Batik Heaven and Creative Cue 2010

Wanda from the Exuberant Color blog had an awesome giveaway here. I was one of the winners and received this huge assortment of batik pieces from her. Thanks Wanda for literally "brightening " up my day with all of the color you sent my way. These are stacked 3 deep in spots so this is just a glimpse of the color and prints... just like candy!


I found this "challenge" through the 3 Creative Studios blog. See post here. It sounds just like what I need to get creatively focused and share with other bloggers through 2010. Wanna come out and play ???

Peaceable Kingdom

Mourning Doves and Deer

I'm always amazed how different species coexist so peacefully in nature...why can't mankind do the same?

Check out how the deer just appear out of the background of trees here... feeding the birds and deer is one of our winter hobbies. Now that hunting season is over, they start to settle down and appreciate the handouts. The deer come running when they hear the coffee can of corn. We have no interest in taming them to eat from our hand... even though we have names for some of them... Fatty, The Twins, White Eye, Broken Wing, Mamma and Osama the tunneling Red Squirrel. They need to stay wild in order to survive.

I know I haven't posted for awhile, it took me that long to upload this video here, LOL. I haven't photographed any of my stitching but did manage to make most of my Christmas gifts this year. I look forward to starting out fresh with a better new year.

No Easy Way to the Big City

On one hand, thanks Henry for keeping the word wild in our wilderness, but on the other hand, you made a 55 mile trip, a 90 mile one. Ohhh, what I'd give to be able to get to Marquette "as the crow flies". See link here to get the story of the road Henry Ford bought

Sewing and Bookworming

I'm working on hand quilting this months guild project. Couldn't quite stick to the pattern given and ended up with too many half squares. Made use of them anyway. I'm so out of pratice with precision and 1/4 seams. The months blotto block pattern is a paper pieced courthouse step using brights. I've gotten as far as getting the fabric pulled out for that. Paper piecing is not my bag.

Sis' library at her Beulah house... book love runs in the family...

I've had my nose in books
and there always seems to be several going at once... at the moment, one is Clara. .The Ford's are fascinating, not only because I grew up in Detroit, but because they were real people who shared their dreams, their lives and their legacy. The book is more factual than narrative but leaves imagination full out open to the oppulent yet down home ways of Henrys other half. Ironically one of Claras favorite places is not too far from here at the Huron Mountain Club. The Club is a mysterious local legend.
A CQ block is definitly being planned around Clara.




After reading the Forest Lover this summer I got interested in the life of Emily Carr
and found the book, Hundreds and Thousands, one of Emily's journals, in my sisters library. I love her descriptions of color and perception but it's her quirky, often difficult life that gives me a source for courage in moving on with my own creative calling.


I've finished all the Mitford books by Jan Karon and started the Father Tim series, Home to Holly Springs. I missed the August book sale in town so the pickins are slim for winter. But I did see a used book store in Houghton... I'll have to check it out when we get up that way.
It's a cold clear night here and the stars are out by the billions... I love the awe of nights like these!

Halloween- Post Script

Flora did way better than me. Please check out Mamma Bears Crazy Quilted Witches Hat. Her extra embellishing is over the top and her blog is full of imaginatative stitching.

I saw the hat last year at a quilt store, bought the pattern this summer but just wasn't able to find the time to get it done. Since I had the fabric all picked out I at least got it pieced up... put some flosses away with it so there is no excuse next fall..

This pic came in an email so I can't credit it's origin but it looked like my kind of roadside pumkin stand... I can smell the hay and taste the cider, can't you??

PPS.... Best of all?? The latest issue of CQ Magazine Online. is out.

Happy Halloween and don't forget to set those clocks back tonight.

All Hallows Eve

My CQ'd table runner (I think I captured the "purple" pretty well via my camera)

Welcome November!

Chickadee Season... I Con-Seed

No... I CONCEDE... to coloring my hair... painting my toes...feeling my hot flashes... being overtaken by awe...yelling when I want...blushing at a sunrise... picking at my cuticles.... humming an old song...not trusting my self .... showing my feathers... holding back.... letting go....giving myself to worry...there's always something pulling good or bad...

even in the woods where I think no one can see... where no one can hear...

where I think no one notices...

in the quiet...



in the fray...

in the shadows...

in the solitude...

in the sun....

even in my sharing .... I know His Eye Is On The Sparrow ..... and His eye is on us too!!! Please listen !!!

Outhouse Hunting 10/17

My friend Roxanne has a hobby of photographing and documenting the outhouses around Skanee. Hunting camps, old farmhouses, vacation cottages and wayside parks all have them. We've spent many hours entertaining ourselves with treks through the woods .

The weather was a mix of anything you want... it's like that in Michigan, hour to hour, you never know what you're gonna get. The colors are past peak but there were still lots of splashes in sheltered spots.

Rox

Me

We ended up out at the St Cyr cliffs on Lake Superior, this is where the Huron Bay begins off the big water.

This is looking out to the Keweenaw Peninsula. The mountains on the horizon are 50 miles away.

The southern shore of Lake Superior hosts many areas of rock cliffs and outcroppings created during the Glacier Age. Trees grow horizontal out over the water defying natures gravity and in spots its quite dangerous.

On the way home we took a detour down a logging road. The farther we went the softer it got until it turned into "quick mud". There was no good place to turn around, but because I picked the place to do it, I was the fall guy, Rox ( THE DRIVER, LOL) ended up alittle far to the right and we sunk to the undercarriage. We were able to walk out to a farm across the road and get a pull out of our mess. The guy who helped us had his arm in a sling so I was the one who had to climb under the front and hook up the tow rope. We were covered in mud from hair to shoes but hadn't laughed that hard in awhile. We officially called "Outhouse Hunting Seaon" over for the year.

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Last week Dan and I drove over to the Aura side of the bay exploring.

We found a little hidden pond

The stream to the pond was flowing with little falls and pools formed in mossy recesses


Up the road we found this little cabin

Though small, it had a sleeping loft, full kitchen, bar and living area. What an awesome little studio it would make.


The view of the bay so tranquil.
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So despite yesterdays shitty little dilemna, all is well!

Till the next time...

(PS.... I won't tell about backing over the big log in the ditch, whose fault was that, hee-hee!)

Summers 2009 Pictogragh

I need to capture the fragments of summer that wove themselves in and out of the time I spent down in Detroit. My thoughts were somewhere above all of it... half here... on this place called earth and half trying to invision what the real heavens beyond would be like. Something tells me that heaven is what you love...magnified beyond all comprehension... IMAGINE THAT !!! I think I'm ready for the next stage of my life...