Once again a big search!!!!

When we were in Germany in April I bought a lovely pendant from a street vendor and after we got home I ordered some beads from recycled glass on Etsy.  We have a couple events coming up and I wanted to assemble this necklace.  A small project...an hour or two..  But I can't find them and I have looked and looked.  What I have found is all this:

 
 

Everywhere I looked I found more jewelry parts.  I haven't done any work with jewelry for about 10 years but that hasn't stopped me from continually buying jewelry bits and parts over the years.  One thing  that I always feel the need to rescue are old brooches from the 40s and 50s.  Nobody wears a brooch any more.  I like to incorporate them into necklaces and must have at least thirty or forty waiting.  A few are missing stones and need repair but most are just lovely.  When I was in London recently the Victoria and Albert Museum had a breathtaking display of reconstructed jewelry..  I was so inspired by it...so inspired I may soon get around to doing it. 
What I found amazing is that I have this massive amount of turquoise beads and jewelry.  I do not own ONE piece of clothing that is turquoise.  How did this happen?

What I do wear is a lot of purple and have very little purple jewelry.  On this whole table I had one small plate with a pansy brooch and coordinating beads. 

At first I thought since I had it all divided into colors that I should sort it into smaller projects.  But the more I thought about it, it was overwhelming and so I will bag the color groups and put it all aside until winter.  In the meantime I will continue to search for the pendant I bought in Germany.

At this time I need to be painting buttons...not doing jewelry. The small table will be done this week.

The tiny Bewick wrens that were nesting in this basket in the entry have fledged.

So I took the basket down and carefully pulled out the pansy arrangement.  The nest was entirely of small twigs and only about 2 I/2 inches across in the hollow of the nest... a very small bird.  It was amazing she could even build a nest in such a small space and right next to all the traffic in and out of the house.

This last note fall under "miracles I love and shall appreciate"  For 25 years I had one massive clump of asparagus that we fed off of every spring.  Weeds had grown up around it and one day about 4 years ago in haste I accidentally sprayed it with weed killer.  I was just devastated.  But asparagus have a strong deep root system and I just kept praying it would send up a new shoot one day...  And sure enough it finally did... 3 tiny shoots which I will guard with my life and build a fence around it as well.

By any other name... a cellar is a cellar

We have a cellar....not a basement...but a small bonafide cellar.  Just the kind you would expect in a house that is 111 years old.  It is dark and dank and ground water seeps in during the winter and spring and a sump pump keeps us from floating away..  

There are a few shelves down there up on blocks and DH does keep a few bottles of wine down there....so over the years I have called it his wine cellar... When we bought the place and added on the only way to access it was by a trap door

That was 37 years ago and at the time I thought it would be fun to paint the trap door "trompe-l'œil"  like a wine cellar.  Well it only took me 37 years but I did it in the barn last month.  I had to wait until last week for my handy man to have a day to install it.  You can see it is tucked behind the kitchen island.

But now when you walk into the front door it is the first thing you see. It has to be the longest incubation period I have had for an idea to come to fruition.

 

 

We have a small open entry area before our front door and I hang my garden tools there and also this very small basket of silk pansies....right next to the opening and just the height of my head.   As I was preparing to sweep the entry out yesterday I heard a cheep, cheep, cheep...and found a nest with newly hatched bewick wrens in it.  The mama flies in through a dog door and up to feed them.  The bewick wrens are known for making nests in the most unusual places.

 Also yesterday the first of this year's baby wild  turkeys visited the garden.  The chickens weren't sure if they liked this encroachment in their territory.

Table top 90% done..

The table top is about 90% done and I'm happy with it.  I have a few boo-boos to clean up and want to add some bees, lady bugs and a couple hummingbirds.  This week has a lot of commitments so it will be next week before I get to the legs and the finish coat.
The stencils were perfect but I needed to do them slower as I smudged a few as I was moving along.


As I was cleaning and sorting in the barn last week I came across an extra large zip lock bag and I could see a hand in it.. I couldn't imagine what it was.  It was a dance  hall floozie doll I started years and years ago.  All the parts are done and stuffed and all the embellishments are in the bag. The original design sketch is even there  and I had molded and painted her head.  There must have been some crisis in my life to have packed her away so close to finishing.  Maybe this winter..









I had always thought I had one more doll in me but I thought it was going to be a garden goddess...  I have her head done but no body....and I have lots and lots of material for her.  So maybe I have 2 more dolls in me..

Getting checks on the curve.

First I put a coat of white primer on the little table and let it dry overnight.













I wanted to put a row of checks around that curve and was not sure how to do it.  So I cut a piece of freezer paper to fit that shape and used a hem gauge to mark the height of the checked row... so far so good.  I do actually use freezer paper occasionally to put things in the freezer but not as often as I use it to make patterns...



I fiddled a bit with the hem gauge until I got the width of the checks so that they came out fairly even.

Then I cut out the row  of checks and I could use it on both sides of the table to mark the checks.









First I was using blue painter's   tape to mask but it was lifting the primer and then I started using quilter's "Tiger Tape" and it is working quite well.

The row done.  I am using a lot of antique glazing on this as I go..  I have a look I'm going for... with luck I will get there... if not then I'll go for the look I end up with... One of my favorite sayings is "Blessed are the flexible for they shall not get bent out of shape!"

 

 
 

Table Time

I spent the entire day pulling weeds, spraying weeds, cleaning in the barn and trying to get an old drip system to work in my peonies. 

I am definitely ready for something whimsical and FUN!!!! So at dusk I took my little table outside and sanded it down. I had used a "crackle" mix on it before and it was really hard to sand off.    I hope to get it primed over the weekend so I can paint on it next week and use my nifty new stencils..  I don't want to hurry this project because the best part is actually the "doing"  There will be no deadline...

I had been giving it some thought for the last few days on what color palette I wanted to use...

Most of the funky furniture I've seen as been bright jewel tones or very pastel..  I really didn't want either.  I already have a breakfront in the living room that is painted olive green with a pastoral scene on the doors. 

So I want to pick up on the green and the dining table is painted off white (antiqued) with roses. So with a burnt sienna and a little gold added this is what I've chosen...





And of course there will be lots of black and white as well... There will be some freehand painting and hopefully lots of my little stencils.







And the legs... I will save the legs for last... What fun they will be.  This is so similar to crazy quilting because there is NO right or wrong and anything goes and the more embellishment the better.