Usually this time of year is full of working on the fair entries. I signed up and then decided to drop out. Usually I redo the entries thinking they aren't nice enough and end up ruining the projects. So instead I'm leaving them alone! That leaves me a whole month of working on something new.
The garden is full of tomato plants. The trees have lots of hanging baskets of herbs. The basil and catnip are hanging out of the way of snails and cats. Lee bought a clematis for me and I started it growing on the wisteria.
I've also been working on a small potted garden under the olive tree. So far I have two miniature roses, two fuchsias, snapdragons, violets, peppermint, lilies, white potato vine, hollyhocks, narcissus, gladiola, and three orchids. I only had two orchids but they needed to be split. The one was so pot bound that all the wood chips had been consumed. So with some ambition and a heavy knife I worked on seperating it into two plants. Even with the roots curled they were over 30 inches long. Needless to say $8,000 and an emergency MRI later I now have them separated. Thank goodness I have insurance again. Still the copay would have bought a lot of orchids. So no more wrestling with huge orchids. Yesterday I pulled out some irises to make a small herb garden. Hit myself hard in the head with the unpointy end of a pitch fork. Happy about that! So now there are herbs closer to the kitchen. Now to find homes for the displaced irises. They are small, 18 inches tall, and a beautiful deep purple. They even bloom twice a year with extra care. They are prolific and all my friends are trying to get rid of extras from irises I gave them years ago!
Embroidering has been my main hobby lately. Working on surface embroidering mostly and slowly working through the needle painting book. Just like painting it takes time to get the hang of shading and highlights. But I am getting tired of working small pieces. So I am considering making embroidered quilt squares, just need to find some nice fabric. My butterfly making has gotten better. Using finer wire and cotton and silk sewing threads together seems to be the best combination. I made a butterfly to put on my name tag for EGA meetings.
Stumpwork butterfly.
Butterfly closeup.
A friend found a great deal on real French bias silk ribbon. She got me four rolls for $24.00 and the rolls have 28 yards each and are 1 1/2 inches wide. Also the YLI 4mm silk ribbon was on sale for 50 cents. I've never had an abundance of silk ribbon to play with before.
French bias silk ribbon.
Green and pink striped silk ribbon.
The green and pink ribbon was a challenge to work into a flower. At first I didn't think I could use the ribbon. After looking at ribbon flower books I decided to tried making it into a carnation.
Silk ribbon carnation.
The ribbon works beautifully as a carnation making it's own calyx with it's green stripe.
The carnation looks so real it is hard not to sniff it. The other ribbons will make lovely roses when
I get some time to work on them.Currently I am working up samples for a beginners embroidery class. Hopefully I will be able to help someone learn to embroider.
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