A new photo/fabric piece

I printed another photo for the next in my series of desert photo/fabric collages. I took the picture of this giant saguaro a few years ago when Barb and I started hiking on a cloudless day and all of a sudden storm clouds appeared on the horizon moving rapidly toward for us. We turned around and high-tailed it back to the car, getting there just before the rain overtook us.

I printed the photo on white cotton that I backed with an 8x10 blank adhesive address label, which stiffens the fabric enough to go through the printer. The picture shows how the label gets peeled off afterward.

I don't normally work with these earthy colors, but I managed to pull out enough fabric from my stash that I won't have to try to paint any. I'm not used to mixing those subdued colors of paint.

I can even use some of the wooden beads that I bought last week. Look at how that one strand of green matches the cactus! I can't wait to get started, but it'll have to wait until I get back from visiting family and friends in Washington.

Here are some other photos that I might print on fabric:

The one above is just behind my neighborhood and the yucca below is in my back yard.

The tangle of saguaro limbs is from a hike in the Tucson Mountains west of the city.

The sunsets are from my front courtyard with the Tucson Mountains far in the distance.

In preparation for my trip, I decided to make some pants more comfortable for my apple figure. I cut off the old tight elastic waistband and added a new one with five extra inches. Oh, what a relief when I put them on! I think I'll have to do this with a few more pairs, instead of hoping that I'll lose five pounds just in my stomach. Those of you with pear figures have no idea how we apples suffer with constricting waistbands! If we buy pants that fit our waists, they're enormous around our hips and legs.

Have a colorful day

Beads and tomatoes

My bead store haul

I'm rolling in beads! Yesterday I went to a bead store for the first time since I moved to Tucson over five years ago. I had finally depleted my stash of oranges and golds, and that's all I planned to buy. HA!

BEADHoliday turned out to be room after room after room of just about every type of bead and beading supply that you could imagine. It's been in business 28 years in central Tucson and is housed in an appropriately colorful old building.

I was swept away with the colors and slight irregularities of the wood beads and bought one strand of each of these colors. (And there were more colors.)

Seed beads, turquoise ...

... an entire rack of leaf beads.

I'll be back!

Another thing I've been doing lately is roasting tomatoes and then using them in salads, sandwiches, breakfast plates and for snacking. It's impossible to buy decent tasting tomatoes in the stores here, but after roasting them with olive oil, garlic and seasonings they taste pretty good.

Do any of you do this, and what seasonings do you use? I just used salt, pepper, thyme and oregano and I'm looking for more ideas.

This morning I had some with a slice of spinach quiche.

On the Juniper front, she continues her love affair with books and with Pops the rescued feral cat. We think he's so grateful to finally be living inside with a loving family that he'll put up with anything.

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A finish, a start and a Mahjong break

I finished my latest desert door piece, which is 16x20 inches. I just HAD to add sparks of golden-orange because it brings it to life. I decided the coral wall color in the photo wasn't intense enough for me.

Then I did some meditative big stitching with a light aqua-turquoise perle cotton that matches the door. I love blue paired with orange.

While I was trying to decide on adding the orange, I started an envelope quilt like one I made a few years ago. 

I'm not excited about doing the precision piecing, but it's fun to choose the colors for each envelope and arrange a little pile for each one ready to feed through the sewing machine. It goes pretty quickly. I'm making 42 envelopes.

And speaking of quilts, look at this sad puppy ...

Yesterday I took an afternoon break to play Mahjong with the girls for a few hours. It was 107 outside so we needed an indoor activity. 

And of course there was food! So much so that I didn't have to fix dinner. Afterward some of them took their lawn chairs to listen to an outdoor concert in the shade when it "cooled" off a bit, but I wanted to get back to my projects. I don't consider 90 degrees in the shade comfortable!

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Another desert door collage

Another desert door collage is under way! I started by printing this photo onto white cotton fabric with my home printer. I backed the fabric with a letter-size peel-off label (the kind that you print with your computer) to make it stiff enough to go through the printer. I took the photo a few years ago in one of Tucson's colorful old barrios.

It's not done yet. I think I'll bead a coral colored spiral above the door and maybe do some big hand stitching somewhere.

I painted a sky blue background with Setacolor transparent fabric paints and pulled out some old crinkled sheers that pick up the colors of the door and steps.

The fabric dried in about 15 minutes outside because ...

I'm using Mistyfuse to adhere everything together. It works great on sheers because it keeps them soft and transparent. That will also make it easier to stitch through.

I used parchment paper to keep the fusible from getting on the iron and ironing board.

The photo and sheers are now all held together, so I can move them around the background as one unit until I decide on exact placement. Now I'm itching to hand stitch and bead!

Here's the link to my first desert door piece: 

desert-door-art-piece.html

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The Texas Rangers are blooming!

 

The purple magic happened again! Tucson's Texas Rangers have been bursting into bloom over the last few days.

The plants in an entire area will burst into bloom overnight, triggered by just the right muggy conditions.

They're glorious, lining parking lots and neighborhoods. I took photos of the ones above from my car today -- they were all in commercial parking lots.

Mine had buds on them last night, and when I got up this morning they were in full bloom! That's mine above and below. 

You can see how big they are. They're also called Texas Sage. The leaves are a fuzzy sage green and the flowers a beautiful soft purple. The bees love them.

And in case you missed last night's crescent moon in your part of the world, here's how it looked from my house hanging over the desert at sunset.

Have a colorful day