Emerging personal petroglyphs

My petroglyph people, under construction.
Painted, stamped, embroidered by Sherrie Spangler

A few days ago, I decided I needed to work on something that reminded me of the desert. (Too much rain going on here.) I also wanted to use the luscious lemon and lime embroidery threads that had just arrived from Artfabrik.

So I pulled out the piece of fabric below that I had painted years ago in soft greens, turquoise, rose and lavender -- the desert in spring. A few months ago, I stamped it with some petroglyph figures that I had carved out of a foam food tray. Then I sponged on some shimmery gold spirals and squares. Then it went back in the bin because I couldn't decide what to do next.

Here you can see the beginning of the embroidery.

Well, now is its time to shine! The little figures were ready to emerge with help from some bright perle cotton thread. I started by outlining each with a green chain stitch, then further defined the main figure with a rusty stem stitch. I tried working with an embroidery hoop, but ditched that after about 10 minutes. Below, I'm adding a lavender blanket stitch to start the necklace.

A stem stitch also brings out my mystery animal:

Yellowy-gold feather stitches turned into hair:

It's coming along nicely now, but I still have to decide on the eyes. The eyes can make or break people, even if they are only embroidered petro people.

Lastly, here's why I'm spending so much time inside doing handwork:

Have a more colorful day

Tofu brownies and John Deere

This tofu vegan brownie is, just maybe, as good as my all-time favorite brownie recipe that I've been making for more than 20 years.

This isn't a late April Fool's joke!

My daughter, the vegan, has been trying out vegan brownie recipes for years, always with disappointing to disastrous results. But last week she hit the jackpot with this tofu brownie so moist, dark, rich and chocolatey that we devoured the whole pan right away and she had to make a second batch.

She's had several recipe requests since she mentioned it on Facebook, but since Facebook isn't conducive to recipes, I'm putting it here. Let us know if you try it! Warning: It may be vegan, but it's not low fat.

Deluxe Cocoa Brownies

From "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar"

An awesome book

by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

3 oz. firm silken tofu, like Mori-Nu
1/4 C. nondairy milk
1/2 C. canola oil
1 C. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 C. flour
1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 325. Line 8x8" pan with parchment paper. It should cover sides and bottom.
2. Puree tofu, milk and oil in blender or processor until smooth and fluffy.
3. Transfer to mixing bowl and use fork to vigorously beat in sugar. Add vanilla.
4. Sift (VERY IMPORTANT) flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Use spatula to fold and mix batter until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and smooth out the top.
5. Bake 30-32 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes.

(NOTE: Julia added about 3/4 C. chocolate chips, I think. You can also add 1 C. chopped nuts.)

From brownies to ... freshly mowed grass.
A sure sign of spring

 is the sight of our neighbor Dick

on his beloved John Deere.

He had to wait a loooong time

for the rain to stop,

but it finally took a break this weekend.

 

Have a great week!

Party pants for blog anniversary!

These are the orange shorts I bought for my trip-to-the-desert that didn't happen. I planned to wear them with turquoise Ts, since blue and orange is my favorite color combo. I was supposed to fly back on April Fool's Day, but instead I've been stitching away at home in the rain while the party pants stayed packed away.

But April 1 is a party day anyway 

because it marks the one-year anniversary

of this blog!

Thank you to all who have followed on my little journey, leaving encouraging comments and signing up as followers. At first I had to beg family members to sign up as followers, but now they dribble in steadily from around the world, which never ceases to amaze and THRILL me.

I didn't know it would be this much fun, but blogging has turned out to be one of my favorite activities. It involves photography, color, writing, making connections, exchanging ideas ... all things this former newspaper journalist and current quilter loves.

And who knew I'd have followers from Sweden and Switzerland? This has been VERY exciting. The one from Sweden even has a bunny for Bunners to look at.

Just in time for the party, my order of hand-dyed embroidery threads from Laura Wasilowski arrived in the mail today. I'm using the threads for the circle blocks (above) that I had planned to work on in the desert. I wrote about them a few days ago here under "The Travel Kit that didn't." I'm excited to add some of the bright green and yellow now that spring is almost here.

I decided to arrange the arc blocks to form circles rather than veering off into swoops and waves. I'll try to keep it simple so the eye can focus on the color and embroidery.

Now for some interesting blog stats

from the past year:

This pink sea star appeared in the post with the all-time high number of page views, almost from the day I published it last April. Click here to read April 20, 2010's "Sea stars, barnacles, slugs, oh my!"

"Discharging with the Twisted Nuts," published here last May 25, took on a life of its own, probably because of the googleable "twisted nuts" phrase. It takes the second spot for page views, with nearly 300 hits. Imagine the surprise of those who were looking for some other type of nuts when they landed on a wholesome quilting blog!


And, of course, any post with Bunners gets a lot of attention:

I wrote about these Bunners quilts here on Jan. 21, 2011, under "Not a Lucky Rabbit." It takes third place for most page views.

Chihuly glass at Museum of Glass

Fourth place goes to "Nice Glass, Tacoma!" which ran here on April 9, 2010. It's about the fabulous art at the Museum of Glass across the bridge in Tacoma. Check it out for some photos of colorful Chihuly glass as well as a live demo at the museum's Hot Shop.

Number five is actually from this week, the aforementioned "The Travel Kit that didn't."  Click here to read it.
 


"We don't need no friggin' rain dance," which is from my second day of posting, April 2, 2010, is holding at No. 10 in page views, for unexplained reasons. It only includes a photo of my "Rain Dance" quilt, above, but maybe that's another popular google search phrase.

That about wraps it up for today's news.

Thanks again to all who have visited in the past year.

You truly do make my day when I read your comments

and see my new "friends" as followers.

I love reading your blogs as well.

New followers always welcome!

"Too Much Fun," original quilt by Sherrie Spangler

Put on your party pants!

Have a colorful day!

More circles and arcs

Still stitching away on my couch,

travel-kit-that-didn't at hand,

rain falling outside. 

So far, I've covered raw edges with

the feather stitch, blanket stitch,

herringbone stitch, whip stitch,

chicken scratch, French knots, and beads.

I'm trying different arrangements

on my design board.

(Flannel-covered insulation board.)

The possibilities are endless ...

I'm leaning toward just circles.

My daughter says to keep it simple.

Have a colorful day!

The Travel Kit that didn't

This is the travel quilt kit that was supposed to be with me in the California desert right now. But because my kit and I arrived for our Seattle departure during Alaska Air's computer meltdown and my flight (and about 150 others) was canceled, I'm still in rainy Washington. The earliest Alaska could rebook me on anything wasn't until two days after my six-day trip was supposed to begin, so I bagged it and got a refund.

The upside is that I have a new colorful quilt project started and all of the embellishment supplies tucked in this little tin and ready to carry around with me. I included a few skeins of Laura Wasilowski's hand-dyed perle cotton, some silk ribbon that I painted last year (see "Silk ribbon painting experiment"), some beads, needles and beading thread, and my Gingher thread snippers. Airport screeners never question the needles or snippers.

These are a few of the base blocks. I started with six-inch squares of my own hand-painted fabric and fused on arcs that I cut freehand (purposely irregular). Then I machine-couched chenille yarn over some of the edges. Here's a possible arrangement:

And here's the yarn I used. It's really quick to couch this down with a cording foot and big zig-zag stitch. I used invisible thread.

After reconciling with myself that the desert was not in the cards for me anytime soon, I curled up on the couch with chocolate and my handy little kit and started covering the raw edges with big embroidery stitches.

Awhile back, I remember seeing photos on Jane LaFazio's blog about a class she teaches called "Recycled Circles," in which quarter circles are heavily embellished and then arranged into wonderful, wonky circles. (Or maybe she starts with whole circles and then cuts them in quarters and rearranges them. That might be easier.) Anyway, that's sort of the effect I'm hoping for, except not so heavily embellished. It's the wonkiness that I really like. I'd love to take a class from her.

Here's another possible arrangement. It still needs beads and more embroidery, but at least now I have something to do to take my mind off of the rain.

Have a Colorful Day!

A Day of Northwest Sunshine

We finally had one full day of sunshine yesterday! Dave, Julia and a friend launched the kayaks, while I took photos and went for a hike. The neighbor's dog could hardly contain himself with all of the beach activity.

We had an extra low tide (tied to the closeness of the moon from last post?), which revealed sea stars in a mucky part of the bay normally covered by water:

Sorry I don't have more color to share,

but it's raining again today :(

Night of the Big Moon; End of Winter



Fuzzy photo of the perigee moon rising
over our house Saturday.

By Sherrie Spangler



All week I waited for Saturday's moon rise. 

It was to be not only a FULL MOON,

 but a super "PERIGEE MOON,"

a celestial event far rarer than the famed BLUE MOON.

And I love blue moons, as you can see

by some of my moon quilts:

"Under a Blue Moon,"
art quilt by Sherrie Spangler



It also was the last full moon of winter,

which officially ended this afternoon. (Yeah!!!)



"After Katrina," a small art quilt.



"Moon Rise at Sunset,"
quilt collage by Sherrie Spangler


Here's the scoop on Saturday's super moon, according to news sources and NASA:
Full moons look different because of the elliptical shape of the moon's orbit. When it's at perigee, the moon is about 31,000 miles closer to Earth than when it's at the farthest point of its orbit, known as apogee. Perigee moons appear about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than moons that occur on the apogee side.

"The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," said Geoff Chester with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. The next one won't be until 2029. "I'd say it's worth a look," he said.

The best view was supposed to be to the east near sunset, so I was out, following Geoff's advice ... and it didn't start to peek through our tall trees until hours later. In the meantime, I drove to all of the high points near our home, hoping for a spectacular view. After an hour, I gave up and got an iced mocha before the coffee place closed, then went home and listened to NPR's Saturday blues show which appropriately featured MOON songs.

"Full Moon Over Turtle Island,"
which I made a long time ago.

Finally, after about a dozen trips outside with the camera, a magnificent white moon rose through the trees. I swear I heard coyotes and owls. Since I don't like messing with camera settings, I shot it on auto with no tripod and sort of like the eerie effect.

HOWL!



Waiting for Spring

The spring pillow covers are done

and Bunners obligingly posed with them on the front porch

this afternoon in -- GASP! -- the sun.

I dug into my sewing gadget stash for some old metal button forms (the kind you cover with your own fabric) and the Fasturn tube turner to make some cording to loop around the buttons. The cording was a pleasure to make -- it took only seconds to turn using the Fasturn device. But that fat, sturdy piping was not so fun to insert, especially on the 12 corners. I think I strained a neck muscle wrestling with it, causing me to nearly pass out in pain when I went into
Down Dog in yoga class today.

The Fasturn tube turner in action.

Here's the  reverse side. As I was cutting the fabric, I wished I could give a piece to every person in Japan who has been devasted by the disaster there to at least give them something bright to hold onto. The logistics and aid experts say it's more important now to send money, 

but if I could I would send

color and light.

Don't forget to watch for

the big moon tonight.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

My yard art is doing a little Irish jig for St. Paddy's Day

-- and also because spring is almost here.

Inside, Bunners is having the luck of the Irish,

with a big pile of green parsley for breakfast.

And I'm dicing lots of green veggies for

-- spaghetti sauce?

I like spaghetti way better than corned beef.

Back outside, I went in search of signs of spring

and found a little crocus poking through

the grass in a roadside ditch.

Above was this blooming forsythia branch:

Of course, here in the Northwest the skies

are still mainly gray,

 so in defense I decided to pull out

my brightest flowery fabric

and make spring pillows for the front porch

 to help ward off the gray.



Yards and yards of fat cheery piping

will surround each pillow,

which I hope to finish by tonight.

Have a colorful day!