We were a small but content twosome this month.  Deborah of course is far afield, and Kate is busy beyond belief, so Kathy and I got together at her house (OH how wonderful it is to have her living locally!) and we enjoyed her new screened in porch!   Last time, we managed not to get around to collaging, so I lugged WAY too many pounds of magazine clippings and STUFF (including the square and round paper punches I have) to her house and played!  Before that, though, Kathy showed me the progress in the garden, including the newly sunny spot where a tree is no longer.  There were two stumps, so I asked her what she was going to do with them…..heh heh!  But first…

My collaged pages from my play day with Kathy. Yes, kindergarten for grown-ups in OH SO the BEST way! Pass the glue-stick please!

Kathy’s page–just love the cascading houses, and that blue on the right and and and… you can tell she liked playing with my punches, tho I must admit I’m not thrilled that several of the ones I’ve bought don’t seem to cut cleanly for me. I’ll try the aluminum foil trick for sharpening the one that was acting up. Not sure if it is uneven pressure by me (as in operator error) or if the punch isn’t quite so well machined… Anyway, thank you Kath for a PERFECT June day (and letting me share your page).

Then those stumps….Kathy was going to have someone come take them away, so I asked if that someone could be ME…YIPPEEEE!   Paul (hubby) didn’t even roll his eyes at me when I called to consult on their soon-to-be use….just said yes, he and Eli would come help me haul them away!!!!  Herewith:

Our new end table for the front porch! Next time Max or True is over to chop some tree trunks into firewood, I’ll ask them to take the chain saw and flatten two of the tops of the stumps so the glasses won’t tip quite so much!

And the Hammock Step! At first I thought the multi-stump end table would be too low and I would use this piece underneath, but that wasn’t necessary. So we rolled it over to the hammock…. I’ve blurred Paul’s face as he doesn’t have a pic of himself even on his FB page (yes, we finally got him onto FB!). As you can see, he is engaged in his favorite summer passtime….

And because I couldn’t resist…. Eli and I went shopping for shorts for him (he keeps doing that eating and growing thing), we stopped to stock up on cat litter at the big-box pet store up in Augusta (the capitol of Maine, an hour west of here by 2-lane route).  I had been wanting since we moved early last year to get a doggie bed for Widgeon to use down in my studio, as the floor gets COLD even in summer, and he’s gonna squish/trash the settee cushions.  So I found this lovely one with zip-off/washable cover (from Martha Stewart no less…. is there anything left in America that she doesn’t have a line of product for? –to use some horrid diction).  Isn’t he ADORABLE?  He LOVES it!

When you are a small dog of even smaller brain (with apologies to Pooh and Mr. Milne), it is simply too difficult to hold up one’s chin or keep the eyelids open…..Plus the doggie bed is quilted in dog bones like the background quilting I did on the portrait of him, AND he matches the color, so it won’t show how much he sheds!

It’s one of those American milestones:  8th grade graduation!  The kids–mostly 14 and 13 years old (for those of you not in the US to have an idea) finish their “lower and middle school” years to go on to High School.  This past week-plus has been very hectic with dances, parties, end-of-year activities, graduation and all that!  I won’t subject you to ALL the photos–just a lot of them, GRIN!   I’ll try to tell the story in the captions:

Festivities began the night before graduation at Harper’s house, where her mom invited a bunch of Harper’s friends for a quick supper before the traditional 8th Grade Dance at the Yacht Club on the harbor. Eli is at the far right….wearing dad’s suit and his feet squished into Paul’s too-small-for-Eli shoes.

Asst. Principal Matt Smith is also an accomplished singer and musician. He played for the first part of the dance…I’d buy a CD!

Eli and good friend and wrestling-team co-captain Hilary went to the dance together…they look fabulous!

I guess every year the teachers and staff let the parents come for the first half  hour of the 7-10 pm dance to take pictures, including the requisite all of the boys, all of the girls, and the entire 8th grade class:

The Boys of the Class of 2012–Eli is on the right about halfway back

The girls of the Class of 2012

The Camden-Rockport Middle School Class of 2012—just LOVE these kids!

And all the parents and teachers and staff on the lawn taking the photographs!

Left to right: Nate Dunton, Eli Smith, Jake Chamberlain, Principal Maria Libby, Taylor Crosby, and Laszlo Steinhoff

The start of the “Promotion” ceremony (why they call it that instead of Graduation I’m not sure, but it’s really the same thing) in the Gym. Matt Smith, Asst. Principal, gave the opening remarks.

The 8th Grade Vocal Ensemble sings, did a great job on the song (after Eli said he thought it was the best they had sung it!). Eli is just to the left of the tallest boy in the back row.

One boy and one girl each gave an address (and did great!), there was music by the choral ensemble and one of the students, then Principal Maria Libby gave a wonderful address.

Eli (wearing Paul’s fancy double breasted blue blazer which is only a little too big) looks natty and grown up as he shakes hands and receives his promotion certificate from Maria Libby and Matt Smith.

At the dance I snagged Eli and Kienan Brown. They were in first grade together and have been friends on the soccer team (school and travel / league!). Told them I want to do this again in 4 years and then in 8 years…. will enjoy every minute of the intervening years, but will look fondly on them maturing into fine young men.

After the promotion ceremony, I snagged Eli and his friends Kyle and Ben Winchenbach—Ben was in Mrs. Baker’s first grade class with Eli, and the twins were his first friends here in Camden. They’ve been friends ever since, and Eli and Ben have been on the wresting team together as well as Cross Country and Track.

At home in his usual dress, Eli unwraps his gifts, including Cross Country running spikes (the lime and orange ones on the left)  for the upcoming season in high school.

We moved to Maine for a great education for our boys, and we succeeded.  In the ceremony, Principal Maria Libby said this 8th grade class had the highest reading scores (on the statewide test) in the ENTIRE state of Maine!   When we arrived in summer of 2004, Joshua was starting 5th grade at CRMS.  We’ve had first Joshua, then Eli, in school there ever since.  It is hard to believe we won’t be making the trek down Knowlton Street daily any more….GULP (lump in throat).  A huge thanks to the teachers and staff — and to the kids.  We are so glad we are here!   Next:  summer vacation!

Whatsa WIP you ask?  A Work-In-Progress!    In this case, one for Janome-America.  I have been incredibly fortunate to be associated with Janome since late 1983.  Usually as part of the artist/teacher program, you lend Janome things, but this time I decided I would make something to give them:  a quilted banner for their new Artistic line (longarms, software, embroidery, etc…..see all about it here).  I enlarged the logo from their brochure, then transferred that to some white fabric and have begun quilting.

In preparation for this project, I bought a second “convertible free-motion presser foot set” for the Janome 7700 I use for my quilting (one of these lovelies is included with the machine–since Janome owns the one I’m using I didn’t want to cut apart *their* presser foot!). 

The set comes with three interchangeable “feet”:  the disc (for echo quilting), the closed circle (shown attached to  the presser foot deely-bob on the left), and the U-shaped open-toe.  The two metal feet are my favorite, but when I videotaped myself quilting recently (in hopes of having a “why do I need this? how would I use these?” video on here before too long that I can share here), I tried the disc for the first time and think that I will definitely use it now!

Anyway, the two metal feet are close but not quite perfect–what I wanted was a round circle with a small opening so I could see where I’m going (as with the U-shaped foot) but that would *also* let me echo quilt without having to change the end.   So I took my trusty Dremel tool to the front of the circle and removed a scant 1/8″ segment!

My new and improved free-motion quilting foot

I LOVE IT!  It did just what I want… I can see where I am going, but I can also echo-quilt around those feathers you see in the photo above with ease.  YEAH!

And a teaser…here is what I’ve done so far… I used red thread and a triple-straight stretch stitch (and the open-toe accufeed foot) to machine quilt/outline the lettering.  I then free-motion quilted the flowers using a single line of red thread.  I want the background quilting to be subtle, but seen, so I quilted some feathers using a soft peach color.  For the feathers, I marked the spine with blue pen, then stitched the spine followed by the feathers.

W.I.P. made for Janome-America, with thanks for their support these past 8-plus years!

Next, using a wash-out blue pen, I marked curved lines randomly but with thought and an eye to design and the shapes created.  I like to separate areas of the background into smaller, more manageable “chunks” and alternate linear and curved designs from one to the next.  I also marked an outline around the lettering.  I began the background quilting using a fine 50-wt So Fine matte-finish polyester thread in white and a very small stipple around the lettering to make the letters “pop.”  Then I did one or two small sections, one with a cross-hatch/plaid, another with a sinuous vine.

The next question is:  do I paint inside the lines of the letters and at the appropriate spots on the flower?  The thing is…. the color on the logo is a slightly orange-ish red.

To paint or not to paint????

I like the orange colors just fine, but they don’t match the logo.  The Inktense pencil (on the right, numbered) didn’t work so well for what I want to do.  That means the acrylic inks (used for all the other color) are the way to do.  BUT, the red looks kinda like blood on cloth.  ERK.  The large upper rectangle and the two smaller blotches in the center are the most accurate for color-matching, but look most like blood.  The “really red” long rectangle on the bottom looks OK, but is the “Janome” logo color, not the color of the Artistic logo.  So do I color it in?  or leave it be?  If I color it, do I take creative license and use an orange?  Think I’ll run this one by my contact BEFORE I add paint…. I’d hate to spend umpteen hours quilting and then have it not work because of a wrong color choice!   Stay tuned… I’ll share again when the blue is washed down the drain and it is all finished and pretty!

On a clear day, you can see almost forever…or at least from Hope to Liberty, Freedom and points north and west in Maine….  Today we went for a walk onto a neighbor’s hilltop / blueberry barren, and it was glorious.   There were some woods on one side, but I stood and took photos in an almost-complete circle…more than 270 degrees.  When I got home, I discovered my Photoshop Elements would create a panorama for me automatically.  I fiddled a little to fine tune it, so here is a hilltop in Hope, Maine, about noon today:

A panoramic collage...click to view larger

Clearly it was GLORIOUS!   The puppy was hot and panting though it is only about 70 degrees outside.

Here are two shots, larger and not collaged, of the view:

The view to the northwest. The building in the center is the Robbins Lumber mill.

And a bit to the north/east of the previous photo--the house in the center is the one we look out on from our land (trust me, that small gray blob in the middle of the photo is a house), which is about halfway between where this photo is taken and the house on the next hillside over

I spotted some rocks that might be good for doing rubbings (grin), and these little gems will be wild Maine blueberries ready to eat in about two months–the flower is bunchberry, a form of low-growing dogwood (cornus canadensis I think):

Wild blueberries, currently not much larger than the head of the glass-ball-headed pins

Then we meandered home:

Looking east toward Camden...I am pretty sure that is Mount Megunticook with the knobby edge. Love the falling down old stone wall. They actually have these walls on the official town plat-maps.

Paul and, quite a bit farther ahead, Eli with the puglet!

I feel somewhat guilty, that I have neglected the blog.  I’ve been busy with end-of-year for our 8th grader (graduates Thursday), house stuff, quilting/work stuff, and generally not working myself into a ground up pulp.  I promise before too long I’ll take a few days and do nothing but write blogposts, prep the photos etc.!  Hope you are all having a wonderful early summer, Cheers, Sarah

Hi all…. just a quick announcement.  I cleaned my studio shelves!  That means I have three large flat rate boxes of quilt-shop-purchased, good quality cottons to sell.  I’m asking for $25 for the fabric plus $15 for the postage for each of these three boxes; I checked and the price of shipping in a flat rate box outside the US is crazy expensive.  I’m willing to ship outside the US if you are, but honestly think the postage pushes the price too high (it is $40 just for postage to Canada!):

Box 1: Mostly blue with some pink. $25 (fabric) + $15 (Postage) = $40 in the US

Box 2: Mostly green with some yellow. $25 (fabric) + $15 (Postage) = $40 in the US

Box 3: Earthtones including some orange/rust and black $25 (fabric) + $15 (Postage) = $40 in the US

I also have a “MiracleStitcher” made for a low-shank Janome machine such as the 6500.  Does NOT fit on the high-shank models such as the 6600 or 7700.  You use it to make fringe and other decorative stuff… in the original box.  Asking $15 plus postage (probably not more than $4 or 5 within the US).  You can see information here.

If you are interested, please use the contact me link in the menubar above on my website.  I can send you an invoice via PayPal.  You can then pay be credit card or paypal (you do NOT need to have a paypal account, just a credit card).  Let me know which box interests you! 

Here’s a little more information:  So why am I getting rid of fabric?  Well… these are mostly prints.  And my style has developed to where I use pretty much only batiks or hand-dyed cottons (by me) in my work, so I decided I needed to lighten the load on my shelves and send these beauties along to someone who will use them!   (As a matter of fact, I had to snag back a few just for sentimental or “just love this” reasons.)   Some of the fabrics may be missing a corner or a strip because I used part of the fabric, but the boxes are all full–not jammed tight, but full.