Lemon Tree Tales

Flower Pincushion

Wow, I just barely finished this in time to email Booga J's  Pincushion Challenge theme of flowers.  I used VeryBigJen's bottlecap pincushion tutorial at flickr but with a larger bottlecap. HGTV's Carol Duval show had a segment recently about making ribbon flowers using a simple knot. Bring the two together and .. VOILA! the cheerful wrist daisy. No more misplacing pincushions during class. Speaking of which, I had so much fun during Patti Culea's classes and learned gobs and gobs of good stuff. But that will just have to wait another day.

WIP - Purple Doll

Meet the purple Valandrial who I've been working on since Friday evening. I'm taking this class by Patti Culea at our local doll club and we had to have some pre-work done (basic sewn body and stuffed.) She has a wire armature - first time for me to try that, not bad. Her fingers are wired which makes for a lot of expression. We learned how to make thread clothing and used dyes on lace trim. Oh and we also learned how to bead little flowers. I'll post more pictures of her as she gets completed. In the meantime, I have to get some rest - tomorrow is the faces class.

Scrappy Blue Bunny

Here's my first step towards my goal of using more of my scrap bag fabric. It's a Wee Bunny for my husband. He loved the one that I made to accompany a baby quilt a month or so ago. Every once in a while he'd mention how much he liked that bunny and how nice it would be to have one. So here he is - a blue bunny made from the scraps of the wall-hanging quilt that I still have to finish.  Please note his blue tail - that was made from one of the Aran wool skeins that I bought in Ireland. His neck is nice and slim this time because I clipped the curves before stuffing it. I forgot to do that last time --- oops.

And thanks to a hint about embroidery (I'm pretty sure it was Pink Chalk Studio - thanx Kathy!) I managed a better face. The trick was to outline everything in backstitch before doing the satin stitches. And last, the signature. Wow, pretty hard doing backstitch letters freehand. That's why the last 'e' is smaller and off to the side.

Gee's Bend Quilts Exhibit

This was just one of the many gorgeous quilts on display at the De Young Museum in San Francisco today.  Can you believe that this was made around 1950? It looks like it would be completely at home in one of Denise Schmidt's books of modern quilts. (Made by Jessie T. Pettway)

What first impressed me was how much these quilts looked completely at home hanging on a museum wall. Some were more Mondrian looking and others had innovative takes on traditional patterns - such as Log Cabin (or Housetops as the Benders liked to call it) and the Texas Lone Star.

The next thing was realizing that some of the older quilts were made from the men's work clothing. You can see some of the repaired worn patches on some of these quilts. Now these men were basically sharecroppers doing back-breaking work for so little money that their families were guaranteed to never climb out of the poverty stricken hole that is the inheritance of so many parts of Alabama. These quilts weren't made just for the hell of it, but as necessary means to keep the family warm during the cold winters.  Yet these women were able to create works of art and innovation. The Benders liked to call their quilt designs doing it "my way." There's a lot to be said for a quilting community that encourages everyone to experiment.

Annie Mae Young, Circa 1975 - Another beautiful quilt, this one made from scraps of corduroy. After seeing what these women have created with scraps of work clothing, old sheets, and leftover cotton fibers from the cotton gin (they used to hand beat them into their batting), I am inspired to make more things from my bag of fabric scraps.  Yes, I'm lucky to be able to run to the LQS and buy yardage as needed, but wouldn't it be nice to use more of the leftovers? That's why my goal for the next two months is to make more projects from my scrap bag.

Fairy Princess Wings

Yippee! I finished these wings for one of our favorite little people who is having her 5th birthday tomorrow. When asked what her favorite color was, Miss L promptly responded with that all-time girly standard - baby pink! Her mom said that yes, a set of fairy wings would be much appreciated. I first checked the net for inspiration and found this site's gallery - what adorable children. Then I discovered that Angry Chicken had made a set for her lovely daughter and how nice, she posted a link to a how-to guide.  Steve helped bend the coat hangers for me and I covered them with white pantyhose. Pink chenille yarn was hot-glued to soften the wire edges.

And no fairy princess can have her wings without a pretty frock. This was from Simplicity pattern 5704. Miss L's mom wanted a bigger size in anticipation of a growth spurt so I added a ribbon to help cinch it in the meantime.

Now it's off to wrap these and then clean up the mess in the studio!

My new favorite sewing tool

Yes folks, your eyes do not deceive you, this is dental floss. I finally tried out a sewing tip that I learned about on an episode of Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson on HGTV. Rather than making gathers with the traditional method  (sewing two lines of long straight stitches above the gathering line and then pulling the bobbin thread S-L-O-W-L-Y and careful not to break the thread) I tried this simple tip.

Step one: About 1/4" above the stitch line, sew a zig-zag stitch OVER the dental floss, be careful not to catch it in the stitching - couching it.  Leave a long tail at the end. Flat dental floss works great.

Step two: Gently pull the dental floss (making sure not to pull it out from the start) to make your desired gathers. Sew along the stitching line and then gently remove the dental floss from your project. Voila! Perfect gathers every time.

Days Four - Eight: Irish Travels

Oops, I almost forgot to post the final travelogue.  Day Four we went to Middleton Distillery  for a tour of the old whiskey distillery near Cork, had lunch in Cobh , drove through Kinsale, and saw Timoleague Abbey. 

Day Five was the day for Dingle. That's where we saw the beautiful countryside, the beehive huts, Sleahead Drive, Conor's Pass and spent the evening listening to some great music. We even shopped at the Centra for some snacks for the long drive back home that night. 

Day Six was a leisure day spent at Bunratty Castle & Folk Park. Yes, I know it's truly a tourist attraction, but it is nice to be able to climb up and down the inside of a castle, rather than just see the ruins. Also, they have lots of thatched cottages so that one can see the original Irish dwellings. That's where we saw the cute baby goat (kid) and it's mama. 

Day Seven we drove to the Rock of Cashel  (truly spectacular), Cahir Castle  (you can walk up the sides to the top - no handrails!), and then off to Waterford Crystal Factory  where Steve and I finally decided after all these years to splurge on a LITTLE chandelier. I can't wait for it to get here - I'll post pictures then. After that we drove to Dublin for the last little bit of our trip. Day Eight we went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College and then off to see the Guinness tour. Wow, that was very modern and artsy, but definitely an "experience".

Unfortunately I don't have too many great pictures for this, just a collage of some of the more colorful houses that I saw. Now, most in the picture are of some sort of tourist attraction (I think Bunratty's Folk Park). What I didn't manage to capture were all of the beautiful vivid pink, salmon, purple (yes purple!) and chartreuse houses in Ireland. Nope, not B&Bs, just people's regular abodes. I think it's very charming. Of course some of the color combinations were a bit, shall we say naive?! The last picture on the bottom right, of the large leaf, is perhaps my favorite photograph of the entire trip!


And this is a picture of Steve driving us skillfully through the narrow Conor's Pass in the Dingle Peninsula -- too bad we didn't get a smaller car than the Land Rover Discovery.  Steve said that we drove approximately 2,200 miles on the trip! The only mishap was a long branch that clipped the passenger side mirror. It knocked it out of the housing and cracked. We promptly bought clear tape and scissors from a petrol station and fixed it. I wonder what the people at Hertz thought when we returned it? All in all it was a good trip.

Whiplash Entry: Irish Clutch Purse

I couldn't believe that I even had the time to finish this, but I did - just barely! After going through the vacation pictures I was a bit enamored with the color green. It's such a flattering hue. Off to the fabric stash I searched for any and all shades. Look, some pieces left over from pillows made for friends, other pieces from dolls, fabric purchased 10 years ago with the intent of creating an Earth Dragon, and other bits and bobs. A little bit of drafting the earlier purse pattern that I used was all that it needed to become a clutch. And finally a use for one of the more spectacular buttons from my eBay score this past Spring. I wouldn't say that it's the best of my skill since I quite literally whipped it up last night and today. That leaves the Fancy category.

Days Two & Three: Irish Travels

Day Two took us to Galway City and then a nice drive around the Connemara Region to see the peat bogs and a few turf cuts. Galway is also the home of the claddaghring that many people wear. The first picture is of a sculpture of the Galway Hooker Sails (a type of boat, usually with red sails) in Eyre Square. We also wandered down to the port to see the Spanish Arch. You can see the view from the arch of the restaurant on the water. I also became a bit enamored of the various street covers. There's a place for a lightening rod? And then the one in Gaelic must be for water since I do know that whiskey is the "water of life - uisce beatha". Then you'll notice a few pictures of the Connemara region. If you look closely at the edges of the watery areas you'll see that the sides are straight and deep. Those were once turf or peat cuts.

Day Three took us to the Cliffs of Moher; a drive around the Burren (which is not as dramatic a rocky place while the wildflowers bloom) to see the Poulnabrone Dolmen and the Aillwee Cave; finally down to Adare for dinner at Steve and my favorite pub.

The first two pictures are just a couple of random buildings that we passed on our drive. I loved the quick shot from our car window of the dolphins with the matching yellow car driving past. How fortuitous! The next is a pretty typical beer sign - usually the most interesting ones are from Guinness, but Murphy's is also a pretty common Irish draft.

Steve and I have been trying to duplicate the sunny day of our honeymoon at the cliffs, but so far that was the best day that we've seen them. O'Brien' Tower  has been closed to the public so we weren't able to climb farther up to get a better view of the cliffs. The Irish are in the process of constructing a huge visitor's centre which probably will be the size of the one at Stonehenge in England. I have a sneaking suspicion that this site will also no longer be free to the public once that happens. But the views still are magnificent eventhough I'm pretty chicken and won't climb over the fence to be closer to the edge. :-)

Notice the beautiful wildflowers on the wall overlooking the valley from the parking lot of the Aillwee Cave. I didn't bother taking pictures there since my husband has taken some pretty cool shots there over the years. Next is the Poulnabrone Dolmen. Our very first trip to the dolmen had open access. We weren't even sure where this was until we saw a couple of buses parked in the middle of nowhere. Now there's a gate, a gravel path and ropes surrounding the site. It's sad to think that too many tourists were abusing the public trust and necessitated this practice.

We finally ended up in Adare for some dinner in our favorite pub. Okay, this is the place that shows a difference in the summer tourism rate. During the day it is jam-packed with golfers, lunch seekers, and shoppers. Fortunately it was quiet again at evening for us to find parking. Isn't this the cutest name for a little gift shop? The stop window looked like they specialized in jewelry and other glittery goods.

Day One: Irish Travels

I know it's been a long time since posting, but I was still a bit jet-lagged plus I got an unexpected freelance assignment that needs to be completed by Saturday morning. (I got the first part finished and sent off to FedEx so I'm going to post this before I hop back to work.) I took quite a few pictures and thought that even with a judicious amount of editing that it'd be far too long for one posting. So I'll break it down in days. After a very long series of flights we arrived in Dublin, Ireland and quickly got our bags arranged in a bigger vehicle than what we wanted - a Land Rover Discovery. Very good for off-roading but a bit huge for the majority of Irish roads. We stopped at Powerscourt Gardens and then St. Kevin's Monastery at Glendalough before heading back out to the road to Bruree and our accomodation in The Old Mill .

Here's a few pictures of the gardens:

And a few pictures of the monastery:

As you can see, we were most fortunate to have beautiful blue skies.  In fact, we didn't see any typical Irish rain until the last day of the trip back in Dublin. Great for us, but they were in the midst of three weeks without rainfall - not usual by any means.