Hey, I really like camping!

I feel kind of bad for having not wanted to go camping last weekend, but it was really relaxing and refreshing. 

I was really inspired by all the colors around me. Vivid greens and blues of the trees and the lake, sun-bleached stones and wood. Everything has a special sparkle in the woods. 

I went fishing with my guys and actually caught the first "keeper" of the weekend. The iridescence of the fish is amazing, the sun glittering on the water is, dare I say it, thrilling. Also sunburn-inducing. Note to self: Even thought it's early in the day and you think you'll be back before you're too exposed, put the dang SPF on.

For the first time in ages, and I do mean AGES, I felt relaxed. Calm. Serene. I discovered I'm pretty good at making a campfire. I can bait my own hook (I'm still working on the removal of fish from said hook). I can drive a boat. Last weekend was full of discovery. I did things I've never done before. I even removed a clam from its shell and caught a beautiful Sunfish using it as bait. Of course, the shell is beautiful inside. 

I took photos of textures you don't always see or notice in the city. I've been using them as the basis for some fabric designs. One I'm especially proud of is of some lichens. I played around in photoshop and the effect is one of watercolor impressionism. Like a Monet. I began playing around with pixelation, color fades, adding and subtracting elements. 

I also began to think that the campsite (on Lake Peavey) would be a really beautiful place to photograph my products. We're going back up this weekend, so I'll have a talk with the owners and see if they're cool with that (and I don't know why they wouldn't be). 

I also designed a line of star fabrics for next summer. I normally hate the star shape. It has become trite, in my humble opinion. But I'm hoping my designs will have enough of a spin on the oft misused geometric shape to make it seem exciting. I also based the different color-ways on different American cities. So it's still "All-American" <eye roll>. That part makes me cringe. Not that I'm not patriotic. I'm very much so. I just don't like how some people use that term. 

Anyway...

I really used this weekend to soak in the beauty of nature and my family and to meet new people. I accomplished that and much more. I even got a couple of flowers done for the baby quilt. Then I went off on my design tangent in my journal. Well, that, and I didn't want them to smell like campfire. I love to sit on the smokey side and get the smell in my clothes, but I don't think I should present a gift that smells like campfire. Though nothing would make me prouder than to have my great-niece wrapped up in the blankie I made for her while she's sitting at the fire pit in my sister's backyard.

Surviving the Scourge...

For whatever reason, the past several days have been nothing but fibromyalgia pain-filled misery. Undaunted, I've tried to make progress, but I've not accomplished too terribly much.
Just before that, however, I managed to get 5 more flowers done for my niece's baby's blanket and I sorted through several boxes of old stuff that has been out in the garage for years. Found some great stuff and some stuff that was kind of depressing, but, that's how it goes when you go through old junk, innit?
I also got on to Spoonflower and made some more fabric designs. It's one of the few artistic things I can do that doesn't cause too much pain or take up too much energy. I'm going to be going through my designs soon and discontinuing a few, so if anybody wants some, now's the time to get it. Unfortunately, Spoonflower doesn't have "sales". Well, that I'm aware of. I think I've found a mini project!
Interestingly the designs I worked on yesterday were ones I imagined for garments, instead of quilting. Not that they couldn't be used for quilting, but I could envision some really great clothes out of the stuff I did yesterday. I'm not sure if those will actually go up for sale or if I'll dare to make a clothing line out of them. It is something to consider.... hmmmm....
Here are three of the new flowers I did last week.

I'm trying to make sure to use combinations of the old and new fabric so I don't have this set of flowers here, that set there... I wonder if we can change the block name to Auntie's Flower Garden? I have 7 step-grandchildren and one great-step-grandchild, but I'm not really a grandmother yet. I know, I know. It's a Grandmother's Flower Garden.
Well, let's see what the next week brings. Hopefully today will mark the end, or the beginning of the end of this bloody fibro flare up, and I'll get something done! I'm missing my Summer, dammit!

More poetical inspiration...

Today's poem by William Wordsworth has such wonderful imagery I wanted to share it. I hope it inspires your art.

A Whirl-Blast from Behind The Hill 

A Whirl-Blast from behind the hill 
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; 
Then--all at once the air was still, 
And showers of hailstones pattered round. 
Where leafless oaks towered high above, 
I sat within an undergrove 
Of tallest hollies, tall and green; 
A fairer bower was never seen. 
From year to year the spacious floor 
With withered leaves is covered o'er, 
And all the year the bower is green. 
But see! where'er the hailstones drop 
The withered leaves all skip and hop; 
There's not a breeze--no breath of air-- 
Yet here, and there, and everywhere 
Along the floor, beneath the shade 
By those embowering hollies made, 
The leaves in myriads jump and spring, 
As if with pipes and music rare 
Some Robin Good-fellow were there, 
And all those leaves, in festive glee, 
Were dancing to the minstrelsy. 

William Wordsworth 

photo by Bella Fortuna

Above is a photo by one of my facebook friends, Bella Fortuna. She takes amazing photos of nature. I keep telling her she should send her stuff in to National Geographic. Her photos of insects are so perfect! I keep thinking I'll make an art quilt of them one day. She took a picture of a dragonfly that almost looks like it has a little smile. And she captures birds most beautifully. I just thought this pic of a lagoon would work well with Wordsworth's poetry. 

I made a label for Lillian's baby blanket, since we'll be presenting it to her tomorrow - yay! I started out trying to embroider it, but my skills aren't up to snuff on that. I got out my pink acrylic ink and painted it. I can paint much better than embroider, at least for now.

I have to stitch it on, obviously, but this is what I have so far. Later today I'll post some progress/process photos from the Grandmother's Flower Garden. I needed to replenish my supply of hexagons. I had many cut and all the freezer paper was cut, but still needed to be ironed on (which I did last night) and I started basting the pieces. I'll take some photos so you can see how that goes. 

For now, have a beautiful day! If it's sunny where you are, go get some vitamin D. Take pictures, take notes, get your creative juices flowing!

Summer inspiration

I am a fan of poetry, I'll freely admit that. I wasn't always a fan of reading poetry, but I've written an awful lot of awful poetry in my day. About a year ago I started designing art quilts based on the poetry of John Keats. I plan on embroidering Frank Loesser's lyrics to the song, "Anywhere I Wander" to the quilt I'm making for my niece's baby. 

Today, in my email, I received the following poem (I get daily poems from poetry.com). It's one I hadn't known before, and true poetry mavins will probably tsk-tsk that. To be fair I really didn't start actively reading poetry until the last three or four years, so I'm still a relative virgin. 

Anyway, I thought, since it's officially summer and sometimes the change of seasons brings a need for inspiration, I would share this one. Hopefully it'll inspire you do go outside in the sun and enjoy the day! Or maybe it'll inspire something creative and artistic, which is what it did to me. Great. Another idea in my head. I wish I had Dumbledore's pensieve for all my ideas. It does get a bit cramped in there...

Summer Sun 

Great is the sun, and wide he goes 
Through empty heaven with repose; 
And in the blue and glowing days 
More thick than rain he showers his rays. 

Though closer still the blinds we pull 
To keep the shady parlour cool, 
Yet he will find a chink or two 
To slip his golden fingers through. 

The dusty attic spider-clad 
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad; 
And through the broken edge of tiles 
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles. 

Meantime his golden face around 
He bares to all the garden ground, 
And sheds a warm and glittering look 
Among the ivy's inmost nook. 

Above the hills, along the blue, 
Round the bright air with footing true, 
To please the child, to paint the rose, 
The gardener of the World, he goes. 

Robert Louis Stevenson