Catching up & New Things

 

These beautiful things came off my very own peach tree. These are what inspired me to try a few new things.

This year seems to be the year for me to try new things. This summer I am learning to can and freeze the fruit from our trees and all the beautiful produce at the farmers market. Preserving fruits/veggie always intimidated me. I was terrifired of the food poisoning thing. Think I have that whipped now (hope so, these will be X-mas gifts)!

I went on a diet to drop 25 pounds. 10 down, 15 more to go. It has been a real struggle to stay away from all the fresh fruits available right now. No carbs, no sugar, no fat. I'm giving this another week then I'm going on a low carb eating plan. I can't live on a liquid diet. I love food too much.

I am really looking forward to a Shibori workshop I am attending in October. I am taking my mom so she can visit with my brother. I will meeting a wonderful cyber friend for the first time. I am so looking forward to seeing her in person. 

Plums cooking for jam. Must try to capture this color in my dyes.

Some of the jams and the canning kettle steaming away.

 Bings. One of the perks of living in ag country. We have fresh cherries, apples, asparagus, sweet onions and many other wonderful things.

 Yep, it's lemons. I made lemon jam. I know it sounds terrible, but it really is wonderful.

We took a quick trip to Portland a few weeks ago. The following are some pics I snapped from the truck. 

Columbia Gorge.

  John Day Damn.

Kite surfers & wind turbines. Kind of go hand in hand.

Multnomah Falls

A few of my roses. I think I may have to print and frame a few of these.

Sunsets, Grand-baby & the 4th

Catching up

I am eagerly packing for my trip to Ohio for the Shibori class. I know, I know it isn't until October. Can you tell I'm excited? I have never taken a formal class. Everything I've learned has been through trail & error. We'll see how well I learn in a classroom situation. Here are some pics of what I am going to learn. I think I have everything on the supply list gathered. I plan to ship the required supplies in advance. The cost is about the same as checking them, but I don't have the schlep them through the airports.

Above is Jan Meyers-Newbury, it is her workshop I will be attending. The piece next to her pic is done using the technique I hope to master.

I am also going to finally meet a wonderful online friend in person. I have been dyeing fabric for her unbelievably beautiful and complicated quilts. She does awesome work. She has a piece entered in Quilt National. I am impatiently waiting for the unveiling.  This is one of her Knot Quilts.

Awesome! There is NO applique or fusable here. All seamed.


And now for the "real life" segment. Our oldest son has a new baby on the way the end of October. They recently found out it will be a boy, but I had already decided I wanted to do a screamingly colorful quilt. I wanted something the baby could lay on and be entertained. My year old nephew was here over the weekend and helped validate my choice. He spent hours playing with the fabric I used, so the actual quilt should work as intended. Here it is.....

Close up. Bright enough?????

I will of course do an heirloom quilt for mom and dad to put away. Something a little more traditional in blues and whites. Something like this maybe......

Outside interests

Have spent the last week or so cleaning, organizing and painting. My spare bedroom officially looks like a spare room. here are a few before and after pics. All of this was in the spare room along with the furniture. This is a 2 car garage, so you can imagine how crowded the room was.

Here are the after shots. My wonderfully organized closet storing my hand dyes, art cloth and some finished pieces.

Here are the rest of the after shots. It is amazing how much room there seems to be!

After painting. I added sheers to the windows in a cinnamon color which adds a nice rich glow to the room.

This is another of my obsessions, my gardens. The size of the Peonys this year was amazing.

The roses are finally doing something. The weather has been so cool and windy I didn't think they would ever bloom.

The last of the Rhoadys. I didn't get any pics of the red one in bloom this year. I think there may be some in a 2009 post.

Stormy Weather

I think thunderstorms are awesome. Here in S.E. Washington it can be calm and sunny one minute and the next one of these roll through.