Thursday, July 10, 2025

I Like Thursday # 459 hammocks jokes flowers donkeys

 

welcome to this week's list of small likes... starting with the first two blossoms on my own potted plants

they are small, but that color! whee! I love color! and flowers, I love flowers

I saw this in a neighbor's garden

Not in my yard but very pretty....
I love these tall flowers

and donkeys in the next community over

Helloooooo auntie LeeAnna! 
we stopped to admire these two donkey babies.... and they were romping all over their pasture!! Chasing each other, running and kicking up their hooves behind them in a sort of donkey "grand jete" 
(any other old ballet dancers out there? )

Their owner came to chat with us a bit, he's just so nice. I asked about bringing them a carrot.... but they are on a certain diet controlling their sugar so , no, but they ran to the fence to greet me. 

there are a lot of these around the 'hood

sometimes they watch us walk by, sometimes they 'hare off'  thru the smallest opening in a wire fence like the shape changers they are! 
I couldn't get a photo but when I was standing just watching nature in my back yard, a robin hopped toward me around a bush and then stopped to consider what she was looking at. 
She took one more step looking right at me, tilted her head this way and that, and I swear I saw panic grow in her eyes. I said softly it's okay, and she flew off to the fence. 

A neighbor of mine in Maryland was a critter whisperer.... they were safe with him they knew 
Another lawn ornament

a selfie  

Already in the 90's early in the morning, the sun here at high altitudes is intense, I look for shadows and noticed myself. ( trying to stay in the small bits of shade but not many trees thrive here) 

Baking happened again


baking this weekend, hamburger buns, and strawberry and cream muffins
muffin recipe here
a loaf of sandwich bread

some sewing with scraps happened


 


a runner on our credenza in the early morning

TV is being watched, books are being read and heard on audio



(American Big Brother starts tomorrow on tv)

Our conversation starter this week is : Hammock or digging in the garden? Hmmmm??

I'm not sure I can navigate a hammock now, but when I worked at the Florida Renaissance Festival I bought two sky chairs that are sturdy canvas hanging chairs and before my back was so fragile we hung out in them a lot. 


Not that my back allows me to dig in the dirt but I just love a garden with flowers 

our summers are so intensely hot even tomatoes often refuse to fruit, and I'm still waiting for native wildflowers to bud but in my heart I'd love a garden with a mix of flowers and vegetables
I looked out the other day and my yard bunny was sitting right in the center of the lettuce raised bed. 
Thanks Mom! 
what about you? I love to read your comments and stories on our prompts!

some funny short videos 

do you snack while watching tv?? 

https://youtube.com/shorts/M-m00bguBNY?si=4cHR5e6olRA1hkZ2 

so fun! remember jump rope?? 

https://youtube.com/shorts/zXcFCLbayM0?si=adCDslatf3moufCO 

that's enough for today, and I leave you with one more pic

The End
please visit these folk to see what they liked, and if they prefer hammock or gardening this year


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Saturday, July 5, 2025

creatively speaking this week, awaken to the possibilities

 

July is a new month, and a new color of scraps to use....Purple! 

for a while purple was my favorite color. I got a purple camera, purple phone, wore purple clothes

Above is an image of my prep for another hexie spiral block, to work on at night 

First choose fabrics to use, cut 2.5" squares, next baste fabrics to the shapes

I wonder if you feel like I do when you finally finish a quilt... like you finished a term paper... relief! 

and a slight let down in the push to create...

so I took out my purple scrap bin and the smallest scraps and some parts from prior sessions

and sorted them into some order


 

 

sewing a tiny improv strip of rectangles to get into the process again

 


pulling out a runner made over a year ago


and thinking, what a fun/clever use of scraps, machine quilting and hand stitching/beading! Oh it's my work!  so I brought it down and put it on the credenza for July

the sun is making it look washed out
pulled out one of the coasters I made years ago in MD. a fabric collage
and pulled out this painting on fabric I did 2 years ago now, it's prepped for machine quilting

love the use of stencils paint and inks... just need to finish it
I stitched some rows of this one together, and have a few rows pinned to decide if I like it...

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Thursday, July 3, 2025

I Like Thursday # 458 picnics, reading, lawn ornaments, robins


 welcome to this week's list of likes, summer edition! Brought to you on a heat wave!

I started with another neighborhood lawn ornament... cute red truck with strong sun lighting it

I like the view out of our sliding glass door to the patio, Milo's toys are still here, I miss him so

On a walk this week I startled a robin ahead of us,
I said, don't mind us we'll be walking straight ahead on this sidewalk
Robin: what? I don't speak human!! I need to catch a worm so stay back!
so she stayed 6 feet in front of us down the sidewalk, just walking ahead and stopping til we almost catch up
Robin: ARE you kidding me? still coming this way
Me: well we don't want to walk in the road Missus
Robin: (hopping forward another 6 feet) Yikes! why are you chasing me? 
Me: hop in the grass so we can go by then! We don't plan to hurt you, and we had breakfast already
Robin: FINE! I'll have to fly to the fence, and don't chase me again

Then we come around a corner and see this
BWAaahahahaha, a herd of dachshunds dragging a man. They were adorable and all went a different way around the light pole on the corner, causing the guy to do a lot of maneuvering to get them untangled. They were a happy group and made me gleeful

loved these roses in full bloom along the way!
we baked last weekend, 
lemon blondies, chocolate chip/oatmeal/pecan cookies, and croissants

Recipe for cookies is in Gasparilla Cookbook, lemon blondies (jenny can cook) whole foods for croissant dough
I much prefer our own baked goods to store bought full of corn syrup and soybean oil

created a summer mantel scape with a pretty silk garland, a pathos cutting in water in a vase, some glittery butterflies, and little white lights
garland from Lowes 
I love to paint....

one of my index card paintings 
REALLY enjoying this book on audio
beautifully read, wonderful plot and characters, mystery of a friend group, and the family figuring it out 

LOVE these wall stickers 

Flower stickers at amazon  

Love to finish art quilts  this one is done and lovely to see... Spring Green Leaves 

Our conversation starter this week



do you like picnics? Are you a sit on a blanket on the ground person, or a table outside? Tell us about some picnic that stands out in your memory ( who was there, foods, time and place, etc)
I remember many beach picnics where my food was coated in sand,  and a couple as an adult where you put your blanket on the ground, to listen to a concert while you ate. 



as a child, we had some birthday parties at Lowry Park in Tampa in the pavilions on concrete picnic tables. 
Then there were   

I remember a lot of pot luck picnics growing up, such as family reunions, church groups, and always a great variety of food to share. 


We loved taking car road trips where we would often grab a lunch to have along the way at roadside tables, with our dog. I like eating outside but roadside picnic tables can be dirty, people being what they are, leaving trash. 

I am not one for sitting on the ground now.... but have some fond memories especially sitting under the stars, drinking wine, and listening to an orchestra while having fancy snacks

Please enjoy these fine folk's list of likes this week and let me know if you also wrote a post to include

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Saturday, June 28, 2025

creatively speaking, this week there was color, a start and a finish, drawings, Index card paintings

Spring Green Leaves  26" X 26"

 I will start this week with quilt making...

I've been working steadily on the Spring Leaf piece and it's now finished (needs a hanging sleeve tho) 

I will show some detail shots in a minute,

I got out my orange scrap bin, the bag of really small bits in a bin of small scraps, and saw tiny half square triangle blocks someone gave me a while back.... I began playing with them, now appreciating the more subtle colors.... and ended up making this

I had to make a few more from my stash that blended in well, and dithered over the arrangement of what I had to work with. 
I fell in love with the background fabric,  I liked how the lines of color extend with your view and that a simple block becomes more if you repeat the background uniformly. 

I like the interplay of paler orange and red orange against the tan background (that has flashes of blue) and that the top and bottom border doesn't have to match exactly in a seam to keep the eyes moving
But oh my, what next? I quite love it, and want to build it up but how??

I also added the unused strip set from Spring Greens to another strip set in the parts dept
This has potential
Back to Spring Green Leaves
I chose a simple sparkling green binding 
I was amazed that it laid flat and square, with all those tiny biased edges. I am kind of in love with it's merging of modern with scrap quilting and it's a lesson in more is better. All shades of green. 

A wide variety of color makes it richer, just like in life


using the quilting lines to continue a scrap of colorful flowers in the scraps



A mix of piecing and applique



positive and negative shapes repeated all the way through quilting in leaves
at the end I added in leafy fabric bits, raw edge and quilted over to continue the lines






I was able to paint some more ICAD (Index card a day ) prompts

I do these as my morning pages often, which means they are quick 
The prompts were hydrangea, Arrow, sorbet, midnight, twig, and yellow
Pitt pen

for some reason my Inktense pan inks wouldn't darken

sorbet was done with gouache, and I like the way the texture on the icy balls came out, not the orange slice but then these are an exercise in inspiration. Learn and move on.


attempt at impressionism with gouache paint

for yellow, I wanted to try to capture a bit of Klimt... the posture and hair were hard, and I like the dress being form fitting. I think I finally got the body proportion better. 

I was looking at old photos online, and came across Lilian Gish... lovely with those shadows that black and white studio portraits gave
I wanted to capture the tilt of her head and missed the nuances... dh came out of his office and looked and said, " her head isn't tilted down" (I know.... maybe next time)
He likes my drawings and paintings though. I learn with each attempt and though this is just a pencil sketch on copier paper I went back a couple times to erase, or tweak, or re-shade an area. I like how the blouse came out, the proportions, and the mouth looks like the actress


Thank you for visiting, and I hope you continue to encourage your own creativity


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