Growing Things: Amaryllis Blossom

My roommate gave me an amaryllis for Christmas. I planted it around the first of January, and it has been growing fervently on top of my bookshelf quite unaware of the cold, snowy weather outdoors. Yesterday it sleeted, and my plant blossomed.

Holiday Wrap Up: Advent Coloring

I haven't posted in a long time, but I couldn't let the holiday season slip away without saying thank you to Elsie Marley of http://www.elsiemarley.com/. She posted a coloring page PDF for each day of advent in December. So, with my studies and preparation for my BIG graduate program comprehensive exam, I looked forward to coloring a page each day! Go here to see other pages people colored.




I think the stockings were my favorite to color.



Hopefully, you can look forward to more consistent posting in the future!

Rinsed and Ready

1/2 bushel of the most gorgeous roma tomatoes.


:-)

Bunting

Recently, I endeavored to make a string of triangle-shaped flags. Dave joked that all he could think of was a used car lot as I was describing the project, hehe. Well, I found out that these flags are often called "bunting." Henceforth, I have not been able to think about the marvelous craft without thinking of this little fellow:

(Indigo Bunting)

Materials:
Card stock + pencil for pattern
Assortment of fabrics (from your stash or cut up clothes in your Goodwill pile)
Pinking shears
Bias tape or ribbon (I used 4 spools of 1/2", 18' long ribbon)

Method:
The pattern is a no-brainer. But here are the dimensions I used: 9 1/2" x 8".


I used scrap fabric that I had in my stash in addition to cutting up some clothes that were destined for the Goodwill. The result was a wonderful variety of fabrics with lots of character. (Some triangles ended up with lace or buttons, etc). I enjoy looking at the bunting and remembering the memories I made while wearing this skirt or that shirt. Cutting them up enabled me to form even more memories with those garments. :)

Cut tons of triangles with your pinking shears. Hopefully you'll have nicer ones than those I used... They dulled before the project was finished. A new pair is definitely on my shopping list for the near future.

I used 25 triangles for each 18' ribbon. (25 x 8" = 200"; 18' = 216") The additional 16" were used for triangle spacing as well as to form a loop both ends of each strand for ease of hanging. I triple enforced this loop because I used the bunting while camping 4 days at a music festival, so I did not want wind, rain, or wandering drunks to knock it down...


Iron the ribbon such that it is folded in half. Lay out your triangles to get a random placement. Then just stack the triangles and sandwich them into the ribbon as you sew. I did not pin at all. Super, super easy & lazy.


Couple of pictures of the bunting hanging in our campsite. They really made our site easy to find among the others. And sometimes such a small thing as this can really add a lot of cheer to a space...




Cheers.

I like to buy "stuff"

My new shirt from Gap + Alpaca, Silk, Angora Yarn spun by hand in Crozet, Va in a nice little ball awaiting transformation... :-D

Independence Day

Just thought I'd show off some of Dave's photography. These are all from July 4 in Roanoke, VA.

We started off the day downtown, on the market.

Then we watched some of the ID3 bike races downtown.

And we ended the day at Rivers Edge, listening to the bands and watching fireworks.




Cheers!

The Lovers

I have started several posts lately and just haven't finished them to post. Sorry about the silence!

Today I ran across some drawings by Raymond Peynet that I adore and had to post (see Pip's post over at Meet Me at Mike's). Raymond Peynet is a French artist born in 1908. Throughout his career as an artist, he developed two characters that have made him famous - 'Les Amoureux' or 'The Lovers.' Apparently he drew/painted over 6000 different images of this couple!! Very incredible. Here are a few I found on various web pages:

This first one is how I feel with My Lover Boy. This next one is pretty funny:




This last one is rather whimsical. I wish I could be floating gorgeous rivers like this every day. :-)

While searching for The Lovers online, I ran across another artist who drew a series of images for a wedding magazine using Raymond Peynet for inspiration. Her name is Heather Moore; she has a blog which I am getting ready to check out! Enjoy:

One more!