Earth Day

So, okay, I am celebrating Earth Day, after washing all my windows with environmentally safe cleanser....

by hiding indoors from a huge thunderstorm! The Earth is talking back, right? Making its feelings known with a little tantrum just for us here at the beach.

I was out walking, after my stint of spring cleaning, admiring the wind, waves, and beach treasures from recent storms. And suddenly I took a good look at the sky and thought, Oh wow, it is almost May. That might be a thunderstorm. And I scampered home just ahead of the lightning, so dangerous to anyone walking on an open beach.

I love the odd green color of the waves that is often seen before a thunderstorm.

I consider myself a recycle, upcycle artist...incorporating vintage fabrics, found objects, antiques, and beach-combed treasures into my designs.

What would I use for my collages if there was no flotsam and jetsam on my beach? Is there a line between good trash and bad.....?

I have a dear friend who is a far better recycler than I am. And when she comes to visit me at the beach and we go for a shoreline hike, I know I must bring a trash bag, as she will energetically pick up every bit of trash she finds.

And I respect that. But there I am with my Swiss Army knife and canvas tote, pockets full of my found treasures, recycling stuff in a positive, re USE-ing way.

Both points of view work for me. I want to find shells and seaglass and driftwood,

...not yogurt cups and tampon applicators (the worst! why has no one targeted that industry!?!).

Recently I've found unusual items----a small signal flag or pennant; a round nail keg lid. And today I salvaged a bunch of colorful beads from a mess of fishing line. Perhaps they and the rest of my beach beads will decorate a quilt someday?

Then we have the large---huge, really---wads of nets and rope that appear each winter. An artist featured in Coastal Living, Pam Lombardi, has made it her art form to document these weird travellers!http://www.coastalliving.com/lifestyle/people/coastal-hero-pam-longobardi-00400000064091/

This week a grey whale was autopsied on the West Coast: scientists aren't sure yet why the whale died but its stomach was full of plastic trash bags, balloons, a surgical glove!---even a golf ball. Is that not so sad?


I recycle, of course. This trash here, that kind there...and then it floats back to shore from where it is dumped?
Often seems that way.
And when I ship my treasures from my etsy or eBay shops, I try to use recycled boxes and re-used bubble wrap. I am "famous" in my family for my reused, carefully ironed tissue paper and plastic bags---saved from the drycleaing and other wrapping sources.

This Saturday is our local Clean Up the Marshes Day--- Isn't it beautiful! No wonder the first colonists to our Eastern shores saw the wetlands as pasture and grazing sites.

The storm has passed now---the rain remains. Mother Earth is weeping.....


Save our Earth and Oceans! Please help!


love


 lizzy

Flea Market Finds

Sunday was such a perfect day for the first BIG flea market of the year. Throngs of dealers and buyers, so fun!

But isn't it funny---I always end up buying from the same half-dozen people, much as I enjoy carefully searching the dozens of tables and tents.

At first walk-thru  I was a teensy bit disappointed...seemed like lotsa people spent the winter clearing out the garage and basement, bought a space and were selling granny's old junk! And the man who sells very antique Staffordshire china, sometimes with the Christie's auction labels still on, was nowhere to be found.
And I even had money!

But then, aha! I found the guy with the shabby old white linens and buttons mixed with his other stuff....

Found this great tin of mother of pearl buttons!

The buttons are large, carved, chunky. Primitive. I am guessing quite old.

And later I found this wonderful matelasse coverlet in a box shoved back of his van.

It was so age soiled I didn't want to really touch it too much...eeeewww.

I had it earmarked for salvaged fabrics for white hearts.

I never saw the fabulous hand-crocheted fillet lace edge---HEARTS!--- til I got it home and began airing it on my sunny deck.

Boy, did I negotiate a deal there....so beautiful. And it just came back today from my friend who helps me gently launder my antique whites....the coverlet, carefully rinsed, then washed , then bleached, then washed again by my expert helper and dried in our springtime ocean breeze and sunshine---it is now scrumptious! Yummy white summery perfection!
I'd love to keep it but it will probably go onto my eBay site this week, so if you love it as much as I do, check it out!
Under the coverlet, I found a lovely long Victorian christening dress---passed with a sigh. And this exquisite Euro sham---

all hand embroidered, finest white cotton, with the name Christina embroidered on it!

I'll repost pix of the coverlet on the bed and the sham when it is starched and ironed, later in the week.
Then another fav dealer, I think of her as the lady from Maine, though she recently told me, nope, she lives a few towns away from me, on the mainland!...funny how I get stuff, well, wrong.  And she has very cool things--- always has special finds.
She had this wonderful creamy yellow and cobalt spongeware pitcher (authentic, not repro!), mixed in a group of 40s-ish vanity plates.

Its prim charm caught my eye, despite the price---fair but not flea.

Here it is with lavender and cream parrot tulips, set on a tin spatterware plate, with green apples and a tiny ink bottle with tinier grape hyacinths.....

And the lady also had this interesting small French kettle or saucepan:

 It looks so hand forged! and I love the heartshaped "ears"---the little handles.

It is very sturdy, beautifully handmade, I think---and a wonderful patina.

I know nothing about cookware.

 It is marked in the back:

 France 20.

(if anyone knows about this type of metalware, pls send me a comment!) I don't even know if it is tin or steel or what....But I love it! Here it is with hearts in progress.

And I finished up with some pretty floral plates.

They really don't "go" in my white and blues beach cottage but I buy them anyway!---for photo props or for holding earrings and bracelets on my vanity counter....or for collections of seashells and beachglass. So pretty!
I'm so glad I remembered my big LL Bean boat tote for my goodies!
And I can't wait for next week! I passed up some fab antique buttons, a lovely old china head doll and that white christening dress. Not to mention a blue painted nail or ammo crate that was too heavy to cart around...but I--liked---it! A lot!

Do you guys love the flea market too? What do you look for? What did you find?

enjoy!

love

        lizzy

                                                          gone to the beach.....

Beach Umbrellas

This

was supposed

to be a flea market Monday post....

but time and a bad photo shoot have put a crimp in that plan!

Instead I have been madly sewing away on yet another quilt!

Let's see---I have three, yes---3! quilts with their bindings half sewn. That "accomplishment" somehow gave me the idea that I could begin a another NEW quilt, despite the fact that I have a wonderful vintage Baskets top I am repairing and lovely redwork blocks to design and sew up into a treasure for a friend, I hope. And of course I already got into the NYC quilt design: http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=8918333902682601699&searchType=ALL&txtKeywords=&label=blue+transferware.

But during the snowy days of February I checked out a library quilting book and to my amazement, a favorite pattern "Spider Web" a scrappy string quilt classic,

 also known as "Wagon Wheels"

---was explained in the most incredibly easy terms. My aha moment turned into inspiration.

This was a perfect idea for the orange and pink fabrics I've been accumulating for the past, oh--10 years?

This is the original inspiration fabric, a vintage Lilly Pulitzer scrap.

And a cutter piece from a friend...

 intended for spring and summer lavender hearts.

And somehow in the spiderwebs and wagon wheels my beachy eyes saw summer sun umbrellas.

My creative moment was quickly followed by a virtual shopping trip to my favorite on-line quilt shop, eQuilter. http://www.equilter.com/ to hunt for the base fabric AKA The Sand or The Beach. I chose four sand-like prints, ordered small amounts---and loved them all. My helper, my daughter, loved them all too and talked me into using all four beach prints...adds interest, right?

While I waited for my beach prints I made these trial block sections:

Sand [center diamond]~

and Sea [turq center diamond]~

I made small color copies of the two tryouts and literally, not computer-ally, pasted (oh, okay, scotch-taped!) them into a small mock-up. Here it is with the fast little sketch of sea/ sand/ brollies in turquoise pen on the right.

The book had good directions, but---way too big. I didn't want a quilt with almost life sized umbrellas, did I? Making the try-out blocks made me realize the artist's 16 1/2" square base blocks were much too big. I went with 12 1/2" blocks instead. And with my little paste-up job I could see that to create the pinwheel, kinetic effect I wanted, I would need to use more contrast within my stripes collection. Back to my stash for lights and darks, plus a rare non-blizzard-day trip to Joann's fabric store added depth to my fabric choice. And I got to shop some more! yay!

And---well--- the directions in that book (I'll add the name later, lost the info---many great ideas!) were waaaay too complicated! Am I really gonna mark all of, let me see---30 squares, cut into quarters.....120 hand marked base triangles???

I don't think so.

Notched for the cut edge, that's the ticket, ladies.

And I figured out a fast way to pre-sew the stripes in bulk.

So now I am happy to report that the central sand colored squares are 2/3-ish done. Just have a bunch, maybe 80? turquoise ocean water blocks left to cut and piece. Then I gotta sew them back into squares, add an ocean border and...and, well, I 'll add an update really soon with more pix of the quilt as it progresses. And I'll tell you about the fab quilting design already chosen for this baby.

Then it's back to the much harder than expected, wow, so many glitches!---NYC: "Hot Town/Summer in the City" quilt. And the baskets. And the redwork....Oh yeah, all  those bindings. And the hand-beaded seashells....

 Pix when everything is further along! How-to's if anyone wants to know....

love~

              lizzy