This small photo is of my grandson in the grocery shopping cart (looking so cute beside the bananas!)





The cart is lined with a colorful item I made. It is a "shopping cart liner"...LOL! It can also be used to line high chairs in restaurants, as you can see in the larger photo. I am now selling these on ETSY....check back for more colorways as machine gets going. [ Or if I can put down my latest mystery novel long enough to be productive!]

Note: these photos show a pink shopping cart liner made for a baby girl and my grandson again, using the liner in a restaurant high chair.


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Tonight friends are coming for dinner, then we have a concert in the park. I will be making Spinach Feta Chicken Breasts.

This photo is from canarygirl. The recipe is there too! [I love being able to find recipes so quickly on-line!]

A fun little sewing project/gift. This is a Japanese knot bag, I found it on "little gem sessions" Helen's blog from New Zealand. She has posted down-loadable instructions. It is reversible, and can easily be made using 2 fat quarters of fabric. I used a Japanese indigo print which had a small dark red flower scattered among the blue and white, so the reverse if the dark red.

[Click on the photo to enlarge.]

More armchair travel.....or where in the world is Rick Steves?

I've just been reading Rick Steve's blog from this last May. He was on a trip for the U. S. chapter of the United Nations Association (but at his own expense!) to Iran. Though I haven't actually traveled much, I have always enjoyed knowing people from other countries, including Iran [I especially love their food!!!].

His trip there will be aired in January on PBS.

Another way to learn more about Iran ( through a young girl's coming of age story) is to watch "Persepolis", the animated French movie which was nominated for an Oscar.

A day in a friend's garden....

Lizzzie and I visited our mutual friend, Sally in a nearby town. Their yard and garden are large, surrounding a blue frame 2-story house.

Of course, I had to photograph the young pear still growing in the tree,

and clothespins on the line!
A guardian "green man" decorates one flower bed.

My friends had on their reading glasses and were looking at antique TashaTudor books.....
I took my camera on a brief stroll around the yard.


After lunch, we stopped in at a tag sale....

Sally and I found this antique "dresden plate" quilt top....very clean and ready for me to finish!!!! [Would you believe for $2.00?]

We photographed all our new treasures, [Sally had found the little set of bird plates for 50 cents] with the layer cake Sally was about to serve us with afternoon coffee!

A happy moment!

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Notice: I am now adding some things for babies to my ETSY! I quess it goes with being a grandmother....one cannot just paint, one must sew for the wee ones!

Yesterday afternoon the weather was wonderful! Even though it was 83 degrees, the humidity was so low that it was quite comfortable. I spent an hour reading outside my back door, in the little garden.



The sunlight was really bathing these potted flowers. I had just given them a much needed drink before taking the photo. Some of them are definitely looking thirsty!
This area is all shade in the morning....

Here the dappled sunlight plays with the "wall" of river rocks from my friend Paula.
The cedar tree has wonderful bark....that is the chair in which I was reading until the sun moved in and took away my shade!



This is my current "pet" plant. It was rescued from the mark-down sale rack in front of a local grocery store about 6 weeks ago. It has since doubled in size. It is some kind of Japanese "painted" fern with soft grey-green fronds, the centers of which have a soft red violet stem. The cobalt blue urn next to it was a gift from my brother who has made some wonderful pottery.

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Today, I will be visiting a friend's garden in a nearby town and will have both my camera and my watercolors with me! So I hope to be back later with an update!

On a different note....I just posted a collage here .

Still quilting and painting.....





Shadow is right in the camera lens again, she has been helping me to pin baste my "Just Breathe" quilt. As soon as I bring it to my Singer 301 and begin machine quilting, she is there to help!





These are two of the blocks from the first "Just Breathe" quilt...given to my brother for his birthday.


Here is the current quilt with the free motion quilting done in varigated thread. [Of course you can't see the thread, but Shadow did finally allow me to get the quilting done!] I am loving the brighter colors, Kaffe Fassett fabrics with others from my stash, and expecially the lime green and the turquoise which "sing"!



This is a photo of me with a quilt I sold a few years ago. It has a very large print by "who else?", Kaffe Fassett, broken up by 9-patches of other fabrics.








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I have also been painting again......first, though, is this painting from classes I took earlier.
We are framing it and using it on our newly painted walls!






Using stylized philodendron leaves and silhouettes of African antelope, I created the " forest".


Extra texture was added by walking on the painting with dark red paint on the soles of my espedrilles and by pressing paint onto the painting with corrugated cardboard shapes.

Below are 2 recent watercolors for ETSY.



An indigo bird with sunflowers and luscious berries....


An old clothespin and a "Rose of Sharon" flower.

And finally, the quilting and the painting come together in this quilted watercolor. Black stitching quilts along black ink line drawing, going through the paper, the batting and the black fabric backing. See ETSY.










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Thursday morning update: see my self-portrait practice and my painting studio here.

A bike ride for a great cause....

My brother has taken up bike riding in the last few years. It has become something he really enjoys and pursues!

There is a special ride coming up which will raise money for MS research. The ride is scheduled for September 6th, 2008 at Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas.

I think my brother has already met his goal but all donations will go toward making life better for those with multiple sclerosis, so more money is indeed better! (You can make a dontation on the secure page from the link at "goal".)

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I am a "Sunday painter" today......

Recent sales of my paintings on ETSY and a local gallery have encouraged me to paint some more today. These two watercolors will be for sale soon on ETSY.

A tunic sewn for a granddaughter who will be 9 this week!

Can't help but think how much I will enjoy seeing her in it later this summer when they come to visit! They are in Colorado with other relatives now, hot air balloon rides for the adults and horseback riding for the children.

Perfect birthday weekend! [Below the granddaughter helping with her baby brother!]

Next is our cat, Shadow placing herself right in the lens....she settled in here as I was trying to photograph the "Just Breathe" quilt which is pin basted and ready for quilting. I think I will try a combination of machine quilting (with my classic Singer 301) and hand-quilting (in the center of the blocks).

I have just posted some artwork here.

I received this "pass it on" blogging award from Loretta at Pomegranates and Paper. I thank you, Loretta!

I am unable to decide to just whom this award should go....any of the wonderful blogs in my sidebar are deserving....and many others, too! If you feel that you have a "brillante" weblog, please add this award to YOUR blog!

Incidentally, Loretta has re-started her "List Friday" and this week we are to list books we are reading this summer. She has a wonderful prize to give away too!

(So use the link above and leave her a comment!!!!)

Cheerful bouquet of blooms from the garden.
It is pouring rain now, helping to grow more flowers and maybe even a tomato or two.... I will spend a quiet day with several library books.
I am reading another Hamish Macbeth mystery, and a John O'Donohue book called
"Eternal Echoes".
I also brought home a novel by Tracy Chevalier, "Burning Bright" about William Blake and London in the late 1700's, an Alexander McCall Smith mystery novel "The Miracle at Speedy Motors" (love this series about Botswana and the #1 Ladies Detective Agency!), and a "Harmony" novel by Philip Gulley who writes about the imaginary small town of Harmony, Indiana.
Sometimes I do check out more that I can read....but we can renew on line with our own personal public library accounts! Or I can return them and get them at another time.
Today does seem to be a good day for reading...of course I have a quilt top to baste and I could begin sewing a wedding quilt for a nephew....but first reading. I need to finish the Hamish story. Off to extreme northwest rural Scotland now!

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Here is a book just coming out this month by a local author. I have read the rave reviews!

The book is "The Word Diet" by Rhonda Bell Holmes. It is a thirty day journal/guide to creating a more fulfilled and faith-filled life. I will have to find it at our local Barnes and Nobles soon. (It is already available on-line with Barnes!)
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Good news just came in the mailbox.....I sold this watercolor painting at a local gallery! Nothing lifts my spirits as much as making and selling my art!

Evening folk concert in the park

Our trip to the gardens yesterday afternoon did not work out so I have no photos to show you now. Maybe next week.

Last night we attended a free concert in the park nearby. It started right after an evening summer shower which produced a beautiful rainbow (of course I didn't have my camera this time) in the dark sky looking east past the gazebo where the band was finally able to set up.

The band, Big Smith from Springfield, MO was here to play, donating their usual fee to our local "Peace at Home" shelter. (Formerly the "battered women's shelter").

They are a modern "hillbilly" family band and the music was wonderful! You can listen to them (filmed indoors a couple of months ago) here on You Tube.

( Photo above from web images...but it is our park. Photo by Slaid Cleaves.)

I always love to watch the crowd....at first it was a bit sparse, but as the weather cleared and the music began, people came drifting in. Carrying their own chairs or blankets, there were some with picnics and ice chests. Dogs of all sizes and breeds (a darling chocolate lab puppy just down the hill from us was getting acquainted with a year old baby girl who had blue eyes and the beginnings of a head full of red hair.)


I always notice the large percentage of redheads in this crowd, Due, I think, to generations of local people of Scotch-Irish descent. ( some of course are not "natural" redheads but many are!)

We are a university town so the crowd is diverse and interesting.... "old hippies", real bohemians (?), dread locks below the waist, faded denim overalls with new tie-dye T-shirts, even a pair of star-spangled boxer shorts worn with red white and blue cowboy boots (both on a slender female "of a certain age"), interesting hats, sandals. I love the long flowing skirts and sleeveless dresses some of the women wear!
Sometimes I spot an family quilt brought out to use for a ground cover (they are enjoying it and I enjoy getting to see it!). Frisbees are tossed nearby....
Fire-flies come out as dusk approaches....but more clouds were approaching too!

Even with the large diverse crowd, we saw few people whom we knew....Mr. Pear, outgoing as always, engaged our local mayor and his wife in a delightful chat just as the storm clouds returned and the concert broke up because of rain, thunder and lightning. Still it had been a fun and relaxing evening!

[Note: all photos are from Google "images" ....I didn't have a camera with me!]

"Wondering"........ (not worrying)

I realize that since I started blogging, I have done less art. [However, I do love posting my art! Seeing it on the screen is very rewarding!]

Now, to get back to to my never fully developed drawing skills (I spent years making quilts and sewing rather than drawing and painting), I am doing some art journal challenges and more practice. We are doing a weekly self-portrait. It is to be included in our journal. This is mine from this morning. I think I have captured my mood, though of course not truly my "realistic" appearance. (we won't go into that...LOL!)

I try to do daily morning pages and the weekly"artist date" from Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way".

Today I am going with a friend, Paula (of the wonderful foxglove garden) to visit fellow quilter/gardeners in our area! Fun!

Below is another page from my art/collage journal. [ Using an add for exclusive drapery fabric...]

This page reminds me of my daughter in her white anklet days! She IS growing her travel website/blog into a wonderful business by reaching for those stars!