Harvest Season

It's been a month since I've checked in here, and I miss my blogging friends and readers.
But my posts are going to be few between now and May 1, 2013, which is my deadline for a top secret project that I have been sewing madly for since last January. It is hard not to share what I've been doing, but I hope you feel it will be worth the wait.
There are some big surprises in store!!!!

Meanwhile....
There has been a whole lot of gardening going on by my Food Supplier in Chief Robert, and harvest season is upon us....

The deal is, he grows it and I process it.  Pear sauce and tomato sauce have been cranked out in mass quantities, with more to come...

I don't add a thing to this sauce, and I don't peel those tomatoes, either!  They are simply terrific as is off the vine.

Thankfully, once the onions are cured we just store them in the basement.  It was a banner year for the onions!

Same goes for the winter squash.  For some reason (a pre-natal tendency is my opinion), my husband is compulsive about growing all sorts of winter squash: Delicata, Carnival, Ambercup, Marina de Chiogga.  We will be eating off these til next summer. (Shown is a fraction of the harvest, believe me.)

The potatoes are all stashed away downstairs...

But we are still waiting on the Bosc pears...

This is only a part of the tree...I'm amazed at how great a crop we have, considering the weather is so lousy while the trees flower in the spring, and the bees are down in numbers...These will go into the chutney, along with all those peppers we also have coming ripe.  I'd like to try drying some, too.

And after planting some Asian pear trees 18 years ago....we have our first decently sized crop of them.  They are incredible...and it's nice to know we didn't completely waste our time with those trees!
Here's Robert filling a bucket for us...

There are also some out-of-it apple trees that we don't harvest...but our neighbors here are waiting for me to chuck some windfalls over the fence.


That big cow with the horns gets first dibs on everything, that is for sure!


I will check back in with reports of some upcoming travels....off to Columbia, MO next week, and then Wichita, Kansas for the Victorian Stitchery Retreat in November (there are still openings in the classes by me, Judith Montano, and Candace Kling, so contact Valerie Bothell if you can come.)

But....a few more moons will pass before I can blog about my studio work....here is a little glimpse though...can you find the Big Dipper?

Happy Harvest to you all!

Summer Gardening and Sewing

This summer took a heck of a long time to get here.  While the rest of my friends were scorched through June and July, here in the Portland area it has been almost uniformly cool and rainy.  But since the 4th of July we have had some sun mixed in with the clouds at least!

And that means gardening around here.
My husband does almost all of it...I just take care of a few flowers here and there.
Have a look!

This front border is kind of wacky, as the plants are the wrong heights in the wrong places...but the colors are nice!

The dogwood in front has gotten so big since we moved here 20 years ago that I have a lot of shady places to fill...

Little blasts of hot color are nice in the shade.

But the real action this year is out in Robert's garden...

Here are the wildflowers, potatoes, and squash.  The potatoes are insanely good eating this year.

Here is part of his Tomato Plantation...the indeterminate varieties make long vines that he carefully suspends and supports.  This system took years to evolve but this year he has got it down.

The Sungold cherry tomatoes are almost ready....

This bed of brassicas--cauliflower and broccoli--is about done, the cauliflower all harvested and the broccoli flowering...it got away from us before we could harvest it all.  I love its yellow flowers, though.

This is the Fig Plantation.  Robert took cuttings off of our neighbor's fig tree this spring, and has nurtured those little sticks into the baby trees you see here.  It's been a whole lot of work...but he loves fresh figs.

He EVEN is talking about rebuilding our funky greenhouse--which I have been encouraging him to do for years--so that those figs will have a full time place to live in the winter....

I have mostly been sewing instead of gardening...and very happy at it too.

The only problem is, I can't blog about any of it.
This makes me sad...  ;-(  .....but it is for a nice reason.  So you won't be seeing too much of my current work here for awhile.
I of course will keep my teaching and workshop pages current just under my header up at the top of the blog.

Thanks for stopping by....and Happy Summer!

Finishes...and lots of travel

I've enjoyed seeing lots of family in the last few weeks so haven't been too productive in the sewing room.  But gosh has it been fun.  My boys showed me a wonderful time in Seattle last week-end!

(Max went into the html on the blog here and widened everything, making it easier for you to read, I hope!)  Max is on the left...he works as a software engineer at Amazon; Chad is on the right, a senior at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.  They live 3 miles apart from each other and get together often.    That makes this mom REALLY happy!  ;-)

Because I am heading for the Empty Spools conference at Asilomar next week-end, I have some finish work to accomplish.  As "Artist in Residence" I do want to have my most current work to show and tell about.

So "Rainy Spring" is now done....

I took a long time picking out the backing at Fabric Depot, but finally settled on two fabrics to layer together, and aqua poly satin and some glittery netting!  It looks nice and rainy but it does leave a bit of a glitter trail.

To bind it, I folded the back over to the front and stitched it into place, manipulating the fabric in the corners to some semblance of a miter.  I left the edge raw, then covered it with some narrow trim (more glitter!) and a row of herringbone...

I wouldn't say this is aces technically, but I do like the overall effect...from a distance!

So this is now done, except for sewing on the dreaded sleeve!

Now I am working on the Cowgirl CQ....

This is my kind of machine quilting...I simply pinned my top to a washed microfleece blanket from my local BiMart ($20 for a kingsized), trimmed it to size, and am quilting in the ditch with clear thread, strait lines, no free motion anything, even stitches...
I would have liked a slightly better color but BiMart is close and this is going to be a working quilt on a ranch....not precious!  And I have to say that the top quilted onto microfleece this way yields more of a "bedspread" weight than a quiltlike feel, and it is REALLY nice!  I have one on my bed and I love it.

So I'll be quilting all day until my husband calls me out to the garden to help plant the onions...

This is Robert's idea of a blank design wall!

I definitely plan on blogging from Asilomar, so next time I'll be posting from beautiful Pacific Grove, CA...
Bye for now!

Off to the Victorian Stitchery Retreat

I am thrilled to be leaving for Wichita tomorrow to teach "Curved Crazy 'Piecing'" and also "Home Portraits" at the Victorian Stitchery Retreat.  The conference will be held at the restored Hotel at Old Town which looks so cool and inviting.
It will be great to see old friends and meet new ones, enjoy the company of my fellow teachers, and generally stitch like mad for the next four days.

I prepared a new Home Portrait myself to demo and work on alongside my students.

There is a special reason for using a border of antique quilt blocks....I'll tell you about it later.  But they fit the Red Guest House at my cousins' ranch in New Mexico pretty well, don't you think?

I did manage to add a few more (crucial) details to "Hummer's Joy" after we got home from Mexico.  It just felt like something was missing to me.

It needed more dimensional work.  I don't know why, but it did, especially that daisy in the upper right.  I added some oya to the center of the flower bouquet, too.

It sure looked different here at home when we got back from Mexico!

Fall really fell.
I wonder if it will be winter when I get back!

Happy Stitching til then.....

October Flowers

It is very busy around here, buttoning up the garden before the next rains hit...so I'm not getting much time in the sewing room.
There are a few blooms left though....

Love those dahlias!
I've been playing around a little with flower pounding too...wish I had more time for this!

A simple lay-out.....

...turns into this!
I hope to have more on all this in my next post....
Happy fall, everyone!

Tomato Emergency!

There is a lot more out in the garden than this, almost ripe.
You know what I'll be doing for the next several days.....not sewing!

Garden Tour

Our summer well and truly arrived late this year, but this September has been in the 90's and everything is ripe!
Let's have a quick walkabout...

My garden hasn't quite gotten the attention it deserves this year, but those SuperWave petunias always come through.  That vine overhanging the wall on the left is a cucumber!  Anyone need any?

Robert would love to be able to spend more time in his garden as well, but it is still very, very productive.  In this picture are the eggplant, carrots, dill, leeks, onions, tomatoes, and the peppers that got way too much nitrogen from the horse manure compost so they are all leaf and no pepper.  Ooops.
Can you see Pumpy there in the upper right, poking her head up?  Click on the picture to see!

Here's a better shot....

It's been a fun time with Pumpy this summer!

Unlike last year, this has been a great one for tomatoes.  Here is a small vignette from our tomato plantation: these are Sungold cherry tomatoes and are they good!

I just picked these for a friend who LOVES our tomatoes.  The big ones are an heirloom variety called Tiffin.
We broke our personal record with one of them this week.

31.05 ounces!

The pots at the entryway to the house have a little show left to put on....

That chrysanthemum on the right is going to be especially spectacular.  The harbinger of fall.....

I have a very busy couple of weeks ahead....happy September to you all! 

Family Travels and Rain

...not a lot of stitching going on this month but I thought I would check in. We've been dodging raindrops, welcoming family, and visiting family too; as this will continue for another week or two (not the rain, I hope!) I don't expect to be back here blogging until July.

But here are a couple snaps of the "kids"....

My boys, Chad and Max, kicking back at my sister's house in San Diego.
And then all the guys but one (who had to work).....

It's a tradition in the family for them to be photographed lining up, crossing their arms, and looking as tough as they can. This is the face of Twenty-Somethingness in America and I'd say it looks darn good!

My sister's daughter Qwen and Max's girlfriend Esther hit it off immediately and ran off to do their nails.

A little girl energy, yes ahhhh....

We came home to more and more rain. *Sigh*

It's still beautiful in its way, but this weather has the garden in slo-mo.

Hope you're enjoying your June...see you in July!

Last Bouquet...and Vintage Floral #21

No frost here on the west slope of the Cascades quite yet. There are still a few valiant bloomers putting out their last hurrah.

I drink in the color and detail, trying to imprint them on my mind for the long gray winter ahead.

It's a bittersweet feeling!

My flower for #21 is done, not nearly so flashy as the real thing.

They look a lot like poinsettias to me. The way they are placed will make a nice contrast to the other blocks, most of which have their flowers centered in the middle.

If I had time I would join my local EGA chapter and get some better embroidery skills. I am tending more toward the quick and graphic in my stitching, and could use some practice with this kind of fine work....my hat is truly off to the embroiderers!

Vintage CQ...Flower #17

Busy, it has been so busy around here!

Multiply this by about 100 and you'll understand what I mean.
This particular harvest did turn into some great eggplant parmigiana last night...(no broccoli in it of course).

I got my Spoonflower swatches back!
Have a look...

The one on the left is from a picture of a detail of "Crazy for Flowers". It is printed on Organic Cotton Sateen. The one on the right is one of my flower mandalas printed on Bamboo/Cotton Rayon...and I much prefer that fabric. Both color-shifted towards yellow...so when ordering a full yard of fabric, care would have to be taken to avoid that.
But the quality of the imagery and color saturation are just great. And the Spoonflower folks are so nice, too.

My Vintage Flower #17 was inspired by some of these "circus dahlias" (my name for them).

Some dahlia breeder just went wonky, I think. But these are cheerful little guys.
And they inspired this...

The outer petals are angelina...the inner ones are silk ribbon..and there is beading in the center.
The leaves are actually cut out sections of some wonderful jacquard ribbon that Susan Elliot generously sent me a few months back. I just appliqued them on...
I wasn't sure what to put in the center and then of course....a spider! This was a black metal one that I had painted gold long ago....and he waited all these years in my bead drawer just for this moment.

Susan had requested a shot of all the flowers together...so here they are, slapped up on the design wall in no certain order....

I left the photo pretty large, so if you click on this you can get a better view.
I am really enjoying taking my time on this quilt, and like what is happening so far....

That's it for this week.
See you next Thursday!