We have a lovely yard - with lots of trees - that provide lots of shade and keep the house quite cool during the hot summer months. The only drawback to all that shade is that it's really hard to find flowers that will bloom and provide color. A few years ago I discovered a great place on the web called the Garden Junk Forum where people share pictures and instructions for making all kinds of yard art out of castaway treasures. I started collecting cobolt blue bottles and displaying them on bamboo stakes planted in the groundcover we have in the backyard. I grouped them together and thought they kinda look like a cluster of flowers - and they look especially nice early in the morning when a tiny bit of sunshine peeks through the tree branches overhead.
After that, I saw some fun totems - also made from glass dishes - and started scouting for pieces at the thrift stores when I visited.
My most recent addition is glass flowers made by glueing together plates & bowls and adding glass marbles from the dollar store.
I scored at the thrift store one day and found a big shallow blue bowl that I turned into a birdbath.
I chose to make all of mine using clear glass and certain colors, but they can actually be made using anything your heart desires - tea pots - stoneware - ceramics etc.....
I used 3E clear silicone adhesive for windows and doors. (although it didn't turn out as clear as I would have liked) and I attached a flattened spoon to the back so I could mount it on a piece of conduit pipe from the hardware store that was cut to the desired height.
Fun project!
I finished whipping the edge of this new rug last night and I'm really pleased with it. It's not very big - just 15" x 19" - because I used a scrap of linen that I had in my stash and just made it work. I included 5 fruits to represent my hubby and our three children. Used an assortment of yummy browns for the border and trunk.
I based it off of a design I found in one of the old needlework books I have in my library, and just drew it freehand.
Talking about the tree of life makes me think of my family, of course. My little grandson Tyce just turned 10 months old and they had family pictures taken. We are so smitten with this little guy - how could we NOT be with eyes like this?
More photos can be seen on the photographer's blog here.
Two months ago, there were five of us in our rug hooking group who decided to do an ATC swap. Yesterday was the appointed day for the exchange and it was so much fun to see what everyone had made - each person did a great job and they were all so different and fun!
I made these little heart & hand pieces - funny how I drew the same exact design on each piece, but they all turned out a wee bit differently from each other.
And below are the five that I came home with. Marliss did monograms for each person. Angela did the stars. Cindy made cute little sheep using roving or fluffy yarn (can't remember which), while Marilyn made the sailboats.
It was a fun swap and I hope we'll do another one some day! Thanks ladies!
I'm making a new queen sized quilt for DD#1 and her hubby. She chose the design and the colors. As you can see, her colors are far different than what I normally use in my projects and there are times I thought I needed to wear my sunglasses while working on this! LOL
Each block is made with four of these foundation pieced triangles.
Since I didn't have any of these colors in my fabric stash, it was a lot of fun buying bits of this and that so it would turn out scrappy like she wanted.
I've made 35 blocks and now I need to get them all stitched together - add a border - and take it to the quilter.
Hubby & I are heading out for vacation in a few days, and we're going to Mt. Rushmore - a place I've never been to before! We're really looking forward to taking a break from our everyday routine, and will be traveling with our 5th wheel trailer with no itinerary or schedule. If any of you have been there before and can share some information about the area, I'd love to hear about it - we don't want to miss anything important!
Thanks!
Julie - of Me and My Stitches - started blogging back in January, and I fell in love with her beautiful minature quilt pendants as soon as I saw them. I've done paper piecing myself before, but never anything on a scale as small as what she does. The colors she uses appeal to my love of all things primitive. I admired them from afar until recently, when she shared a picture of some wool that she had purchased. The thought occured to me - if she was wanting wool, that I have a LOT of that - and maybe she would be interested in doing a swap. I bravely emailed her to present my idea and she wrote right back saying that she loved the idea! So we made the arrangements and now I am the lucky owner of this 2" pendant. She puts her work under glass and solders the edges - adding a ring for a cord or chain. Each little strip of fabric is less than 1/4" wide! Teeny, tiny!
![]()
