You have NOT been Forgotten!!

It has been a whirlwind of a week full of classes, grocery shopping ,cleaning, GRADUATIONS and wonderful surprises!!!
The biggest and most important event has to be Matthew's Graduation from Mountain View High School here in Stafford Va.

This also accounts for the blur of cleaning and grocery shopping!!!

The graduation was held outside on the football field and mercifully took place a t 8:30 am on the 19th of June. We were very lucky with the weather as although it was very hot it could have been alot hotter and MUCH more humid. We, including Matthew's Grandma Joy, were sitting in the stands facing East and we did manage to catch whatever breezes came along.

Now, if you will permit me just a tiny bit of Proud Mama Crowing, Matthew graduated with an Advanced Studies Diploma and a GPA of 4.34. HE will be attending the Honors College At George Mason university in the fall and studying Global Issues and Conflict Resolution and Arabic. Along with all of that he is one terrific young man and a very nice person!!!

The poor Graduates were all parked on chairs in the middle of the field in their maroon caps and gowns. The event was over by 10:15 and we collected our melting son to take lots of family pictures!!! HE was so excited about the prospects- Not so much!!! However a mother wins in such circumstances , so we got everyone in the shade and amanaged to get some great shots!!

MAtthew is wearing the white HONORS Stole to signify his achievements and his High GPA.

A happy Grandma and Graduate and a very silly and PROUD Dad doing his Best Stephen Colbert imitation!!

We are all very proud of our wonderful Son and Brother.!!!!

But by the time the obligatory shots were done and sister was trying to hug him, Matthew had enough and went into extreme melt mode!!! It was 95 degrees afterall and he was fully roasted!!

All in all it was a very proud and happy time for all of us!

Earlier in the week I was lucky enought to attned an Image Transfer workshop with Fiber Artist Liz Kettle. The workshops have been ongoing at Artistic Artifacts Annex all week, but I was only able to squeeze in the transfers experience. She also ahd a day of bead embroidery basics and a three day session of thread painting and manipulations that I would some day love to attend. Liz is from Colorado Springs and has become a Facebook friend of mine. She is a very good friend of Judy Gula, the owner of Artistic Artifacts and therefore we were lucky enough to have Judy bring Liz to her shop to hold classes.

THe day before class I was able to give these three lovely ladies (Judy, Liz, and Judy's mom Pat) a tour of Liberty Town in Fredericksburg and to celebrate both Pat's and Liz' Birthdays at a lucheon at True Love's Restaurant. We are all Gemini's- I knew that there was a great reason that I get on so well with all of these wonderful people!!!

Liz has a wonderful new book out that she has written with three other fiber artists and you can find it here. I have added it to my fiber arts library and I consider it a MUST HAVE!!!!!! If ever you have the opportunity to take a class with Liz, GRAB IT!!! She is also holding a Fiber arts Retreat this fall out in Colorado called Textile Evolution, and you can see what that is all about by clicking here!

I am still working on finishing up the sampler book of Transfer Techniques that Liz shared with us and as soon as it is done I will be sure to share it with you!! She showed us a brand new technique that she has just developed using water soluble paper as the image carrier- very cool!!!

When I arrived home from my day with Liz and Image Transfers, (after playing in south bound traffic for two hours EEEECK!!!!!) I found a small pillow package waiting for me from my dear friend and AWESOME needlework talent, Pat Winter!

Pat does amazing Crazy Quilting and silk ribbon Embroidery and her art blog is a Must Follow!!! If you would like to see more of her wondrous creations go here!

Pat has just recently reached the mileston of having 300 followers- you see her blog really is THAT wonderful, and she wanted to host a giveaway in honor of the occasion. Well she put all of her followers thru a random number generator and my number was picked from here collection of Long Followers (I refuse to call us Older followers!!!)
Pat created this wonderful little Ocean Themed neck pouch for me !!! FOR ME!!!!! Oh I was Exclaiming with joy and anticipation even before I ahd the envelope unsealed. Anything from Pat is always an occasion for great celebration. Isn't this little pouch simple wonderful??? She tailored the subject to my loves as we both share a love for the sea and it's treasures. I am so touched and delighted Pat!!! I will wear it often and with great prideand I know that I will get lots of comments and compliments!!!

Her is a tigher shot so you can see the adorable little girl in the vintage swimwear and take in some of Pats wonderful details!!!!

I must thank you all for hanging in there to get all the way thru this long post
!! It means alot to me to share my gardens my family and most importantly my art with all of you. Hopefully I will ahve a relatively quiet week as I have several art deadlines looming and lots of new projects to plan!!!

Sewing Shaggy Elephants!!

One of Becca's good friends is moving to Guam this summer! No one is very happy about the prospects but Erynn's Dad is in the Air Force and Guam is the next stop for the family. Erynn is having a Birthday party today and as we were a bit stumped for a memorable gift, Becca and I decided to get a bit more creative than usual and stitched up a Shaggy pillow of one of Erynn's favorite animals. i had just come across a wonderful book in the library that I thought might appeal to Becca and her love of animals and her desire to find a hobby. The book is called Raggedy Reverse Applique by Kim Deneault. This is a wonderful book with great projects for beginning quilters and stitchers. the Gallery section is full of pictures of wonderful pieces created by Girl Scout Troops and school groups. If anyone is looking for some good start up projects for kids and sewing, this would be a great book to look at.!!

We went thru my stash of fabrics and picked out several bright bold prints that Becca knew would work as they included all of Erynn's favorite colors and we were going for something very whimsical. Then Becca did an Internet search and found some Elephant clipart and we came up with asimple pattern for our pillow. Following the directions in the book we layered our fabric pieces, pinned on our paper pattern and got Becca situated at the sewing machine.

Becca took to the machine and had fabulous speed control right off the mark. She quickly mastered that reverse control and set about stitching over all of our design lines.

(I added the eye's and wrinkle details in a later step.) Once the stitching was done, we removed the paper and cut out the top layer of green fabric within the stitching lines. Then we clipped in to the 1/4 inch margin every 1/4 inch or so.

> For the back, we took the same green spotted background fabric and stitched down colorful strips of fabrics leaving about 1/2 inch edges on both sides of each strip. We clip in to those margins as well about every 1/4 inch. then we stitched front to back with WRONG sides together and then threw the whole thing in the washing machine and drier with a full load of sheets and towels.

Above you can see the Raggedy edges that resulted for the washing and drying. We added a special heart patch to the back so Becca could sign and date our work.

We were both thrilled with the rsults of our efforts and we know that Erynn will love her special gift. She certainly will NOT get anohter gift like this one!!!

Buddy, on the other hand, was a bit miffed with all of the excitement as we appear to have disturbed his beauty sleep!



I am hoping that this successful sewing project will entice Becca to create some more specail projects during her summer break. there has been some talk of working on a specail Owl pillow for herself as a follow on project!! i am trying not to get too excited about the prospects, as 13 year olds don't want to see too much parental enthusiasm. (If you know what I mean!)

Sea Glass Pendant Necklaces

I have just completed two Sea Glass Pendant Necklaces that are now available in my Etsy Shop. You can get any specific purchasing info for these pieces here. (For a LIMITED TIME these items will be availbale with No EXTRA SHipping Costs!!)
I gathereed both of these pieces of Sea Glass last summer from the rocky surf line of Nauset Beach on Cape Cod. It has only been in the last couple of years that we have started finding sea glass again along this beach. Many feel that it is a result of the higher number of harsh storms that are churning up the sea beds along the coast. I have wrapped each glass piece in a cradle of seed beads, crystals and fresh water pearls and suspended the pendants froma collection fo organza ribbons and hand dyed rayon cords. As an accent, I have added a few of my treasured African Recycled glass beads that my borther has brought to me from Tanzania. These pieces are great fun to make, each is totally unique and offers different construction challenges each time. (This means that I don't get bored with the process!!)


The bottle green piece of glass is much older than the blue piece as it is quite a bit more curvacious.

On the back of each pendant I created a beaded hanging bail for suspensio of the piece form the ribbons. It all came together wquite easily once I was able to sit down and give the project my full attention- ah there in lies the RUB!!

As I have now figured out how to entrap found items without holes, I will be creating beaded cradles for all sorts of beach finds. This means of course, that this years trip to Cape Cod will result in several additional boxes of rocks and treasure riding back home to Virginia!!!!

If you have some specail treasure that does not have an obvious hole for suspension and you would like to have me create a hanging cradle for it, please feel free to contact me!!!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!!

I am totally Jazzed and Grateful!!!!!

I spent the weekend at the Quilter's Unlimited Quilt Show in Northern Virginia, totally surrounded by glorious fabric, quilts and talented generous artists . I returned home ready and itching to stitch and create. Then to my amazement and joy, I found that my Pink and Orange Beaded Cuff bracelet had sold at Liberty Town!!!! (Shown in the picture above ) WHOOO HOOOOOOOO!!! I have had two beaded cuffs for sale at the Emporium for over a year and I was becoming tried of seeing them there and was determined to replace them for a bit, to freshen up my display.

No Need for that now, as I got an e-mail just yesterday that the second cuff, the All Purple one had also SOLD!!!!!!

It just goes to demonstrate that a sale of a very special item takes a very special customer to find it, love it and to honor the artist by purchasing it!!! The planets of the lovers of beads must have been perfectly aligned, or perhaps it was because I returned a lost dog to it's home yesterday! HMMMMMMMM... Does not really matter! I just know that I feel incredibly honored that other's like my work enough to buy it and that I must get the beads out again and create another piece of beaded art!!!!!!

May the palnets align for all of you today, and if you come across a stray pet, take it home, one never knows who is watching!!!!!! :)

BABA Blankets- Women Changing the World!!!

This past weekend I worked for my friend Judy Gula at her booth for her shop Artistic Artifacts. The huge Quilter's Unlimited Annual Show was held at the Dulles Expo Center. There were over 600 quilts on display and many many wonderful vendors. One of the wonderful artists that I met was Aminata Brown, the Founder and Designer for BaBa Blankets. Aminata has established a Women's Artistic Collective in Ghana. The Collective dyes beautiful damask woven cottons and then creates all sorts of home decor items with the gorgeous fabrics. At the quilt show, Aminata had fat quarters and 1/2 yard pieces for sale as well as all of the lovely products.

After lots of time, attemping to make a desicion and watching the time of my break slip by, I settled on these gorgeous fat quarters. It is almost impossible to see here but each piece has a subtle damask pattern beneath the dyed layer. These fabrics have amazing depth and a wonderful cotton hand. I cant wait to start using them in my fabric collage work.

This is the back of the Post card for BABA Blankets. You can find out more about this wonderful enterprise by clicking on this link. You will find a calendar of upcoming shows where you too can find Aminata and gather your own collection of these wonderful fabrics. At the website, you can also purchase lovely home decor products such as wonderful duvet covers pillow shams, throws, quilts and beautiful baskets!! Women supporting women can only make our world a healthier place!!!!!

Women are out there changing our world through their art work and tenacity!!!

After the Storm

Yesterday was one of those hot and humid days that Southern Virginia is well known for. Matthew and I spent most of the day in Chantilly Viginia setting up for a large quilt show. He was putting together steel pipe and drape dividers that are used for display of quilts (He was being paid!!) and I was helping Judy Gula set up her Vendor booth for Artistic Artifacts. By te tjnime that we headed sout just ahead of the rush hour wave of traffic the sky was darkening and we had a fabulous view of forked lightening in the near dsitance. As we got to the Back Roads part of our trip , the skies opened that the lightening flashed and we were forced to crawl along, or pull ove rhte wait it out. Not a fun ride home!! Eventually we got ahead of the storm and beat the worst of it back to Stafford and our very nervous and upset dogs and anxious Becca. We were safe and sound .

After about an hour of thunder and lightening and horrendous amounts of rain, the sun broke through and created a shimmering sparkling show in the garden. Out I went with camera in hand to catch the moment. You may click on any picture to enlarge, or , if you don't want to see yet more garden shots, you are free to stop reading now, I won't be too upset!!:(

Even tired roses look suprememly elegant bedecked in glittering drops!

My platter sized Hosta leaves are the pefect stage for glittering diamonds of raindrops!!

I love how my self seeded Dill has fluffed out behind this Pentstemon and is supporting three Swallowtail butterfly cysalis!!!


If you are experiencing summer storms I hope that they are not severe and offer some of the joys that I have found in this after the storm experience!!

Birthday Treasures

We still have about 1/3 of this lucious and oh-so chocolately chocolate cake left. It is SPECTACULAR with a hot cup of coffee, and DEEEEVINE with raspberry sauce!!! I will definately be using this recipe again- perhaps for Matthew's upcoming Graduation Celebration. If you are interested in the recipe, just give me a holler!! Perhaps the best part of this cake was creating it with Becca. She is becoming quite the dessert specialist!!
I had a wonderful birthday that extended from May 19th with the start of my advnetures at Art and Soul and culminated yesterday with a surprise in the mail from my dear friend Robin! It is a wonderful gift to have a family who is supportive of my artistic journey and takes joy from my love of this special retreat that I so enjoy.
After all, if Momma's not happy, NO ONE is happy!!!!! Right??!?!?!This wonderful piece was created by Julie Haymaker, the wonderful artist who I met at Art and Soul and who taught the first class taht I attended. You can see more of her art here. As we were all setting up for Vendor Night at Art and Soul, I cruised by Julie's table and this piece literally lept inot my hands. (Ok, a bit of artistic license taken!) But I could not take my eyes off of this piece. Brown is not usually a color that I often consider at all, yet this piece was screamng at me!! My Mom had given me a bit of 'Mad Money '
for an early birthday gift, hoping that I would find something specail at the retreat. Well, this was the piece. It occured to me as I looked at this piece that it was speaking of the changes that are fast approaching in the life of our family. We are all growing and coming and going and taking flight and hopefully returning home for visits. With Matthew's upcoming graduation, we are going to embatking on a new journey, so this piece was the perfect momento of this years Art Retreat.

I had spotted this glorious sterling and turquoise cuff bracelet at an Antique store in Fredericksburg, back in April. I came home and drop one or two, maybe ten, rather heavy hints about the location and availability of this glorious piece. Along comes Mother's Day and there it was!!! I was shocked and delighted. Apparently, my hints ahd been noted and acted upon and the kid's ahd gotten quite impatient. So I was gifted with this wonderful bauble for Mother's Day, so I could wear it at Art and Soul. After recieving such a gift I made them all promise that this would also count as a Birthday gift!

Look at this glorious card!! This arrived in the mail yesterday!! What an amazing work of Stamp art, I am going to frame it!!! Robin has outdone herself. Robin and her daughter Laurel attended a Rubber Stamp Convention in California several weekends ago. I have always wanted to see what such a gathering was like and they seem to still be going strong in California. They sent me these two wonderful stamps by involk Arts- one of my favorite stamp companies and Robin didn't know that. She knows me pretty well though!! Robin is a very talented graphic artist who always puts all of her creative energy and attention to every detail into everything that she does. She introduced me to Rubber Stamps when she discovered the Inka -Dink-A- Doo rubber stamp store near South Station in downtown Boston, when we were living in Boston back in the early 80's. SOOOO, Robin is partly responsible for the rubber stamp collection that lives in my studio!!!! Thank you so very much for thinking of me Robin and Laurel!!!!!!

All of my relationships and adventures have played a huge part in my artistic journey and I would not have it any other way!!!!