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Backyard Then and Now

March 16, 2012 by Clareannette

Six years ago, my backyard looked like this: and, I should say, this is a huge improvement over what it looked like 7 years ago: then, it was a pit. The notable features then were a huge rusting broken down shed and scattered shotgun casings on the ground. My house was basically such a wreck the first year I owned it that I couldn’t take a single photograph.

This is how things in this part of the yard look now:

This is the view through the not-yet-covered-in-tombstone-rose arbor:

Every year I try and rehabilitate another small piece of the yard by planting mostly native plants that will produce shade one day and reduce weeds; this is a small bed of  perennials, all of which are largely buried under annual wildflowers, an ornamental kale and hollyhocks:

It’s hard to believe this will all be largely shrunken and brown come June!

Posted in my home improvements, Sonoran Desert Gardening | Leave a Comment »

Odds and Ends

March 11, 2012 by Clareannette

Bearbear and I watched Annie (on the right) this weekend; she belongs to a colleague, and her photo has appeared on this blog before: she’s 14 1/2 and is very friendly with Bearbear. In fact, when I got my dog from a rescue group, he didn’t know how to play or chew bones and Annie showed him how to do these dog-type things.

The rest of the day was spent on household chores. I decided to try and make cheese danish on my own, after I made them with my mom for the first time last month. I made the dough last night, then rolled it out this morning; the dough acted quite well, and here are my fledgling danish:

And now they’re shaped and ready to raise:

The 2 danish on the left (below) are the ones I cobbled together from leftover dough, so they’re a bit sloppy; the one on the right is how most of them turned out, quite well! I also made some bread, which also is very yummy; it’s whole wheat, spelt, polenta and oat bread. A little lecithin, olive oil and honey makes it supper soft and keeps it together nicely.

I also worked in my yard today. It’s blooming with zillions of wildflowers; here’s an up close shot of some desert bluebells:

And of course some poppies; don’t you just love these shapes?

It’s hard to believe that in 90 days we’ll have scorching hot temperatures all day, every day. I have raised beds for veggies, which you can see below; now, these beds have kale, lettuce, parsnips, beets and carrots–but in the summer, raised beds loose water too quickly, and it’s impossible to garden in them. I’ve tried.

So, behind the raised beds, in the corner of the yard, is my tangelo tree; I’m building a small perma-culture-type bed under the tree for my tomato plants; this bed will be slightly below ground level, with a small berm around it and a soaker-hose inside with plenty of compost on top. Below, you can see the tomato plants, which I started from seed in January; these are San Marzano romas, a variety of tomato which is supposed to be highly disease resistant; also, smaller tomatoes do better in the heat, they’re less likely to split. And they’re supposed to be vigorous, indeterminate vines that grown tall, so the stakes are a good 6 feet above ground level.

I hope the partial shade from the tree will be enough once the temperatures hit a hundred day after day! I’m also hoping that combining water use for tomatoes and the citrus trees (there’s also a small orange tree and lemon tree) will benefit all plants and trees. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in Sonoran Desert Gardening | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Dye Painting Experiment

March 8, 2012 by Clareannette

There’s a traditional quilt block I’ve always loved called “Memory”, and I made a few of these 12″ blocks for my first ever “sampler” quilt, which I made 16 years ago. I liked how the blocks, when placed together, created very different shapes:

I like the idea of using this block in my new project. Obviously, the name of the block–memory–is something that makes sense in the context of an art quilt about the January 8 shooting.

Rather than piece together fabric to make the quilt block, I drew the shapes on fabric using a disappearing fabric pen with the intention of painting the shapes with thickened dye. Instead of a 12″ quilt block, my version is about a 5″ square; I drafted multiple versions of it. So as to avoid confusion when I painted on the dye, I took a color-by-number approach and made sure each shape had a number so I’d paint it the right color:

This was a project I could do inside on a weeknight. I added dye powder to some print mix and started filling in the shapes. I waited for the dye to dry and then painted some more. I should add that I treated the fabric with a coat of Jacquard’s No-Flo first, which prevents colors from bleeding when painting dye on fabric:

Here’s the finished piece; it’s always brighter before you wash out the colors:

And here it is after I washed it:

One thing I’m not keen about is that the brush strokes are visible. In fact, I don’t like this at all. I’m already coming up with a different plan to get this design on fabric with dye with no brush strokes. I think I’ll have to use screen printing, and I’ll have to mask out the shapes with masking tape.

Posted in Art Quilt Project: January 8 Shooting, Art Quiltmaking Design, Fabric Dyeing | Leave a Comment »

Family Eats

March 4, 2012 by Clareannette

My sister Roberta and her husband Greg and almost 2 year old son Luke were in Sonoita this weekend, visiting from Portland OR, and they stopped by my house today for a late lunch; my mom’s brother Thomas, his wife Anne and their son John Paul came over, too, as did my brother Eric.

So of course I spent most of last night and this morning baking and childproofing the house!

Here’s Luke and Bearbear:

This is a great shot of Eric and Bert:

I’m always happy to put aside what I’m working on and put together a meal for family; bringing folks together to talk and share food is generally a worthwhile endeavor. Here’s to the next yummy meal!

Posted in Aylward/O'Neil family | Leave a Comment »

Collages Are Coming Together

February 26, 2012 by Clareannette

I started work a few weeks ago on the 6 window-shapes that will be a big design element in my latest project, an art quilt about the January 8 shooting. You can see the beginning of the collage here. Once I created shapes that large enough to be trimmed down to 8″x8″ squares (the ultimate size of the inside of the window), I laid them out on a board covered with a towels and pinned silk organza over them and then used a silk screen to squeegee on acrylic gel medium.

Here they are after the gel medium was applied:

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking at this point; I wonder how much of the image from the paper underneath actually transferred to the silk.

And of course, you have to rush to rinse off your tools IMMEDIATELY because acrylic gel medium hardens like a rock in minutes and then you can’t get it off:

That’s what some of the advanced plumbing in my “outdoor studio” looks like!

Here are two of the six 8″ by 8″ squares, ready at some point to find their home in my ever-evolving project on this topic:

It is a bit depressing to think about.

I’m really hoping this turns out as well as I think it can.

Posted in Art Quilt Project: January 8 Shooting | Tagged | 1 Comment »

A Quilt Making Evening

February 22, 2012 by Clareannette

Isn’t this amazing? Last night the ladies in the quilt group I attend–the Sharp Women–met at my house; this is just a partial view of Becky’s Double Wedding Ring quilt top, complete with amazing piecing AND very impressive needle turn applique on the border (the flowers and vines, which you can’t see too well here). Becky is hiding behind the quilt top, above…. but she is helping to hold it up. It already look like a complete work of art and it’s not even finished yet!

We alternate meeting at different homes. My house is the smallest, and the last time everyone was over we hung out in the back yard, during the day, to dye fabric.  But I recently upgraded my dining room table, so I can fit more folks around it: here are (starting on the left): Linda, Diana, Becky, Manya and Kenci:

I did make a pretty good chocolate bundt cake, which is barely visible on the table, probably because it’s almost gone.

Not everyone fit in the photo (again, my house is small); here are Judy and Katie:

It’s always fun to meet up and see what everyone is working on, share tips and even knit! Yes, even knitters are tolerated and encouraged. Phew! Because I’m not quite done with my sock yet!

Posted in Art Quilts | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Arizona Historical Society Centennial Quilt Exhibit

February 19, 2012 by Clareannette

Arizona’s Centennial was February 14th of this year, and the Arizona Historical Society is celebrating with a fantastic installation; “100 Quilts–100 Years” as part of the Arizona Centennial Quilt Project.

Andrea Stanfield’s quilt, above, is called “Arizona’s Flag 2012″ and is made of 2000 postage-stamp sized squares of fabric: it’s a great example of smart use of color, and is really stunning. I would’ve gotten a better photo but the museum was packed with people yesterday for the opening of the show.

Below is my piece which I made in 2006.  After Libby Lehman saw it and observed that my piece appeared “ambitious”, I spent almost the entire following year removing the quilting stitches, and then I straightened it to the best of my ability and re-quilted it: I learned a painful lesson with this piece, and that is to NEVER combine raw silk, charmeuse silk, cotton and canvas in a quilt unless I am convinced I can densely machine quilt it to lay straight. Because silk loves to do nothing more than to drape… and while it’s usually an elegant drape, it’s still wavy:

The installation at the Arizona Historical Society Museum is very professional; clearly, they have experts in museum collections curating their shows. I really appreciate the thoughtful time and effort to make this show look fabulous.

Below is a group quilt made by the ladies in my art quilting group, known as the Sharp Women. I am very new to the group, having joined just a year ago; this is a row quilt they made several years ago. It looks fantastic:

Every quilt gets a placard next to it with the title, name of the quilter and a statement; sadly, you can’t read the text for the Sharp Women’s group quilt here, but at least you get the idea:

I encourage everyone to check museum hours for the Arizona Historical Society and view the show; there’s a great book of the exhibit which you can purchase as well! And there’s free parking.

Posted in Art Quilts | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

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