folk art dolls

I don't know what came over me. I noticed this dollin what appeared to be a bag of folk art, mostly cloth, dolls.

I'm not a doll collector although sometimes I am drawn to cloth or folk art dolls. I bought them without examining all of the contents. It turns out there are 23 of them and my favorite, at the moment, is the one at the top which is one of the ones I found at the bottom of the bag.
Now the question is, what am I going to do with them?

buttons and rows

putting the pieces together

Wrinkled during transport, this is something started

on New Year's Day that has been languishing since then. I'm in the process of adding more pieces to the "puzzle" and then I have some embellishments in mind. 

uncontained

A few beads are following the trajectory of the pattern but are not contained in the center of this atc.

Mollie is happy on the dock but would sneak away for a walk in the woods if she could get away with it.

don't know where

this is going but lately I've been working on these. I'm still making them.

And enjoying our flowers.

cloth collage for Mrs. Moen's tcc

Today is June 1 and this is the result of my cloth collage for Mrs. Moen's table cloth challenge.

Using an embroidered tablecloth as a base, I added vintage nine-patch blocks, crocheted doilies, yo-yos, bits of fabric, beads and buttons.

pathways and spirals

A continuation . . .
        of squares and pathways . . .
             this is not the final setting and since this photo I've completed a couple more blocks. I like the spirals that are appearing.

In bloom are . . .
roses
peonies
honeysuckle and serviceberry
iris
and more

our seeds are sprouting nicely . . .

                        snapdragons

  zinnias

full flower moon

According to the Farmer's Almanac, May's full moon is known as the "full flower moon" because "In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon."


This month for Bea's full moon art doll challenge I created a small full flower moon art doll pendant. She's made of glass, seed beads and repurposed jewelry pieces. She's embellished with Austrian crystals and fibers, and is suspended on a chain with charms and beads. One of the charms has a particularly appropriate quote.

This is the back.

cloth collage

I'm still working on it but over the weekend made a bit of progress on Mrs. Moen's tablecloth challenge.

It seems to be evolving more as a cloth collage than as a quilt.

wedding present

 This time for Amy's virtual quilt festival I've decided to share photos of the quilt my grandmother gave us for a wedding present almost thirty years ago. This one is also particularly special because it was started by her mother (my great-grandmother) and my grandmother completed it as a gift for us.

The pattern is "Grandmother's Flower Garden." 

We used it as a bedspread and carried it to the paint store to make sure the colors we painted our bedroom matched (or at least worked with) the colors in the quilt. Unfortunately because our antique bed was made of brass, iron and bronze, there are some rust spots on the quilt where it was tucked in at the bottom of the bed. It has also been washed a few times, carefully soaked in a tub with a special cleaner for quilts, and then supported by milk cartons outside to dry. So despite our best efforts, it needs a few repairs, so I've been thinking about collecting pieces of vintage fabric to replace some of the worn and stained sections.

industrial chic by Susan Lenart Kazmer and aquamarines

I'm having fun with Susan Lenart Kazmer's industrial chic pieces.  I must be Michael's most frequent customer although this is the first piece I've created using a couple of her components. I added wrapped aquamarine chunks (my birthstone) and hinges wired with glass beads.

changes in approach

As usual I have several ongoing projects. This most recent one involves using up some of the fabric foundation bases left over from the little hopes atc workshop in March. I've started making some in the same color scheme and plan to attach them together as blocks instead of creating them individually as atcs. Gold, green and purple are an unusual color combination for me.

They will probably be combined as one long piece, as will the shards and squares project.

A robin continues to try to fly into our dining room window. When it settled on a perch in the tree outside and seemed content to try to just look in instead of flying in, I took photos but I don't think any of them turned out very well. This is the best one; you can see the robin.

industrial chic by Susan Lenart Kazmer

This week I've continued to work on the 10 blocks of shards and squares. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to divide them up into two separate pieces of six and four blocks each or put them together as one long piece.

In the meantime I've been to Michael's where yesterday finally Susan Lenart Kazmer's line of industrial chic has been put out for sale.

shards and squares

This is the project I worked on last week while riding in the car to and from Massachusetts again. Since most of this trip was at night, I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped. For some reason I've ended up with 10 small blocks, some of them with squares and some with strips that I'm thinking of as shards.

past imperfect

Last week I made some progress on Mrs. Moen's tcc. The base is an embroidered tablecloth and I've added vintage 9-patch blocks and crocheted doilies. I'm thinking of it as an "imperfect past" since most of the items used are vintage, handmade, and imperfect.

Ironically the day beforeour lovely tree lost a huge limb due to heavy wind, I was outside photographing it and the snowball tree in the backyard. 

revisiting circles

"And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on a carousel of time

We can't return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game."

 (Song "The Circle Game" by Joni Mitchell)

This wip was started a few months ago and I finished adding a few more embellishments and quilting it during a long car ride to and from Northampton over the weekend.