Pumpkins, Be Prepared

These are the pumpkins Farmer Dave is growing. Pretty good Dave! The tomatoes have been fantastic too!

These are the pumpkins that I have been growing. It's batik on 10oz duck to make a floor cloth. It's not done yet......







and Oh Yeah, I stepped in cat poop again. I was busy while I waited for these photos to upload so I was putting things away. How lucky for me that I was porting a 4 Mega Roll pack of Charmin from the garage to the bathroom, so I was prepared for the poo. That's the Boy Scout motto. "Be prepared."

Summer Squeeze

Joseph and I traveled to Nevada to spend a week with Grandaddy and Grandmother before school started. We had a good time. I think there was only one day we didn't swim in the pool. Grandchildren are only allowed in the community pool at certain times of day. It works out nicely because then you have to plan your day around that and it doesnt leave things open ended, so you know what to expect.

Here are the pictures we took of us on the morning we headed home.




Dad wanted one last summer fun activity, so he got Joseph to camp out in the back yard. After the tent was pitched, Joe decided he was NOT going to sleep there, no way, no how! So that was a big pain, but so in character. We made him do it and he wh9ined and tried to get out of it, but in the end, he had a blast! Dave got out the telescope and they looked at Jupiter. Joe ran in to tell me that they could soo four of the moons, so I went out and had a look too.

It looks pretty much like the tent is out in the wilds, but here it the view they had.



We went through the same mind changeing stubborn thing with the meteor shower, Joe decided at the last minute he did not want to go outside. He ended up stretched out on the picnic table, side by side with Dad, under a blanket. They saw some good meteors.

On Monday night, Joe set his alarm to get up in the middle of the night and we all went out to see the lunar eclipse. There is supposed to be another one in February, but it may be too cloudy then to see it.

There is an art workshop through the UC Santa Cruz Extension. I will probably hem and haw about it until it is too late to register. The biggest problem is that you can bring the water based medium of choice and my medium of choice is not water based, and I need an electrical outlet, or two.

Whatever!

Chickens Progress

I've been working on the chicken floor cloth. Here is how it is progressing, the first two steps have been on my blog before. I put them here today to show the process. This is about 36 inches on the long side.


I'm also working hard on adding my shaopping cart on the web site. I'll upload when it's done. I'm trying for September 1st. Ha.....Ha.....







Click on this sign to see my website. I am adding a shopping cart to make thinge easier for you and it will be up and running in September!

6th grade and tissue paper

School started yesterday. Here is Joe, ready for the first day of grade 6. He didn't really want to go to school, but he was looking forward to meeting all his school friends again.
According to tradition, we took a picture of him in last year's old uniform, and then this year's new uniform.




This is where I was playing with water color paints and tissue paper. This is the second piece of tissue paper I painted.

Then this is the first piece of tissue paper I painted, after I tore it up and used liquid laundry starch to attach it to a piece of cardstock.

Super Bear!

Here is the Bear that Jana made. She is my mom and bear maker extraordinaire. This was her first stuffed animal. I think she did a good job.

She used a Carol's Zoo pattern. They are supposed to be simple because they only use two pattern pieces, but they are kind of like puzzles because the pattern pieces don't really look like the animal until you sew them together and turn them and stuff them.

I have made many Carols Zoo animals before, and I talked her through it. The biggest problem in the bear's construction was that she didn't believe she could do it. Of course, she was wrong!


She used this fantastic Halloween print cotton fabric for the first one. If you mouse click on the picture it will blow up on your screen and you can see how she stacked the buttons for the eyes and made them look more eye-like, and the coolness of the Halloween print.

blanks

I have lots of pictures in my camera. They are from a visit to Ardenwood Historic Farm, the chair I bought at the Milpitas Historical Society garage sale for the primitive cat that Michie made, and the floor cloths and shirts and yardage I am working on. But the battery died and I have to re-charge it and hem school uniform pants for the first day of school tomorrow and cook dinner for tired people who did less than I did today but are more fatigued because they had to use their Y-chromosome.

Buick

This Buick appeared at the barn. I don't know whose it is. Probably not the original owner. It was only there for a week or so, it's gone now.





I don't know what year it is. It may be older than I am, it may not be. Some days I feel this old.

I wonder who bought it when it was new? What were they thinking? How great it looked, strong and sleek and powerfull.



Why did they pick this one over others? Were they buying it for themselves? Did they want someone to see them in it and be impressed? A client, or a girl? Maybe they thought their family would be safe in this car.



Was it the start of a new life? A send off for a son or daughter? Maybe for someone's newly widowed mother, so she can visit her grandchildren more often.

Do they, the grandchildren, remember this car?

Last Days of Summer

Joseph and his friend are trying to squeeze as much nothing as they can into the last moments before 6th grade.

I am just trying to squeeze as much as possible into each day, in between cries of "Mom, look!" I know that there is a silent count-down before this changes to "Mo-o-o-m! Stop looking at me all the time!" But still, hearing an abrupt shout of "MOM" at a much higher volume than needed, just to look at something you have already seen many times........


Yardage, fabric cut from the bolt, but not yet made into something. These are about a fat quarter, but I didn't measure because there was a cat sleeping on my table at the time.

Fat Quarter, fabric is measured in yards when it is cut off the bolt. A yard is 36 inches. A half-yard is 18 inches. A quarter-yard is 9 inches. The bolt is about 40 inches wide, so the quarter-yard piece is 9 inches by 40 inches which can be a difficult size to use. So quilters make fat quarters: a half-yard of fabric cut across the short way givestwo fat quarters that are about 20 inches by 18 inches.

Returning

I have returned from a week in Sparks, Nevada. I thought a lot of the projects I had going on, and the ones I wanted to start, but I could not do anything about them. Now I have returned to my projects, my laundry, my grocery shopping, my cooking.....



Reader Deb is interested in the next floor cloth because her vacation caused her to miss out on the last one. I have four in progress, and if today goes well, without crisis(?) I can start preparing canvas for two more.


I am also working on some shirts and some yardage.

It's really going to take me a while to get much done today because I have to make all my solutions fresh. They don't age well. I could get more life out of them by refrigeration but that would not go over well here at all. No, not at all.

There is a lot of work to do on the website too. www.doublecatbatik.com, and numerous other tasks including being the mom of an 11 yr old who has been the star of the show at his grandparents' for a week.




And Janow. Never forget Janow. Dr. John Redeagle DC is coming to the ranch Monday and I have to sign Janow up for an adjustment. He probably has not been groomed. I did not put grooming on Dave's list of thing to do, figuring eye cleaning and fly spray and medicine and food and longing were more important and that if I added anything less essential and something got left out, that wouldn't be it.

But I went to a quilt show in Reno while I was away. It was a vendor fair and not a juried or even non-juried exhibition, but they had neat stuff. I got this spray for fabric that applies very small sparkles that stay on through washing. I wonder how it would stay on horse hair?


Click on this sign to see my website. I am adding a shopping cart to make thinge easier for you and it will be up and running in September!

Spooky Art Card

Here is the Halloween themed art card I made for the Swap. I couldn't post a picture of it until Julie got it in the mail, I made it for her so she had to be the first one to see it, of course!

It has holes and see-through netting, so I took pictures of it with different backgrounds to show that. The see-throughness of the ghost is important!


For any of you that are not familiar with art cards, it is the standard 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches.
It's all textiles, except for a teeny tiny label on the back. It's also stiff. like a credit card, not floppy.

Progress

I am making progress on some things, but getting sidetracked. Today, I am going to a quilt show. Of course, I will get more ideas than I can possible have time to execute. Of course!

My table

Here is what is on my work table. I am having trouble with uploading new entries. I tried yesterdays two times and I can only view it from inside my blogger account. If I log of off and look, it is gone. So I'm trying today, but it doesnt seem to be working.

Well, now it does, but my formatting problem has returned.

Now it's better!

Whats going on here

This is some of what is going on. Here is the state of my craft table. It doesn't show what is hanging in the garage or laid out on the family room floor.

You can see some t-shirts and some yardage of broadcloth. And some floor cloth batiks in progress.

I made a Halloween themed art trading card for Julie, as part of a swap in Beneath The Attic Eaves. I don't think I managed prim, but I like it and was proud to mail it out. They didn't say it had to be prim, just the standard 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 size, and Halloween theme. So, it's a prim folk art group, but they didn't say it had to be prim!

Joseph and I are leaving tomorrow for a week in Reno/Sparks. Dave is staying home because of work. He can take care of Janow and Mary Shelley and Whiskers and Chica and Paula, and eat tomatoes. Tomatoes. Tomatoes.

I did something not very smart yesterday. While waiting for Joseph to return from playing with Aaron, I surfed Youtube. Lipizzan. I saw a video that I would not have watched if I had known. It was combined training, driving. The team went into the water hazard and the vehicle turned over and the people came out and the horses panicked and ran around and around in the water until they fell and the people were not fast enough or strong enough to save both horses. One drowned. They showed the video several times and I kept watching it because I couldn't bear not knowing that the horse was saved in the end, but he wasn't. I think part of me will watch that video until I die.

so busy

Something is wrong in my blog template. I think it happened around a comment, but my html skills aren't up to finding it yet. Maybe it will just archive away.

I have participated in a swap of Halloween themed Artist Cards. I sent mine out today and I am really happy with how it turned out, but I can't post a picture of it until Julie gets it. She gets to be the first to see it. She is sending one to me, so I can post pictures of them both soon.

I ordered a bunch of stuff from Dharma Trading Company and it should come today. I am excited. I have been getting things ready so I can jump right in with the Shiva paint sticks.

I've checked out the feed dogs on my Juki industrial, and says to try it out again and see if it's OK now. I hope to do that today or tomorrow. Yesterday I spent 2 hours preparing fabric and stock solutions. I did a lot, but have nothing to show for it. It's less rewarding than cleaning!

I just finished a book called Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. It was really good. Kind of spooky, but very involving. I have a lot of library books due today, and a few DVDs. I don't think I'll check out any new ones because they take so much time that I could use for something else. That will last only until I actually get to the library and then I may get weak.

I fixed it! I figured it out!

Aug 8 was messing stuff up on my monitor

This entry from July 8th was messing up how things looked on my monitor. I couldnt find any reason, so I deleted it and copied it here again.

No picture today. I have a really cool one, but it's in the camera and the camera is somewhere..... I'm sure......

I finally got to the Misty Fuse project I had wanted to do, but I don't like it. so I have to go to the store to buy something else....... I need some tulle. About 50 cents worth. Almost everything else besides the Misty Fuse came out of the Vintage Bin. You can bet bits of unusual fabric at yard sale if you buy used clothing. I try for 25 cents per garment. If I like it, I will go up to 50 cents.

I think I have some tulle somewhere. I just have to remember where. I'm not going looking for it. That could take days.

We went shopping for school uniforms yesterday. Just in time! We got the last four shirts and the last four pants in Joseph's size. Uniforms make it so easy, if you can find them. But it's true what I always suspected..... Boys uniforms run out faster than girls' because girls' parent buy them boy's uniforms. There were actually girls' parents shopping for uniforms in the boys department, and then I talked to another mom I know, and she buys boys uniforms for all three of her kids; one boy and two girls. Hand-me-downs are more possible and last minute morning problems can be sorted out better. The girls shirts have a little scalloped edge on the collar and the wastebands of the pants are lined with floral fabric.

Boys will not wear these clothes.

We went shoe shopping next. Shoes are not part of the uniform. 'No open toes' is about it. So we looked at the shoes, and I checked out the prices, then I stated a price limit that would allow him many choices of shoes but not allow an excessive amount of spending. The choice of shoes was about 75% of what the store offered. He was ennjoying making the decision until he found the pair that was far and above the most expensive pair at the store. Then.... no other pair would do. This is where, if not for uniforms, I would have asked him to trade some clothing for less expensive versions to make up the difference. But with uniforms, that doesn't work.

So, for now, we have no shoes.

We went home to pack up for Camp Winton. Leave Saturday morning, pack check Friday. And a long list of needs. So we decided what we need to buy, what we already have that will do, even if not officially sanctioned by BSA. A clothesline? Eight inch rope? We have that, but is it BSA officially 1/8 inch? No, but it will do. We'll shop for the things he NEEDS today. I will anyway. Alone. Easier.

He NEEDS a personal first aid kit. I can get one at Wal*Mart. They have tulle there.

Water Flows Along a Concentration Gradient

Here is Mary Shelley. I think she is trying to absorb more ferocity through osmosis. Does it flow along a concentration gradient? There is only one Mary Shelley. So different from Whiskers who only pretends ferocity because it is fun. The first time whiskers attacked my feet, I had to check and see if she had been de-clawed. Nope. All there.

Mary Shelley is a beautiful cat with hair that she keeps up perfectly. Whiskers, on the other hand, always looks like she slept funny on her hair and she's bowlegged so she walks like a bulldog.

Going out on a limb here. This is what I've got going on right now. It's not done yet. But now that it is out for all the world to see, if it turns out funky, I'll be embarrassed.


I'm also working on an art collectors card for Julie, whose name I drew for a Halloween art card exchange. It's coming out pretty good so far, but any picture now would be truly boring. I re-thought my plans for it last night, and I am going to break out that water soluble stabilizer I bought last year, or was it the year before.....

Sunflowers

We have fewer of these than we have peaches. Not as scary.

peaches

We have a lot of these. I mean a lot! Our freinds and neighbors are starting to run away.

Inchies

Well, I did it. There were pitfalls. I overcame them. They weren't major, but little things, like buying a 1/3 yard piece fo tulle at Wal*Mart when they were remodeling the store and everything was moving around every day and the computer that calculates the price of yardage and prints up a barcode was not working. The math impaired cutter had to do it manually. One third yard at 77 cents per yard........

So here they are.

These are one inch charms. They were a free project from Fiber and Stitch. They were supposed to have gromets in them to string them together, but I didn't have gromets so I out them on magnets.

Were they worth it? I'm not sure, if you consider the end product, but they were fun, and I ordered Misty Fuse to make them, and THAT is great stuff. So learning about Misty Fuse and getting a feel for what you can do with it... That made it!

Our Boy Scout is still at Camp Winton and we havent heard anything. We would only hear of something if there were a problem. He wanted to do something called the Polar Bear Swim. First thing in the morning, they get on their trunks and go jump in the lake. Of course, the lake is in the Sierras and it's filled with melted snow......

I have never been in that lake, but experience tels me that Sierra lakes can be cold.

Very cold.