Snow dance

It snowed today!

This is so unusual here

that schools let out early

and cars plowed into ditches left and right.

My friend Nancy, who loves snow,

practically sang into the phone,

"Isn't it pretty! It's snowing!!!

It's so quiet and pretty!"

I grew up in the snow of Pennsylvania, insanely jealous of anyone who lived in Southern California or Arizona, so I didn't share her enthusiasm. But I tried to appreciate the beauty of it, so out I went with the camera.

I found snowcaps on the apples ...

White comforters on the brussels sprouts ...



... and all quiet on the potato barrel front.

These red berries were the only bright color I found.

Next I headed down to the water ...

Even when it does snow in our corner of Washington, it rarely accumulates down at sea level.

... but it did today.

Now the Bay of the Green Potato Rocks is speckled with white.

No, I didn't change this to a black and white photo ...

it really was this black and white today.

Hope you had

a more colorful day!

Crazy quilt storm

Latest work on my crazy quilt blocks.

The weather has been crazy 

like a crazy quilt 

out here this week.

Gale force winds,

massive power outages,

boats and branches flung everywhere

and rain, rain, rain.

Tuesday morning after the wind storm -- branches scattered like random beads and a fence like a border stitch on a crazy quilt.

 

 

 

Sometimes my quilt looks like a storm has hit as I'm trying to decide what ribbons and stitches to use.

Meanwhile, back at the beach, 

I found a lot of things floating around 

that don't belong here, 

like the piece of dock (I think that's what it is) 

bobbing above,

and the canoe below ...

... and this soggy pillow washing back and forth

in the waves.

The gravel road up from the water was carpeted

with shiny wet leaves and Doug-fir needles ... 

part of Nature's crazy quilt.

 The roses of summer are long gone ...

Have a colorful day

Picasso on inspiration

"The artist is a receptacle for the emotions
that come from all over the place:

from the sky, from the earth,

from a scrap of paper,

from a passing shape,

from a spider's web."

                        

                      - Pablo Picasso 

Web on our back deck.

The quote from Picasso was sent to me by one of my blog followers -- Ladybug -- in response to my Oct. 26 post on Haiku and Color Inspirations. Ladybug has her own blog with some beautiful photos she has taken of spider webs. Here's her link: http://flyhometoladybugslair.blogspot.com/

A spider web by your front door is supposed to bring good luck,
so I left this one alone for awhile.

Everytime I see a spider web, embroidery designs fill my head. Unless the web gets in the way of leaving or entering the house, I usually leave it alone and admire the artistry. And seeing a spider web dotted with dew darn near becomes a glittering, crystal mystical experience.

Getting back to Picasso's quote, I find it hard to go anywhere without thinking of everything I see in terms of  art. When people look at my art quilts and ask how I get my inspiration, I'm flabbergasted. The problem is not coming up with inspiration; it's deciding which of my thousands of ideas to act upon!

For example, seeing these graceful plants swirling in the estuary under reflections of the sky gets me thinking about watering down blue fabric paint, washing it across white silk and watching the pigments migrate around into interesting patterns.

I took the photo of these ropes on the deck of a ferry because the graceful horizontal lines reminded me of a landscape. The lines could easily translate into lush green valleys or lavender hills shadowed by sunset. 

And then there is

Bunners!

Compare Bunners' sensuous curves to the ropes above.

Imagine the ears waving around like the estuary grasses!

See the world in his eye!

So my current project is

The Cosmic Rabbit!

I painted white cotton with Setacolor transparent fabric paints and then stenciled swirls with Shiva oil paint sticks. (The eye is cut from a commercial print, but I did everything else myself. I might stick a big button over it instead.) I'm combining machine and hand quilting and still have lots more embellishment to do: beading, embroidery ...

I did the chain stitch embroidery around his eye with Laura Wasilowski's hand-dyed perle cotton in the Salt Water Taffy colorway. She uses the most luscious colors in her thread, and it's available at www.artfabrik.com

My little muse!

Let's have a shout-out

for inspiration and Bunners!

Have a colorful day

81 years young!

I DROVE across the street (because it was pouring buckets) today to give our neighbor Dick a birthday card and discovered him happily tromping from the rain into his carport with a big smile on his face and his arms brimming with these magnificent golden maple leaves. He said they had fallen on his truck earlier and he thought they were too pretty to just brush off, so he brought them home like newfound treasure.

He may be 81, but he beams with a child's sense of wonder -- must be what keeps him so young. That and cruising the neighborhood on his John Deere riding mower looking for lawns to cut for fun.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Soul of an Irish poet

This is what Kevin likes 

Fog in my front yard in Washington

My brother, Kevin, lives in sunny San Diego. I live in rainy (half the year, at least) western Washington. Kevin loves fog and rain and hates it when he has to deal with day after day of sun and heat. I get depressed when it's rainy and gray and come alive when the sun makes everything glow. So we're constantly volunteering to swap weather with one another.

This is what I like

Japanese maple in the sun by my door last week

Sunshine makes me happy!

The other day, Kevin was bemoaning the fact that the rain and fog promised by the weatherman didn't materialize and he had to deal with yet another sunny day in paradise. I volunteered once again to swap, and I liked his reply so much that I asked permission to put it here:

"I guess I’m just a sad Irish poet at heart. 

Watch the dark and dreary skies

through rivulets of rain running down the foggy windows,

while laboriously dragging leaden pen over pitted, yellowed parchment

to opine about the trials and tribulations of the 

human condition.

Then head over to Patrick’s place with the 

potato-whiskey jug

to drown out the bitter taste of another gray day." 

                               

                                                                  -- My brother, Kevin

Then he added: "Modern man can flip on the solar-spectrum lights and work indoors, log onto the blog and bitch about missing Hawaii since that last vacation, and order out for delivery.  It must have really sucked to be a potato farmer in Ireland back then."

Why, is that a green Irish potato on our Washington beach? No, it's just a rock and I took its picture last week because the green stood out so splendidly against the gray stones.

It all came together last week -- the sun and the rain and the Irish and their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow -- when I spotted this rainbow over the bay behind our house. That's the Bay of the Green Potato Rocks.

Have a colorful day!

Fall snapshots

We Pacific Northwesterners make the most of the sun when it appears this time of year. Today is gloriously sunny after a record rainfall earlier in the week, time to take pictures of the maples in front of the house before they drop the rest of their leaves. These next two photos are looking up and looking down at the same tree:

And while the sun is out, time to walk down to the water (which is really high today), past this little guy:
This next one shows the underwater plants and reflected trees in the estuary below our house:
On my way back into the house after taking these snapshots, I noticed that the lower angle of sun -- are we really turning the clock back in just a few days! -- gilded my quilt aptly titled "Light" that hangs near the front window, casting architectural shadows:
 Last week, I photographed Rosemary's winter pansies -- she has baskets full of them brightening her balcony:



Time for me to switch to fall colors in my coiled fabric baskets ...

... and here is some cotton that I just painted in the colors of fall leaves and blue sky. I may go back over it in select areas to give it more depth before I use it in my art:

But I saved the best for last. Here is Bunners snuggled in Julia's arms, all safe and cozy:

  

Isn't he the CUTEST THING?
I really think he needs his own Facebook page.

Have a colorful day!