slow sunday stitiching ~ august 18, 2013

thinking of you Kathy.





it's sunday and i went back to work on my flower garden quilt. during the week i sewed  the necessary background hexies to the unit i wanted to add next so it was all ready to sew directly to the growing main body of the piece.  






slow stitching means slow progress but it definitely grew. if you are interested in seeing more slow stitching or in sharing/showing what you yourself are slow stitching then hop over to Kathy's Quilts for today's Slow Sunday Stitching event.


  



later on this evening i will get the label made and sewn onto my doll sized random sampler. i'm not sure why i always put labeling off but i won't cross this piece off of my list until the label is on. i need space on my list . . . more about that next week.

 

 

i know that this is not the best photo and you can only imagine the amount of cropping that i had to do but i am very excited to announce that i have baby fish in my pond~! they are fast, nervous and really really really TINY so getting a better shot was more than i had the patience for.

this one was in the process of darting from under one lily leaf to darting under another. the bigger fish in the pond don't have any problem with eating their own and so only the fastest, smartest and luckiest fish survive. in fact, i've had baby fish during almost every summer season but rarely do they live to be part of the regular population.

 

i discovered my baby fish while i was in the process of checking up on five new fish that i've purchased for the pond. they are only feeder fish size and mostly white. i'm happy to say that so far, they are all present and accounted for. i was careful to buy fish that i could identify in some way so that i could keep better track of them. so it was an additional surprise for me to find yet another mostly white small fish. this fish appears to be a surviving baby from earlier this summer(?). it is actually a bit bigger than my new five and luckily has slightly different markings than the rest of them.  i hadn't seen it until it started to hang around with them which is amazing given how much time i spend by the pond watching the fish. i was quite confused until i finally figured out what was going on.

i suppose it felt that there was strength in numbers and that with new fish friends in the pond that were closer to it's own size it could safely come out into the open.

 

happy days in the late summer pond~!

 

recent gifts include:

• the population "explosion" within the pond
• time in which to resume some art journaling
• my daughter's trip to (and safe return from)Ireland
• the doctor's approval of the continuing health of my new hips
• fresh summer fruit

 

 

Texture Tuesday/7-26-11

good morning. the texture tuesday challenge this week is 'Dream'.

Free To Fly



i've used a recent shot, a layer of 'not too shabby' and a quote that i like.
the layer is a freebie from the very generous and talented kim klassen.

today's gifts have included:

• a few extra minutes of sleep
• the beloved ritual of watering/tending the houseplants
• frozen grapes on a hot summer morning ~ yummy ~!!~

i've finally sewn on the borders to the broken dishes top that i've been working on. next i will be working on stitching the (scrappy/pieced) back together.

i don't currently have a design wall set up so you are seeing it laid over a guest bed. my apologies. i hope to be able to get a better shot of it later on . . .

this is a photo i took of some of the embellishment choices for the current fabric postcard that i'm working on . . .

and this is some of those same bits sewn on. i hope to be binding the card today and getting it ready to send very soon.

i meant to have these things done yesterday but there was a problem with the pond that demanded my immediate attention. the hose that connects the pump and the filter somehow became separated (the neighbor's dogs perhaps . . . ?!) which resulted in the water being pumped out of the pond completely. unfortunately that pretty much threw the rest of the day's plans out the window. the good news is that despite having all but a few inches of water pumped unexpectedly out of it, the losses were fairly minimal and it seems to be back to relative normalcy today. i'm grateful that i was here, caught what was going on and was able to handle the situation well enough to keep damages minimized.

i have been having some trouble at times leaving comments . . . is anyone else having this sort of problem? i suspect that it has something to do with bloggers new spam control but can't really say for certain as there seems to be no consistency.

last night it rained. and rained. and rained. i expected our temps to dip into the freezing zone and i would wake up to snow but that did not happen. instead i woke up to partially cloudy skies and some sunshine trying to break through so i went out with my camera to see what i could see . . .

at first glance things look bleak as there have been some frosts (earlier this fall) and the plants are all brown and droopy. but i simply cannot look through that lens without it being set to macro and so discovered a multitude of seeds. when looked at this way, i decided that i could be grateful for the many and varied "promises" being made by the garden to enchant me once again after their winter rest.

the ornamental crabapple tree is just loaded with tiny little fruits that are getting redder by the day.

these fruits are about the size of a marble and the birds are going to have plenty to feast on this winter.

some have fallen to the ground and made their own colorful poetry.

thank you to all of my readers who left such understanding and comforting thoughts on my last post. i have discovered that one of my gratitudes is the friends that i have made via my blog.

yesterday i discovered that i am the very lucky winner of a blog giveaway~!!!~yiipppeeeee~!!!~i participated in a giveaway hosted by Eileen of Keeping it Rural in Wisconsin (http://ruralwisconsin.blogspot.com/ ) and it's been promised that it holds some surprises, but i do know that there are vintage linens and ephemera handpicked from her very own antiques and collectibles store~Wellers (http://www.wellerstore.com/).

of course, all i can think about is what sort of wonderful art i can morph these goodies into . . . a package is on it's way and when it gets here i'll be sure and share the details within my blog. until then you should make a point of stopping by her charming blog as well as the Weller website to see what is going on. i understand that the store merchandise changes daily and is overflowing with fabulous collectible treats of every kind~!!~

speaking of art from ephemera: earlier this week i received a package from Viv Sliwka/Hensteeth (www.hensteethart.blogspot.com). i placed an order from her etsy space and am quite thrilled with, not only her work, but her incredible customer service. for those of you who don't know of Viv's work you really must take a minute or two (or five or ten) and visit her site. it's chocked full of fabulous handmade goodies that have the sweetest whimsical nature about them. her art is a treat for any eyes~!!~

i went out into the garden today and was overwhelmed with the enormous amount of tomatoes that i have ripening. i think there will be some canning/preserving in my upcoming weekend~!!~

and check out the size of that zucchini~!~i don't know how it got overlooked but once it was finally discovered it was promptly picked~! it's ginourmous~!!~

i also met up with cricket, our calico kitty who wanted to help with the gardening glory. isn't she a sweetie~!?!~ looks can be a bit deceiving though . . . she used to be an inside cat until she became very territorial and especially honry with gracie, another one of our cats. in the end, the only way to make it work out short of finding some new homes for both of them, was to make one of them a house cat and one an outside cat and keep them separated at all times~!!~ cricket actually prefers being outside anyway and as long as she has the shelter of the garage at night and during bad weather seems quite happy to be the queen of her own kingdom. meanwhile gracie sits in the windows and makes faces and hissy noises through the glass at her every time she gets the chance . . .

a couple of weeks ago i posted some shots of mayflies hatching from our pond. i've recently been able to capture shots of what looks to be either a dragonfly or a damselfly doing the same. in the top photo there are some fantastic details that can be seen, especially if you click on it and look at the larger version of the shot.

it seemed to be a lengthy and difficult process for the dragonfly and at times it would just hang limp and exhausted from the "skin" bit. in the lower photo you can see the papery shell that it has nearly completely labored out of. just a bit of one wing to go . . . unfortunately i did not get to witness the end of this drama as i had to move on to other things that needed doing. i noticed later that evening that it was gone and am assuming that all went as it should have for this "baby" dragonfly.

i continue to make good progress in rearranging my schedule for more art making. i do still have to work on giving some things up and deciding just what my priorities are . . . it's tough when you like doing everything~!!~!

this week i managed to get six tulips done and three crumb pieced nine-patches.

the nine-patches take a surprising amount of time due to the crumb/string piecing of the "darker" squares. these will measure nine inches when sewn up.

i've also begun to sort out the very smallest scraps so that i can streamline them into a project and make them useful too . . . was going to brainstorm that this afternoon but am running out of time . . . please feel free to share ideas if you have any.

the Christmas card (#4) that i was working on last week is now bound and complete. i went around the edges with a machined zig zag stitch in a variegated thread (Christmas colors). time to start working on # 5~!~

i have been working on my SPA postcard and this week's theme is "school".

while thinking about what i wanted to do i was remembering what my own favorite things were about starting a new school year. i know for some it was all about getting a new pair of shoes. i did not grow up wealthy. my parents both worked hard providing for our family and although there was always "enough", brand new shoes were not a part of every new school year. so what got me excited was that new box of crayons that i would get at the beginning of the year. that was back in the day when the school still provided those supplies . . . new crayons, new pencils, new erasers and once in a while a few colored pencils(!!!) . . . and the books . . . i was a voracious reader~!~ so share with me what memories you have of school. i want to know what you did or did not enjoy about school. what year you remember as being particularly good or eventful in some way and why . . . were you a social butterfly or more the wall-flower type? or maybe you were one of those rebel types that the rest of us wished we had the courage to be . . . in the meantime; i'll work on my postcard and you can pop back in on sunday and have a look.

Sunday Postcard Art/Botanica

this week i was so inspired by the theme for Sunday Postcard Art that i decided to make two paper postcards. both cards use plants/flowers that i pressed myself and a bit of map that is from a nearby area. i aged the map with tea/coffee and added faux postmarks as well as some brick colored ink to the edges. on the second card i created a tag with "Ephemeroptera" on it which i thought was wonderfully serendipitous: read my previous post regarding the mayflies discovered in my pond.

www.sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com

Life Emerging

this afternoon, with camera in hand, i went to sit by the pond just to see what i could see . . .

a small bug dive-bombed into the water and was struggling. i stuck my thumb in and under it in order to bring it out with as little damage as possible. and started snapping shots with my other hand. when it was in the water i thought that it was possibly a lacewing . . . you can see by the above shot that it was very small and the only reason that you can see it's details very well is because i was shooting in macro. and because of this, you can see that it's actually a very tiny dragonfly~!~

eventually it dried off enough so that it's wing was no longer stuck to my thumb and i gently placed it beside the pond among some small pebbles so that it could continue to dry off.



in the meantime, i took LOTS of photos~!~

at some point it was laying on top of a pebble in this superman position that you see above. i have no idea why, except maybe the surface was warm and it was trying to make the most of the situation. it stayed there like that for quite some time.



i know that i have included quite a few shots here and you may find this pretty boring but i was totally captivated and took more than 200 shots while watching this all happen . . . you should be able to click on any one of the shots to see details if you are so inclined. i have tried to include various perspectives for those who may be as fascinated as i was.

by this time even i was beginning to get a bit bored and it seemed to be wandering about quite a bit so i expected that it would eventually fly away . . .

and it probably did. my attention was back on the edge of the pond momentarily . . .

when i happened to notice this little swimmer. upon looking closely i thought that it looked quite a bit like the insect that i had rescued earlier. but there were a few differences . . . such as i couldn't see wings and the tail end of it had three long whisker like bits rather than two AND it seemed to be swimming about quite proficiently . . .
the shot isn't as clear partially because it's actually under the water but if you look closely you will see the differnces too.

i was pondering these differences and wondering what i was seeing when suddenly this little "being" bobbed straight up to the surface and split wide open and flew away~!!~ all of that took a split second and i was quite startled by the whole event.

and this empty bit of outer shell was all that was left . . . floating on the water . . .
i'm guessing that the first one just didn't have quite as successful of a launch and once it's wing was wet it was in trouble. the second one flew quickly off, up and away . . .

check out those ultra tiny hairs on the whiskery end bits. no wonder it was such a good swimmer while still in the "shell"~!!~

i'm so very delighted that we have this life cycle in our pond and that i have now seen a part of it that i had never seen before~!!~and with my camera at the ready, no less~!~

UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE

it's a mayfly~Ephemeroptera~!!!~

i have such terrific readers~!!~THANK YOU all for your interest and support and for the wonderful additional information that you have contributed.

Eileen of Keeping it Rural in Wisconsin (http://ruralwisconsin.blogspot.com/ ) has added: http://www.earthlife.net/insects/ephemer.html

and

jonskifarms (http://jonskifarms.wordpress.com/) has added: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Ephemeroptera.html as well as: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/glenn_firebaugh/0374alt.jpg/view.html

****by the way: don't you just love the latin word for it~!!!?!!!!~ Ephemeroptera . . .

definately going on my list~!~