will sit in the window until it becomes sea worthy.

The Color Green

Green is the feng shui color of renewal, fresh energy and new beginnings. A recent BBC news story about how walking amonst greenery reduces stress and helps depression highlights somethings I have always believed. Plants absorb all the other wavelengths of light except green. That is the color they reflect back , the color we see them as, and the color that has health benefits for us. Thank you so much all you beautiful green things.

The pigment called chlorophyll is amazing, it converts light to energy for the plants. It absorbs the wavelengths it uses and reflects back the green. I could say a great deal more about this but I have to go to work. I will leave with you a drawing I did quite a while ago reflecting these ideas.

When you walk in the woods its not only flowers you see.

If you have any young children especially boys between the ages of 2 and 6 they are going to love these pictures. When I went for a walk in the woods on Saturday to show my husband the green trilliums we saw many things other than flowers. Some of these would be considered "gross" but I found them amazing and beautiful and I wanted to share them with you. The first picture shows the field that we had to walk across to get to the forest. That is where the fun begins.

Just as we entered the forest , looking down on the path was a special little package left by a wild animal, perhaps a fox. The slugs were having a feast.

Slugs, slugs everywhere!!!

The slugs are so popular in this woods even the plants are trying to be slugs. This next picture was for real.

Then there were slugs with homes ( snails) .

I saw a baby praying mantis on one of my favorite wild flowers.

I saved the best for last. When I walk in the woods , it is often like a botanist, with my head down looking for wildflowers but that day I suddenly heard a bird overhead and looked up and was startled by what was hanging from the branch in front of me. It was like a scene from blair witch project.

There you have it the first installment of grossology 101.

Thimbles as vases

Last week I remembered an old issue of MSL where they made delicate tiny bouquets in thimbles. I gathered up my small collection of vintage thimbles and some of the smallest blossoms I could find in the garden and I wanted to show you the results. The hardest thing was to get them to stand upright because most of the very worn ones I have are very convex . I placed a small ball of sticky tack on the base and squished it down onto the surface of the linen covered table. It worked well enough to snap a few shots before one of the cats decided to get in the picture and destroyed the set. Note to self when working with finicky setups lock the cats out of the kitchen.

I hope you enjoyed the tiny little bouquets containing some of my favorite flowers in my garden : forget me not, lily of the valley, mayflower, purple and white violets and some foliage. They may be small but they still smell amazing or at least that's what Mr Bumblebee told me.

First Beach Day of the Season

This is one of the posts with few words and tons of pictures because they say much more than I could ever write. Hope you all had a wonderful sunday and to all my american friends have a great holiday tomorrow.

I got to take my bluenose ship jacket to the beach and I also worked on my newest ship. Can you guess what kind of ship it is ???? The most amazing thing of the day was seeing a rainbow cloud. I have never seen this before but there was a small patch on rainbow only within the end of a beautiful cloud . It started off very faint but grew stronger as the cloud approached the tree line. I am so glad I managed to get a picture of it before it disappeared.

Inspired by Trilliums

If you read this blog on a semi regular basis you will know that I have trilliums on my mind. Try as I might to find the answers to my questions about the disease causing them to turn green I have not learned anything new. The trillium expert at the Royal Botanical Gardens did not know anything more than what I had already found through my research. He was very kind and wrote me a lengthly email about the scientific paper done in 1971 that determined that it was mycoplasma causing the disease but he , like me was concerned that no further research has been done. He is a taxonomist and not a expert in diseases of plants so he encouraged me to keep searching for the answer and to perhaps conduct some research my self. The forest floor is covered in a white and green carpet now but in a week or two it will appear only green. These pictures are from my early morning walk with my husband.

Last night I was inspired by the trilliums and elsita's fantastic papercut to make a layered papercut using kite paper . I made this with four layers : white, yellow, orange and finally green. I cut the shapes out free hand and tried to conceptualize the final result hoping that it would all come together. That alone was a great brain exercise. I then cut out two hoops out of thick white paper and glued them together only along the circumference. It reminded me of a book called Rose WIndows.

Have a great saturday and I hope you get a chance to see some wildflowers and all the beautiful , peaceful shades of green.

Rafflesia, the Largest Flower on Earth

I already introduced you to the smallest flower and now hold your noses I want to introduce you to the largest flower on earth, "smelly rafflesia" . This plant is all flower and grows to about three feet wide. WOW . You can find pictures of it on google image and I really like this article about the plant. This flower smells like rotting flesh so when I was painting my little picture I decided to include the molecules of putrescine around the flower. This little molecule is responsible for that reaction you see on programs like CSI when the investigators smell decomposing flesh. I didn't mean to be so dark on a beautiful sunny friday so I will show you some beautiful flowers growing in an around my garden to brighten up the remainder of this post. Have a wonderful start to your weekend.

A New Admiration For Wildlife Photographers

Just like the title says I have a new respect and admiration for wildlife photographers. They must be the most quiet and patient people on this earth. It is so easy to take pictures of plants they don't move unless the wind tosses them about. But try and take pictures of wild animals and you have your work cut out for you. Domestic animals will normally cooperate especially if you bribe them with a little organic catnip in just the right places but what do you bribe a wild bird with ? I discovered yesterday that if you approach them they just move away from you as quickly as possible or even worse the parents charge you . The best thing to do is find a good spot to observe them and sit and wait. It could take a while but eventually they won't notice you anymore and you might get lucky. While waiting you can enjoy the air and beautiful sky, listen to the birds, watch the air show the swallows are putting on for you and think. When I stopped chasing the goslings, they came to me. Here are some of my favorite shots.

I used the sit and wait quietly method to take a few adorable shots of a small squirrel munching on a nut in the forest.

I am having a much harder time getting good pictures of other birds with my not so fancy camera but I did manage a nice shot of a grosbeak on the weekend.

Meet the Wolffia's

I painted this little watercolor last night to introduce you to Mr and Mrs Wolffia. Aren't they a handsome couple? They are part of a large family of plants that produce flowers that are the smallest flowers in the world. If you could pick a bouquet of these flowers it would fit on the head of a pin. Maybe you don't recognize wolffia but I am almost certain you have seen it on the ponds in your community. These pictures were taken just behind my office in a small town in rural Ontario.

Lets get a closer look at this.

And closer.

You may know of this plant as watermeal a relative of duckweed. Each of those beautiful green dots is an individual plant. Some of them will have tiny little flowers growing soon. They form a fantastic floating carpet that is very nutritious. It contains 40 % protein and the ducks and geese love to eat it. The shadows the trees and leaves cast on the green surface of the pond was magical.

Here is some other exciting news, the Canada Goose eggs have hatched.

Six little goslings , aren't they adorable. So next time you pass a pond and see green "scum" on the surface, take a closer look, and say hello to Mr and Mrs Wolffia .