Hard to believe it came together so well....

It is hard for even me to grasp that in August the blocks in this project had been abandoned for years in a basket in a closet (meant to be used on a jacket) and the beaded pieces had been abandoned in a box under the bed for years.(meant to be used for a mantle display about "Bird Fair".  I'm in the final stages of assembling the pages and here's a close up look at them.

The combined  projects are now a commemorative piece about the "Bird Fair" that the Dept. of Wildlife held one weekend each spring in our garden and drew huge crowds.  I just need to do the narrative to add to the pages.  It's all in a scrapbook so it will not take too long to edit and condense but I want to wait until I get new cartridges for my printer before I print them..I  will use the same technique I used for the narrative in the sheep book.

Another lost project rescued!!!

 
When I started the beaded bird project I had a vision of them being mounted on thin pieces of wood and assembled accordion style so they could all be seen at once.  Now I am rethinking this plan and will try to combine the beaded bird with another project.

 

 In 2010 I joined CQI round robin with a specific outcome in mind.... It was a wonderful group of stitchers and included: Cathy Labath - USA, Helina Pettinen - Finland, Jeanne Gagnaux - France,  Meg Shaffer - USA, and Ritva Peltola - Finland...  I had signed up for a seams-only round robin because I had planned to  incorporate them into a jacket made from this pattern.

At that time I bought a gorgeous olive-green brocade fabric at a thrift store for the jacket.  Eight years later the fabric is still hanging in my work room and the round robin blocks are waiting in a basket on a shelf.

When I put the beaded birds on the blocks on the brocade it was a match made it heaven

I really can't believe it!!

Near the end of August I posted about this series of beaded birds I started in 2009 and abandoned to a box under the bed... there were these four and two more partially finished and one  unfinished.




If I hadn't broken my arm they would have gone into eternity unfinished,  But since these small pieces were the only thing I could handle with my cast arm... I decided to try to  finish the unfinished two and assemble them..  and I did.... not as neatly beaded  as those  before but I finished.

I still had three weeks to go with the cast so I started on the unfinished robin piece....

I colored the cloth background so any little gaps in the beading are not so noticeable and there a lot of gappies.....





This is how far I have gotten working in small areas for very short periods of time..  Since I have still another week left before the cast comes off, I will be close enough to being done that I will keep going.

What's a 1-armed, nearly-blind woman to do?

What's a 1-armed,  nearly-blind woman to do to keep busy for another 3-4 weeks in a cast?  What I am doing might surprise you as it certainly surprised me...  In 2009 I started Robin Atkin's Bead Journal project and my initial plan was to do a bird  a month  and finish it as a tribute to the Dept. of Wildlife's "Bird Weekend" which they held in my garden for about 10 years...

I started with great enthusiasm and finished four parts, partially  finished two more and by then working with only beads became too tedious and boring so I packed it up and put it under my bed.  But nine years later when I started thinking about magpies I dug it out with renewed interest

The bluebird was about 90% finished so I gave it a try.  I need help threading the needles but learned long ago is all you need  is to run a needle through a pile of seed beads and they just jump on the needle.  All the outlining was done and it is very bumpy and random so being precise is not an issue and I was able to work in short spurts and finish the bluebird.









The quail was the other partially finished one and it  is about 80% done and so I am starting on it.  I should be able to finish this by next week.  I can only work in short segments of time as not only do my eyes tire, but the two useable fingers poking out of the cast get sore.  But it is so pleasant to have something different to do for a bit in the evening and I was ready for a break from the jewelry.

Even if I don't finish the last one, these six would be enough with pictures to make a great memory piece.  I never dreamt this project would ever again see the light of day again after all these years...





And the last one is a momma robin and has not a single bead on it....  It would give me a real boost to finish this project as those weekends were so special and I still have all the pictures.... so I will probably give it a try anyway and with luck could finish about the time the cast comes off.  You can read more about the bead journal project and class here.




And as I kept thinking about it,  I realized I'd never actually done a block with a magpie....only thought about it and the calendar block I thought was a magpie was actually a red-winged blackbird for the month of August. Just a little memory glitch again.

February CQJP progress

Since I couldn't sleep last night I got up and scanned the February block into the computer to fiddle a bit with it..  You can see the butterfly I am "building"    center left.  I wanted the butterfly to echo the lace of the triangle lower right..

Actually most of the lower right lace will be covered with lavender... I added the ruching around the image using TWO needles as I went... one doing the gathering and one tacking it down... I find I am much happier with the end result using that technique... Would anyone like a mini tutorial on that???


So about about 3 am I scanned the block into the computer and did a little photoshop magic on it.

I will do some surface embroidery upper right.. The theme of this block is butterflies and lavender.  I want a large bundle of lavender tied with a meandering ribbon lower right and a large lavender plant next to the cottage..

The vintage lace lower left will be heavily beaded and the perfect spot for the precious enamel charms from the bracelet I got at the thrift store last week...  And I do indeed think the swallow button will perfect for this block..

Between not fun but necessary commitments, taking both dogs to vet, myself twice to doctors and driving my mother to appointments, today is the first day this week I've been home and I need to paint buttons....But I'd rather be stitching..

May's BJP progress

I did get started on May's BJP while I was in Alaska but I have no hopes of getting it done by the end of the month... I have 2 other projects that need to be postmarked before May 31 and this can wait and be late. Stitching time is practically nonexistent this month competing with absolute necessary outside chores...

We have both the Western Bluebird and the Mountain Bluebird in our area.. It is usually the red-breasted Western Bluebird that have nested here although I haven't seen any this year.


A nice note today...the double columbine are blooming and so are two of the species clematis...which are finally becoming more available.. I saw signs of growth on my very-difficult-to-transplant Harison rose and all the herbaceous clematis have survived (which are rarely seen on the market) and I want to transplant them closer to house so I can enjoy them but have no idea WHERE!!!



There are spectacular small-flowered clematis and if you choose wisely you can have blooming clematis from May to October. My absolute favorite is "Duchess of Albany"

And when the sheep got out while I was gone they ate all my wonderful Crambe to the ground....hopefully it will recover as it is one of the big and bold plants I adore...

Bead Journal Project - April

Everyone knows that if daffodils had wings they'd be goldfinches... Since my bird garden is festooned with daffodils in April it's only fitting that my April BJP be a goldfinch. The color is off in this photo.... The background beads are actually an iridescent peach but try as I might I couldn't get it or adjust it.....

I know that without this project I would have NEVER gotten around to documenting the development of my garden for the birds and how it changed my life... My first plan was to use part of the story with each finished bird but now thinking I'm going to use the birds for a cover for a book about the garden... Then I will make copies for kids and grandkids...

Following post is installment 4 - Hips! Hips! Hooray for Roses!

Hips! Hips! Hooray for Roses! - installment 4

Installment 4 - How a garden for the birds changed my life!

In keeping with my criteria for plants (hardy to zone 4/5, drought tolerant and natives) I began looking for species or wild roses that produced lots of hips for the birds…. These were not easy to come by and you’ll never find them at your local nursery. But there are many and both the flowers, bushes and hips are very diverse in size and color Hips not only provide food for the birds, they add interest and color to the garden in the fall… Then I started planting Scotch roses, tough rugosa roses and a rose called Harison, a yellow, thicket rose that you see surviving on farmsteads after the farm is gone..

But I also was blessed with this wonderful hardy climbing rose that came from my grandfather’s homestead in the mountains of northern Idaho…I had no idea of it’s name and it wasn’t available commercially. So I covered my tiny chicken house with plastic and began propagating and selling my grandfather’s rose on a very small scale by mail order. Then I discovered another category of roses…Albas, the smallest and oldest class of heirloom roses with documentation going back to the 1400s… Drought tolerant, they grow into large shrubs and thrive on a dormant period during the winter…perfect for my garden. Unfortunately they were very difficult to find. I searched sources in Canada and for cuttings from private gardens until I had about 25…. The largest single collection of Albas in this country were in my garden… Doesn’t that sound silly that 25 roses in one class could be considered a large collection? But it became very important later.

I knew I was pushing the limit on hardiness but I began adding other heirloom roses such as gallicas, centifolias, and damasks because I could propagate and sell them… At that time there were NO sources in this country for heirloom roses propagated on their own roots and interest in old-fashioned roses was just beginning to swell. Again my “garden good witch” had me in the right spot at the right point in time… After a few years the garden was looking like this:

All the while I was building trellises, arbors, etc. in addition to more mulching as I still had a limited supply of water. This sequence of one rose bower speaks for itself….

Then people began to show up to buy roses and see the garden for birds and a bigger decision had to be made.

And remember this area looked like this when I started......

Goldfinch - April BJP

While I was waiting for Rita's CQ RR blocks to arrive I was able to get a good start on my bird for the Bead Journal Project for April. All I have left to do is the background and I have some really odd, but nice, peachy matte beads for that. I have no idea where I got them...in some grab bag or whatever but they will work great on this block...

This goldfinch is from the same drawing I did for the Daffodil CQ block, just reversed. It was interesting to work up the same design with two different mediums. I think I'll do the same with the bluebird/morning glory drawing.

I have the birds chosen for the first 6 months but the list for the last six months changes every day or so... This week the Rufous-sided Towhees arrived and now I want them on the list. They are wildly funny to watch as they can scratch for seeds with BOTH feet at the same time..

Let the Mulching Begin

My March bead journal project is the Red-breasted Nuthatch. We also have Pygmy Nuthatches.It's a spritely tiny bird and one of my favorites to watch at the feeder. Also this is the third installment of the saga of my garden for the birds..

Let the Mulching Begin

As mentioned earlier Spokane is semi-arid with 12-14” of moisture for the entire year and most of that is in the winter… It is not uncommon for us to go 80-90 days without rain during the summer. So if I wanted to have a bird garden without supplemental watering I simply had to mulch. My first impulse was to rush about planting here and there… a waste of time, energy and money. I decided to focus on 200-300 square feet each year and just put blinders on to the rest of the area…

Then what to use? Without a doubt my favorite ground cover material is old carpet….fairly easy to come by if you put the word out. Because of high landfill fees, one carpet installer was glad to give me the old carpet as he installed new carpet. … I did require it in larger pieces than he usually cut as he removed it. I was especially happy to get brown/gray carpet but settled for any color… (photo also shows organic fertilizer – deer droppings) If I didn't have enough carpet I used rolls of heavy black plastic, which I perforated with a pitchfork so the ground could breathe. With either the carpet or plastic it had to be covered with another layer.

At the time I was doing this there was an embargo on imported lumber so cedar mills nearby were operating full tilt. Shredded cedar bark was perfect for me as it knitted together and never rotted… Landscapers didn’t want it and the mills were anxious to dispose of it so it was incredibly cheap and I bought it by the dump truck loads. I credit my Garden Witch with this fortuitous chain of events because once the embargo was lifted a few years later, the mills quit running and shredded cedar bark was unavailable at any price. I ordered piles of bark like this every year for six years before I had the garden covered...

So an area was covered with carpet or plastic and then about 4-6” of shredded cedar bark. My husband would put the bark out in piles and then I would rake it out, cut holes and plant small seedlings and run a drip to it that I could turn on at night. Each year I added another area while the earlier ones became established and then I moved the drip to the new area.

Pictures are of the very first area I planted by the drive as it progressed over the years... It is now bird heaven. It is this critical step of mulching that has kept the garden thriving for 30 years. The original carpet or plastic are intact and the bark is still in place plus years of leaves falling has added to the mulch beautifully

This was after it was beginning to take hold...

This picture I took last fall from the back side of that same area.. I will have to take a new picture this spring. Some of the things planted for birds in just this area include wild roses, hawthorn tree, crab apple trees, junipers. apple tree, pine trees. pyracantha, elderberry, mulberry, bird cherry trees...just to name a few

Next month will be "Hips! Hips!, Hooray for Roses!!!"