resurrection fern

the missing pieces stone making process

I have been wanting to take you on a patchwork stone making journey because for me the process is far more important than the final result. Each step was photographed except the crocheting of the little bits since they were already made earlier and resting in my sewing basket. This stone contains the usual circles of liberty tana lawn fabric but is unique in the fact that it also has some modern screen printed fabric from repeat studio ( arounna and roisin) and also from ink & spindle ( lara cameron). I hope you enjoy this journey.

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have more detailed pictures of the completed stone and some taken in a special location that I will share with you tomorrow. I don't usually name my stones but I have decided to call this one "repeat in red" . To say I am attached to this one would be putting it mildly. 

xo

m

           

day tripping

Yesterday was the perfect day for a day trip. Not to toronto, or the beach, or shopping but to the badlands of Ontario. When my children were young we used to call this sort of thing "an explore" and when I was young my father would say, " Let's get in the car and go look for some haunted houses" , which was his way of saying abandoned homesteads. A friend of mine who had a similar tradition in her family called them "magical mystery tours". Usually there is a general point on the map but no specific plans after that. My destination was the badlands. 

Perhaps you didn't realize Ontario had badlands. We discovered the Cheltenham Badlands quite by accident of one of these explores many years ago. All week I have been thinking it would be such a lovely place for a photo shoot of some new stones. I love the porch photo studio but sometimes it is nice to take your stones out on location. 

 

Those last two are just a tiny glimpse of the photo-shoot. I am really happy with some of the other pictures that I will show you later in the week. ( and i see doing this much more in the future) 

After the badlands I just wandered up and down , weaving through lovely country roads but this caught my eye.

 

   

Brick making heavy equipment from Vancouver and Spain. I would so love to have that rusted turquoise piece at my home, or even just a piece of it like that giant wheel.

 Okay, back in the car, dreaming about rusted machinery and driving on one of the craziest roads in this area of Ontario, the forks of the credit road with two hairpin turns in close proximity to each other. This road will be closed next week for a few months to be upgraded.

By this time it was well past lunch and I was getting a little hungry and thirsty. I was near the town of Alton when I noticed a sign for the Alton Mill and then saw this.

        

It is a car lamp. I got out of my car, and explored the art in and out of the beautifully restored Alton Mill. It has a long history first as a woolen mill in the 1800's specializing in fleece lined long underwear.  It then became a rubber factory making balloons for Disney and condoms to be shipped overseas for the war. We were discussing this at the dinner table and my husband wondered if they ever got these shipments mixed up. We laughed.

The quilt of possibilities was on display here and I was happy to see roisin ( the other genius besides arounna behind the repeat screen printed fabric line). Hers was one of my favorite squares in the quilt. 

Two wonderful pieces by Derek Martin and Floyd Elzinga respectively. I love that giant pine come. It is titled "hope".

More lovely rusty things in the lower level of the mill.

They rent studio space in this building and I they are amazing. I am thinking of doing a workshop here in the fall with Andrea Bird in en-caustics.

   

This piece is entitled "the vastness". I love it.

Have a wonderful sunday. It will be a rainy day today and that should give me a chance to get some planning done.

xo

m 

  

  

    

   

all about our cats

It has been a while since I devoted an entire post to our three cats, Lord Byron, Edgar and Arwen. They are so loving , each in their own special way. Edgar loves to rub you with his head while purring loudly. Arwen likes to lick and when she is feeling a little bothered nibble a bit. She hates being picked up, always has, always will. Lord Byron is the only cat in the house that comes when called, or at least when my eldest calls him. He follows her around like there was no tomorrow. 

that was byron

then those were the ever feminine arwen

 

and then there is edgar who sometimes i believe might be a shift changer or some other sort of magical creature.

this picture reminded me of lisa aaron's most recent art cat

 the poor thing suffered a decapitation but was very carefully sewn back together.

it was a very good thing that edgar's apparent decapitation was merely an optical illusion.

Have a lovely weekend.

         

Mushrooms in vintage thimbles

 

 

I had fun taking these pictures of some of my very favorite things:

vintage thimbles, moss, sporophytes, minute gilled mushrooms, a roadside rescued weathered window frame.

I can't believe it is friday tomorrow. I must get out and explore the forest again before the week is done.       

 

when your smiling

                                                           When you're smilin'

                                                           When you're smilin'

                                                  The whole world smiles with you.

xo

m

these tiny mushrooms make me happy

In a world where everyone seems to be obsessed with "bigger is better" I find my self constantly drawn, sometimes with a little eye strain to the "tiny is tremendous" side of our natural world. Take mushrooms for example. The teeny tiny ones are almost always perfectly formed, colorful and for me at least plentiful. The big ones are usually half eaten by forest mammals, kicked over by pedestrians or covered in an somewhat unpleasant exudate.

These little treasures were used in a special little photoshoot I will share with you later. After a day or two they were dried and still very photogenic.

Oh and I know it isn't monday but here is my tuesday evening bench shot. This is how I relax on a warm summer evening.

 

 

       

rag rug number two

You might remember number one that has taken up summer residence on the porch. It is so soft to lay your tired summer feet one that I have already received a request within the household for a second one. A visit to the thrift store on 50 % off day, the finds were washed, hung out on the line, cut into strips and rolled into a humongous rag ball, whereupon the very large crochet hook was found and the rug started.  A couple of hours later it was completed. 

 

 

 

I love using my giant hook. It feels more like a total upper extremity workout compared to the tiny little hook that just exercises my vision. 

We had some rain this afternoon and after-wards guess who came out to smell the flowers.

Hope your august is off to a great start.

This was the scene on my porch table late afternoon. A new use for a lovely vintage field book from the thrift store, I dare say. My sister, Nina sent me a few vintage crochet books in a lovely pink envelope and I have picked one out to try to attempt to actually follow a pattern. I think it will help me to write them better.     

working on some new prints for the shop

Still in the aqua phase, I have been working on some arrangements for some new prints for the shop. All I need to do is print a few testers and then into the shop they will go later in the week. I might be printing a few larger sizes for my own home, I love them so.

A few more close up views of the embroidered detail in the aqua missing pieces stone taken before I wrapped it up and delivered it to Abigail's auntie.   

  

If you love summer and hope that it will last forever please excuse this last picture taken on my afternoon walk in the forest.

Happy holiday monday for some of us!!!    

sexual dimorphism

In many species, including most mammals and birds, it is the male that is larger and showier that the female of the species. In spiders and insects the opposite it true. I had a very up close and personal encounter with sexual dimorphism in the argiope spider ( orb weaver) on a lunch time walk close to my office last week.

I actually spied this gorgeous lady spider the week before and took a few pictures of her. She was a little nervous and moved away from the center of the web too quickly for me to snap a shot of her sprawled out. Perhaps she was already lying in wait for her courtesan. 

The next visit she was laying very still at the hub of her web and I managed to approach her very quietly without disturbing any of the threads of the web. I took a few pictures from the front but I didn't like the lack of contrast so I approached her from the side. That is when I spotted the little spiderman.

 

Here it is very advantageous to be tiny and nimble. The male must approach the web from it's edge and crawl across it without disturbing the web, otherwise she will think him to be lunch and he will have to fall make a very speedy descent of be eaten. Sexual cannibalism is also prominent in the spider world. He crawls very silently and slowly on the opposite side of the web until he reaches the hub where she lies waiting. The act occurs there and then she may eat him or he may escape by jumping away. 

I hope to visit this dramatic "web site" over the next few weeks to see if it was a success. I will look for evidence of an egg sac and if nature is kind and the spiderlings are able to hatch I will try to catch some pictures for you.

Here is few pictures of a card I made for a dear friend and some flowers just in case you don't really want to be thinking about spiders for the remainder of the day. If you are fascinated by the subject though i would highly recommend the "green porno" series of short films by Isabella Rossellini. Especially the segment where she portrays the little spider man. In an interview for Scientific American , when asked why she focused on insects, she said,

 "Mammals would look too pornographic. With the bugs, they’re so strange and far out, they’re comical. If a human being behaved like a bug, he or she would be arrested. Also, when I was little, I always said I should have been born in Africa or been like Jane Goodall. That was my dream. And then when I moved to live in the country, I discovered all these bugs in my backyard. I discovered you can do your own safari. Animals are everywhere. Some are more romantic, like tigers and elephants and chimpanzees, and some are less romantic, like earthworms, but they are just as interesting."

 

Hope you have some interesting encounters today!!

xo

m