The one spot we have some sun is the west side of our house. This rose, can't think of the name right now, was featured in Park Seed Catalog one year and said that it blooms with some shade. Boy, were they right. Not only is it beautiful, it smells like a rose.
When we built our log home we wanted to save as many trees as possible. Trees provide shade,right? Shade gardening was new to me and I had to do a lot of research. Hostas were one of the plants recommended and I fell in love with them.
Our azaleas are having trouble blooming here. Haven't quite figured out the problem. However, when they do bloom they're beautiful. This is a Formosa azalea.
This viburnum is the first thing in our garden that blooms. It starts budding in January and I'm always so afraid that the freezes will kill the buds. But this shrub knows what it's suppose to do.
This is the house boat that we rented last week while staying in the Paducah area. We rented from a company named Green Turtle Boat Rentals. The marina is located very close to Patti's a well known restaurant in the area.
This quilt was done by friend and student Veronica Moriaty. Veronica's quilt certainly held it's own against the other quilts in her category.
A close up of "Square Dance" by Diana Pickens. A shot of the whole quilt is below. Sorry for the quality of the photo. It looks OK small but it's not clear when you click on it for a closer look.
This is my friend Diana Pickens quilt "Square Dance". I stood by while other people were looking it over and heard quite a few positive remarks. But the one I liked best and to me more important than many others was "how did she do that."
Veronica Moriaty started this piece in a class I was teaching at QSC, Quilters of South Carolina retreat. Veronica has been creating art quilts for a few years and only needed a little guidance for the technique. When I teach these classes I always have each student create their own design so that the piece is truly theirs. Occasionally one of the students will want to use one of my patterns, and that's OK but I love for them to create their own. Veronica you did a great job, congratulations and good luck at Paducah.
Diana Pickens is a friend and fellow member of Focus, an art quilt group in the upstate of SC. Diana is doing some amazing things with stripe fabric. The piecing here is quite complicated. Her quilting "ain't" bad either. Click on the photo to see it up close. Congratulations Diana and good luck.
Diana Pickens does some amazing things with striped fabric. Here she show us four pin-wheel squares that look very different because the stripes are cut on different angles Click on this photo to get a better look. Notice the square in the top left. The dominate light stripe makes a square.
Dixie Haywood is a member of Focus. She is well known for her foundation piecing. When Dixie has fabric left over from a project she cuts it into strips, squares, triangles, etc. Dixie then uses these pieces in what she calls her "Kits". When she needs a baby or comfort quilt she goes to her kits and sews one together. I would love to have one of her kit quilts.
On Sunday afternoon my husband and I decided that we would like to take a hike. We had worked in the garden all day on Saturday and decided that we would like to treat ourselves to a nice walk in the woods. In the Spring we like to hike Oconee Station trail at least once because it had loads of wildflowers. We were a little early this year for a lot of the showy flowers but did find lots of beautiful ones to photograph. The big treat at the end of this hike is the beautiful waterfall. It had lots of water due to the big storm that passed through last week. I have posted lots of photos of flowers so when you get to the end look at past post to see them all.
This is another wildflower that I think I know the name of but could be wrong. I think it is a Bergamot.
I am fascinated by texture and color. This soft moss is the most wonderful color of green and the texture is great. Click on the photo to see it up-close.
This little Flag Iris is out of focus. I have been having trouble with my camera lately so my husband ordered a new one for me this morning. Hopefully it was the camera and not me.
Years ago I was a freelanced writer and photographer. My subjects were things I found interesting. I would then send the idea into a magazine that I thought might find the story interesting and hope they would buy the article. The photo to the left is an idea I never got around to doing. I am fascinated by plants that grow in odd places. This little trillium along with some grass is growing out of a tree stump.
I had to look this one up in my wildflower book. It looks like the Canadian violet. If anyone knows better let me know.
This photo has two of our son's gifts. Down toward the lake is a purple martin house that he salvaged off the street and in the foreground is a mail box, Aka. garden tool box that he decorated for us.
From every window in our house, including the loft, we can see a dogwood tree. This one is outside our bedroom.
Beatriz R. combined two techniques she learned this week. Beatriz was in Judy Simmons class on Tuesday learning creative machine applique. She appliqued two leaves with a decorative stitch and added her humming bird with a stamp and other stamp designs to the block.
Heidi W. did not actually stamp this piece, she beat it. Yes! I said beat it. Heidi has done several beautiful small quilts where she takes a real fern, or other natural plants and actually beats the color out of the plant onto her fabric. Heidi has experimented with this technique and I think she knows what she's doing.
Sandy H. had a great idea that combined her stamping design with her passion, sewing. She took an empty thread spool and applied paint to the end and stamped the fabric. Sandy started with a bright blue and continued to get lighter as she continued down the fabric. She decided she didn't like it and pick up a handful of thread scraps and secured them to the top of the fabric. I thought that was a nice touch.
Barbara S. wasn't at the meeting last month and had just gotten the message that we had decided to do stamping as our project for April. She only had stamp ink so she decided to take a leaf stamp and use the ink. Barbara stamped the background and then made five separate mini quilts to attach over the leafs on the background. She then thread painted around the leafs. My apologies to Barbara for the color in this photo. The fabric was a wonderful chartreuse green.
