resurrection fern

It's been so long since I showed you the art installation in a secret location

This was a picture I shared with you back in the spring.

Yes , that would be snow. We still had snow in April and even a little surprise flurries in May this year.  I have been back to visit the installation at least once a week and have been somewhat disappointed at the lack of dramatic change from week to week but when I look back on the earlier photographs I guess it really has been dramatic after all.

Wildflowers have come and gone and how it is the lush greenery of the trees, bushes and the slower growing mosses, grasses and sedges that dominate the visitors view. 

I love how that tiny little maple leaf unfolded just in time for Canada Day!!

The art show has been visited by a few special creatures.

I saved the best for last.

Imagine my delight when I came and saw that little fellow enjoying the lace and moss.

The Stone Diaries: Part XI

This wonderful parcel , the subject of the 11th stone diary installment came as a total surprise. The note inside read "Thank you so much for the gift of your beautiful website! I've included: holey rocks, finger rocks, coin rocks and a surprise or two..."

Well I can tell you I was so so surprised!! You definitely can 't judge a gift by its box. It was packaged in a box labeled "steaks" from Idaho I think. Inside was filled with little parcels wrapped in newspaper from the 1800's, ribbons, vintage trim and even some of the tiniest perfect little starfish I have ever seen.

You must read Jen's explanation for how this parcel was put together. I found it just a short while ago while trying to find her blog. I just love the name of it : Dances with Flowers. 

Inside the wrappings were more little exquisitely wrapped packages with beautiful hand stamped tags. It took me forever to unwrap each and every stone . They looked so much like salt water taffy that I have since had a huge craving for one of those summertime candies.

I am in love with each and every stone and treasure in this parcel. I wish you could all feel how smooth and silky those finger stones are. I am marveling over the "holey" stones, natural pendants. Barb ( green wellies) says ," I'm all jittery. These are such incredible holey stones. What an amazing addition to your stone diaries. We used to find holey rocks along the shore of Lake Ontario, only they were very small versions of Jen's treasures. I was told that the shamans used to look through them when on a vision quest. One day, as I was walking the beach, there was a very elderly lady looking out over the water through the tiniest hole. She said she was trying to improve her eyesight!" 

 
A funny thing is the title of the vintage newsprint page I used to line the display tray.  I went to see the very funny and charming movie " the proposal" with my daughter on friday and guess where the couple go to spend the weekend? Sitka, Alaska of course !!!

To continue the circle of thankfulness I made this little ephemeral art for Jen. You brought me such joy this weekend. 

The stones are dancing with the flowers :) and the snails of course ( wink )

a beach and an almost forgotten screen print

Today was the perfect day to head north to a beautiful beach on the south shore of Lake Huron. It was sunny, temperatures in the mid 20's and there was an ever constant north westerly breeze. 

I noticed tiny little parasols already placed perfectly in the sand for those little gnomes working on their summer glow. Must be a result of the very wet spring we had.

Last weekend while my daughter's and I were libertizing our wardrobes I came across a project I started in the winter and had just about forgotten about. Remember this silkscreen print I made at bookhou.

I silkscreened it on some very loose weave natural linen as well and was planning to turn it into a beach cover up. I had attached some picot edge trim and crocheted a border in some tactile heavenly fiber ( bamboo/silk). 

I threaded some natural linen ribbon through ( thank's Pat) and le voila.

It can also be worn as a skirt.

I started a new project at the beach with soft brown linen, embroidery thread and torn strips of liberty tana lawn fabric. Curious??

Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.

weekends mean fresh flowers on the porch

The first heat spell of summer came right on cue this year.  Because it followed a very wet few days it has lead to a exponential growth of the meadow and roadside grasses and flowers. I really noticed that yesterday when I took a road less travelled home from the office yesterday. Next week the municipal workers will be out cutting the curbside grasses for road safety so I decided to gather as many as my arms could carry to shave them from this demise.  I gathered daisies, buttercups, wild sweet peas, fleabane, cinquefoil, goat's beard and wild columbine. 

Come on over, sit, relax and remember the good things in life really are free!!!

Poetry and Pictures : My Son and I

Tumbling, shale over flint,
Granite for a bed,

Set over an orbiting furnace
Stone ledges leapt into the skies,

Soaring o’er the ages,
As nothing else can fly through time,

So slow and sure,
That nought deflects their course,

Excepting just the very wind and rain,
Whose constant tribulations will make vain,

The highest climbing mountain peaks of earth,
They casually erode these errant bluffs,

Deferring stone to dust and girth for dearth,
Tumbling ever more into a plain,

That which has risen,
And may yet rise again.

 

liberty granny dress remake

I am starting with an apology. I forgot to take a photograph of the before dress found at a value village thrift store. I almost always purchase any thing I find at a thrift store made from liberty of london tana lawn cotton. This was no exception. It was a handmade shirt dress in a beautiful colorful print and it was completely lined. I even loved the persimmon colored vintage buttons. The only problem was it was about a size 20 and it was shapeless. One day I was either bored or brave and I decided to cut it and made myself an adorable summer swing style jacket. This past weekend while in the libertizing mood I turned my attention to the large piece of fabric remaining. There was plenty for a skirt and I would still have a large remnant. 

My daughters and I loved the liberty high waisted gathered APC skirt in the most recent issue of teen vogue ( yep I look through the pictures of each and every issue, I confess). I had never shirred fabric before although I did find the essential elasticized thread in the bottom of my sewing basket. I think we used to use it for beaded necklaces when the children were younger. I googled how to make shirred clothing and found this totally awesome tutorial. It worked like a charm. Now I am brave but not brave enough to potentially ruin a lovely piece of liberty gold so we decided to test it out on a vintage pillow case first. 

The result was an adorable 69 cent summer skirt.  The liberty went just as smoothly and since the pillow case fit perfectly we knew the what width of fabric to use.

She has had that little harmonica since she was a child :)

I have a few more thrifted liberty dresses that I might be creative with. Next time I will promise to take a before picture.

ideas are like sparrows

Ideas are like sparrows 
they dart down the hall, the chimney and out of the spout
down a worm hole and back up my mouth

from the song "hey rabbit" by fionn regan

My hat would never have existed in its libertized form if it weren't for the creativity of two different mattes. The art of matte stephens and the music given to me by my daughter bekki's sweetheart matt.  Matthew is a singer songwriter himself. His stage name is lines of latitude and has similar style and influences to fionn. I just loved this song and knew from the first listening that I wanted to incorporate this phrase into a project one day.  When we pulled out my stash of liberty tana lawn fabric this past weekend I noticed that the bird fabric that I used in my blog banner looked similar to our friendly neighbourhood sparrows.  Sparrows singing have long been a symbol of freedom and freedom of ideas is of course a very good thing.

So the sparrow on my hat is singing freely and sharing his colourful creative ideas . The idea (speech) bubble just so happens to be placed in the general area of the temporal lobe of the brain. That is the area that processes the emotive response to music and its relationship to memory. The bubble was created out of numerous small diamond shaped pieces of liberty fabric that were machine stitched to cotton fabric before embroidering to the hat. I wanted it to be very durable since it will probably be accompanying me on many hikes and even a few canoe trips. 

It sure seems like summer today. So many new flowers have bloomed in the garden. It rained for days, the solstice happened, the sun came out, I blinked and there they were.

libertize your life

Okay you must remember you heard it here first. My family came up with a new word this weekend .

definintion of libertize :  li*ber*tize a verb meaning to embellish articles of clothing, accessories or household decor with pieces of liberty tana lawn fabric with the purpose of making them unique and more beautiful. 

We made liberty covered buttons, necklaces, patches for t-shirts, pockets for cut-off jean shorts, fabric covered shell earrings, shirred skirts, flowers for hairpins, wings for embroidered damsel flies and my favorite was a new life for my favorite old brown linen summer hat.  Here is a sneak peak at some of what we worked on with more pictures and details to come over the next few days. 

I hardly ever get excited about the things I make but I have to tell you I am loving this new (old) hat. I will explain the inspiration and show some more pictures of it tomorrow.  It was a great way to usher in the summer working with these colorful fabrics and threads. I have been recovering from the flu this weekend and now I feel so much better. The sun came out today after two days of rain. Last night , the solstice the garden snails were climbing the magnolia higher than I have ever seen them. It was quite a remarkable sight to see them nibbling on the lichen as they journeyed higher and higher. 

Must have been some party :)

aspiring mind

“Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.”

Niccolo Machiavelli

 Fire, air and earth stones created by my friend Pat and united as a trio awaiting the arrival of water to complete the series.  One of my favorite flickr activities this year has been seeing these stones evolve and Patricia working her magic, starting with wonderful smooth stones, hand felting them with colorful roving, cutting and sewing bits of vintage fabric with beautiful dramatic lines and then adding the details with needle pulling colorful threads to make exquisite patterns. These are "prose"  stones similar in many ways to the poetry stones I recently completed. They tell the stories of a very aspiring mind and share the talents of a very sensitive, kind friend.

Thank you so very much Pat. I will treasure these elemental story stones for ever and ever.....

the winner is .....

Mathyld of the beautiful and very special blog and shop Encore Petite. Comment number 5 was the lucky number this morning!!. I entered all the comments and not only the correct ones for this contest. The embroidered spider was indeed Leucauge venusta which means beautiful orb weaver. The common name is Orchard spider.

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful names. If I ever have a pet spider I will return to this list for inspiration before naming it :)  I will email Mathyld to see what she would like as her prize!