resurrection fern

Is Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly?

In my garden mid july brings the fragrant scent of lavender to mind. As I was sitting in my favorite garden chair one day, enveloped in this scent I thought about that 17th century english folk song.. I grew up with the Burl Ives version on a record my parents owned. I got to thinking why isn't it lavender purple not blue because I definitely think of the lavender in my garden as a shades of purple. I decided to conduct a little experiment to find the answer to my question.

I gathered up some flower heads from the two bushes in the garden. I think I have both french and english lavender represented. I added a few ounces of vodka, only ethanol I could find that was colorless in my laboratory.

Sorry about the bad picture quality but sometimes experiments go well into the night. Now I had to heat the lavender infused vodka up a little to extract the pigments , then I filtered the solution into a clear jar with a lid and placed in it a strip of watercolor paper ( no chromatography paper in the kitchen :( ) and placed the lid on the jar. It took all night for the liquid to reach the top of the paper which was about 4 inches tall. I let the paper dry and observed it. What was definitely a light mauve colored liquid in the jar separated into 4 different pigments on the paper. Now I think you might need to take my word for it since photographing this was very difficult and it wouldn't be recognized by the scanner. The bottom was dark green, next a lighter shade of green, then BLUE, and the top layer was yellow. If there is a next time I will have to concentrate the extract first before the separation.

Every science experiment needs a little craft break while your chromatography is progressing . I made a little crochet sleeve with a loop for hanging for a test tube. Makes a great little vessel for a single flower and you can hang it just about anywhere, I might even put one in the car for natural air freshening.

So yes , lavender is blue. and I used to think dilly was someone's name like billy not an adjective . I guess that's why I am not an english major. The last picture of this post is the last item in my knitting with paper experiments and it just so happens to have the color lavender in it. Coincidence???

The Family is growing, The Mushroom family that is

In the beginning there was one, then two and now they are a small family.

Oh , but those aren't the mushrooms you were expecting to see. You want to see the ones that have been created with the materials contained in the magic red suitcase and brought to fruition on the porch.

Here they are all lined up ready to meet you.

Their names from left to right are Nat, Baby Rosie, Marigold, Bess and Aurora. They love to dance the mushroom dance when they get together.

I was thinking about fairy rings and wondered if no one has seen the fairies dancing in rings maybe it is actually the mushrooms themselves that are dancing and making those patterns in the grass and earth. Someone should conduct some experiments to clear up this misconception. I also read that the largest fairy circle in the world is somewhere in france and is 800 meters in diameter. That is a whole lot of mushrooms getting together. If anyone knows where in france this is I would love an email . I would love to see that for myself. A few more pictures and then I have to run to work. A few of these mushrooms are all grown up and leaving home soon so I wanted to make sure I had a nice family portrait before it was too late. Don't you hate when you make something, send it to someone and then say oh my, I forgot to take a picture of it.

Not so Scientific Experiments

I decided to try some little experiments on the weekend after being inspired by the artists on friday. I knew you could knit with a variety of materials but I never thought you could knit with tissue paper. I found some in my very cluttered storage area and proceeded to cut it into strips . I decided based on experience with other fibers and my basic spinning skills to pinch it together and add a little twist to increase the tensile strength of the fiber. It actually works!!!

I can picture a group of these hanging like small flags or bunting for a summer party . Not all tissue papers are created equal for this purpose. My best results were with the yellow one that had a more fabric like texture , I didn't have the original packaging but it may have some rice paper in it. The worst one and the only one that broke was the pale green on that is part of the martha stewart craft line ( sorry martha). I left that one out when I tried my next experiment. Crocheting with tissue paper. I really didn't think this would be possible since you put a lot more stress on the fiber hooking it and pulling it through but it worked as well. I only had a small amount of prepared material left so I made a small object, a paper crocheted ring.

My next experiment came from wanting to incorporate garden materials in a small crochet bowl. I picked some lavender and grass and chose a natural crochet cotton and away I went.

The smell of fresh grass and lavender made that little project a very pleasant experience. Here is my little experiment in trying to imitate nature by crafting a mushroom out of a dried gourd, a crochet cover and a wooden stalk.

That last one is a new species of mushroom called the giraffanita muscaria and it is often found on the porches of homes with a great number of wooden objects in them.

That last picture is to remind you that it is one of the most beautiful times of year to take a drive on a country road , appreciate the scenery and be thankful to the farmers for working so hard to feed us. It is also a bumper year for pinecones and this is the time of year to gather up a few for your home . Please don't take them from the forests , it is makes a lot more ecological sense to gather them from your parks and school yards where they will be destroyed by lawn cutting machinery and not be allowed to reach their potential.

The winner of the mushroom giveaway is Sharon. I have sent her an email and will post the little shroom after I receive your address Sharon. Thanks so much for all the comments especially from all the new readers. I really appreciate each and every one of them and there will be many more chances to win .

Curtains of Rain on a Saturday Afternoon

The purpose of this post was to show you the items I bought at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition on friday. I could have spent thousands of dollars on some incredible art but still have a few children to put through university and hope to have a few family trips in the next year so I had to put my cheque book under lock and key. Here is the vintage book purse I told you about made by the very talented Noelle Hamlyn and her sister helped with the sewing of the lining and zipper.

Because she doesn't waste any parts of the books she also sells these great pins with vintage illustrations and print. They were a steal at 2 for 5 dollars . She even through in a few freebies for my daughter.

I am smitten with this egg vessel I purchased from Courtney Chapman. It wasn't even for sale , she was holding her business cards in it but ask and you shall receive. She said it was from a series of eggs she did for her thesis in fine art at the Ontario College of Fine Art and Design. Thanks courtney and doesn't it look fantastic with some of my nature treasures tucked inside.

Finally a little ink and watercolor drawing of a british naval ship by Dan Rocco, an art student.

Some of you wondered how all this art eye candy would inspire me from the comments on yesterday's post . Well it didn't take long for me to be so inspired by Suzanne Carlsen's incredible embroidery that was so small and detailed to attempt to sketch my little friend with a needle and single thread.

It was tough going because my underpaid model kept wandering off exploring.

I did manage to finish my little snail embroidery. The fabric is from lara cameron.

I also worked on a few colorful mushrooms.

The rain was coming down so hard I had to move the table into the middle of the porch and edgar thought he was a mermaid cat again.

I did manage a short walk to the library to pick up a few books for planning our vacation and I found some beautiful nuts that had fallen off the tree with the rain.

I passed this sign and thought it the perfect end for this post. Have a peaceful day.

Nymphaea odorata Blooms for Only a Few Hours a Day

A few years ago I had the great fortune to visit Monet's gardens in Giverney, France with my family. The above picture was taken there and you can see how he was inspired by the nature around him. Here is a couple of other pictures that I am sure you will recognize if you are at all familiar with his paintings.

Nymphaea Odorata is a hardy white water lily that is very common in ponds and small lakes in our area of Ontario. It is on of my favorite reason to be out in a canoe at this time of year. If you are canoeing down a stream in the middle of the day and a soft breeze is blowing in your direction you will often smell its beautiful scent long before you see the flowers around the next turn. I love paddling into the middle of a water lily garden and then just floating there amidst the beauty and fragrance. To grow in our cold climate they have adapted in a way to only bloom for a few hours a day. In tropical countries water lilies bloom day and night. I am feeling really worn out right now, my mom is very sick and has been in and out of the hospital in the last two weeks. I am taking a lesson from the nymphaea , when living in a harsh, stressful climate one has to adapt oneself to go all out for a few hours a day and then rest and rejuvenate yourself for the remainder of the day so that you can do it again tomorrow. I am going to try that and I will let you know if it works. I searched our local pond to see if I could take some pictures to show you but they aren't quite in bloom yet. I think they will open up in another week. The lily pads and buds looked very beautiful and very monet like.

Since I couldn't find a lily friend in bloom I decided to make one out of felt and knit and felt a lily pad for it to rest on.

Wishing you all a peaceful, restorative weekend. Don't forget to check out elsita's pin party, I almost fell off my chair when I saw how fantastic, creative and colorful they all are. If you are really quick you might even be able to purchase one in her shop but hurry when I last checked there were only 3 left. Honestly I don't know how she parted with any of them.

Making Berries : A very quick craft idea

I love berries but my absolute favorites are raspberries and blackberries. I had some berry colored felt balls lying around in a little bowl and I thought I have seen a great many textile strawberries being made but no raspberries. I took one of the felt balls, matching embroidery thread and proceeded to make french knots randomly placed over the surface. I added a tiny crochet stem loop so it could be hung from a necklace and a leaf. It is so simple but I love how it turned out. I made another purple one.

I picked a plate of black raspberries from the wild garden area on the west side of my home last night. They were delicious !!

Making a Fabric and Crochet Mushroom: A tutorial

Remember this tiny little mushroom I showed the other day and then turned it into a necklace. This is a tutorial about how to make one but I am going to make a larger version to give you a better idea of how it is done. I will apologize in advance for the quality of some of the photographs because I took them as night was falling on the porch.

Gather up your supplies. You will need some fabric circles in any size you want. This will become the cap of your mushroom. You will need to have some picot lace edging , crochet cotton and a suitable crochet hook. You will need either a sewing machine or a needle and thread to sew the picot edge onto your circle.

I have a thing for liberty tana lawn fabric so that is what I used. Now you need to decide whether you want the raw edge of the fabric facing up or down. I like the raw edges showing so mine is facing up. After you have decided you need to start to crochet two single crochet stitches in every hole of the picot edging.

Continue all around the circumference until you have completed the circle. Now continue to do rounds of single crochet until you have gone for at least three rounds.

On the next round start to decrease by making a single crochet in every second stitch and continue rounds of this until you have about 8 to 10 stitches in a round.

That completes the gills of the mushroom and now onto the stalk. Continue making rounds of single crochet until you have reached the height you want for your mushroom. My stalk was about 4 cm long.

Finish off the last stitch by cutting the thread and pulling it through the last loop. I like the threads showing so I just pulled it through to the start of the stalk with the other loose threads so it looks like tendrils. If you want you can finish it off and sew all your threads into the matrix and then trim the ends.

Now the biggest question of the night was to stuff or not to stuff. Such difficult soul searching questions I have to deal with on my porch at night. Well my answer was not to stuff. You might decide differently but my reasons were as follows. If I stuffed it in would not be light weight and airy, I would have to finish the botton and maybe even weigh it down with stones or grain, it would be so much easier to mail unstuffed if I wanted to sent it to a friend, but the most important reason for not stuffing it was that if it had been stuffed I wouldn't be able to do this with it.

I am in love with this little wooden mushroom headed guy. I want to make a gang of them and then put the little mushroom dance from fantasia on . If you don't happen to have little wooden dolls in your vintage suitcase the mushroom looks great on its own or it can also double as a finger puppet.

The light was so much better today that after work I kind of got obsessed with taking pictures of this. It just looked so awesome with some of the other things I have made recently and the flowers I picked on the side of the road yesterday. Here is what I mean.

While I was taking pictures my garden snail friends were trying to get my attention by sending me the snail version of a love note.

I want to welcome any new visitors to my blog this week. Please don't be shy, leave a comment . I love comments so much!!! So much that I think it is time for another give away. So if you leave a comment here I will get my little snail friends to help me draw a name on Monday and if you are chosen you can win either a snail ( the fabric kind) or a mushroom , your choice.

How To Transform a Simple Dress

Take a simple grey dress purchased from Forever 21 this spring ( sorry I don't have a before picture) and one of these. .
Add two vintage lace covered buttons. A needle and thread and a few stitches later and voila.

Add a liberty cotton and crocheted tiny mushroom necklace and I think you end up with a very original outfit.

This is a great dress to pick wildflowers in the meadow and then sit on your porch drinking iced tea listening to the birds.
What are you doing to stay cool today !!!

How to Make a Small Fabric Snail: A Tutorial

Remember these little guys from the other day. They were so quick and easy to make I decided to write a tutorial so you can make some of your own. Here is what you will need : a small strip of fabric or you could also use wide trim or lace, a small piece of rope, crochet cotton , sewing thread, a safety pin , fine crochet hook , scissors and a needle.

Cut a strip of fabric about 7 inches long and 1 inch wide.

Fold the strip in two length wise and with your sewing machine sew it together with a small seam allowance.

Turn this right side out. I usually use a safety pin to do this.

Now cut a piece of rope the same length and run it through the fabric tube using a safety pin on one end.

Thread a needle with some neutral thread and make a few stitches at one end fastening the fabric to the rope.

Now bend the fabric covered rope to start to form a coil and sew through the fabric and the rope to firmly attach them as you go.

Keep doing this until you reach the end of your rope, literally not figuratively.

Trim the rope, this will be where you will attach the head end of the felt base.

Cut a snail like base shape out of felt in any color to match your fabric. It should be longer than the length of your coil so that the head and tail ends protrude.

Place the end of the rope part of the coil just behind the head part of the felt base and attach with a few small stitches.

Make a few more attaching stitches along the mid section of the base attaching it to the coil (shell).

If you don't know how to crochet you could leave it like this or add some little embroidered eyes.

If you do know how to crochet continue on to make the antennae.

Make three chain stitches and then join them to the first stitch. This makes a little bobble for the eye. Continue to make about 15 chain stitches and then make another bobble on that end by joining the last stitch to the third stitch from the end.

Sew in the ends of the cotton thread and then trim. The antennae are complete.

With a few tiny stitches attach the antennae to the head portion of the snail . You can see the placement from this view.

There now you are all done and you can admire your new little friend.

Better keep an eye on her because they like to wander off in search of green moist places.

I think she was looking for the garden snails but they were all hanging out in the flowers today.

But wait one of the garden snails is checking out the felt raspberries I made today.

I hope you all have a great start to your week!!!

Crochet an Orb : A tutorial using a balloon

Yesterday for some reason those string covered balloon decorations popped into my head. I thought it might be interesting to try this with a crochet covered balloon. I decided to made a little tutorial out of it. All you need are basic crochet skills, a large crochet hook, yarn or string ( I used thrifted jute ) , watered down craft glue and a balloon of course.

First blow up the balloon to the desired size. Don't over inflate it because it may break when you are crocheting around it later.

Next make a crochet chain of about 5 stitiches and join into a circle.

Now you can follow the same basic pattern of increases used to make the rock babies and covered stones. After a while don't forget to try it on for size.

I honestly have no idea how my balloon turned into an artist from Paris . Continue rows of single crochet until you have a length about 2/3 's of the balloon length. Now place the balloon inside the crochet net and stretch as tight as possible being careful not to burst the balloon.

From this point on you continue your crocheting with the balloon in place. It sounds tricky but it was actually easier than crocheting with a stone inside because the balloon gives a little to allow you to place the hook in the next stitch. You will need to start to decrease as the balloon's circumference gets smaller. I did this by crocheting every second stitch every second row until I only had about 10 stitches and was near the top of the balloon. I then finished by cutting the jute and pulling the end through the last stitch.

I diluted some white craft glue with a little water and painted the entire surface a few times with this mixture. I left it to dry hanging on a tree in the sun and breeze.

I would recommend you dry it overnight before the next step but mine dried very quickly in the sun. Break the balloon with a needle and then remove it from the spheroid. I crocheted a chain from the top and joined it to the opposite side to make a handle or loop for hanging . I love how it turned out and it looks so natural and organic hanging from the magnolia tree. It kind of looks like the skeleton of a swallows nest. I am going to put a light inside it tonight because I think that might look magical.

If an idea pops into your head, run with it or at least write it down for the future or it may be gone forever. Hope you are all having a great weekend. Tomorrow I am going to post a tutorial on how to make one of those cute little snails I posted a picture of yesterday. They are really quick to make and they are so adorable, so find some fabric, felt and rope and check back tomorrow.

I placed a light in the spheroid this evening and we thought it looked like a magical orb. I just adored the pattern it made on the ceiling of the porch.