the week ahead

butterfly habitat at lavender festival

welcome to Happy Homemaker's post

from the old ranch tour at Chatfield

It's going to be another hot week here in our 'hood.

The weather in Aurora CO
The weather people say it's been in the 90's but in the sun, it feels like 110 to me. Of course once you start to melt, it just is hot.
And humid for some reason, people use the word muggy. Whatever, it's uncomfortable. And there are always some fluffy things blowing around, and the hoa spread pesticides on all common areas so it's impossible to find a safe place to walk the dog. That was Friday, and of course only sprinkles for rain since then.
In a day, it starts sunny and cloudless, then the clouds build through the day, becoming a black mass in the afternoon, then sprinkles, then a spectacular colorful sunset, and hot wind blows.

To Do
go through the first floor and try to put things away. How is it horizontal surfaces attract all kinds of things? Magnetic force? Anyway, it seems hard to find a place to put everyday stuff out of sight, someplace where you can find it again.
Milo's ears are a problem again, so I guess we all have to face the stress of the vet's
I really should mop the floors again, and want to find an answer to the tiles in the bathroom
Make art, and sort supplies again. They tend to have a party when I leave the room and it's like "risky business" in there
bring my nightime novel down to finish the last chapter. I have been so tired lately it's hard to finish this book and I have several waiting to be read.
write a post on the lavender festival, with lots of great pictures
Water the vegetables, even the non producing zucchini which may produce fruit some day... hope
Do something to make my fingernails look better
figure out how to cook the lima bean harvest...

Eating
as I said, I harvested some lima beans. The bush beans were a disappointment as they were tough and fibrous but I googled when to pick lima bean pods, and picked some. You shell them, so I was surprised to see three or two little limas in the pods... lots of waste, and now have about 25 little beans to try to steam in my saucepan pots!
I made iced tea with my cinnamon tea bags, and it was amazingly good! I need to make another batch for this week. Simply, I brew 3 cinnamon black teabags, with three green tea bags, and dilute with filtered water to use for the week.
I saw three little purple eggplants on the plant, woohoo! Success! I googled when to harvest and can start using them anytime. You kind of squeeze them and if your fingermarks leave dimples, they aren't ripe, but otherwise we need to use them. Got a favorite eggplant recipe? They are about 6" long. I think I'll put a ground chicken tomato sauce over them and bake.

reading
finishing up the librarian series, and finished the studio book on disc. Both excellent!
Starting the next Laura Childs teahouse mystery at night, and listening to a Kate Morton book on disc, The Clockmaker's Daughter in the studio. Reading home magazines and then allowing myself to recycle them.
I get the Writer's Almanac daily, it's a post of famous (or not) authors, and what happened on this day back in history. It's an amazing gift each morning to learn so much in a short post!

Watching
TV is just lacking right now. I'm still hanging in with the bachelorette but she's such a mess. She finally explained why she kept one guy around despite his opinion that a woman does what her husband tells her to do, because she felt she didn't really belong as the bachelorette and self sabatoged. The next show should be her in therapy.
I also watch master chef, and IMHO, the judges expect too much from the home chefs. Just because this is season 10, they demand more expertise, and keep yelling at them, "this is season ten! step it up!" well the contestants haven't been on the show for ten seasons, they are new like all of them have been, so to expect any more from them than season one contestants is ridiculous and demeaning.

We started watching Campers on ACORN and only saw the first episode. I'm not sure... it's no 800 words which I still miss.
I'm watching videos on youtube, mainly painting shows, and TED talks. After one TED talk I learned to walk away from certain people and drew this cartoon to remind me...

I found this clever film one day...
This film says it all really... please enjoy, chosen as the film of the year for Vimeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk

Making

I'm trying to draw/paint daily, and learn more about that artform. It is informing my quilting arts too, with painting and drawing on fabric to be stitched later.  My design wall is full of color at the moment, while I design a bed quilt from blocks of color. It's like eating chips, just one more block before I stop for the day!

Experience of note
I talked to friends last week, one in Boston who recently lost her nearly 17 year old dog, and now has adopted an 8 week old puppy!!! yea! Welcome to the world, baby boy Ziggy.
I chatted with a friend in DE who just accepted a position at different university to teach her classes in ethics. I am celebrating with her, because they were not happy in DE and are moving to a great home in MD to be near work and her kids/grands.
My friend Mary adopted a cat unseen, and it's adorable and adjusting to it's new life, and they are adjusting to the new life in the house as well.
I also celebrated with a fellow quilt artist, who had a quilt hanging at Sacred Threads, and got an email from a viewer who was stunned by her work's impact. What great connections we can make when we risk sharing our feelings with others.

I loved sharing these life changing events this week, and I am grateful for the connections I have, because even though each of these friends is in far flung states, we are close in heart.

I'll leave you today with a connection I made with an artist from Texas, showing her work at Cheeseman Park in Denver this weekend. We had a very in depth, very honest conversation as I shopped. Her work spoke to me as being meaning driven. Her jewelry designs, come from her deep love of different cultures, shes an anthropologist by education, and we talked about how we feel in today's world of distrust and hate. It makes us both heartsick, and we both cope often by not dwelling in it. In the span of 10 minutes, I saw her and she saw me, the persons inside the personas, and we relaxed for a moment in the knowledge that we were understood. 

Linking with
pet parade 
cheesy photos at ched curtain
all seasons
https://comedy-plus.com/ Awe Mondays

happy homemaker monday

using my scraps

In this month's color... pink!

This is the last Saturday for Pink at RSC.
I took on a new project, again from Stitchin' therapy. She calls it lattice and uses the sweetest watercolor floral effect in hers.

some quite old fabrics. I love the white with bright flowers one! That's all I had left too!

I decided to do the rainbow scrap challenge colors for mine but use florals when I had them in the scrap bins.

with a few more colors

You need a 5" square, and a 1-1/2" wide by 8" long strip, to make a block. Easy and addictive. Great way to use a lot of leftover strips and squares.

that tulip one was from my first Benartex challenge quilt that traveled for a year (1996?)

Now my blocks are too high contrast I think, but still they are using colors and adding up. I have about 90 made and you need 252 for a queen size. I plan to make them til I'm tired of it and quilt it in sections with basic machine quilting. I need a cute not too bright bed quilt for summer.

what a variety of prints! Blue with blue, yellow with yellow, pink with pink....

94 blocks done!

linking to
can I get a whoop whoop Fridays  
myquiltinfatuation Thursdays
Esther's blog Wednesdays 
Let's be social Wednesdays 
https://stitchallthethings.com/ to do Tuesday 
http://emsscrapbag.
design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays
oh Scrap Sundays
 scrap happy Saturdays

paint party Friday... paper and fabric

 

This week I painted on paper, and fabric.
this is how it looked before the sketching was done

I did a little experiment with neutral colors on fabric, starting with a long piece of white, and two squares.

the first brush stroke of copper paint (SETA color shimmer)

On one I played with curves and dry brushing metallic paint and freezer paper cut outs to brush the paint into a cut out circle, then away from a whole circle.

merely the beginning

 now the two companion pieces I later cut into three small works.

ready for the marker-work

trees just laid on it, it's in progress

I used a fabrico marker to sketch mesas and hoodoos on the bottom of this one, and black markers to create the aspen trees from white scraps. I don't know where it's going but it was fun to play with it.

 

This was dabbing cloth for my brush.... after it dried I stenciled a word, then used gel pen in white and sharpie to do little flowers on it

This week's paper projects

learning to paint leaves in background/foreground

Yesterday morning, I listened to a TED talk and the speaker said "don't try to floss a croc, sometimes you just need to walk away" and I thought of one particular guy in our neighborhood coffee group, who rants at me. Since he only wants to rant not discuss, how I can cope with him. Well, this is my new tack

I Like Thursday #151

Welcome to this week's list of likes! I found this plant holder at Lowes.

by the front door, your flamingo pic of the week!

Lots to like this week around here, starting with the temps dropping from 105 to 90. Yea!

I like that most of my vegetables survived the extreme heat, the zucchini have all but perished, but I have this wee eggplant growing...

it's about 4" long at the moment!

 there is a little pepper and a couple little green tomatoes. I hope the bunnies leave them alone, it would be great to actually be able to have our own vegetables.  The marigolds died, the beans died but some flowers are hanging in there.
I like that I admired my friend Sarah's dill and she pulled a section out by the roots for me to take home.

I wanted to paint it, or try. While I was taking the photo, I noticed it's shadow...

and thought how pretty!

I haven't felt like writing up my stored posts on artists, or my trip to the lavender festival on Saturday

It was nauseatingly hot, but we enjoyed the park, touring the original ranch, seeing the butterfly exhibit,

meeting our friend Monika there, seeing the woven sculpture, listening to music, looking at crafts, and leaving with some peaches. I'll just have to show you some of the terrific pics really soon, as it was photographer's dream.

Of course I had to show you a cow outside the ranch built mid 1800's and lived in by family til the 1970's. I have some cool pics but have to share the sewing machine

I love treadle machines
and lookie at this brahmin bull.. 

What a big guy he was. I asked this guy about him...

and he said the bull just drank 21 gallons of water, stores it in his hump, and is very gentle now but as a young'un he was very naughty. Like a certain poodle around here.

I loved this tubular shaped flower, anyone know what it is?

Joanne in the Netherlands just told me this is "Nicotiana Sylvestris"


I like the book I'm listening to on disc, in the studio. The American Agent, set in WW2, told from the viewpoint of England needing our aid. It's a mystery but teaching me a bit of history as it goes.

I'm still enjoying the third librarian book for nightime reading. I'm loving the TV show Songland, and watching Master Chef.

I liked DH's home made card for our 25th anniversary... a perfect sentiment that he wants to spend all the seasons of his life with me... awe....

I'm painting and quilting like crazy to avoid the heat. I still walk with Milo at least twice a day, but we've taken to walking at 8 pm when it's less hot. I'll do a post on painting (fabric and paper) tomorrow and one on quilt making on Saturday.

Milo's Moments
Hi Yall, I have been playing a lot with my friends this week. Mama trimmed my leg hair even closer so I am cooler. She then trimmed my feet hair, Oh my dog. It was awful...
Mama: Milo! Why do you have to be so wiggly and resist me shaving all that hot hair from your feet? Why do you have to fight with me, and push me with your feet?
Milo: Um... well... I won't hold it against you that you touched my feet!

One day, it started hailing and raining and booming noises so when Mama said, "Look outside!" I ran out, and barked to the four directions, grabbed my toy and came back all wet. I don't know what I was guarding against but I takes care of the mama!

I like having a whimzee every night to chew on, and to sleep on the big bed with my pawrents.

Now visit mama's friends keeping it paw-sitive this week with their own lists!
 http://spiralj2.blogspot.com/

maryinpeoriahandmade.blogspot.com 

https://julierosequilts.blogspot.com/   
http://littlepenguinquilts 

https://scrapatches.blogspot.com/ 

craftscaviescontras    
http://homesewnbyus  

https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/ 
http://imworkingonaproject.blogspot.com/

http://3poodlesandanana.blogspot.com     
https://whataboutrheema.blogspot.com/ 
https://knittingquilter.blogspot.com/ 
  https://quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com/

Linking to
https://magicalmysticalteacher.wordpress.com/ 
https://comedy-plus.com/ Awe Mondays
viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.com/ http://backroadstraveller.blogspot.com/
rosie and the boys nature pics  
http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com
http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/

pink beaded curtain blocks

The beaded curtain blocks in this month's challenge color... pink. When there's a color, I use all tints and ranges from light to dark.

and  cute fabrics all from the scrap bins...

somehow it's not fitting back despite all the blocks done!

 Wonder how these will be set? Will I pull out all the green, aqua, and blue ones? Leaving the pink, red, orange yellow and purple to play nicely? Or put them all in one top?

If they don't become another UFO that is...
Linking to
http://emsscrapbag.
design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays
 scrap happy Saturdays

Paint party Friday.... fabric paint

I like paint... on paper and fabric.
This week I wanted to try fabric painting here in CO. The paint behaves differently on fabric here, maybe the minerals in the water, maybe the drier air, maybe the 105F temps.

I took 3- 12" squares of white fabric, some supplies i a limited palette,  some round brushes, freezer paper covered foam core, & spray bottle outside to a tall table. I like to paint fabric while standing

Using dynaflow in gold, salmon, and fuchia, I started painting big petals, letting the paint colors flow into each other. Watching paint move and blend is very cool to me. The brush above is a fan brush. It leaves little random lines of color, see the effect on the petal below

and the green lines to resemble grass. Some painting was done wet on wet, some dry brushed after the original color dried. No sketching first, just putting down color to see what happened.
Keep in mind, this will look very different with the quilting lines of threads.

the second square was swirled into a knot, then I dropped gold, then salmon then fuchia and allowed to dry, hoping for spiral lines. I didn't see any so I gathered it up a new way

and put it in the sun

and got this

 good for a background for a word, or more stenciling or stamping, doodling with a permanent marker, cutting up and piecing into another fabric.
The final piece was thoroughly wet, scrunched into a ball, and paint basically poured onto it to blend and merge all by itself.

 When dried it looked gorgeous in person, like a batik fabric. I hope to doodle with black thread over it something like the way I doodle with pen on painted paper.

photo doesn't capture the vibrancy

I liked the freezer paper images when I removed the fabric, too!

Saved those of course
The broken image of a flower intrigued me enough to do another day of experiments, this time with very muted tones, but that will be another post. It is a very different effect...
I'll leave you with a tiny daily painting reflecting my mood that morning...

Linking to
Pink Saturday!
 scrap happy Saturdays
http://floralfridayfoto.blogspot.com/
off the wall Fridays
https://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/