Yesterday I was melty, migrainey and miserable. Even with fun things going on and migraine meds I wound up lying on the living room floor panting in front of the air conditioner. Today the weather seems to have moderated some, and I'm much happier. 

I had enough blues left over from the Buttercup chicken that I made some little cards and embroidered shells on them. I was experimenting with using only thread to suggest outlines and edges rather than cutting out sillouettes and stitching over them.  I like the way they came out, enough to put them on a key chain and list them on Etsy. 

 

 

Another chicken – This one is a Sicilian Buttercup, mostly I think because the comb is a lovely dished affair. I have spent a lot of the winter reading the poultry book Margaret (of the Chicken Hat) loaned me. There are a lot of details of comb and ears and layers and meat and all rounders, and spurs… (In an interesting side note, if you go look at the cover, the top left chicken is one of Margaret's and the inspiration for the hat.)

No, I am not contemplating chickens in the backyard. I hated owning chickens. I liked the ducks when we had them, but they are noisier and smellier and harder to keep track of than chickens. They need water, and then they poop in it. No, what I really love is the details of the feathers. I should do a whole series of smaller pieces just on feathers.

Apparently this is hereditary, as I am the proud possessor of my grandmother's feather collection, complete with scrawly kid handwriting on where and when the first ones were collected. 

When I have these two girls mounted and framed I'll be posting them on Etsy. 

A silver laced Wyandotte hen. The body is white silk with black wool thread over it – the thread is nicely wooly, and gives a nice contrast against the shiny of the silk. It isn't as thick as the perle cotton I've used in the bobbin before, so the lines I can draw from the back are thinner and neatness counts more. 

I thoght I was working on a chicken breed called Sicilian Buttercup, but I was so indecisive about what to do that I gave up and made this girl instead.

I like her. 

After all the time in the sun on the water it took a day to get back to work!

I finally got these really done, attached to a ribbon (both to hang them on the wall and to make it possible to pop them out of the tin) and stuck two perfect polka dots to the end of the ribbon to make a point. Like putting a period at the end of a sentence. They are listed in the Etsy shop, if they are speaking to you. 

One boat, 

 

Two boat, 

Three boat,

 

four and five boats in/on three cars. For five people. 1.20 percapita seats afloat. Naw, that's not overkill!

And we headed for the best local pond, at the DAR state park. Some other people had the same idea, and it was kind of a riot on the beach, but we were happy once we got around tot he the other side of the pond and got organized. 

 

Al oversaw the deployment of the troops. All the loose crap stuff went into the canoe, which has at other times carried six people and a birthday cake. The wind was blowing straight onto the beach, making it difficult for Aerin to get the Elephant's Toenail off the beach, so Red Kate gave her a tow out to the deeper water where the octopi water weeds were not grabbing at her keel. 

We stopped in the very center of the pond, and had our picnic lunch. Aerin sailed around and around us, sometimes on the same tack all the way around because the wind was so shifty. Alice came along next to us like a duckling, and Red Kate was streaking off to the edge of the pond and back like a puppy.

This is what happiness looks like. 

This is more like what I wanted – I like the way the top leaf is barely there, and the bottom one stays visible through it. 

Ghost leaf, indeed. 

Later than I meant to work! Although I have to stop at 10:00 pm or horrible things happen to the work. I have learned that the hard way – far too many sleeves on backwards, fronts inside out, quilt squares upside down or sideways… 

I had a different thought for the ten birch leaves, and it needed a larger base, so I'm using an altoids tin and I'll finish it off tomorrow. 

 

 

I now have another entry to the Ten Leaves series – this is ten birch leaves. Each card has a second, ghost leaf in silk organza underneath the printed silk leaf. I think the proportions are not wonderful, and I may make a another using smaller leaves, or larger cards. I really like the key chain holding them together.

My process is lumpy at best. I work hard at not overthinking things, so I tend to rely on injecting randomness into backgrounds and working the foreground pieces as aggressively as I can. One of the reasons I treasure variegated thread is the lack of control I have over color. I can place it as precisely as I want, but the color is whatever comes off the spool next (particularly with the more expensive and/or hand dyed threads) and I have to make it work. Which feels good for me, in the same way stretching does.

These birch leaves are a good example. I had a couple leaves the right size, but I wanted to show them differently than just printing pictures of them onto fabric. Instead I used a paintstick (oil paint in a stick form; not exactly oil pastels, nor yet oil paint in tubes) to rub paint onto the leaves, and then ironed the fabric over it, resultng in something partway between a crayon rubbing and a print. I tried a couple other techniques but settled on this one when the alternatives were less than satisfacatory. 

Timna has a lovely description of her process, along with illustrations, on her blog.

Five berries: hand dyed silk stitched onto patchy and embroidered backgrounds. Four were easy, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry. After some thought, cranberry became obvious. I worked for a brief, exciting stint at Ocean spray, where I learned there are 137 different varieties of cranberry. Honestly.

Plus, they all fit into a Celestial Seasons Berry Tea tin. Very sweetly. So they are done, and I've posted them to Etsy. I have to finish some Trader Joe's green tea mints before I can start the next one, which will be birch leaves in a tin. 

And in the real world, today I met a fellow blogger who turns out to live in my town and have very similar interests. Diane kindly talked while I devoured a sandwich, and then I managed to hold up my end of the conversation. We had a nice time, and I hope I've convinced her to come join the fabric women. At the very least, we'll try to get together again. 

 

Yesterday I spent the entire day at the barn helping with a dressage show. I can point you to pictures, but I don't think I can imbed them here. We had a nearly random test, with a large puddle in one corner providing amusement value for the judge, some appalling moments and some sublime ones. 

So today I started a new project:

Another set of cards. These are almost large enough to be coasters, if one was so inclined. Since they are going in a thing that used to have berry tea, I thougth I'd put some mixed berries on them. With additional stitching, they should round out some… Dyed silk really shines!