resurrection fern

turning a little accident into a thing of warmth and beauty

If you have ever seen one of my crochet covered stones you would see that the cover is crocheted very tightly to the stone. So tight that it is not removable. I almost only use thrift store purchased vintage crochet or tatting threads and sometimes these are not the strongest threads in the world. I had just finished making a beautiful, very fine thread cover for a stone and was pulling very hard on the threads to make them as snug as possible and for the first time in my stone covering career the material tore, leaving a very large hole in the pattern. Rather than toss it into the compost, I decided to wet felt a cover on the stone and then open it up ever so slightly to reveal the lace pattern, hopefully in the none ripped area, beneath. This is very similar to how I made my matryoshka stones last year. 

 

 

I love these blues and off whites.

Quite the contrast to the continued explosion of color in the forest. 

 

The fields are very muted, golden and beautiful on my drives to and from work. Although I wish I could walk or use public transit to get to my office there is definitely some wonderful scenery to enjoy every day.

 

I do so hope your weekend glows.

owls and acorns and liberty, oh my

Last night I was watching a few episodes of madmen ( a current favorite) online and I made a windfall of crocheted acorns, started a little embroidery project and a new little covered stone character , an owl with liberty wings. A quick little photo shoot on my way to work this morning and voila!!

 

 

 

 

I think my favorite is the one in the top picture, made from cashmere yarn from my stash.

 

I think this little purple owl on woodsy liberty fabric will turn into a very large button for a new scarfette I plan to knit up with some hand spun wool. I think it would make a sweet gift for someone.

 

 

 

He was really trying very hard to fly over those hills and far away but having a stone belly makes it very difficult to gain any altitude. Better to just to sit for a while with a complementary acorn.

 

A few more pictures of some really beautiful seed pods, off to bed and then to the office for a very long day at work. I might have to bring Oliver ( the stone Owl) to keep me smiling.

 

things to come

As soon as I get my etsy shop sold items packed up and on there merry way I am looking forward to getting back to work on some textile accessories I have been working on and some mixed media shadow boxes. 

Sometimes I think I may be a little moth in disguise as I flit from one little project to another. The problem is that I have at least a multiple of ten times more ideas in my little journal that have yet to come to life and there are another multiple of ten times more ideas that I have not even written in the journal. I seriously think I might need to offer myself up for cloning experiments. I could really use another set of hands at least. 

I have been working on more jelly fish made from embroidered liberty tana lawn cotton and hand crocheted with vintage crochet cottons. They make amazing long necklaces or at least my daughter's think so. I also think they look lovely just hanging somewhere special. I have made three unique sea creatures so far. I have also made a few very special tiny fabric and crocheted mushrooms and pieces for a very special brooch. I haven't taken pictures of all of these yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am working on some multi media pieces and this is the first one I have almost finished. It incorporates a hand embroidered spider, a spider web inspired crochet covered stone with a dangling thread and some pieces of the forest collected from some of my walks this fall. The back ground is a very old piece of handwoven linen mounted inside one of my all purpose natural wooden trays.  I am really hoping to pursue this idea in many different forms combining my love of nature and collecting with my love of fiber art and hand made nature inspired objects.

 

This piece is titled dangling participle in red. I will post more when I have them put together and photographed.  

blue sunday

Not in spirit but what I am noticing around me in nature, treasures , etsy purchases (thanks melissa)  and works in progress. 

I have so many projects on the go it is perhaps a blessing we are expecting a rain filled week leading up to our thanksgiving weekend. Are you even a little bit curious as to what some of these might be. I was looking for something after I wrote this post and found a long lost little collection of felt purses and necklaces the children and I made many years ago. Why am I telling you this ? More blues here of course and because the medallions that I used to make remind me so much of the work of melissa ( tiny happy). 

core samples: a gift from my son and a stone diary

The Canadian Shield covers half of Canada as well as the north USA and Greenland. It is mostly composed of granite and the worlds largest area of exposed precambrian rock. It is very rich in metallic minerals and thus has been a source of great interest to geologists and mining speculators. A few years ago I went on a canoe trip in Northern Ontario and on a few small stone islands noticed numerous holes in the stone made by speculators taking core samples. My son was recently canoeing in the exact same area so I asked him ( as I do all the children on their travels) to look out for some interesting stones and more specifically to bring me back a few core samples if he happened upon some.

There he is searching for some :)

He had a large pack and canoe to carry on his portages but he still managed to bring me home a heavy gift. 

I love there smooth cold greyness. Of course I had to set to work to crochet a partial cover for one of them. 

Thank you so much Benjamin. I love them and have some ideas I can't wait to play around with. I have been working on a few larger stones and have also managed to crochet another cover on a tea saucer. The future wall display is slowly increasing in size and for now has found a home on the mosaic porch table. The beautiful flowers were from my niece's wedding. 

That book is really wonderful and was a gift from my sister Ann.

If you haven't seen the opening night photographs from Elsita's show you really must. I am so sorry I could not attend but seeing these pictures, especially those of Elsita's hugs, brought me great joy. 

dream weaver

I watched hundreds of tiny golden spiderlings hatch in May from an egg sac that was tucked under one of my porch window boxes. Now just over three months later some of these little ones survived wind, rain, almost tornadoes, birds and scavengers to reach full potential. Now as the nights become cool and crisp they are weaving huge webs, trapping and consuming a large number of insects so that they might mate, lay their dreams for next spring and die. This post is my small way of showing to these tireless dream weaver survivors that their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Dream weaver
Ive just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the dream weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind
Ooh dream weaver
I believe you can get me through the night
Ooh dream weaver
I believe we can reach the morning light

                                                                lyrics by Reo Speedwagon

I would like to have a requiem for a dream weaver and would love your contributions. You can leave it in the comments below and I will draw a name to win one of the orb spider hoop embroideries on the fourth day of September at midnight.

flipside

I just decided to take a new more positive approach to monday and think of it as the flipside of the weekend. This came to me yesterday as I was working on sewing in all the ends of the crochet covered stones sold on friday. No one even noticed or at least they were too busy clicking to comment that I had not posted any flipside pictures of my stones. Now I am confessing why that was , you see the ends were not sewn in or the stones signed and numbered.  It was beautiful porch weather to work on the custom merfish and with a needle sew in all those ends. 

There were moments when I felt someone was staring at me :)

Now I can show a few good back sides.

I am having a hard time parting with those last two. I think I almost love the flipsides more than the tops. I just had to give homage to the often ignored side in this little bit of ephemeral garden art.

The ladybirds were such a sweet addition. I love it even with out the stones.

My daughter and I packed up all the orders and they will be posted today.

The petals and flowers were released onto the stone bench and a snack of granola and fresh raspberries was prepared when I noticed a very special little friend on the bench. I hopped on quickly, grabbed the camera out of my pocket and of course I wasn't frightened in the least. 

Happy bench monday little miss muffet version!!!

hopeful for an etsy shop update tomorrow at 11 am

How is that for a blog post title. I honestly really want to be ready for tomorrow but it seems that other things are occupying my time and energy right now. I will still aim for that time but I am apologizing already just in case I don't manage it.

I will be doing the one covered stone per person for the first hour of the update. I think it worked out really well last time. I am also going to be offering a limited number of custom merfish or merfish necklaces since I definitely am not able to make that many ahead of time. You will be able to decide on your color of vintage crochet cotton and weather you want it to be a necklace or not.  I will have more detailed photographs up on flickr and here tomorrow before the update so please check back. What is up with flickr this week?  Some of my groups and sets disappear and then reappear later. I do hope they manage to resolve the issue soon. 

After this update I am planning on working on new screenprints, new directions for my art and working through my journal that is brimming with hopes and aspirations.

I have made my first two "layered" crochet covered stones. I used natural shades of vintage crochet cotton and the result is really subtle and lovely.

     

PlushYou Interview

I am so excited to be taking part in the amazing international show for plush known as PlushYou 2009 taking place in Seattle, Washington in October. You can read a little interview with me over at the 

PlushYou blog. Kristen if you ever plan such a camping trip, please count me in. This gives me the perfect excuse to show some more pictures of my little friends that are already on there way to Schmancy or perhaps they have arrived. In some of these photographs you will see an old friend Mungo, the amazon river dolphin. He is one of those things mentioned in the interview that I am unable to part with. At least not yet. It almost happened with the giant pink snail as well but I decided I would just make myself another one. These plush will be available to purchase from Schmancy in October if any one is interested. I will be donating my portion of the sale to Greenpeace.

vintage tea saucers, sea stones and lace

A little departure from my usual crocheted sea stones, but every so often I need a little change. I picked out a vintage tea saucer from my kitchen cupboard and crocheted a little cover for it. So far I have three completed. One day I hope to have enough to cover a small part of a wall, perhaps in the breakfast nook of the kitchen with them. It is a little ironic that I don't really drink much tea, I am a coffee drinker through and through, but who would want to cover their wall with crochet covered coffee mugs??

The heat wave continues and the sweat is pouring off my brow as I continue preparing for the etsy shop update this friday. I think I might just make a pitcher of iced tea this evening :)

Want to join me for a glass?