Mother Nature's Not Happy!

Last week I was cycling in shorts, and yesterday I drove through blizzard conditions to visit my Mom for Mother's Day.  Ironically, I took her to Rockway Gardens in Kitchener to see all the beautiful tulips.

It's a good thing I've got a tough little Momma!  We enjoyed our stroll through the gardens in spite of the awful, cold weather.




While there, someone asked if we knew the name of this beautiful flower.  Mom only knew the name in German, but as it turns out the direct translation, "King's Crown" turns out to be pretty accurate! "Fritillaria imperialis (Crown imperial or Kaiser's crown) is a species of flowering plant..."  Beautiful and smart...that's my Mom!

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

They Just Move Somewhere Else...

I recently saw this quote and I couldn't help thinking how true it is.  Oh, to go back to the simplicity of childhood when a hug and some reassuring words from Mom would get those monsters under control so that we could have a good night's sleep!

I guess as we get older, it takes a lot more 'self talk' to control the monsters, but they can still be tamed!

This spread isn't a favourite in terms of it's over all look...I'm not very happy with the composition or colours, but there's a lot of good 'talk' going on in that blue journalling, so I guess it has served a purpose!

And now I'm off to visit my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day (and to get one of those great hugs...'cause they never get old!)

Wishing all you Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day!

Block Party and a Ball Toss...

After creating the Pick-Up Sticks art quilts, I decided to continue the mini series by using only some of the pieced stripes along with some other bright fabrics.  The first piece is called "Block Party".

 The idea of the block party got me thinking of games and from that "Ball Toss" was born. I am especially loving the process of the free motion machine quilting on these smaller pieces.  It is such a relaxing feeling to be able to doodle with a needle and thread.

I have more ideas popping into my head than I can keep up...I'm considering a couple of other series that I can't wait to get started on!

Pick-Up Sticks...

A while back I posted about some piecing play I was doing by cutting, sewing, cutting again, etc.  The little art quilts that resulted are now finished.  I think all of the free motion lines of stitching really help those colourful stripes to pop.  They are called Pick-Up Sticks I, and Pick-Up Sticks II, respectively.

Henry's Haircut

I had an opportunity last Spring to see some alpaca's being shorn and was given some of the alpaca hair to experiment with in my fibre art.  Using my embellisher, I needle felted the fibre's to create a base using the darker grey hair.  I then incorporated some of my hand dyed cheesecloth over top of the alpaca felt.  I added some circles in a lighter colour of alpaca hair, and intentionally left some of the long dark strands hanging so that I could later add beads to them.

I did a lot of machine stitch/thread sketching over the cheesecloth to bring out more of the copper and turquoise colour before moving to the hand beading.  As for the title Henry's Haircut...you guessed it, the dark gray alpaca's name is Henry.

"Pop"

This week's photo challenge was "Pop" over on the Texture Tuesday site, so I decided to focus on that all important pop of colour that we see this time of year with the arrival of the first Robins of the Spring.  This photo was taken a few weeks ago, before our final snow storm, but it just seemed to provide that hope and promise of things to come. That bright orange breast and belly are a sure sign that winter is finally over!

I did a bit of an adjustment layer before adding Kim's new texture, kk_may, I also had to add a layer of some subtle grey behind the text so it didn't get lost in the cedar.




You can see a screen shot of the processing at the bottom of the post.



When thinking about pops of colour, flowers always 'pop' to mind too, so I've added these other two images, both treated with a layer of kk_may at soft light, with a mask on which the texture was removed from the focal blossom.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

Passage...

This paper and fabric art quilt, titled Passage,  is another in the new 12" X 12" series.  This was actually a UFO that was started a few years ago in a workshop with Sandra Meech, in which we painted papers and then used them in collaged art quilts.  I posted about a previous piece I finished back in November in which I mounted the quilted part onto a painted canvas, but this time I wanted to continue the collage of stitched fabric and paper to extend the more dimensional piece in the centre.  

The text in this piece is all about the various kinds of passage, from a doorway that one can pass through, to death...the final passage in this life.

Xs and Os

On Sunday I posted about a new series I've started, using a consistent 12" x 12" format.     I've finished the first one and my mats arrived in the mail yesterday so it is all matted and ready.  Fortunately this image is true to the actual colour (unlike the previous post).  I've called it Xs and Os because of the circles that I had printed on the denim using my Gelli plate, and the Xs that I stitched into the rust dyed fabric.  I echoed the Os using little round discs (actually the ends of those pre-wound cardboard bobbins...'cause I can't seem to throw anything out. LOL)

I've posted it here without the mat so that you can see a larger image, allowing you to see more detail.

Artists in Blogland

Marcia over at Artists in Blogland put out a call this week for a new blog button for the Show & Tell Saturday link up, so I used a piece of my art journalling and played around in Photoshop Elements to create this button.

Click on the link here to pop over to the site and get the code.  It's available in two sizes, depending on the set up of your particular blog.

And be sure to visit again on Saturday to see some of the wonderful things that the 'Artist in Blogland' are doing!

I Can't Believe It's May!

Here it is May 1st, and finally we're seeing some beautiful Spring weather!  In spite of having journalled every day in my art journal calendar, May seems to have snuck up on me.  I guess I must be having fun 'cause the time sure is flying!

I've been enjoying cycling outside again (as compared to using my trainer inside and literally going no where fast) and I even got out in shorts a couple of days ago. I've done several 50 km rides and a few 40 km when I felt like slacking off.  

Yesterday I wore sandals for the first time this season, so now it is truly official...once those socks come off they stay off until the fall.

April was true to the saying and we had lots of rain, but I'm trusting that we're in for beautiful May flowers.  Here's my May art journal calendar, which holds the promise of pretty blossoms to brighten up the gardens!