Spring Harvest, Tie Dye, and Is It Cold enough for Flannel Sheets

 

Hello, hello. The fog just rolled in at sunset. Don't you just LOVE the long, long days? But June is such a seesaw month, one day cold, the next day hot. Shorts or parka, flannel sheets or summery percale. It was in the 60s here today, but in the city I think as hot as 86*! I still have my ACs covered, the storm windows are still in place--whatever shall I do if the heat wave comes my way. Rely on the sea breeze and put up the deck umbrella I suppose.

The deck garden is doing well! But first, so excited, one of my bonsai tree seeds has sprouted. This weekend I will pot it up. There are four varieties of seeds. Two are colding off in the freezer til August, Norway spruce and black pine. The warmer climate two are Flame tree and Blue Jacaranda.

And more excitement [in my little mundane world], my foray into veggie growing has been been a success. This is usually the wildflowers pot.

Lettuce is lovely, so sweet and tender.

And I have radishes. Love radishes. The cool aluminum strainer like my gramma had is sidewalk scavenged, scrubbed clean and reused.

These are multicolored, called Easter Egg. Pretty impressive. I pulled out and rinsed maybe half the rads, the rest are tiny still.

Isn't it oh so cute?

Other pots have seedlings doing well. Marigolds. Thin? Transplant?

Mixed zinnies and cosmos.

The sweet peas are still growing. I gave them sticks to climb on. Prob bloom in October,

The green zinnies are the slow pokes but strong and sturdy. 

I must add the Lilliput zinnias' in that bare spot.

I'm so hopeful for a beautiful bright Lizzy's Garden this year.

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Commission projects are keeping me so busy---this is the most gorgeous princess dress, a ballerina costume for a recital. Just needs tiny alterations. It's beautifully made, like a wedding gown, I'm relieved not to have to do much to fix it.

And then the usual June project oof bedazzling the camp tee shirts and sweatshirt. I probably overthink this, it's my third or fourth year doing these. First, alter the tees to fit the child---took me two days and many thread color changes.

Repair the handed down recycled sweatshirt. I'm so impressed that the moms and kids do this, reuse/ make do/ make it work. I did a patch and a smiley face applique.

Alter and fringe a black sports jersey; alter  a basic tee for camp fieldtrips. Then: one day to tie dye, another for drying and curing the dyes.

Tomorrow I'll iron-set the the dyes, then begin the bedazzling. This involves fringing, scrunching, and sewing down an assortment of cute decorative patches and colorful athletic style letters for the child's name. 

These patches should be secure with heat setting, but the mom wants them all stitched too, lots of washing happens. I'm just glad the little girl's name is short, not Hermione or Samantha, or Clementine.

The applique sewing is tedious but the child's face when she saw the patches I'd ordered for her makes it all worthwhile. Just have to pace myself, my back is hurting already from the sink work while dyeing.

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Sunday is Mo's adoption Day! He arrived on a special flight, 11 years ago.

A tiny mite, yet already a big boy, weighed over 7 pounds at age 8 weeks.

If Mo is well enough we will have a little steak to share and Mo's very favorite treat, rice pudding. I got him a new luau shirt, and a Lambie toy.  A snuggle rug for the deck and fancy tiny treats too. He will be baffled but happy. Eleven years. WoW.

Have a great weekend. Probably safe to say, No Snow? Back to my scroll project soon I hope.

from Larisa blog: Stitching Notes HERE

[you may recall I said the scrolls sound fun but useless--Larisa explains!]

Welcome June....

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

Goodbye May ! Take your April Vibes with You, as You Go.

 

Hi everyone! It's been an odd week, I'm trying to be positive here anyway. Back to my little quilt called Whatnots--she is all set and ready for a sunny day with just enough wind to blow the gnats away. There are dense clouds of gnats on rare still days. I  have to pull my tee shirt over my face. They bite so bad, esp wrists and ankles that maybe are exposed. But!--before I talk about WhatNots, I must show you my first harvest. So excited, a radish and a few baby lettuce leaves.

Whatnots has been fun but did require focus. I copied all the tiny images. Largest is maybe 3"

  Then I cut them apart and wrote on each the color and style of the fabrics on the dark and blurry pattern photo. Went to my stash of repro fabrics and clipped 4" corners of possibles, stacking each motif w its maybe fabrics.

Yes I went a little brighter.

I don't print directly on the fusible [tho you can]. I am always confused by which side the sticky part goes on, do I reverse everything or what. Can never get it right. Add in that at least 5 of the Nots are drawn reversed on the patters. I fixed most but you can see the Lady is wrong, and one of the cats. Oh well.

Then I just pin the copy paper image onto the sticky backed fabric and cut it out with my lovely micro serrated KAI scissors. [spring sale if you want some Kai]. Despite these efforts I still had to recut all the leaf branches. 

You can maybe see that the branches have to go the correct way. That empty right lower corner gets a four patch block I since added and an embroidered name of the quilt.

I decided to use the batik for the background. It blended best and is mostly covered by the Nots. 

Carefully transferred to the ironing board and pressed in place. Tah-dah, hand sewing pile added to.

Remember they are just fused at the moment, they will be hand stitched at leisure, then borders added etc.

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Meditation scroll. You guys may recall how I can take the littlest thing on a project and make a whole big deal about it. Backings! Bindings! Hours, days, mulling, mulling. So it is with this scroll.

An inspiration little drink coaster I made last summer:

Larisa whose blog is doing the scrolls at the moment is so kind and she has personally messaged me with hints and encouragement. Her You Tube How tos are great too. So I found a poor pretty tea towel to chop up and washed it in Quilt Restoration powder here so it's bright and white. Then :Spools. I now see that I casually collect spools. Larisa's Blog    Larisa's You Tube Please be sure to look at her darling scrolls and other projects. 

I save all my empty thread spools now, gives me a feeling of  accomplishment? But they are plastic.

Then I have  old wooden spools of many styles and sizes.

Isn't this chunky small silk reel unusual and so cute.

And a giant spool from Home Goods, held Christmas twine. I soaked off the label, sanded the glue, sealed with beeswax, polished.

In the end I chose these two, a fresh clean wooden spool or an oh so pretty blue plastic spool. To be decided.

I again went to the shelves for small swatches. I can now see a drawback of not collecting swatches. Tho I do collect selvedges.] But my mental/ visual recall is set for knowing what fabrics I have where, and so I can easily find the pieces I need. A bin of scraps would paralyze me, I think.

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I stopped prepping hand work to make  a doll dress for my little friend. she had texted me her design. Please remember she is only 5! Not one of my better efforts, but i tried, only had about 45 minutes to make the pattern and sew it.

And now I have a pile of camp tees to shorten and tie dye and bling up. Always a big June project. Before that I'll do the binding on Silent Night [tomorrow?], but leave the wool applique Snowsuit kiddies till I am feeling calmer. Also must do the wooly faces prep for my Jackolantern quilt.

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Mo, guardian of the Crocs. Someone very unkindly said he is so fat, but he has lost 2 more pounds in two months. 

Have a good week.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

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More on Mo for those who have kindly asked about him: He had his big vet checkup---the news is not the best, he will never ''get better''.We will never again have our long meandering walks, or run on the beach, or chase a scary tennis ball.

 He has age related osteoarthritis. We can only manage his pain and give him the best life possible. Gentle walks, gentle pets and grooming, cuddles by the TV, soft toys.  He also has chronic inner ear infections, with mild vestibular disease. I'll try to link darling Pug Lou Lou, she is also treated for that. LouLou So many pills, so many dollars. Good news--teeth are ok and chronic eye infection is well managed.