dye~ing to be yours

fair winds~

2011-08-13T06:00:00.004-08:00

this was one beautiful evening on the bay. as we looked up from our hammering and painting, we were gifted with this stunning sight. i like to think it was our much loved and very missed friend erling smiling down on us.

this will be my last post until i return in late october. i'm headed out to alpenview to cook for the visiting fishermen & ladies. in mid-september i'll be relocating to the outcamp on the ayakulik river, to get reaquainted with my friends the bears, the cook tent, and the outhouse. alpenview has a great website here, go take a look at all the beauty!

while many folks will be enjoying the warm harvest days of october, i will be here

chipping the ice out of my contact lens case and watching my pal sweetpea fish in the home pool:

(i hope this works, i've never tried to include a video before)

i really wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

i hope you all have a wonderful late summer, and i look forward to catching up in october.

texture tuesday~ it's the little things

2011-08-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

kim klassen gave us the theme "the little things" for this week's texture tuesday. i love the little things. the stuff inside the xmas stockings...the prize in the cereal box...the tattoo in the cracker jacks. life's little diamonds.

i think this photo i took a couple weeks ago while cutting wood for the woodpile fits the bill just perfect.

keeping the woodpile full is one of those jobs that just has to happen. no matter what. we all try to be really busy all the time, because the person who isn't...gets woodpile duty. i lost. i took a minute to pull up my socks, and was accused of loitering.

but look at the gift i got! i didn't even notice until i was carrying the wood into the cabin! then i had to go through it all to pull out all the pieces that looked like this. because, how could we ever burn them?

i shot the photo using the color accent feature, keeping only the dark greens. i adjusted the contrast a bit and added a layer of kim's luminous texture set on multiply blend at 54% opacity. that's it.

here's the before:

take a moment to go visit all the other folks taking part in texture tuesday by clicking here!

stitching on the dock of the bay

2011-08-03T18:03:00.002-08:00

well, our weekend at the cabin turned into two weeks at the cabin. there was a lot to be done.

i managed to sneak a few sunny moments on my dear dock with my new obsession, embroidery.

i brought a leftover piece of my favorite avocado-dyed cotton, and went to work with my new book "doodle stitching" by aimee ray. what a great book, full of fun inspiring things to stitch.

i think with time i may get it. i will need more time than i got from my husband.

you know the saying - it takes a lot of work to live on a farm.

we don't live on a farm, and i'm glad for it.

after i snapped these photos i heard the whip crack,

that was the end of the fun for me.

some of us got to ride cute orange tractors and dig in the dirt.

some of us got to lay in the sun and watch...

or take a little dip in the bay...

i got a paintbrush and a ladder,

and got to practice my multimedia art techniques.

we didn't do too bad for two old people by ourselves.

i even figured out how to use the timer thing on my camera.

this shot was taken right before gerry told me my next job was

climbing under the cabin to dig out all the nasty land otter nests and stuff.

you can tell he was thinking about how he was going to tell me

by the look on his face - just look at him up there, mr. i ride the tractor.

we had the most glorious weather, and when it got warm enough the no-see-ums went away and we could take off the bug nets and put on shorts. shorts! amazing. i have a tan line!

every once in a while the clouds would roll over the mountains...

that really helped keep us motivated.

before we knew it, we had replaced the foundation,

put up new skirting,

and for a moment, i had my white seaside cottage~

well, a gal can dream, right?

i had my 50th birthday during this work week,

and i am here to tell you

my husband put me on a pedestal for the entire day:

not a happy warm fuzzy feeling for me.

at least i talked him into giving me a 2x6

instead of the 2x4 he originally had up there for me.

but, we finished! next trip we paint the trim and start building the new deck.

(see the blurs in the photo? no-see-ums. they'll bite anything)

in the end, the two of us loaded over 6,000 lbs. of lumber plus the compressor and all the tools & paint in and out of the boat twice, onto the 4 wheeler trailer and up to the cabin from the beach.

my pal duffy did a lot of this:

we should have got a st. bernard.

texture tuesday ~ dreaming

2011-08-02T15:45:00.002-08:00

a foggy 7 a.m. cup of coffee out on the front yard at the bay.

complete with bug net and small white dog.

every day should start like this, i think.

surrounded by silence:

just the high tide water rippling on the beach

the muffled gulls drifting by.

was gerry dreaming?

nope. just waiting for a SAT phone signal...

so much for my henry d. thoreau moment.

i used kim klassen's "dream" texture on this photo taken a few days ago at ugak bay.

click here to visit all the other texture tuesday folks!

a new point of interest~

2011-07-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

if you create, craft, make jewelry, take pictures, draw, work with paper, paint, sew, or any combination of these things, i encourage you to join up with a wonderful new community of like-minded folk at artsee bloggers.

artsee bloggers is, in creator geri centonze's words, "a place of inspiration for the creatively inclined"

and she invites everyone to link up. she has built a spot where we can meet fellow artists, in an environment much more friendly than a techno-google search. i'm excited at having so many resources at my fingertips, and at the chance to meet other fabric-dyers or rusty junk lovers that i may never have met otherwise.

you can choose to be listed in up to three different categories, with thumbnails of your work and a link to your website. it's super easy, geri walks you through it step by step. she has a lot of great ideas for the future of this site, i can't wait to watch it grow. go check it out!

on another note, we are packing up ready to head out to the bay for a few days. it's just gerry and myself for the first time in many many years as cullan has headed out to bristol bay to commercial fish with a family friend for a couple of weeks. sure hope we can remember how to talk just one-on-one...

and i have a confession to make. after all my praise for our beloved xtratuff's a few posts back...i have become a ship-jumper. a traitor. a turn-coat. or turn-boot. i couldn't help it. take a look at these and you'll see why:

can you stand it?? i couldn't. they feel sooo good. they are rated to 40 below, and have soft neoprene uppers with handles to pull them on!! yes! that was the clincher. i can have my new boots on quicker than you can say bob's yer uncle, and i can put them on standing up. need i point out how lovely they compliment my rain gear? this will definitely make the slop bucket duty a little more bearable.

have a wonderful weekend, where ever you are and whatever is on your feet!

texture tuesday ~ in the pink

2011-07-11T22:36:00.001-08:00

this week's texture tuesday challenge from kim klassen was: pink. she told us to think outside the box. which i had to do, as there is not a whole lot of pink floating around in my life here. i thought about bagging on texture tuesday. then i remembered the two rubbermaid totes full of thea's old ballet slippers and pointe shoes. years and years worth. taking the lid off that tote was sure a treat...phew.

from the audience a ballerina's feet may appear to be made of spun sugar, but i am here to tell you this is not the case. in real life those satin shoes are beat to a pulp, along with the feet that go in them. nothing pretty up close. serious work horses. but they were the only pink i had to work with~

first i used the watercolour filter on the background image, which gave it a subtle painterly look. i adjusted the brightness & contrast a bit, then added a pink warming filter at 59%. i placed a layer of kim's dusty rose texture on normal blend at 45% opacity. set a mask so i could erase some of the texture off the shoes. then placed a layer of kim's love in layers texture on soft light blend at 85%.

when i printed it out, i was surprised at how artsy it looked.

i liked it.

most of the folks who participate in kim's texture tuesday are pretty serious photographers. their work is stunning, and very inspiring. i am not a photographer, and many times after viewing all that beauty i wonder what in the world i am doing plugging my thumbnails in there with them. but, what the heck. it's making me use my new camera every week. i'm okay with not being ansel adams.

that said, please go view all the textural masterpieces of the week at kim klassen's texture tuesday!

happy birthday buggy!

2011-07-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

today my little girl turned 23.

how in the heck can time go by so fast?

i'm sad that she's too far away for me to wake up with my awful singing.

or give a birthday hug.

so i'll just post a little birthday tribute for her here. i bet it gets me a phone call...

she's always tended to be a little crabby on her birthday.

too much emotional turmoil i think.

thea has always liked everything orderly and executed according to a plan

that no one ever knew about except thea...

and okay, yes, i admit she gets that from me.

in her defense, she has many other qualities that far surpass the moody birthday blues...

she has her future on a great track.

yup, she's right on the ball you might say

(she really is)

she's quite stylish when the situation calls for style

(no xtratuf's on that girl)

and she is fabulously talented

(i know! so awesome! all that and a college degree to boot!)

in all seriousness, her best qualities are that she knows who she is, and what her roots are.

she understands how important those roots can be in the big picture of what she will become.

i couldn't ask for anything more in my little girl.

she's not perfect, but she's good enough for me.

i just wish she wouldn't have so many birthdays so close together.

happy birthday thea rose!

texture tuesday~ three (3) trois

2011-07-04T23:46:00.000-08:00

after the rocket's red glare there is...texture tuesday! our challenge from kim klassen this week was to incorporate the number three into our image in some way. and she gifted us with two new beautiful canvas-y textures to work with as well...she is such a generous soul, such a gifted artist. visit her inspiring blog...you'll see what i mean.

what a great challenge! so many ideas came to mind, but one couldn't be ignored. i see it every time i pass through our front door:

here's the skinny: i set the background image at multiply blend on 49% opacity. adjusted levels & contrast. added a layer of kim's canvasback texture at multiply on 100%, a layer of luminous at vividlight blend on 25%, and a final layer of paperstained light on multiply at 100%.

here is the before:

mine are the clean ones in the middle. which isn't to say i don't work as hard in mine as my husband & son. i just hose my down before i come into the entryway. like they are supposed to.

xtratuf's are the epitome of haute couture in the vast kodiak fashion world. i prefer insulated, as my feet tend to get cold, (and i like the little bit of height boost from the extra padding...) but you see both types walking the streets. some fellows like to cut the tops off and treat them like sneakers.

how many types of footwear can cross the wide gap of gender and age the way a pair of xtratuf's can? you can find feet in xtratuf's pacing in the local hospital's maternity ward...sitting quietly in church pews...pondering produce in the grocery store, picking berries, on the monkey bars at recess, on the feet of lawyers running late, driving school buses, flagging traffic, waiting in line for a latte, riding horses, hiking, riding bikes and delivering papers.

i have a tiny pair of size one xtratuf's that my daughter wore as soon as she learned to walk. then both my sons wore them. now they guard our front steps. i'm a little sad looking at this photo, as just a few years ago there used to be five pairs crammed on our blue bench...and in a couple more years there will only be two pair...(i think.)

folks use their worn out xtratuf's to plant herbs in and hold doors open. they are part of our island heritage. we will probably never see a pair of xtratuf's walking the red carpet at any grande celebrity function, they may never walk on a distant planet, but they do bring our dinner home every night!

liberate your art~ and a tiny giveaway

2011-06-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

i'm participating in kat sloma's "liberate your art" postcard swap next month, along with 254 other artists from all over the globe! click the link to read all about it and see a list of all the participants. i'm really excited at the idea of all those little bits of art getting mailed all over the world. i can't wait to see what comes to me. i can't wait to see where my cards end up going!
i love creating small. i had things spread out all over my workroom for days, and finally narrowed it down to this one:

we couldn't send the original artwork, it needed to be in actual postcard form, so i sent my image off to the amazing folks at MOO to be printed. wow. i just got them back. how fun to open a package and see your artwork as a postcard. so sleek, so sophisticated. i'm feeling mighty...printed on glossy card stock right now. like i want to sit at the bottom of my driveway and sell them for a penny.
my son is so impressed. i think he thinks someone in new york city called me wanting to turn my art into a postcard. i'm gonna let him think that for a little while.
at any rate they are on their way to kat. can you imagine the fun she will be having. we are each (254 of us) sending her 5 postcards, which she will have to sort and mail out. what a grand undertaking. wish i could go help, just to be able to see it all.
i realized that i had reached my 100th post when i told you the tale of duffy & my shine bag. i also note in blogland that folks often love to celebrate these milestones with a gifty giveaway. i love to win things, but actually doing a giveaway is a little scary to me. what do i give? what if no one wants it? a couple weeks ago i would have gladly given duffy...but he has redeemed himself for now.
so how about this~ leave a comment on this post. on july 4th i'll put everyone in a hat and let duff pick 3 names. each winner will get one of my ultra-sophisticated postcards, signed by duffy.
happy 4th of july!!

texture tuesday~ old faithful

2011-06-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

this week our texture tuesday challenge from kim was to use her beautiful texture "golden" on any image we wanted. golden is one of my fave textures she has shared with us, soft and mottled.

i thought it would be the perfect time to introduce you all to my favorite thing at our cabin ~ joe woodstove. the propane fridge is great, running water is awesome, hot running water, well that just goes without saying. but none of them would mean a thing without old joe warming up the place. he does a fine job of chasing off the damp and cold. just walking in and seeing him sitting there waiting for us in the spring makes my heart swell. (i'm old, it doesn't take much these days)

so here's joe in all his glory, with some lovely golden layers on top:

i took the photo on black & white setting on my camera. i set it on overlay blend at 32%, then used a gradient map levels adjustment on solid with the smoothness set at 73%. then i added a bit of dust and scratches from the "noise" filter menu. on top of that one layer of golden at 24% multiply and one layer of golden at 35% pinlight.

it's not the greatest photo ever, but i like that it ended up looking like an old water stained photo that's been laying under the woodbox in a corner for a few years. if you want to see some real inspiring, top notch beautiful photography, go see all the other texture tuesday participants here!

the shine~ing

2011-06-26T16:49:00.001-08:00

i promised the story of why my pal duffy has been living in shame the past few weeks...here is his sad tale...with a bit of background to create the proper level of drama.

when i finally finished with the last diaper bag, i swore i would never carry another purse or tote again. just give me a wallet and call it good. this worked fine for quite a while, but then i started back to work and carried a lunch. then i started knitting. then i got a bigger camera. these things need to be carried somehow.

a couple of xmas times ago i spotted a fantastic tote in my friend liz's shop. it was a lovely oilcloth bag covered with a beautiful paisley design, sturdy, big enough for everything, with little pockets inside for "stuff." waterproof. it was a luxe tote made by papaya! - those of you familiar with this company and their fabulous soul-touching artwork know how wonderful their products are. if not, click here and you will see what i mean. i splurged. it went home with me. it was everything i wanted in a bag. then my daughter came home from college for xmas break, and her college-girl eyes spotted my tote. in the natural course of things she asked to borrow it for an overnight visit to a friends. i let her. a week later as she's packing to head back to school, we both eye my luxe tote on the floor by her suitcase with her laptop in it...i sighed and said fine you can take it. as the plane took off the next morning i was seized with regret. not for having to say goodbye to my girl again, but because i wanted my tote bag back.

months passed and i learned to live without my tote. until liz got a new shipment of papaya! items in...including the new styles of luxe totes. oh boy. one in particular:

look how it glows!!

perfection. loved everything about it. we all need to remember to let ourselves shine once in a while, right? i obsessed over this bag until i finally caved, and brought the shine bag home with me. when i wasn't actively using it, i kept the bag in my bedroom, on a little table, where i could see it when i woke up in the morning. i'm not a morning person. i need all the reminders i can get to wake up on the right side of the bed so to speak. my shine bag did this for me in such a beautiful way. papaya! art has that kind of zen to it. their cards, bags, prints, even their keychains just seem to carry an aura of happy calm prettiness. in a house of welder's coveralls, fishy boots, muddy small dog paw prints and spare 4 wheeler parts, i'll take pretty where i can get it, even if it's just a magnet on my fridge. (yep, they have those too, go look)

this is starting to be a really long story, and i apologize. it will all come together...

my pal duffy has become my close friend since i retired from full time work and my two oldest kids moved on. i've always been quick to defend him as not your average jack russell terrier. he's really not a barker or yipper, unless someone is at the door - and that is a helpful thing to me as i don't always hear people drive up. he listens to us really well, unless there is a fox to chase - then forget it, the world we are in ceases to exist. the only time he eats something he's not supposed to is if someone leaves the butter dish on the table. or the birthday cake. not duff's fault, who can resist those things. he loves to walk the beaches with me. loves to swim. loves tennis balls. he's my pal.

and he has never, ever, in all his 7 years, chewed on anything except his toys. not a single slipper, pillow, or piece of furniture. the dog is not a saint, don't get me wrong. he sheds little white hairs like no body's business. and he LOVES rolling in bear poop. i'm here to tell you, there is nothing worse than a small white dog who has rolled in bear poop. other than one who rolls in bear poop and then jumps in bed with you.

bottom line, duffy never chews on things.

so imagine my surprise when i came home one afternoon to find him in his bed sound asleep...with my shine tote under him...with the handles chewed in half. both of the handles. in half.

he doesn't look very remorseful here, but trust me, he is.

at first i was speechless. then i kindof transformed into that famous image of jack nicholson after he axed his way through the door in "The Shining"...you know~

duffy ran out the doggy door. smart move. i was just sick. i picked up the parts and brought it all into my sewing room. left it there for a long while. called the vet to inquire about the cost of those plastic cones for dogs. i thought i could just sew some new handles...i have fabric, i know how to sew. but it wouldn't be the same. i wanted my bag!! with the handles.

so i emailed papaya!, at an address on their site. i thought if someone read it, maybe i could buy some replacement handles. or pay to have it repaired. i figured i had nothing to lose by asking, and if i got no reply, at least i tried.

well, boy howdy, the next day (!) i did get a response! from a very nice gal named mindy, not a computer, who offered to replace my bag. wow. another speechless moment. i was so excited i called my husband, who was working on a boat and had no idea what i was talking about. i didn't care, i was so excited. three days later, my new shine bag arrived, with a sweet note from mindy, and some shine cards as well! i have never had anything like this happen, i was taken aback that a company would care enough to replace a product that was not defective or ruined through any fault of their own. this was 100% duffy, and yet they still replaced my bag!

so, i'm not sure if this post is about my very bad small white dog, or about how wonderful it is, in this day and age, to find a business that still has heart.

the artists who create all the beautiful artwork for the products, and the folks who run the daily business stuff of papaya! are real people, who i guess can see the humor in the misdeeds of small white alaskan dogs even when their owners can't. i invite you to take a peek at their blog here, and meet them for yourselves. isn't it great to know that a company who creates awesome inspiring artworks has a real honest-to-goodness heartbeat?? i believe it is!

he even knows how to apologize...

texture tuesday~ peeps

2011-06-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

phew~ fresh back in town from a week on the bay and it's texture tuesday time! this week kim's challenge was to use an image with a person or people in it.

yikes, i have deer, fox, fog, mossy trees, boats...and one of my youngest son cullan. bingo.

cullan has always been able to brighten my day. he has the wonderful ability to let things that bug him just roll off his back like the proverbial duck. the past year he has really grown into a great person and a hard worker, and it showed this week at the cabin. he knows how to second guess his dad on the boat. he zigs when he needs to and zags if he has to. hauls firewood without being asked. mowed the lawn without being asked. didn't even argue about slop bucket duty. tolerated going slow on the four wheeler for me. things like that just make a mom proud. sadly, he still won't eat crab or broccoli. i guess there's still time for that.

our new texture "grannys cupboard" from kim added the perfect amount of "grunge" to this photo. there wasn't a lot of contrast in the sky behind the mountains, but after playing with the levels & contrast i got the clouds pulled out a bit. i placed the background layer on softlight blend, then posterized it at 40. i added a yellow warming filter for a little depth, then placed a layer of kim's lifesgood texture on softlight at 100% followed by granny's cupboard on multiply at 86%. sorry, couldn't resist the title.

please take a minute to go visit all the other texture tuesday artists at kim klassen's cafe!

texture tuesday~ my beloved dock

2011-06-13T21:25:00.000-08:00

i didn't really do much to this photo, slight adjustments to levels and contrast, set the background to

lighten blend at 100% and added a layer of kim's new texture "mayzee" on multiply at 44%.

the texture was perfect to add depth to the solid wall of fog that was right at the tide line.

if you've been following me for a bit you've probably heard me mention my dock out at the cabin. the poor old thing is really past it's prime. it's tilted, soggy, wobbly. it no longer serves any working purpose. it's not sturdy enough to tie anything on to, almost scary to walk on. one side has a beautiful covering of neon green algae, the other a fantastic crop of barnacles.

my husband loathes the dock, probably because it no longer serves any working purpose. he refers to the poor thing as "the wood pile." every winter i shamelessly beg him to let my dock stand for another year. every spring i hold my breath as we round the corner of the spit - is it there? cullan tells me if it's okay to look or not.

the dock is my happy place. when the sun shines and there's no work to do, there is no better place in the world than the dock. with a book, a cup of coffee, some knitting. or nothing at all. the dock makes everything just a bit more perfect. heck i wish i had a dock at my town home...

gerry tells me he doesn't get my obsession with the dock. i just point to his barc-o-lounger.

please, give yourself a mini-vacation and go see all the other beautiful work at texture tuesday!

every day's a good day on the bay

2011-06-12T23:19:00.000-08:00

that's what our dear friend and ugak bay neighbor erling kwaznikof would tell us all every morning. rain or shine or snow or ice, out of fuel or wood for the stove or milk for his coffee - nothing could ruin that man's day. he was an old time alaskan, and had stories that could fill a hundred books or more. he was steadfast, loyal, and happy as a clam all the time. he was like all of our favorite uncles rolled in one, and was happy to be an adopted grandad to all of our kids. our kids grew up spending summers on the porch of erling's cabin with him, singing made up songs as he played his guitar. and learning how to salt fish and crack crab. erling passed away last year. it was hard to remember not to run over with a plate of warm bread in the morning for him last summer. his passing left us all with an empty spot, but he is remembered everyday, because one of us always finds a reason to remind us all that every day is a good day on the bay.

we made a quick run down this weekend to open up our cabin and see what the winter did. and de-spider. it was foggy and rainy the whole time, but it didn't bother duffy (still living in shame and i will get to that story next week) who dearly loves the cabin. and swimming:

i wasn't kidding about the fog!

the spider population has now decreased by about 762....the cabin is aired out and ready for another great summer. i'm happy to report my beloved dock has survived yet another winter and my husband's threats to burn it. i took photos but am saving them for texture tuesday.... we will be heading back down on tuesday for a week with visiting friends. hopefully the weather will give us a break. if not, we know what erling would say~

the ride home got pretty rough, which was a pity as we had a whale following along, spouting away. i tried my best to get some photos, but sadly, this is what i have to offer for being brave enough to let go of the railing to snap them:

no whale here...

zip...

nada...

but it was a good day anyhow.

whoopie!

2011-06-10T16:00:00.001-08:00

i'm starting to gear up for my summer life as a cook at AlpenView, the remote sport fishing lodge i work at. i can't wait to get out of dodge, so to speak. i love the long days, the hard work, the great company from around the world, and the peace & quiet. i love cooking for folks who really appreciate it (hear that family?)

most of the time the poor fellows and gals are so tired from a day of catching "the big ones" i think i could put peanut butter and jelly in front of them and they would be happy. but that makes it even more fun to do nice things for them. like, i'm thinking, whoopie pies.

who can think about whoopie pies and not smile? not to mention saying it - yep, there's a smile. so i made a batch today. i needed to see how many i could get out of a recipe. and i needed a smile. it worked.

are you smiling?

i'm thinking i will need to triple the recipe. and i'm wondering about a peanut butter filling.... can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.

see that face on the left? just ignore him. he is in blistering trouble right now.don't let that look fool you. he's just a small white dog living in shame. but that's a story for another day.

gnomeo

2011-06-08T20:49:00.001-08:00

finally, i got to watch gnomeo & juliet. one of the problems with losing one's only daughter to college, and then life, is one is left home alone with a husband and 16-year-old son. and a movie venue of titles like "transformers 27" or "too fast for brains."

normally i don't care, i go into my studio & plug in my ipod to drown out the squealing tires and the "yo, man, whasssup's?" and i get a lot done.

but i really wanted to see this movie. come on, yard gnomes AND elton john??? it's already won all my awards. so i snuck. i figured out how to turn on the son's playstation, navigated my way to the netflix thing, and requested gnomeo. when it got here, i snuck it into the dvd player before the boys got home from work. they never saw it coming.

best of all, when they realized what was coming, gerry fell asleep and cullan went to shoot zombies, so i got the comfy recliner chair all to myself. oh yeah.

if you've seen the movie you know about the toilet planter with the wisteria bush. i was enthralled because i have this:

i know, it isn't wisteria, but we've already talked about my gardening skills. at one point it was full of johnny jump-ups (i loved the pun) but the slugs won that battle as well.

so i loved the movie. had a wonderful evening watching it. when it was over i was consumed with guilt at having separated my two pink plastic flamingos a couple years ago. i trudged outside in the rain in my jammies and gerry's work boots, retrieved them both and reunited them in a romantic little hideaway.

texture tuesday~ words

2011-06-06T21:13:00.002-08:00

i know, i skipped last week.

last week the theme was gardens, or gardening.

in my yard you don't garden so much as you battle with the environment.

it's wet. it's in perpetual shade. it's home to 87% of the earth's slug population.

i've given up the battle and embraced the moss.

so i skipped last week.

this week kim suggested we add words to any image we like.

that's more like it.

the image i chose is one of my favorites, of our home

and our neighbor's on ugak bay. i took it last fall as we were headed back to town.

the fog fell and completely shrouded us in.

i didn't want to come back to town. i love when it's like this outside.

i made some adjustments to the levels, hue/saturation and contrast. added a bit of gaussian blur. i used three different textures by kim: lifesgood on softlight blend at 44%, justcause on softlight at 69% and lightpaper on multiply at 66%.

i added one of my favorite quotes by proust.
i love this quote because, as a person who doesn't get to do a lot of traveling off-island,
i've learned to try to find new or different things in the surroundings i see every day.

it's not hard to do. what's hard is remembering to do it.

it's a bit easier to feel sorry for myself when it seems like
everyone in the universe except me is traveling to
cancun, or costa rica, or st. croix.

there are probably slugs in those places anyhow.

now, i invite you to travel over to kim klaussen's cafe and visit all the other incredible texture tuesday artists!

texture tuesday~ alpenglow

2011-05-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

i set the background image to soft light blend. made small adjustments to levels and contrast. added a layer of kim's pumpkin grundge on screen blend at 53%, a layer of kim's warmsun on soft light at 60%, and finished with a layer of kim's yesteryear on multiply at 72%.

this photo was taken late last september at our home on ugak bay. it was 7:30 am, a rare day with not a cloud in the sky. it was so silent, there wasn't even a breeze, the bay was like a mirror. mist was rolling out from the falls, and when the sun popped up, the mountains were bathed in alpenglow. it was breathtaking. just as quickly it was gone and i continued with the breadmaking... here's the before:

take some time to visit all the other beautiful work here!

here's the tail~

2011-05-18T13:32:00.001-08:00

this is the third year i've participated in KICVB's Halibut Tail Art Auction. the visitor's bureau provides local artists (this year i think there are 14 participating) with blank fiberglass taxidermy halibut tail forms, which can be created on in any media we choose. kind of like the chicago cows. the finished tails are auctioned off at the KICVB's Chocolate Lover's Fling, which is being held this saturday. art & chocolate, what a deal.

this year two of the tails are being offered for public online bidding on ebay. this is happening now, check out item #180666099917 and #180666107692.

the past two years i've hand dyed fabrics and pieced, appliqued and beaded quilted "tail covers."

clarice was first. i loved clarice.

last year was moira's turn. i loved moira. i am so so happy that a very dear friend now owns her. moira is very happy that she is moving to sunny florida, where the waters are much warmer than here...

this year i wanted to try something different. thinking a mixed media piece would be fun, enable me to indulge in my love of rusty stuff, and go together much quicker than a hand dyed quilted piece, i chose that route. it was a lot of fun. created a lot of interesting technical problems i got to work out. it got me to part with many of my beloved beach treasures i've been hoarding. as far as taking less time, well, not so much. but it's done now so i can love it at last.

this is the front.

here's the back.

with no real picture in my head of the finished project, i started by tearing up old tide tables, fishing regulation books and our navigation charts (so if we run aground, hit a rock or get lost at sea this summer, it's all my fault.) aged them with coffee & vanilla then applied them to the fin on both sides with gel medium. this was the only time i used a glue product on this project, i'm kinda happy about that. then i punched out circles from more charts in 3 different sizes, distressing the edges. i layered them down the base of the tail to create a fish scale look. this took longer than i thought, mainly because i started obsessing over getting the correct halibut fishing areas to show on the little bits of map on the scales & fin...hind site has me wondering if anyone else will even notice that...

once i got the base done i realized this would be the perfect piece to highlight things i've found on the various beaches on the island. i used my trusty dremel tool to cut windows through the fin, where i could attach things like these gems:

it's hard to see, but the item on the left is an old brass navy button. the currant coast guard base on kodiak began as a naval base during WWII, and i often find wonderful rusty navy-type things on a couple different beaches. the tiny sand dollar was a score from a beach on nearby long island last father's day. i soldered around it so i had something to hang it by. in the rest of the windows i put a really awesome ice blue piece of beach glass, hardly ever find that colour, a nice chunk of pottery, and a soldered microscope slide with a mermaid on one side and a collage of old fishing boats i put together on the other.

while working on filling the windows i came across a quote that pulled the whole tail together for me, so to speak. it gave me just what i needed for the focal point to work, the focal point being my take on the sacred heart symbol:

the base is a rusted heart-shaped tin duffy & i found on our morning beach stroll. it was pretty nearly a zen moment for me. the rusty forks were another beach find, and those i wired and soldered on to the back of the tin, hoping to emulate the sacred heart's flames. along the inside of the tin i drilled holes, and wired freshwater pearls down. i brushed some beeswax over the pearls to ensure they stay put, i think it added a nice aged look.

i drilled a couple more holes on the top and wired in an arch some sea glass from another beach. on the bottom i dangled a bit of what looks like a piece of jadeite glass, a vial of white sand from a favorite beach we've all let our kids run around naked on when they were babies, and an awesome old key, nicely patina'd, with russian writing on it. it was hard to part with that one. also sewed on a mother of pearl button to the bottom of the middle fork that my daughter found on the beach a while back. i had to pay her a dollar for it.

i printed the quote out on a paper bag, and applied it to an awesome flat bit of copper (that already had the center hole in it!) with melted beeswax. it buffed out nice and shiny, love beeswax. i hung it from the top of the tin with some rusted & waxed twine.

i mounted the heart onto the tail by screwing it down with some old worn copper screws from my father-in-law's old screw bin. they look great peeking out. who knows how old they are.

i used an old salmon roe packing box (canneries have switched to plastic boxes now, such a pity) for the base. i covered the lid with another chart, aging it with more coffee. i screwed the tail on good and sturdy, then screwed the lid onto the box with more old brass screws. the final bit of glory for this piece came to me a week before the tail was due, when we rode out to fossil beach for an afternoon, and while walking through the seaweed i found an old halibut gagnion, all chewed & rusty (yay) with the most beautiful rusted circle hook ever still attached. i wrapped it around the base of the tail and wired it down. i included a tag so the owner would know where everything came from, and called it done.

i named this year's tail "Enduring Beauty"

and i sure hope someone bids on it saturday night.....

texture tuesday~ vintage

2011-05-17T04:00:00.002-08:00

this week's texture tuesday challenge from dear kim klassen was to use something vintage as our subject. she provided us with a fabulous new texture "pourvous."

i could have pulled out any number of old things i suppose, but what came to mind right away was a treasured photo i have of my grandma arel, my memere. and no, i am not calling memere vintage.

i made some adjustments in levels, hue/saturation, & contrast, then added a sepia photofilter @66%.

i added a layer of kim's "trust" texture on soft light blend at 100%, then her new "pourvous" texture

on hard light blend at 69%. i erased a bit of the texture from memere.

my mom remembers this was one of the first photos she took with her new "Brownie" camera. i decided to leave the torn bits and worn edges alone, not edit them out. that's me memere is holding - thus the vintage label. as i approach the half century mark in a couple months, i feel i am certifiably vintage.

there are many things i love about this photo, first, that i even have it. there aren't many photos of the two of us. second - i love how skinny my legs are. they didn't stay that way. i love my saggy diaper and memere's saggy stockings. and her slippers, and her fancy watch. we used to beg to wear her fancy watch.

memere was french, born in quebec. she was the most amazing lace maker, and why oh why didn't i watch her closer. i have the sample book she and her sisters put together, another treasure. she spoke in a mixture of french and english, unless she was mad, and then the french flew. it wasn't very helpful french to learn i later found out in 6th grade french class.

at any rate, go check out all the other textured vintage lovlies now here!

welcome to the house of arachnids...........

2011-05-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

i have a very deep dislike for spiders. not a lot makes me scream like a girl (other than teenaged sons not taking off their muddy shoes in the house), but a spider, any spider regardless of size, brings embarrassing shrieks from me every time.

at our cabin i expect spiders and have fashioned a routine to deal with them. my husband goes down first, bombs the cabin, and a few days later i go down and sweep up the remains. a dead spider i can handle.

our home in town i expect to be spider free. during an average year we will have the occasional spider visits, which i have learned to live with. i would scream, and devon, my spider killer, would come running and make it go away. it worked well while devon was home. i hope the air force appreciates the sacrifice i am making for my country. because lately, my house is full of these:

i was very brave to take these photos, i think. even now i have goose bumps. this was not just an average "oh ick, a spider" spider, this was colossal. the size of a fifty cent piece. not kidding. no need for photoshop texture here - look at the hair on the back of this thing!!!!

this was just one from yesterday. before him i had one come out of the kitchen sink drain when i was washing my (now broken) coffee cup. how the heck do they get in our plumbing???? there were two more in the kitchen cabinets, one in the shower (sponge bath for me tonight...) and my personal favorite of today, one in the hood of my sweatshirt - that i didn't find until it crawled up my neck....ewwwwwwwww. last night cullan had one in his bed, so i took a good 20 minutes to shake out my blankets & pillows before i climbed in my bed.

why are they so profuse, and so stinkin' big??? was it the week of beautiful sunshine and warmth we just had? if so, give me back the snow and ice. perhaps there's been a bit of unreported chemical leaks, or nuclear stuff floating around??? these guys are so big even my pal duffy won't go near them. i'm pretty sure they could carry him off. i'm serious.

tonight when i go to bed there will be a thorough shaking of the sheets, i am wearing socks, and there will be a flashlight and a can of bear spray on my night stand. if it can stop a brown bear, i'm hoping it can stop these nasty creatures. gerry better hope he doesn't bump into me tonight...he'll get clobbered, sprayed and shaken out.

texture tuesday~ rerun

2011-05-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

i know i've recently posted this photo of my pal duffy, but i didn't have time this week to get out and take pictures...an anyhow, doesn't he look like he's just waiting to be a part of texture tuesday?

i set the background on soft light blend, then used a gaussian blur. i placed a layer of kim's golden texture at 54% soft blend, then a layer of kim's mad love texture at 61% multiply.

Disclaimer: no squirrels were harmed while taking this photo.

don't forget to go check out all the other awesome photography at kim's texture tuesday link-up here!

texture tuesday~ a cuppa joe

2011-05-03T03:00:00.001-08:00

this week's challenge from kim was to use a photo of a coffee or tea cup, and her sweet texture "luminous." this is probably my favorite texture so far, i love what it did to this photo...like looking through an old screen door.

i used two layers of luminous on this, one on soft light mode and one on multiply.

this time i left them both at 100% as i really liked the aged look it gave the image.

my dad and i found this old rusty cup years ago while walking behind our old house back east. we used to hike on an old stage coach road that ran along our property, and we found all kinds of great treasures~ old bottles, china doll parts, tools. he loved it, and so did i. maybe that's where my obsession with rust came from...and pack-ratting...this cup has moved everywhere with me, been to college, art school, for some reason it even came to work with me in bristol bay...i'm just glad i've hung on to it all this time.

here's the before:

isn't photoshop something? and, just for fun:

this is using luminous once on hard light blend at 58% and once on multipy blend at 74%.

the modern quintessential coffee cup... now, go check out everyone else's photography here!

make art while the muse shines~

2011-05-01T16:14:00.001-08:00

it occurred to me that the only thing i've posted about lately has been photos for texture tuesday, when, in fact, i've been busy in my work room with other stuff too. having deadlines helps. this year's Whale Fest art show has been up for a month, and i finished two pieces to enter in it. after a serious non-creative blah spell, it felt good to get back to it and accomplish soomething.

this is an altered tin i titled "robert service's retirement plan". i forgot to measure it, i believe it's 2" wide and around 6-7" long. i let the tin get nice & rusty outside for a few weeks, then layered torn charts, a bit of rusty screen, a spot of embroidery i did on some rusty muslin (i love rust), & an old button all attached with beeswax. for the crowning glory - a beautiful old fork handle found on the beach (score) & a little compass i soldered to a piece of something metal, also from the beach. these i attached with rivets and wire.

the detail on the fork handle was so pretty, even after being in the sea for who knows how long.

i think it deserved to be dressed up with some pearls and crystals.

here's the inside. i'd never seen this particular robert service poem before, and it is what inspired this piece.

"When I have come with happy heart

to sixty years and ten,

I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;

and in a little lonely isle

that's far far from men,

in peace and praise I'll spend the days

the gods allow to me!"

to that let me just say AMEN.

i layered it with gel medium to a chart on the inside top of the tin. on the other side i did a fabric collage with more rusty muslin, more bits of beach metal, some pearls & buttons & beads, a snip of old lace and a flower from some hand dyed silk ribbon. of course, there must always be a mermaid (especially if one is retiring alone) and i found this one from the graphics fairy (a fabulous site & my go-to spot when i need any type of clip art, that gal karen has it all and if she doesn't and you ask her, she will find it. a-maz-ing.) i printed her out on some pfd muslin and stitched her on.

"a red halibut" (un fletan rouge) was the other piece i did for whale fest. it measures roughly 11x14". i machine embroidered the halibut onto yet even more rusted muslin (i know, but i really like it), then sandwiched it with some cotton batting and machine quilted it. sewed on a chunk of a chart with the latin name for atlantic halibut (realizing too late that it should have been PACIFIC halibut, oh well) with a chunk of lace, & added a chunk of well-patina'd beach metal. i prepared the foundation board with some paint, some tide tables, a few teabags and other stuff. added a really awesome strip of copper to the top (another beach score) drilled some holes in it, then sewed the quilted piece onto the board with -get this- butcher's twine i RUSTED and waxed. okay enough with the rust.

i also made this:

a real lemon merange pie, made with fresh duck eggs. check out that merange! i was feeling pretty cheffy. and it didn't fall, it stayed that tall to the last piece. from now on, it's me, donald and daffy in the kitchen.

in closing, i need to share with you something about that little bit of embroidery on the cover of the robert service piece. i have no clue how to embroider. my mom embroiders entire quilt tops. i did one cross stitch panel when i was in junior high. but i wanted some embroidery on that cover, and was determined to not have to ask mom not to do it for me. (you know, i've never been able to shake that "i can do it all by myself" thing) thank goodness i discovered mollie johanson's blog wild olive, and feeling stitchy. between both these sites i found a plethora of tutorials, pictures, patterns, and help. they are both just beautiful to visit, with excellent photography to boot. so after a few hours of this:

(i couldn't have done it without my glow in the dark mary back there. she always has her eye on me)

and the smallest of tension headaches, i was able to stitch the little lazy lotus blossom (on - you got it - rusted muslin) all by myself. i showed it to my mom, but the poor thing just doesn't get my art. she came out of her laundry room with a bottle of Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing that she thought would help me get the rust stains out.

texture tuesday~serendipity

2011-04-26T03:00:00.003-08:00

after making some changes in the hue/saturation and levels of this photo, giving it the "stormy" look i wanted, i added two layers of kim's serendipity texture: one using the soft light blend at 57% and the other using the multiply blend at 100%. am i nuts taking a rare perfect sunny day on this island and turning it grey & stormy?

here it is before i made my changes

this week kim gave us a beautiful texture to work with, called serendipity. i suppose like most things, serendipity means different things to each of us. i think serendipity is when we return to our cabin on the bay for the summer. right after we get the windows thrown open for airing, get the dead spiders swept out of the tub, get the water running again, the beds made up, and can finally sit out front and relax, listening to...nothing. silence. no cars, talking, doors closing, engines running, clocks ticking. just the quiet of being far away from everything. well okay there is the drone of the no-see-ums buzzing around our bug nets...

i've posted this photo from last summer before, but it's a fave of mine and i didn't get a chance to take any inspiring shots this past week. the halibut tails for the kicvb chocolate lover's fling and halibut tail art auction are due soon, and that's all i've been working on for days. i'm almost done. i'm pretty sure when i am finished and it is loaded in the car to deliver to the fine kicvb folks, i will be having another serendipity-ous moment...

until then, go visit all the other beautiful photography from around the world by clicking here!

texture tuesday time~

2011-04-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

this week's challenge was to use two of kim's textures, sweet treat and silence. i used two layers of sweet treat, one on multiply at 50% and one on multiply at 100%. i also used two layers of silence, one on soft light at 100% and one on multiply at 100%. i like the grainy, aged look it created, covering up the stains of age on memere's doily.

here's the photo au natural:

i know. it's like eating a bowl of plain shredded wheat while the person

across the table is having stuffed french toast from ihop.

give me texture.

i love texture tuesdays. i love textures. textures are like spa treatments for my less-than-professional, non-perfect, poorly-lit photos. thank you sweet kim klassen. really, if you are reading this and haven't yet checked out kim's site yet, click here for a visit. viewing her images are like a little vacation for your eyes. and click here to see what other folks are doing with kim's textures. it's a whole other vacation! and proof that spring is blooming somewhere...

meet our evening visitors~

2011-04-14T17:34:00.001-08:00

we've always had a group of deer wandering around the woods surrounding our house. they weren't around much after our neighbors cut down all their trees (i am still bitter and they still haven't gotten the xmas fruit cake from me since.) during the winter they returned to the neighborhood and i'm loving how at home they've made themselves in our yard. they are smart enough to not visit until after gerry is asleep. i think they can pick up on the vibe that the man sees anything with fur and four legs as a potential meal.

there are five in the "family," three does, who are the shy ones in the group, a beautiful buck, and this little guy~ i call him tippy. his little hoofs click on the driveway, sometimes that's how i know they're here. i think he is a yearling. he lost his spots finally, but he still has that cute baby face. and look at that belly!

tippy's not very afraid of anything, he and my pal duffy the small white dog are working on a type of friendship that involves a lot of you-chase-me then-i'll-chase-you around the back yard. duffy takes it as long as he can then comes in and guards his food dish. you never know, tippy might be able to fit in the doggy door...

look at this guy! isn't he handsome? i took all these photos out of my really dirty windows (i can't reach to wash the outsides of them on that side of the house...and our ladder is old and scary) so everything is muted by the dust. but he really is beautiful. he follows along behind tippy every night while the gals have some girl time down back.

i'll be sad when the grass greens and they move on for the summer.

time flies...texture tuesday already~

2011-04-11T15:32:00.004-08:00

this week kim shared a beautiful texture she named "silence."

(i love silence, pure calm quiet. i have enough rattling around in my head all the time without adding extra sounds to it. lately my pet noise dislike is the rapid-fire tic-tic-ticking of my youngest son's texting. might as well be fingernails on a chalkboard....)

the day i took this photo was a wonderful calm day, no breeze, not even a seagull cry.
just a bit of splash as the slack tide slapped on the rocks.
the next day it was blowing 50 and pelting snow...

we live on a wondrous island.

i used two layers of silence, 100% soft light & 42% multiply.
i also blurred the whole image with a gaussian blur at 27%.

visit all the other texture tuesday participants here. you will be amazed...

texture tuesday with ms. kim

2011-04-05T10:52:00.003-08:00

i took this photo last spring at the oregon coast. i'd never seen anyone fish into rolling surf like this before.

i watched him for about an hour. never did catch anything.
but it was a beautiful day.

i adjusted the hue/saturation levels and added two layers of kim's warmsun texture;

one at softlight, 100% and the other at multiply, 73%.
check out all the other amazing texture lovers here!

beating the blogging blahs~

2011-03-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

i've been in a crummy slump lately. i don't really know why, but i just haven't felt like doing a dang thing. not even cooking has been fun. (thank goodness for a freezer full of venison burger and boxes of hamburger helper at times like this...) (and nope, you won't be getting daily posts from me as i follow julia childs' cookbook...)

as i read blog posts from folks all over, it seems the joy of spring has hit in full force everywhere. i'm just not feeling it yet.

at this point i would be remiss in not taking notice of the plight of those in japan right now. long time kodiak residents can certainly relate to them, sans nuclear nightmare, having lived through similar tsunami devastation after the earthquake of 1964. i hope we all continue to pull together to help these people regain their homes, their lives.

whether i'm able to romp through cherry blossoms or not, it's time to get myself out of this rut. the whale fest art show is less than a week away *gasp*. as i type this, sitting right next to me staring in it's eyeless sort of way, is my naked halibut tail, ready to be turned into a work of art for the 3rd annual KIVCB halibut tail auction. it needs to be done...soon.

earlier this week i did manage to go through all my sweatshirt pockets and the ashtray (used only for beach finds) in my rav for the little baggies of sea glass i've been collecting with my pal duff on our morning walks on the beaches. i perked myself up enough to get a bunch drilled and fashioned into jewelry:

Note to local lurkers: (i know you are there) you can now purchase these and much much more at Emerald Isle Framing, 334 Shelikof St next to the brewery, open T-Sat from noon. 907-486-0884. if you are not local and interested in my sea glass jewelry, please email me!! i haven't been keeping up my etsy store, but am happy to work with you on a custom purchase.

yesterday i hit the spring cleaning. right down to throwing open all the windows and doors and scrubbing and waxing the floors on my hands and knees. i know, who does that anymore? i have to admit it felt pretty good going to bed last night knowing every surface in the house including the toilets and the top of the fridge had been slapped with a hot rag and bleach. and when i got up for coffee this morning i was touched by my pal duff's little love notes to me in the form of perfect little muddy paw prints across the kitchen...we had a chat about feet wiping and the meaning behind the phrase "tan your hide."

{and if you are reading this devon, happy 20th birthday. we miss you and love you.}

i love my jug of sourdough starter

2011-03-04T13:49:00.000-09:00

my family doesn't understand my deep attachment to my jar of sourdough starter. i can't explain it to them. it's taken me years of training to get them all to the point of understanding that if the jar is on the counter behind the sink, leave it there. if it's on the ledge behind the toyostove, do not move it. if it's on the bottom shelf in the fridge, don't bump it trying to make room for your sunny d. they all finally understand the basic sourdough rule: do not touch the jar. every summer i wrap it up and hand carry it with me on the boat ride to the lodge. the boys tease me that i should strap an EPIRB on it.
i don't know that i understand why i am so attached to it. it's not like i'm ma ingalls in a sod house in the middle of the prairie~ i can pick up a loaf of bread at safeway lickity-split. maybe it's a nurturing thing.
my friend veronica gave me a cup of her starter several years ago so i could get mine going. a friend of hers shared a cup with veronica long ago, with the story that it originated from relatives who carried it with them over the chilkoot trail in the 1890's.
i don't know if that is a valid fact or not, but when veronica handed me my jar of gooey, yeasty history, i felt a certain obligation to keep that starter alive. so far so good. i feed it, stir it, keep fumbling hands away from it. in return it turns out amazing muffins and sourdough french bread. and last night, a fantastic batch of pancakes. i wonder if they could be called vintage...

why i don't listen to the news~

2011-03-02T15:08:00.001-09:00

i've been thinking about my middle son devon a lot today. i haven't seen him in over a year now. well, thanks to skype i have seen him, but you know what i mean, i haven't touched him, or fed him, or done his laundry for him.
i showed you him going off to air force boot camp, and let you know he made it through with flying colors. since then he's been sent to texas for training, over to florida for more training, and now is stationed at seymour-johnson air force base in north carolina, where he is a crew chief and engine specialist on F-15 fighter jets. two days ago he texted me a photo of himself in his dress blues, right after he received his second stripes. they are beautiful, and he looks so good...
it's been an emotional journey having him choose this path for himself. mostly i have been filled with pride, seeing him follow in his grandfather's footsteps, hearing his pride in himself over the phone as he met each test & obstacle over the past year. i know he loves what he's doing. i know he's being taken care of and that he's going to the dentist and eating meals. i know he still has a few months of tests and things before he is "deployable." i've chosen to focus on feeling the pride and telling myself he is on the ground fixing the jets, not flying in them...

and then i read the news this morning. two u.s. air men shot and two wounded, in germany. one of devon's best buddies from boot camp was recently stationed there. the air force base in germany is home to the only F-15 fighter wing in europe, and it's on devon's "wish list." my heart is heavy as i wait to hear from him. i can only imagine how his friends' parents are feeling.

pride can only carry a mom so far.

i see the person who did the shooting is 21. so young.

devon is 19. his 20th birthday is the end of this month. and i'm thinking if i would have talked him into college, he would have been worried about what he was going to be doing for spring break instead of doing the final pre-flight check on a fighter jet engine...

bless the families of those four boys.

hot off the deck

2011-02-26T16:09:00.000-09:00

yesterday i completed our last assignment for kim's skinny mini photoshop ecourse. i can't believe how much i've learned, she is a fantastic teacher. i can't wait to take her essentials course now.
in between snapping photos and manipulating them (gosh i love being manipulative) i managed to finish one project i can check off my list...
i found this funky little table/lamp unit a few weeks ago at a friend's yard sale for $2. i'm not much for wrought iron, but one can never have too many lamps in a house in alaska in the dead of winter...

...before....

(i just realized i'm showing my really ugly mud room to the world...great...)

...after...

i decided it would make the perfect "knitting at night" table. i spray painted the base "tomato soup", what a great name, huh? i stitched up a quick bag for the bottom to hold my numerous unfinished knitting projects...slapped some fabric scraps on an old lampshade, and popped a full spectrum bulb in it. after sanding down the table top i painted away, then gave it a few coats of sealer and put it all back together. it's bright & happy & keeps the boys out of my stuff. all for under $5. i'm feeling so frugal...

wow~

2011-02-25T11:07:00.001-09:00

i think the only thing photoshop can't do is fill up my gas tank.

i know how to wield the magic eraser tool.

no one need ever know what a horrible photographer i am again.

thank you kim klassen.

it's a software miracle~

2011-02-19T15:43:00.001-09:00

i've been working on kim klassen's skinny mini ecourse for photoshop elements this week. ms. kim is nothing short of amazing. in a series of well executed videos and homework, she has managed to unlock the mysteries of layers, blends, adjustments and textures. she's a great teacher, and so generous to offer this class at no cost. if you've been intimidated or discouraged by this software, i really recommend signing up for one of kim's classes - just click on one of her buttons i have over on the right to see some of her work.

look at the difference!

swap-o-rama

2011-02-14T23:40:00.000-09:00

linda at a swap for all seasons hosts the best swaps ever. her latest swap challenge was to create a 5x7 fabric collage piece, simple & sweet, inspired by something our partners liked.
my partner was nancy from the vintage dresser . we share a common like of vintage kitchen linens and old stuff. and the colour green. (she has a couple of great tutorials posted for mini note pads and a sweet mini album made from coffee filters (!) go check it out!)
so, here's what i came up with for her:

the image of the fairy princess is courtesy of karen the graphics fairy , who keeps us supplied with wonderful images to use however we will. i printed her out in sepia (the princess, not karen) and freshened her up a bit with coloured pencils.

a couple of the background fabrics are actual old feedsacks, the rest are reproductions. the linen trim on the left edge is a precious piece from my memere's sewing stash, as well as the old buttons. am i the only one who has stashes of these things and finds it incredibly painful to actually use?? i don't know why, even my memere used to say "c'est tout simplement" which i think was her way of saying "it's all just stuff", and i always like the way everything looks when i'm done...

i gave it a bit of machine quilting and added a jar of pixie dust so she could sprinkle her 3 wishes around. it was very hard not to sew a binding on to this....but we were supposed to leave them unfinished for our partners to finish as they like. i mailed her off to nancy today, hope she likes it.

linda has set up a link here to all the finished pieces, go have a look, there are some beauties!

happy valentine's day!

2011-02-13T15:27:00.001-09:00

can you find the heart?

look close.... it's on the cliff below the leaning spruce tree,

by the furthest breaking wave...

have a great day!

sunday sunshine

2011-02-13T12:14:00.000-09:00

eat your supper....

2011-02-05T18:59:00.000-09:00

today has been a really windy, rainy, cold cold day. gerry has been working out on a boat all day, so i know he will be frozen and wet when he gets home. the perfect day to make turkey pot pie for dinner...
i get his call to let me know he's on his way home. great timing as the pie is done. i set the table, then do the usual clean up of the counters, etc. when i turn around to get the plates, this is what i see...

never turn your back on a small white dog.

an important safety notice for kodiak residents

2011-02-03T11:37:00.000-09:00

this is my youngest son, cullan.

he turned 16 last weekend.

he is usually the quiet one of the family, not prone to public displays of emotion of any type. what's that he's holding, you ask? that would be his still-warm-from-the-laminator

alaska driver's license.
ergo, my public warning.

this is his vehicle, so you all have a visual.

if you live on the mainland, you should be safe for another couple years.

(all kidding aside, he has thus far proven to be a pretty consciencious and safe driver. i am again grateful for the "no passengers" provision. i'll post updates should he ever venture off the island )

knitting on the dock of the bay

2011-01-22T18:56:00.000-09:00

i would rather be here (on my sad little crumbling dock at our cabin) doing this (knitting) than anywhere else on earth. this was one of those days i will carry in my heart forever. it was sunny on the bay, and shirt sleeves warm. there was the nicest slight breeze that kept the loathsome flesh eating no-see-ums away. i hadn't yet started work at alpenview, so my time was my own. really really my own because my husband and son had returned to town the day before, and i was all by myself for the first time in a very long time. didn't have to stop and make a meal or find a hammer for someone. didn't have to start the generator or put gas in a 4 wheeler or listen to classic rock (thank you sweet clouds in the sky.) it was bliss. i spent the whole day on that dock knitting, reading, watching jellyfish float by. not a sound except for the gulls and the water slapping on the beach. it was bliss. it smelled warm and green and sea-weedy.

it was this moment in time that i kept with me during the past week. i had jury duty all last week. i've served on a jury one other time, years ago. it wasn't a messy trial or anything horrid. it was pretty cut & dry. the biggest thing i remember about it was that i had a 4 week old baby girl jury duty was keeping me from, and that enraged me. it messed up our schedules, our feedings, our everythings. but we made it through.

this was not one of those trials. we had to sit and listen to icky details. we had to relive lots of angry emotions. we had to quietly observe lawyers guiding and picking and wheedling. the entire situation left me feeling nauseous and unclean and unsettled. it wasn't black and white, and i resented being put in the position of having to make such a monumental decision about another beings' life. i don't think any of us felt like we left the jury box as better people for having fulfilled our civic duty.

i kept my day on the dock in my heart all week long.

i love my country, i understand the importance of our judicial system and all it entails.

but i really hope i never have to go through that again.

i am looking forward to tomorrow, monday, and a clean, creative week!

what i did this summer...viewmaster style

2011-01-17T17:36:00.000-09:00

i need to confess when it comes to downloading, editing, and generally trying to make my photos look better, i have a severe lack of patience. i thought a new camera would help me overcome this problem, but all it has done is enable me to take even more photos which then have to be dealt with. so i am trying this, a photo mosaic. which i think is probably really really cheating, but in what i hope will be viewed as creative cheating. i took hundreds of photos this summer. i'm looking at this as a summary. a dim sum of many beautiful days on ugak bay.

it was a great summer. alpenview lodge hosted clients from all over the globe. it was fun to meet such interesting folks, and watch them enjoying all our home has to offer. we had pretty good weather, with a few delayed switch outs, but for the most part everyone got to where they needed to be almost when they needed to be there. the fishing was great, with the halibut and rockfish covering nicely for the late silver run.

as always it was hard to leave and return to town. we really are looking forward to the time we can retire, and snuggle in to the cabin for good.

(i think you can click on the photos to enlarge them...if i did it correctly...)

invisible me...

2011-01-05T15:55:00.000-09:00

i guess i've kinda fallen off the blogging map...whoops.

once back in town, life kicked backed in. it's amazing how easy it is to get sucked up into the "hurry up and get all this stuff done, and oh don't forget about this and that" mode. every year i swear i won't fall into the holiday busy busy busy trap, and every year i still do. (next year i am not going to...)

now xmas is all packed up. school has started again. my daughter, who got to come home for christmas, is gone again, much too quickly. my air force son, who did not get to come home for christmas, is showing up in some pretty entertaining photos on facebook.... i'm glad to know he wasn't alone for the holidays, even if he isn't glad to know i lurk on facebook.

it's very quiet at home, time to get to work on all those things i've been very good at setting aside. we're having some pretty nasty weather which makes it even easier. now i'm off to finish the xmas cards that have turned into the new year cards...

then i'll have a clear conscience, and can get back in the blog groove.
wishing you a peaceful and warm 2011

hello! i'm back!

2010-10-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

hi everyone, if you are still there... i am back in town after another incredible late summer on the bay. it's always hard to step off the boat and dig back into the real world. everything moves so fast, is so loud and just plain old complicated.
it's so easy to slide into the life of the fishing lodge, i never take for granted the slower pace, the absence of all things technical (although i keep my ipod close at hand... josh groban really does make cleaning the smokehouse go so much faster.) the days are long, the work is hard, but the stresses are easier to handle...instead of having to be three places at once i only have to figure out how to make my last 4 eggs into a breakfast for 12 clients....piece of cake. there is no wondering which shoes to wear in the morning. most of the time it's the xtra-tuffs. easy-peasy. choosing evening entertainment? a cinch - by the time i'm done in the kitchen i'm pooped - a quick walk down the beach and it's time to hit the hay. 4:45 a.m. comes around really fast. i love everything about this simple time of my year.
i will admit to missing my youngest son, who has to head back to town for school several weeks before i'm done. but he and dad managed to get to the first day of school fine, made all the swim team practices without me reminding him, and kept the house reasonably clean. now i just have to remember i'm only cooking for three, not eight to ten...
i have lots of photos to post as soon as i get them downloaded. it was a beautiful sunny summer for the most part. a few good foggy rainy days which delays some client switch-outs, but it wasn't too bad. so now i look forward to catching up with the blog world...and my laundry...

why i want to be an oyster catcher

2010-08-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

oyster catchers are a striking seabird i just love watching. they are solid black, with a glorious lonnngg orange beak, and they play a great cat and mouse game to keep you away from their nests, which they tend to create right smack on the beach, just out of reach of the tide line.

so, how easy is housekeeping for an oyster catcher?? check it out - let's just scatter some broken shells and lay our eggs! jeekers! no twigs, no fluffy stuff. obviously there is no pampering for baby oyster catchers. looks like they have to break the shell and hit the beach running! i'm going to point this out to my children the next time they think they have life rough.

i found this nest a couple weeks ago when we took the skiff over to long island, just a quick 20 minute ride from town. it's taken us 8 years to talk my mom into going on the boat with us, but we finally did it:

she just turned 83. she had a blast on the ride, but made me promise not to post any of those photos because her hair was messy. it was a beautiful day, the kind that reminds you why you love living on an island in alaska.

my pal duffy loves to be the navigator. he frequently dives in and swims along. we let him go until we see the sea lions snort, then yard him back in.

we were babysitting duff's sister snickers for a week, she also loves a good boat ride. gotta love her coast guard approved life jacket!

see what i mean? the perfect place to live.

and every morning when i wake up i say a thank you prayer that i no longer have to stand on the back deck of a seiner, piling corks and getting slapped in the face with jellyfish. you should too. you should also be sure to find out if the salmon you are eating is wild alaskan salmon, because if it is farmed fish, it is taking away the livelihood of fishermen and their families like the folks in the picture above.
with that soap box moment, i will say my goodbyes, as i am leaving tomorrow for ugak bay. i can't wait to get back to the lodge, meet new folks, and cook! having all that fresh seafood to work with is incredible. i sure wish chef ramsey would drop in for a visit, so i could wow him with my fresh crab cakes - ha ha. if he ever did show up in my kitchen i would be cowering in the corner...

at any rate, there is no internet at the bay, so i'll be snapping photos like mad to share with you when i return in early october! all of you take good care! and if you are in one of those places that is sweltering in temperatures i can't even imagine...this photo is for you. it's my front yard at ugak bay. just visualize yourself there for a quick cool down.

my spankin' new remodeled workroom!

2010-08-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

for the past, almost 2 months, i have been working on redoing my workspace. what a journey. what a bunch of stuff i have. i thought thea had a mess of stuff. i have a mess of mess. or had. i have been purge~ing, organizing, cleansing. i have scoured organizing magazines, blogs, and websites. i have thrown things away and then panicked and pulled them out of the dumpster. i wonder if there is a medication i could benefit from.

in the end, my inner feng shui master and i came to an agreement. i think it all worked out okay. i painted, changed my mind and repainted several times. i now rest easier knowing there isn't a single spider in my workroom. all the cracks & dings in the drywall have been patched. i have good lights. i've put all my awesome old wooden fish egg boxes to great use.

all my stuff is in its own special spot, and yes, the walls are the colour of pea soup, as my youngest son pointed out. i really like pea soup. i'm not a frilly person, but darn if i don't like my pink shelves. when i asked my husband if he could make me a simple workbench tall enough for me to work at without getting a neck ache, he made me the Ferrari of all workbenches, that 3 elephants could dance on. i won't be moving the workbench around anytime soon.

archie and edith, my super wonderful new washer & dryer, are thrilled to have a room befitting their status. i am thrilled to have 3 separate work areas dedicated to my different medias. my fabrics and sewing machines are housed in my son's old room for now...with the door closed so i don't start in on that room yet...

it's a great feeling to be finished. sadly, i won't be able to dig in and use it as it's time for me to head out to ugak bay for another season of cooking for the fishermen, but i will be smiling knowing my room, which has been taped off to keep they boys out while i'm gone, is waiting for me.

you may have noticed della up there in one of the photos. let me just share with you she wasn't a whole lot of help with this project. she got pretty testy when i mentioned she might put down the egg beaters and pick up a paint brush. but, i have to hand it to her, she does know when it's time for a nice glass of merlot.

okay here it is, the mom brags about college grad post. allow me the moment please.

2010-06-30T21:32:00.000-08:00

we spent a great weekend at the coast with thea before coming home. spent a fabulous day doing nothing but flying kites on the beach. it was the best.

jeekers, isn't it something how easy it is to let things slide once they start the actual "sliding"? i never really meant to never come back to blogspace...it all started mid-may when he-who-never-takes-a-day-off-work-period and i left the island for the first time in, well a few years, to attend our daughter's college graduation.

i have to say, being off-island was, well a lot of different things. so many people! so many cars! man what a lot of cars, and roads. and it smells...funny in the states. everyone rushes everywhere. there isn't a lot of eye contact while walking around. we felt like goof balls after a while, smiling and saying hi to everyone we passed. i told gerry they all probably thought we were politicians.

we probably could have filmed an episode of the beverly hillbillies with us as guest stars. the first grocery store we went in was as good as disney land to me. so many choices of eveything!!! and all so cheap!!! i wanted to buy it all and bring it home and fill my pantry & fridge. gerry was in heaven - they sell beer in grocery stores down there! the rest of the trip he was happy to volunteer to run to the store for us... and what about those check yourselves out lanes??? how fun is that?? i've never seen that before. i scanned my gum over & over just to watch the picture pop up on the screen...until the lady in the little booth can over and asked if i really wanted to pay for it 7 times. she was very kind. when i told her what a fun great idea it was and how do you scan an onion? she gave me a little special smile and asked where i was from. i sortof wanted to tell her new jersey or something.

and there is great coffeee everywhere! sometimes right next door to each other. it was heavenly. i drank so much coffee.

my poor daughter, who has had 4 years to become acclimated to the real world away from our alaskan island home, was very patient, a true testament to her maturity.

here's another amazing thing - you don't have to pump your own gas in oregon! in fact, when gerry got out of the truck to do it, the man in the uniform apprehended him and asked him to please get back in his vehicle! we were shocked! why can't we have uniform gas station guys on kodiak, so i wouldn't have to get soaked pumping my own gas in the sideways rain???

i also don't think folks in that states know about xtra tuffs. i didn't see a single pair in salem. i did see a lot of well-dressed fellows who smelled, well, nice. as in not like boat bilge or fish sludge. another big treat. and riding in elevators - i love elevators! and escalators! it's a pity how in a hurry everyone always seemed to be - i just loved enjoying the ride up, but almost everyone else combined running with escalator riding...

and so many places to shop and eat! how does anyone down there ever decide on a restaurant - they are everywhere, all kinds, sometimes right next to each other - crazy. much easier here, there are about 8 choices. thea tells me it's all about word of mouth. i just know when i finally found the dunkin donuts i beat on gerry til he pulled in, and ate 6 sugary wonders in under 10 minutes, and, felt no guilt. it'd been a lonnnng time since i had a dunkin donut.

then there was the graduation event itself. it was a glorious sunny day, and we had not seen the actual orb of the sun for a couple of months or so...but we had to sit under a tent.

this tent was bigger than our local high school. it gave me a stomach ache thinking about how many people could, and did, fit under it. more than in our town i believe. and these folks were wonderful to behold, all dressed to the nines, i felt like i was at the grammy awards or something. then there gerry & i were, freshly scrubbed day-glo skin (a result of not seeing the sun for a very long time) in our flip-flops and aloha shirts, trying not to move so we wouldn't break a sweat - man it gets HOT down there. at any rate, we minded our manners and gerry stayed awake for the whole thing. i cried so much the nice fellow next to me gave me all his kleenex.

one of the things i remembered while all the important and really smart folks were speaking during the ceremony was an afternoon when thea was around one and a half. i had taken her to the beach for a picnic on a wonderful sunny day. we had a great time, she splashed, we made castles, she found a nice dead fish, put it in her mouth...but it was time to go home. thea didn't want to. she screamed, rolled on the ground, threw her toys, all the things a tired sun kissed toddler does. my arms were full of blankets, baskets of toys, stuff. i was just trying to guide her to the car. along the way through the woods we crossed paths with an elderly couple. i thought what a horrible impression we must be making. the lady stopped me and said "don't you ever wish these moments would hurry up and be over, because you know what? they will be, and you will be wishing them back."

- oh my gosh, she was so right. here i am thinking - when did this

turn into this?????????

or this (her little tights were so baggy we could pull them up over her head)

into this???

and how did she get so much stuff??? (what a good girl though, see her box of wild alaskan cod fillets!)

so, she is all graduated. she is the first one in our immediate family to do so (her mom still needs a math and oral communications credit. not going to happen at this point) and she managed to get not one but two degrees, in anthropology and english. she has a good job and a decent apartment. and a lot of stuff. we are really proud of her. and while i really really miss my snowboarding partner....

...since she isn't coming home looks like i'll get to drive her sweet ride! oh yeah!

so this is the end of my bragging post. for all of you young moms with little girls out there let me take on the role of the elderly lady (since i am). here's my two cents. pick your fights. ignore their stink eye looks (you will know what i mean when your girls reach the age of roughly, 14. never stop brushing their hair. never let them fall asleep with tears in their eyes, especially if they were put there by a boy. let them have a boyfriend - boyfriends are a mom's best teaching tool. remember they are never too old to bundle into the car in their pj's past bedtime to make a late night run to mcdonald's for ice cream. tell them they are beautiful every day. tell them you love them more than once every day. and when they are in college and they ask for your opinion, hedge, because they really don't want it, they want to be able to show you they have their own opinions now.

girl time with della

2010-06-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

you all remember my friend della? we recently had a little girl time when she came to my hair appointment with me. my wonderful friend valene has been washing the grey right out of my hair for quite a while (so long now i can't really remember what color my hair actually was...). valene is a true artist, a dear friend, and has the kindest soul ever. our daughters are close in age and have been friends since grade school, they've grown up dancing together. so valene and i always have lots of fodder to chat about during my monthly visits to her happy chair.

a little over a year ago valene joined the local gym and decided to take part in their body transformation campaign. man oh man did she ever whip herself into shape. she not only won the campaign, or challenge, but she took it to the next level by competing in the alaska body building championships in anchorage this spring - and won her division!! then she went to the competition in boise idaho, and won there as well!

and do you know - they don't hand out trophies at these events....she got a tricked-out shining awesome sword!! really, a big ole "be nice or i will cleave you in half" type thing. she has it hanging over the mirror at her station. i told her i was pretty sure she would never get a complaint on a hair cut or color no matter what she did now.... (seriously, she never gets complaints, she is amazing)

i am so proud of her, and happy for her. she has weathered some rough times this past year, but never gave up. she is a strong, beautiful person, and my personal hero.

and since she found nothing at all she could do that would improve della's beautiful hair style, della likes her also. we shared our mad housewife wine and a t shirt with valene, because she deserves it!

yay valene & della!

i've been gone so long i don't know where to start...

2010-06-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

yikes, i've been away from my blog since early may??? how can that be? and now how will i ever be able to catch up?? so much has happened, so much to tell and show...i'm overwhelmed. i've made stuff, went on a trip - off this island!!! - graduated a daughter from college, came back home, made more stuff, am tearing apart my work room, petting lots of new yarn at work...my air force son became an F-15 crew chief... so much stuff... so let's just jump into the "really really big news" (do any of you remember the ed sullivan show?)

remember back in my last post (i know, dig deep the memory should be there somewhere..) i mentioned a super secret project i couldn't talk about yet? well, now i can, and here it is:

some of my sea glass necklaces are being featured in the gift bags being handed out to celebrities this weekend at the MTV Movie Awards!!!!! can you stand it? i can't, i am totally besides myself. just think, by this time monday maybe lady gaga will be admiring her new dye~ing to be yours sea glass necklace from kodiak in her boudoir mirror....or perhaps johnny depp will be hanging his from the rear view mirror of his newest BMW....or maybe the entire cast of glee will be wearing them in the next episode....

hey, a gal can dream right?here they are before i sent them off on their big journey. they were shaking in their wrappings they were so excited!

my second big news is that i have finally taken the giant step of opening an etsy shop. i've been lurking etsy forever. it's a frightening thing offering your work to the public. what if no one looks at it?? but i figure as soon as lady gaga steps out with her new deb-bling, her fans will track me down. (more dreaming)

so, go take a peek. i'm just posting a few new pieces here and there, no sense flooding the market... www.etsy.com/shop/debsea61

and i will be back soon with more catching up stuff!

della gets some freah air...

2010-05-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

i took advantage of a glorious sunny day to get della out of the house for a quick trip down to the boat harbor earlier this week. i can already tell this will be a fun journey for she & i.
check this gal out. fearless in the grips of a world famous kodiak brown bear. just goes to show you what a pair of egg beaters can do for a women's courage. well, that and a bottle of mad housewife merlot

i really loathe being photographed, but della wanted in on some "deadliest catch" limelight, and i didn't trust her at the edge with the breeze that was blowing (the poor thing is thin as a reed) mostly i was hoping the fellow making google eyes at her from the wheelhouse on the left would show up, but he hid too quick. trust me, it was comical. stay tuned for lots more from della soon!

i am excited about my new camera - a far cry from the super simple point & shoot kodak i've had for years, this is a brand spanking new scarey black canon powershot G11, with buzzers, buttons and twisty things. i've got a lot of reading to do. it took me a week to get photos downloaded from it...but look what popped up out of the dirt for me to take my first photo of! see, it is spring for us now too! and it hasn't snowed yet this week!

taking a break from the tail...

2010-05-02T19:34:00.000-08:00

oh my gosh the tail has taken over my life. i haven't cooked a meal in four days. seriously, there is dust on my stove top. the tail deadline is tuesday, and i take comfort in knowing i'm not the only one burning the midnight oil this weekend. it still isn't done, but she does have a name now, yesterday she became "moira." not sure why, that's the name that popped into my head.

at any rate, i am taking a break to post photos of the wonderful package i got from my swap partner marcia. we were partners in a swap for all seasons may day tussie mussie swap, and boy do i feel spoiled. the tussie mussie she made me fits my living room perfectly as you can see. take a peek at that little angel! what a great face! and look at all the wonderful treasures she filled my package with! a bag of ghiradelli coffee (i didn't know they made coffee! it's wonderful) beautiful ribbons, tags, and look what she did with the CD cases! filled them with all kinds of wonderful stuff (my fave - look at the one that has my name on the top of an old page from a book!) the beautiful green salt shaker is filled with sand from carmel, CA, and beach glass from FRANCE!!! (i took it out & touched it) but what knocked me over the edge is that vintage mermaid!!! holy fish tails batman! what a treasure! i love her! i love it all. go check out marcia's blog Vintage French Hen. she has a beautiful family & home, and is very talented. thank you thank you marcia!

okay, break's over. the next time you hear from me will be with photos (from my new and amazing camera if i can figure out how to download them....) of moira the halibut tail. oh, and of della meeting her first kodiak brown bear.

feeling like the white rabbit...or maybe the march hair?

2010-04-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

geez, april is almost over already. for local artists april and may are probably the busiest months of the year, with two major art shows: the Kodiak Whale Fest Art Show opens tomorrow evening at The Next Page bookstore and features ocean and whale-themed pieces from artists of all ages, and the Kodiak Crab Festival Art Show, held in may, which traditionally showcases work from local and village artists.

i encourage you to click on each link & visit the sites. the whale fest is held every year as a welcome home party for the migrating grey whales returning to kodiak waters, and the site includes a link showing the latest whale sightings & photos. can you tell we take our sea life serious here?

here are two of the pieces i've entered on the whale fest show:

the piece above is called "water wheel" it measures 10.5" square. i hand dyed and painted the top, machine quilted it and threw some beads in for sparkle. i ended up liking the "feel" of this, kind of calming. i'm considering a sister piece for it in the fall, during the spawn. it probably won't have the calm feel to it - the poor gals.

this piece is called "time and tide" two things that are a very big part of our life on the island. the base wood i found on our beach at ugak bay, it cleaned up just right for its day in the spotlight. i put down a piece of muslin i rusted by wrapping it over an old wrench i found on the beach & left outside for a few days - i love the way it turned out. i stitched a bit of embroidery to keep the mermaid happy. the paper layer is covered with old local navigation charts, pages from tide tables, some teabags, a mermaid and her fishy friend. this layer is held down with wonderful metal bits i found on the beach, all aged to beautiful patinas, and old brass screws. i added a piece of rusty screen which i sewed some pearls & crystals on (for the mermaid) and there it is.

between whale fest and crab fest is the opportunity for twelve artists to create halibut tails for the Kodiak Island Visitor and Convention Bureau's annual Chocolate Lovers' Fling and Halibut Tail Auction. (phew that was a mouthful) some of you may remember clarice, the halibut tail i created last year for this event. i am currently working on her sister tail now. the event was a huge success last year, and i'm tickled to be able to participate again. you can see photos of all the tails from last year on Kodiak Island's facebook page.

here's the beginnings of my halibut tail for this year. we all get a fiberglass taxidermy form of a halibut tail to build on - you can see it in it's naked glory on the back of the table. it's a pretty intimidating blank canvas, and i have been "dragging my tail" getting started...

on top of these events i'm working on a super secret project i can't wait to spill the beans about. but i have to.

i've recently had the great opportunity to take a class on PMC- precious metal clay, taught by martha biggar. we so rarely get teachers here to the island, so this was such a treat. i'd never worked with this medium before, and was a bit apprehensive of it being like polymer clay, but this was not the case. i still don't comprehend the whole alchemy thing of it, but here's what i got - you start out with a lump of clay (expensive clay) you make something out of it, it gets fired in a kiln, and when it comes out, it's .999 fine silver. amazing. mind-boggling. and super duper fun. i'm hooked. martha was a wonderful teacher, she's a certified PMC instructor, and was a lot of fun to get to know. she was generous in sharing her experiences with the processes, her tips & shortcuts. her jewelry is stunning, check out her website here!

above are some of the pieces i made after they came out of the kiln, before they were burnished. they come out of the kiln looking chalky. after burnishing they sparkle & shine like nobody's business. it's an amazing process.

here they are after burnishing. i haven't put any of the pieces together yet, i want to patina them first. i'll show you again once that's done.

i will leave you now with one last photo. this may be my last post for a bit as i finish up my top secret projects. i'd like to introduce you to my new friend, della. della arrived on my doorstep last week with quite a bit of baggage...from Mad Housewife Wine. three cases of wine!!! my prizes from the cork slogan contest i won! i have to say never pass up an opportunity to enter a mad housewife contest gals. they have showered me with gifts: t shirts to share with my pals, 100 corks with my slogan printed on them (go get yourself a bottle and see for yourself!) pretty pink spatulas, fun matches...etc. but i have to say, della tops it all. ever hear the story of flat stanley? he was a little boy who folded himself into an envelope and mailed himself all over the world. in grade school my kids used to make flat stanleys & send them to relatives or friends in the states, who would take stanley around & photo him , then send him back with the pictures. that's what della and i are going to do, around kodiak. i can't wait to introduce her to everyone!!

my pal duffy does not like della. at all. look at his face! he snarls every time he sees her. ha!

thank you patty!!

2010-04-11T22:49:00.000-08:00

never have i ever been so lucky as i have this winter. i have won a couple fun giveaways. at christmas my name was pulled for an incredible namaste knitting bag stuffed full of knitting wonders from our local fiber store, the rookery, and most recently, the Mad Housewife Wine cork slogan contest (more on that one in an upcoming post)...i am just one deliriously happy lucky duck.

one of my favorite blog spots to visit is magpie's nest. if you haven't found patty yet, please take a minute to go meet her. every day she posts the most wonderful photos, stories, and art pieces. her blog is almost serene, her artwork is detailed and beautiful and almost always makes me either gasp or sigh. she shares trips she takes to inspiring art exhibits, and even the local farmer's markets and parks. frequently she includes little quotes or bits of poems. she touches my heart. plus, she also has creepy doll heads. she used one as the angel on one of her christmas trees, it was awesome. i just love it.

for a person who doesn't travel much, she brings it all right to me. she even shares her tea! and at easter, she really shared, giving away precious little bird nests she made from wire & beads by having a drawing for followers/commenters. i am beyond thrilled to have had my name pulled from her big blue bowl, and just look at what came to my mailbox!

again i apologize for the poor photo, you really can't see the beautiful colouring, and i couldn't get a good close up of that precious nest, but to get this beautiful little work of art was just over the top. patty didn't stop with the nest ATC, she filled the envelope with all kinds of wonderful art papers, book pages and other usable goodies. i was touched by how kind a person i have never met could be. so, go visit, you will love her work and her beautiful photography. thank you, patty!!

while on the giveaway topic, i urge you all to click on my Mad Housewife link - they are having a mother's day poem contest right now, and let me tell you, they know how to treat a winner! i keep getting boxes of more goodies in the mail...too fun. i am waiting for the wine to get here and then will share photos, hopefully good ones, of everything.

life is good for duffy...

2010-04-06T22:34:00.000-08:00

our easter snowfall arrived in the nick of time, and my pal duffy was just beside himself with spring snow joy. he and i spent a great afternoon sledding down our back hill together. it's sad when your kids grow up and go away and you only have a small dog, because then you are always stuck pulling the sled back up yourself. with the small dog on it. duff rules!!.

eastie egg hunting!

i think spring is a state of mind...

2010-03-30T16:32:00.000-08:00

(i'm testing my computer. so far no blue screen of death. and i'm happy to report cullan now has the cleanest room in the house)
i've been seeing a lot of beautiful spring posts on blogs i visit lately. lots and lots of photos like this:

and this:

all i can think when i see these breathtaking photos is "wow." because i have a cherry tree in my yard also. it's a japanese cherry tree i planted as a twig 19 years ago and named bing. and here is what bing was doing this morning:
see him down there between the railings? i'm just not getting any "gosh i'm ready to bust out in blossoms" vibes from him today. in fact he's pretty chilly towards everyone.
my friend chuck the yard gnome is feeling pretty good about himself right now though, in spite of the fresh snow & bitter winds.

...because i finally finished his wishbone scarf. i'm not showing you a close up of it, because the majority of it was knit during the olympics, and the cables went kind of wanky during the half-pipe and snowboard X events.... i haven't yet reached the knitting stage where i can happily tear out row after row of my stitches. especially for chuck. i do need to tell you about this beautiful yarn though - it's another Noro yarn called Kochoran. it's 50% wool, 30% angora and 20% silk. so so soft! wonderful to knit with, and all my favorite colours in one ball!

you might be wondering if that's the eastie bunny back there behind chuck. nope. just another arctic hare.

enjoy your springtime, whatever the climate! and yay, i made it through this whole post without one cranky computer glitch.

i'm still here...

2010-03-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

can you believe it, my under one year old computer crashed.

so for now, i am sitting in my youngest son's room using his computer. and let me tell you, it is not a pleasant place to be. how can one 15 year old boy be so....so...gah, smelly. dusty. have so many icky food containers laying around. i had to lysol my way to his desk.

how can this lair be home to my little boy who used to sort his legos as he put them away?? what the heck happened?

at any rate, instead of being able to show you my awesome cabled scarf i just finished (because my camera doesn't connect to this computer) i am going to put on rubber gloves and get a 40 gallon hefty bag in here, along with the rug shampooer.

so much for the creative buzz i woke up with...

where's your inspiration?

2010-03-11T12:49:00.000-09:00

linda from a swap for all seasons asked what colour combos inspire us. yikes - what doesn't?? maybe my art life would be easier if i really only cared for one or two colours....as it is, when i start on a project there are always myriads of colours running through my head. a very big part of the "beginning" of a project for me is the colour interviews and rejections.

it sometimes bogs me down, i need to get past that.

here's a classic example of me & colour~ i couldn't decide on just one fabric for my dresser drawers...so i used all of them.
we are supposed to post a photo showing a grouping of colours that inspires us. i've spent all morning going from room to room in my house. those of you who have been in my house will understand...how can i settle on one small photo.

this is just one corner of my kitchen. the others are green, and orange, and yellow...
in an effort to get my husband and kids to embrace their inner artists, i have spent years surrounding them in every colour i could get from a paint can. our walls are covered with maps, mermaids, witty quotes, and stuff. nothing matches, nothing really "goes together"
and there you have it. that's how i find my inspiration.

phew, that really stressed me out...

...and for a fleeting moment, the sun shone bright

2010-03-07T20:25:00.000-09:00

sometimes, after endless weeks of relentless rain and wind, i think all of us on the island fall prey to the "Why, Why Do I Continue To Live Here" Imp. no matter how sweet a person's disposition, when mildew begins to form on one's limbs, your bright outlook on life in general dims. i finally snapped last week. lately there has been a good amount of wind, which has blown branches, moss and other stuff into our gutters, filling them up. so when the rain turned from a slight drizzle to full out downpour the other night, the water from the roof had no choice but to overflow the gutters & hit the deck. the noise actually woke the high king of snoring up. it sounded as if we were living behind niagra falls. incredible.
but then, when mother nature knows she has pushed us all to the end of the wet and slippery rope, this happens:
sun! clear blue sky! this was saturday, in all it's glory. all it takes is a single day like this, and we all know we could never live anywhere but here on this jewel.

kodiak on a cloudless day can take your breath away.

there's no place like home. even if we only get one sunny day per month. or two months...

and then, in the blink of an eye, the clouds slipped back in

an hour after i took these last two photos, we were blanketed in big fluffy snow flakes...

we'll just have to focus on the fact that we are gaining daylight every day, even if we can't see it.

the view from the kitchen sink

2010-03-01T19:55:00.000-09:00

i don't know about all of you, but i would sure like to see some springtime happen...

"Breaking Sound" Altered CD art show

2010-02-20T11:53:00.000-09:00

"Breaking Sound" sponsored by Emerald Isle Framing, the Rookery and Kodiak Island Brewery, invited artists to submit artwork incorporating CDs in some manner. the show opened last night and will be on display for a couple of weeks. it's been good to have something to work on during these dreary rainy days.

now it's time to start planning my next halibut tail for the KIVCB's 2nd annual halibut tail auction...........

"erzulie" and "papa legba" ~ collage & embossing on CD. these are haitian veve symbols~ erzulie represents the spirit of love, emotional healing & creativity. legba represents the spirit of the guardian of the crossroads, the provider of opportunity and remover of obstacles.

"shhhh" was made by bending a CD in half. the assemblage includes an awesome old plastic doll ear i found beachcombing one day. really! how cool is that find!

"beach diva" (i know, but i love urchins). i dyed a bit of raw silk, added vintage mother of pearl buttons, pearls and hand quilting, and stitched it and the backing piece over a CD.

this is my favorite, "time in a bottle" ~ remember that jim croce song? i papier mache'd over a CD for texture, painted it, added a chunk of hand made paper and aged copper screening. i played with a heat gun and an old credit card (someone told me if you melt them you don't have to pay off the balance....) and popped the bottle through the opening. all the little metal bits are found on local beaches. i just love how aged this ended up looking.

not just exciting, stinkin' exciting!!!

2010-02-15T23:55:00.000-09:00

you know how sometimes you're just not in the mood to stop what you are in the middle of and cook dinner??? now that the kids are grown and i'm not working full time, this happens to me more and more. if i'm gluing, or stitching, or have my hands dye or wallpaper paste, i don't want to stop and marinade the poultry. so it's like a standing bit of humor here that when the husband walks in the door after work and asks that loathsome question "what's for dinner?" i hand him a bottle of wine and say "this is." it buys me a few more minutes at least.
a couple weeks ago i visited Mad Housewife Wine's blog and saw they were holding a cork slogan contest. this was for a slogan, seven words or less, they would use to print on their corks for their mother's day bottling. i couldn't resist, and sent in my favorite saying.

well, last night they announced the winner, and it was me!!! boy howdy when i saw MY name i think my heart stopped for a bit. i feel like i won the wine cork oscars or something!!!!

if you like a nice glass of wine, let me suggest you try mad housewife. they have four varietals, all lovely, and for every case of white zinfandel they sell they make a donation to breast cancer research. there, another good reason to have a glass with your girlfriends!

a late happy valentine's day

2010-02-14T23:02:00.000-09:00

the highlight of valentine's day for me this year was the package i received from my vintage valentine swap partner dolly. she made me a sweet decorated valentine box, and filled it with so many goodies i couldn't believe she fit it all in there. papers, ribbons & trims, old sheet music, sweets, hand crafted tags, a beautiful vintage hankie i adore, and my favorite, a little lavender filled shell. what a wonderful partner. it was fun swapping valentines again, thank you dolly!

the news stories dwindle, but haiti is still there...

2010-02-09T11:06:00.000-09:00

life goes on - that's just the way life is. but there are still little bits of things we can do to help those around us in need, without creating huge riffs in our day to day routine. many of you probably already browse through etsy shops occassionally (or regularly, or obsessively as the case may be.)
i'd like to encourage you, who are reading my silly ramblings right now, to visit one special etsy shop started by rebecca sower. i won't go into all the background in this post, but you can read all about what rebecca has been doing with a group of haitian crafter ladies and how the earthquake has affected them, and how you can assist, here on rebecca's blog, and here, on the haiti by hand blog. any of you who have watched the movie "what about bob" with bill murray will know it's all about "baby steps."
please take a moment and click on that haiti by hand button over there to the left - see it? i have donated this sea glass and pearl necklace, and i would dearly love to send it to one of you!

octomom's got nothin' on this...

2010-02-04T10:53:00.000-09:00

at the beginning of last summer i mentioned a very cool embellished art quilt round robin i am participating in. i think i showed a couple of the sections i had worked on. we are still all plugging away at each other's tops, understanding that life, families, etc. butt in on our creative bubbles all too often. but, we are getting there. i just finished my section on this beauty - i tell you what the last two ladies were tough acts to follow! this one gave me a bad case of coveting my neighbor's quilt top, but managed to pass it on down the line earlier this week. i was happy to be able to incorporate some rusty bits of stuff from the beach into this one. i can't wait to see it finished.

valentine's day is on it's way....

2010-01-31T15:26:00.000-09:00

this is probably the holiday that makes me miss being an elementary school secretary the most... we in the office knew that it was a given there wouldn't be much work done on valentine's day. i loved the parade of gooey cupcakes and cookies, chocolate goodies, and all those tiny little valentine cards appearing on my desk. even better, all those sticky-fingered hugs. talk about on the job benefits!

i've been having fun working on my treats for my vintage valentine swap partner dolly. she's a real sweet person who likes just about everything, so i had limitless ideas. hopefully her valentine box gets to her safe & sound and on time.

here's a peak at one of the things i did - a little cupid shadow box from an old cut out card and a piece of vintage wallpaper i've had. amazing what a bit of glitter can do.

the rain has washed away the creative spark i need...

2010-01-20T11:38:00.000-09:00

holy smokes this has been, even for kodiak, a wet wet winter. normally, i really don't mind the rain at all. stormy days provide me with the excuse to stay in and make stuff. when the kids were small i stuffed them into their miniature extra tuffs & grundens, and out the door they would go to build forts in the woods. rain in the summer just meant bringing extra blue tarps camping with us, along with dry firewood from home...

maybe i'm just getting too old to appreciate the 60+ days of rain in a row. i feel like this:

without the orange stuff in the background. i seriously need to shake this off!

i haven't worked on anything since xmas except the items for the vintage valentine swap i am in, but that's all a secret still. however, before everyone returned home for christmas i did finish a project i've been thinking about since seeing this post on the wonderful Calamity Kim's blog. i just loved that chandelier, and it got me looking at chandeliers other people have created - look on etsy, there are some amazing ones there. anyhow, i've had a collection of old - some might say vintage - silverware that until a couple of years ago when the kids complained about it, we used. all of it old & worn, none of it matched as i have collected it from thrift shops, yard sales, etc. since i was in college. it became my first soldering experiment, i attached jump rings on knives, butter knives, forks & spoons. the bowls of the spoons were pretty worn and not shiny at all, so i covered them with bits of tissue paper and words cut from an old children's story book using gel medium.

on some of the forks i bent up the tines and attached little dangles of things i love - a pewter mermaid, sparkling beads, a vial of sand from our favorite beach, and my fave, a little plastic cherub baby i put glittery butterfly wings on. (this totally creeps out my 14 year old son, who insists he can't eat with that thing hanging over him)lucky for me my husband works in metal, and after a bit of wheedling and assuring him it had nothing to do with ART at all, he made me two aluminum rings for the base of the 2 levels of the fixture, and drilled the holes in for me. i picked up some cheap chain at walmart to attach the 2 rings together, and to suspend it from the ceiling. those i covered with fabric tubes i sewed from my scrap basket.

once the frame was hanging and level, i made up a bunch of silver hooks and hung the flatware on, alternating each piece with an old plastic icicle (the kind our moms used to hang on our xmas trees back in the day - they were a gift from my wonderful friend cathy, the queen of cool stuff)
i wish i could master photography, as none of my photos really do the complete light justice - using the flash or not it just doesn't look as sparkly and fun as it is in real life. it was a fun project, and it's great to have my wonderful old silverware in view again. even though as i have found out, i have to polish it every few weeks.... maybe that's what i'll go do to get out of this slump.

i was surprised when i began this post to see i have been doing this for a year. wow, i didn't realize. i guess i have a "blogaversary" to celebrate...maybe mr. metal will cook dinner tonight... i will have to think of something to do for a give away, i have been lucky enough this past year to be at the winning end of a few wonderful give aways myself. even luckier to find so many new friends and discover so much new stuff to do. so i guess i really should quit whimpering about our weather, and get busy. any ideas?

happy belated new year everyone!

2010-01-09T11:58:00.000-09:00

a late new year greeting to you from wet and windy kodiak! i've been avoiding my computer in an effort to soak up as much of my kids as possible while they are all home. thea finally made it in after 3 days in the anchorage airport, and devon experienced a true christmas miracle, getting home on christmas eve in spite of canceled flights and late landings...a whole other story. i look forward to getting back in the swing of things mid week~

what a sweetie~

2009-12-21T10:34:00.000-09:00

look at this sweet girl! and her beautiful frame! this is the wonderful treasure i received from my swap partner deb miller. we were partners in A Swap for all Seasons' "Santa's Helpers" altered cabinet card swap. the frame is an antique cabinet card frame made from pot metal. i love the detail on it. it's heavy, and very soft. a local artist gilded it with gold leaf, and it really is wonderful, with an aged patina. i love how she is fiddling with her dress. i was a dress fiddler also. she is hanging by our christmas tree, guarding the packages from the sneaky 14 year old.

as i write this it is howling with wind and buckets of rain. my daughter thea has been stranded in the anchorage airport for over 24 hours now, trying to get home from college. too much wind, too much fog, no planes are flying. at least she's not alone, there's a large hoard of college kids with her. if the weather doesn't clear soon, alaska airlines is going to have to send an entire fleet to get everyone over here.

just something to think about if you are considering living on an island....

how can this be????

2009-12-17T23:34:00.000-09:00

after a very hectic day, i finally got around to looking at the pile of mail on the counter (at 11:30 pm). there was a letter from my boot camp son. this was in it:

needless to say, i got all teary-eyed and blubbery. can this be the same floppy goofey swimmer boy who walked across the tarmac and got on that plane just 8 1/2 weeks ago???

so many images have been flashing around in my head, things like how determined he was not to have training wheels. how mouthy he's been the last few months. his face when he'd look up at the scoreboard and see a PR time after a big swim.
all those little things have turned him into the man in that photo. well, those things and a healthy dose of airforce discipline i imagine...

geekers. kids are just full of surprises.

ahh, a minute to come up for air...

2009-12-14T23:00:00.000-09:00

hot diggity what a busy 2 weeks i've had. i'm sure i'm not the only one. but holy cow it's already december 14th??? nuts! i've been submerged in my workroom (i'd like to call it my "studio" but feel that's a bit presumptuous, and the washer and dryer may take offense. they are bigger than me and i can't afford to make them angry right now) at any rate, that's where i've been living, getting ready for a wonderful holiday art show/sale held last friday & saturday. there were a total of 15 local artists along with our hosts Just Jane's fabrics, The Artists Eye Gallery, and Stringbeadz bead shop. friday night the place was packed, i was amazed. everyone was in such a holiday mood, it was a lot of fun.

i spent a week and a half sewing and dyeing silk ribbons and cut silk velvet scarves. i love dyeing, every stage is like finding hidden pirate treasures of colour; the way the fibers grab the dye, blend it, and release it is so amazing. i love the surprise. i'm not one to keep notes, and i don't beat myself up trying to duplicate shades, hues or whatnot. i guess i dye using the prozak method, that way i'm happy and so are my pieces. so, here's some of the stages:the dye bath ~ i use procion dyes and a low water immersion method loosely based on Ann Johnston's book "Color By Accident." here they are after the final clear rinse and before the first machine wash. at this point, i have been rinsing these by hand under hot running water, for what seems like days before the water runs clear and free of dye. an interesting point is that each primary colour rinses out at different times, the blues usually hang in there the longest, the stubborn things.

here's the line up after the wash, before i steam pressed them. i got some awesome vivid greens and oranges this time. happily they all went home with new owners and i'm ready for the next batch.

once i finished with the dyes, i dug back into drilling the sea glass and piecing together more necklaces. i also finished a few bracelets that were quite hard to part with. i spent some late nights with my dremel tool, and thank goodness for starbucks christmas blend in my favorite elf cup.

here's one of the bracelets, almost done. i go all mooshie over pearls, i don't know why, but i'll take a pearl over a diamond any day... and check out that amazing piece of pink glass! what a score, that had me doing major happy dance at mill bay beach one morning, let me tell you! that i had the perfect pink pearl...man oh man. nirvana on a jump ring...

my ultimate stress reliever is needle felting, i just love everything about it. the feel of the fibers pulling together, they way you can blend the colours, the pop pop of the needle. it's either the first thing i do in the morning, or the last thing i do at night. i didn't get a lot done, but here are two of my favorites: a sea urchin which measured about 2.5", and a little limpit. i made some sweet little angels but neglected to take their photo, so will have to do some more.

so, that's what i've been doing. instead of decorating the house for christmas, or baking for christmas, or anything for christmas. guess what i'll be doing this week... my daughter comes home from college next sunday, and i just can't wait to have her here to hug whenever i want. and have her bring me coffee whenever i want. etc. getting to see her for 2 days in 12 months just isn't enough. i need to get her room dusted out and hang the christmas flannels out to air.

and here's the big happy news - my devon will be graduating from his Air Force basic training this weekend - with honors! he survived the texas heat, the push ups, and the TI's who can yell better than his mom, according to him, and he did it well. we are so proud of the little weasel and i can't wait to see that hair cut. he arrives home at 11:00 am on christmas eve, so we are praying that the weather have a bit of mercy for us so my boy can land on this island.

i can't think of a better gift this year, than to have my family together again. i hope you all are ready for the holidays, and also get to share them with family, and friends.

in the spirit of the sharing season....

2009-11-24T13:39:00.000-09:00

i am sharing this info with you all. even thought i really really want to win, if it can't be me, i would want it to go to one of you, my dear friends. so - click over to Knit Purl Gurl and sign up to win a fabulous Namaste knitting bag. i have coveted one of these bags for a long time. could anything be more decadent than a beautiful leather knitting bag? in my humble opinion, coach & dooney have nothing on these lovelies. let me know if you win!

boy, am i ever thankful...

2009-11-24T13:20:00.000-09:00

that i finished these babies. even more, i am thankful that they are the RIGHT SIZE!!!!! yes, they fit, and they are finished! and what about this yarn folks??? if it was food, i know it would rock the calorie scales. i think i gained weight just knitting with it. it is a noro yarn, i have always wanted to try a noro yarn, but felt i needed to reach a certain level of, i don't know, knittingness i guess. the knitting god was with me, because it all sure came together in these mittens.

even chuck loves these mittens. look at him rubbing his hands together, the little stinker

have a wonderful, happy thanksgiving everyone!

it's winter!

2009-11-15T11:24:00.000-09:00

we have our first snow! folks around here are either tickled and jolly about, or grinchy mcgrinches. surprisingly, i'm one of the tickled ones. i've always believed if it's going to be cold, we might as well have snow. cullan and i hauled all our snowboarding gear down from the attic yesterday. in this season of being thankful, i am very very thankful i still fit in my snowboarding pants. for now.

my boot camp son got a 10 minute phone call a few days ago. he says he has never been so hot in his life. they get 4 minutes to eat their meals. he and his wing man are the best bedmakers in their flight. and the whole flight has to do push ups if someone leaves the toilet seats down. for pete's sake, does the air force have any idea how much time mother's spend ranting at their boys for leaving them UP???

i'm still working on bella mittens #2, forcing myself to knit loose.... i'm using a nice fat Noro yarn and the colors are too wonderful.

and i just finished my annual volunteer project, a raffle quilt for the Kodiak Kingfishers Swim Team. the team has been a big part of our family since devon started swimming in the 3rd grade, and even though i don't have a swimmer right now, i feel it's important to support such a great organization for our kids. i hope it goes to a nice home, and makes some travel money for the team too.

oh rats.

2009-11-05T13:54:00.000-09:00

i really want to be able to knit. i have been trying hard the past year or so. i've bought a lot of books that assure me i can do it. i've collected some beautiful needles in many sizes. and lord knows purchasing yarn is not what is holding me back, i have lots. thick soft fat stuff, slinky slidey lacy stuff, boy can i buy yarn. i've managed a few hats, some scarves, one pair of socks that look like they were purchased at a store in Who-ville. when i get to a place in a pattern i don't understand, i just make something up. so far, it has worked okay for me. now, my mom can knit like a goddess. i swear she could knit wings for the angels. i didn't get the knitting gene from her. and when she tried to impart her knowledge to me, it's like a door slams in my face. i just can't follow her. so, i signed up for a mitten class. chris told me i just had to be able to cast on, knit & purl. i can do those 3 things. they were cabled mittens, and she was going to show us how to knit two at a time on circular needles. perfect. it was a fun group of ladies, kindof varied in skill levels, and everyone has been helping each other along. i've learned that i can't knit and talk at the same time. even listening to other people talk while i knit can lead to heinous errors. but, i've managed to keep up class by class, with some interesting detours from the pattern, which wonderful chris helps me remedy as needed. finally, tuesday night, i finished the thumbs, wove in the ends, and there they were, finished & in my eye, beautiful. only one problem.

they are too small.

happy halloween!!

2009-10-30T16:40:00.000-08:00

halloween is my very favorite holiday. i am so sad that for the first time in 21 years, i didn't have a costume to sew, no tulle, no aluminum foil, no cardboard, no feathers. luckily i have a friend with 3 wonderful little girls whom i adore, so i've spent the morning making them treat baskets out of peat cups. that left me feeling a little better.

i felt a LOT better after i walked down to get the mail and .....this was in my box....

wow! i was the lucky winner of linda's altered cabinet card. linda hosts great swaps at A Swap for all Seasons. she sent me a package full of halloween goodies: a ghost stamp, a tiny little broom that probably gets great mileage, little spiders, pumpkins and bats, and this over the top necklace made on a domino - i love it all, thanks linda! (i am such a poor photographer..)

trick or treating on kodiak is not always a treat. for many years we trudged through rain storms, slush, and snowy blizzards to bring our kids trick or treating. our poor kids never once got to go outside just wearing their wonderful costumes it took days and weeks to make, they always had to be buried in snowsuits or rain gear. it wasn't until my daughter was at college in oregon her first year that she realized fall was an actual season that didn't include snow or ice, and she called to let me know she felt cheated thinking back on all those trick or treat nights that no one knew she was a fairy ice princess. i told her there were hundreds of children down there who have never gotten to pull their own king crab pots. she quieted down a little after that. but she has a point. at any rate, we are having a sunny dry halloween right now, and boy are the local kids ever out in full force. good for them! and happy halloween to all of you, hope yours is also dry and sunny!

words of wisdom...

2009-10-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

i've been working the last couple of sunny but freezing (i mean it~ice on the lakes, cold air coming in all the cracks kind of cold) days on some ATC's for a show my friend liz is hosting at her gallery. it's entitled "words of wisdom." when she put out the call we all went and picked up a sheet with a vintage vocabulary flash card attached to it. my word was facetious. i was thrilled. i have no problem being "facetious." the problem came with trying to visualize the word on a 2.5 x 3.5" card. i've spent days pondering ideas, and finally settled on these two. all of us participants have been saying the same things to each other ..."oh man, i wish i had your word..." i can't wait to see what everyone else has done. wouldn't this be a great art/english project for a teacher to do in class?
i'd like to give credit to debrina of land of enchantment for the marie image and karen the graphics fairy for the pierrot photo and sheet music image (what a title for a song, huh? cracked me up)
i've also made several more necklaces, have started on some sea glass charm bracelets, and am gearing up to head back to mermaid shadow box land for the holidays. and i have a group of silk velvet scarves to get in the dye baths. sure wish the two remaining members of my family didn't expect dinner every night...

oh this is so sad

2009-10-20T14:46:00.000-08:00

saturday night was the last dinner my son devon will have with us for some time, as he left for Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio Texas sunday morning. he wanted kraft macaroni & cheese and hot dogs. it was tough, but i pulled it off. we did a lot of remembering over that dinner. like how he used to always choke on his hot dogs. set fire to things inside the house. tinkle in his sisters' dollhouse in the night. the next morning we brought him to the airport and had to say goodbye, without knowing exactly when we would see or hear from him again... he was allowed to take only a backpack. and gosh he looked just like he did on his first day of kindergarten. now there's only 3 plates on the dinner table.

on the bright side, it only took his younger brother cullan 25 minutes to complete the move from his old room into devon's...

if any of you out there are in texas, maybe you could keep your eye out for devon. sure hope the heat doesn't evaporate the poor alaskan boy.

beach jewels...

2009-10-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

there isn't a windowsill or flat surface in my house that hasn't collected a few pieces of sea glass. who can walk on the beach and not pick these beauties up? not me. if our house falls off its' foundation, i know it will be from the tons of jewels i have been collecting. i finally decided it was time to share them, and am working on perfecting my drilling and wirework. i do love the feel of my dremel tool in my hand. we'll see where this takes me...

yessss!

2009-10-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

hot dog, look up there everyone! at my new header! it has taken me so many frustrated hours trying to figure out how to get a nice banner up there, using a font i liked...i have shed tears over this, and felt all the worse knowing it could be done, because everyone else is able to....if i had champagne handy, this would be a mimosa moment. a very heartfelt thanks to karen, the graphics fairy, who shares such beautiful images with everyone.

is there anything more wonderful than a package in the mail?

2009-10-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

i've spent all morning with my pile of mail. i'm probably the only person ever who even loves her junk mail. i read it all. but i always save the best for last, and boy howdy, did i get some great stuff. earlier this summer i joined the Good Ol' Summertime Mini Quilt Swap. i finished mine up and sent it off before i left in august. how fun to get home and open up this....

what an awesome piece! i am so lucky to have been the talented doris' swap partner! my quilt was made by doris from threads of conversation and i love it. she does beautiful work, the colours and curved piecing are fabulous. thanks so much doris!

i saved my last package for last because i knew what would be in it, and i love prolonging the excitement. halloween is my very favorite holiday, so when sarah (gypsy mermaid) announced a vintage halloween tag swap i didn't think twice. she is a great swap coordinator, and did something really fun with this one - each of us made 13 tags and mailed them to her, then she collected them all, and assembled them into books for each of us. after opening up my box and looking at each incredible tag, i am so amazed at how much art can be fit on such a small surface. each tag was so different, and so wonderful. my photo doesn't do justice to them at all, and i can't wait to visit everyone's blogs to see more of their work. look at these great treasures!!

i love them all. i can't wait to haul out all my halloween stuff now. thanks sarah, for putting these together for us!

hello, i'm finally back home!

2009-10-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

hooray!

after almost 2 months, i'm home with the family. when i left, i had no idea it would be for so long, but what an adventure.

it's a bit hard getting back into the swing of things, it's taken me a couple of days to even be able to turn on the computer. i feel like i've been fast-forwarded back into civilization, and i'm most definately on overload. the grocery store almost did me in...

the first week at ugak i spent with my family at our cabin, in beautiful sunny weather, it was wonderful.

then for the next few weeks i moved over to our neighbor's working lodge, Alpenview, where i cooked for clients and staff. check out their website, it is pretty incredible, especially if any of you fish or have fishing husbands. what a fantastic time.

owners/guides dave jones and shawn finn have been fishing guides on kodiak for many years, and they sure know what they are doing. i had the pleasure of meeting and cooking for clients from all over the states and many countries.
alpenview has an incredible top-notch commercial kitchen for being out in a remote area, what a treat for me to create meals in. combined with the freshest fish and seafood ever, i was in heaven. i never thought i could be so happy getting up at 5:30 every morning, but it was so much fun watching folks from ohio, arizona, colorado, germany or spain get up at the crack of dawn and be thrilled about pulling on rain gear to go fishing....even when it was raining sideways from the wind. amazing, these fishing people.

before i left i packed up my baby sewing machine and some other supplies, thinking between meals i would have some great time to do my art, but that never happened...i did nothing but create food from sun up to sundown, and often much later. however, i have a head full of inspiration for this winter.
i did find a creative outlet while making meals - i began a "food as art" campaign. i have a long way to go before i reach julia child status, but the clients seemed to enjoy everything. we pulled the crab pots every week for a huge fresh crab dinner. i also made sushi every week, and made bread every day. so much different from cooking for my family - no blue box mac & cheese! and the wonderful clients were so gracious. (of course, it helps when the folks eating your food have been standing on their feet in water and rain all day catching fish, they are usually cold, tired and starving.) having an unlimited supply of fresh halibut, salmon, rockfish and crab to work with was wonderful.

at any rate, the days at the lodge were great. it was hard every saturday, the client switch out day, to say goodbye to our "family" of the week, but also fun to meet our new guests. now there are so many places i want to visit...after hearing folks talk about their homes, i'm pretty sure i need to see north carolina, spain, portugal, germany, and ohio...

as well as running guided fishing stays at alpenview lodge (where there is the wonderful kitchen, hot running water, showers, windows and floors...) dave and shawn also operate an outcamp on the ayakulik river, located on the southern end of the island, miles and miles away from...anything. the outcamp is definately camping, with a main tent for the kitchen/eating area, a tent for the banya (an native kodiak island steam bath, like a suana) and 5 sleeping tents. and the outhouse. all this is enclosed in a solar powered electric fence because the outcamp is located in the middle of kodiak grizzly bear home.

i've enjoyed photos of the outcamp, but never ever had any longings to visit it. the clients who stay at the outcamp are hard core fly fishermen, usually there for king salmon, silver salmon, and what i believe is the holy grail of fly fishing - steelhead.

during the course of my stay at alpenview, i was gently convinced i wanted to experience cooking at the outcamp. and so, for the last 2 weeks, that is where i have been. i never took my longjohns off once the entire time, except for 2 quick banyas. i slept in my longjohns, wool socks and a hat and mittens.

my best friends were sweetpea, the bear, a little ermine, and several fox. and the heater in the kitchen tent.

i thought that ugak bay was peaceful, but the calm peace at the ayakulik was amazing. the outcamp is in a huge valley, the mountains are quite a ways off, so the sky is huge, bigger than i've ever seen. at night it is so pitch black the stars are overwhelming, it is like being in a 3D movie. there are always shooting stars flying by and once we even saw jupiter. the quiet was incredible. so quiet i could hear the bears swimming down the river. i loved it. then it froze. one morning we woke up to 18 degree weather. a very cold trip to the outhouse. a lot of water hauling. the clients were all so great, so happy to be there. it was fun seeing it all through their eyes, especially when they were from new york city & such. one mom bear we call susie mocha, and her three 3 yr old cubs we call the chocolate drops, were frequent visitors and fun to watch as she gave them lessons on fishing in the home pool by the kitchen tent. the cubs loved to visit in the mornings and caused many clients to cut their outhouse visit short...in all, it was a great experience. i'm glad i went. i made some great friends, learned how to fly fish, sort of, and created meals on a 3 burner camp stove instead of a viking range...i learned i'm not too old to haul water from a stream outside of the bear fence. also learned how incredible total silence can be for your soul. and i hummed the national geographic explorer song a lot. especially when trying to cook on the smoker outside in pelting cold rain with bears watching me.

anyhow, it's good to be home with the boys. and the toilet that flushes. and my flannel pj's. i won't be wearing rubber boots again for a while.

i remembered how to drive my car, and i survived my first trip to the grocery store in 5 weeks without too much culture shock. it is a bit hard to get used to the noise and bustle of life...and i admit, i miss conversing with sweetpea in the mornings, and dodging fox poop on the boardwalks.

i wish i could post all the photos i took while down there, but i have to say getting photos on this blogger thing sends me nuts...one minute they are there, then they are gone, or even more fun, jump to somewhere else in the post... but i did want to share my bear friends with you all, and some of the fellows i had the pleasure of meeting and watch fish. i am throwing in one of myself, which i usually don't like to do, but i am quite proud of my beautiful dolly varden i caught after shawn patiently taught me how to cast out the line and all the other motions of fly fishing. my fish was happy to be put back in the river and swim away from my bumbling efforts.

i have a lot of catching up to do here in blogland i can tell, and i can't wait. i have a huge pile of mail to go through also, i'm waiting for everyone in the house to go away so i can have a good cup of coffee and open up all the packets... fall has definately arrived here, even though it's not as cold yet as at the outcamp, the colours are changing. i will be glad to get back at the sewing machine and get busy with all the projects i've been carrying around in my head.

i would also like to say thank you to all of you who have visited & left me comments! it's so exciting to hear from all of you, everywhere! even if i never get off this little island, it's so awesome to be able to converse with folks out in "the real world" - so thank you for taking the time to share a few words with me!

off to the lodge...

2009-08-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

our front yard

my son devon is impervious to the cold when it comes to fun

gill netting for reds (salmon)

it's time for us to be heading down to our other home, and my favorite, our lodge out at ugak bay. we leave on sunday (or tomorrow, whenever the captain says) and i will be gone until the beginning of october. we have no phone (the boys won't be able to text, i hope they can keep their thumb muscles in shape) or internet, so this will be my last post for a bit. we do have a generator, so this time i get to bring my awesome hello hitty janome with me & hopefully get some quilts whipped out.

the family vehicle

it's hard to explain how wonderful it is down there, like another planet. so peaceful and quiet, with just an occassional float plane flying by. time slows down, and at night there are so many stars - without electric lights it is amazing what you can see in the sky.

momma brown bear & fox family

we have game cams set out in a couple spots behind the cabin, and it will be fun to see what has been walking by. last year we got to watch the day by day travels of a momma deer & a momma brown bear before & after babies.

duffy loves a skiff ridethese are my seal friends who eat the urchins for me...

i look forward to catching up with everyone when i gat back. and boy am i glad i managed to get my spooky halloween tag swap tags done!!! phew!

my small white dog

2009-08-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

this is my pal duffy. he had a very busy day today. this morning before i woke up he slipped his invisible fence collar and had a lovely trek to the other side of the bay, where he found some nice, fresh bear poop to roll in. he came home & let me know the coffee was done by jumping in bed with me, sharing the bear poop with me & my sheets. there is probably nothing in the world that smells not nice like bear poop. i changed the sheets and gave duff a bath, went to get my coffee & knocked over a tote of supplies i had out for a project i'm working on...glitter went flying. i decided to have my coffee first. when i went to get the broom to take care of the glitter, i find duffy, in the above photo, sitting on cloud 9 with his toy squid, ready to play. his cloud 9 was a bag of stuffing for the previously mentioned project...i had set it out in the entry way (on the floor, my mistake) where i was going to do the filling later today...at least duffy knows when he's pushed his last cute button with me, and apologizes...

majestic sea swap...

2009-07-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

my partner in Gypsie Mermaid's Majestic Sea Swap was rebecca from Bec's Shabby Dreams in australia. she has created a beautiful, light, french-y shabby chic home, and i tried to create something to compliment it. she also has three sweet children, so i started by printing three scallop shells on a piece of fabric right out of the dye bath, and went from there. bek mentioned liking aqua also, which isn't a colour i use a lot, but lucky for me i remembered one of my daughter's tutus from a few years back was that colour, so i snipped away at one of the seams i had taken in. she'll never miss it. i stitched on some pearls, a couple of mother-of-pearl buttons, and some seaglass from my fave beach out back. it was fun doing something so frilly for a change.
on a very not-related note, has anyone else lost their followers? i've lost mine, and can't figure out how to find them...:(

ABAA's bird challenge~

2009-07-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

rosie & linda of Rosie & Linda's Awfully Big Art Adventure put out a challenge for bird-themed art. i was mulling what to do when i heard chainsaws start up at the neighbor's. they are fairly new to the neighborhood, having moved in last year. within an hour and a half they had cut every single beautiful ancient moss covered old growth sitka spruce tree down (almost 2/3 of an acre). all the huge trees you can see behind our banya in my previous posts are now laying dead on the ground. it's just about the saddest thing ever, and changes not only their home, but the look and feel of ours as well. no fuitcake for them this xmas. even sadder, as the days have passed i keep finding tiny newly hatched baby birds on the ground...and am enduring the wrath of many families of homeless squirrels in the aftermath of what my kids are calling the sitka spruce chainsaw massacre. so, i made my bird themed art with a heavy heart. i created a little 2" copper wire cage, enclosed an egg in a soft nest, and locked it up safe & sound with a tiny key, until it hatching time.

for 48 very short hours...

2009-07-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

... my daughter thea rose came home. she turned 21 on the 9th, and was able to get a friday off of work to fly home for cake, her first glass of wine with me, and her new license. it was a painfully short amount of time, but the sun was shining, the sky was blue and we crammed as much home as we could in. we walked on the beaches, ate king crab, hiked up to see the new wind generators on pillar mountain, and dad took us on a skiff ride over to long island for a few hours, where we found a hidden cove of sand dollars. she was scheduled to leave sunday morning, but true to our island we got fogged in and the plane couldn't make it in until dinner time, which was fine with me. i can't believe i won't get to hug her again until xmas...but it was wonderful to have her while she was here.

summer mini quilt swap

2009-07-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

i just finished this little starry~eyed halibut quilt for the Good Ol' Summertime Mini Quilt Swap i'm in. it's a pity the real fish isn't this cute, but they do taste quite good and i guess that's what really counts. we've caught some big ones this summer, always weird to haul up a big old flat ugly fish longer than yourself out of the water. anyhow, i hand appliqued him and machine quilted it, and will be sending it off in a day or so. hope my partner likes it.

why i miss my little girl so much...

2009-06-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

this morning i got an email from my daughter. this was all it said ~

"I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhoods and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness, our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met."
-Marguerite Duras, French Writer

i am very blessed to have a child who knows this is the best compliment i could ever hope to get.

the latest project

2009-06-27T19:48:00.000-08:00

i'm taking part in a round robin with 5 other local artists. we were all to draw a design on a fabric background measuring 144 total square inches, then divide it into six even portions. it then gets passed to the person under us on the list. we have 3 weeks to embellish one portion any way we like, then pass it on. we get to fill in the last portion of our own piece. we should be all done by xmas. this is more of a challenge than i thought it would be, but that's good. i know most of the gals, but not all, so sure hope everyone likes purple and green - ha. at any rate, i got pj's tree first, and needle felted & beaded her leaves. i'm looking forward to getting the next one now, and seeing what everyone else is doing. now on to finish my piece i'm working on for the majestic sea swap.

I almost forgot, look what came in the mail!

2009-06-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

Getting mail is often the highlight of the week for me. Very often the weather is so bad here the mail planes don't come in, so sometimes there is nothing, other times it can be like xmas. sometimes the only thing i get is the Home Depot flyer, and there isn't even a Home Depot around for several hundreds of ocean miles - but i read the darn thing anyway. But yesterday i hit the jackpot when i got a box from julie at Cupcake DD. i won her cottage charm give away, and look at the fun stuff!! red rubber gloves!! an angry housewife pin cushion! yeehaw! and a 1950's ground beef cookbook with things like Heart Patties with Gravy (using ground cooked heart) and Frosted Lam Loaf. my husband is all over this, sticky noting the ones he thinks i should try. Anyhow, it made my day, thank you julie. check out her blog & etsy shop!

housework...

2009-06-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

since my last post i have done nothing but...refinish our deck. blick, what a job. the only creative part was choosing the colour of the stain. (the choices...clear, weathered cedar, old barn red, or dark brown. geez. i went out on a limb & chose old barn red.) after 2 days of pressure washing in full rain gear, it was ready for the weather sealer. only, it started raining. two days later it stopped, i swept it all off again and got all jazzed up to start rolling the stuff on. with the slick roller thing. sadly, we waited too long to do this, and the boards were so split and dry that the slick roller thing was useless, and i did the entire deck on my hands and knees with a stinkin' paintbrush. i alternated between painting, chasing the little white dog off the wet parts, and kicking myself for arguing to extend the deck the full length of the house when we rebuilt it...what was i thinking. eight hours after my final brush stroke a cloud splitting downpour started...i had visions of sticky tacky weather sealer having to be rubbed off with solvent...but then the sun came out, it all dried up, and it's perfect. the boys and i hauled the table, chairs, grill & cooler all back up and had the beer iced and the prime rib on just in time for dad to get home from work on father's day and enjoy the sun on the old barn red deck. it was a real norman rockwell moment. and now i can get back to my fun stuff. with a dog who is now half old barn red.

ABAA's sea shell challenge

2009-06-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

in an earlier post i mentioned Awefully Big Art Adventure's shell challenge... i've been working on my offering for that the past few days. i finished it yesterday, i didn't realize i would get so wrapped up in it, but i'm awfully fond of the thing. our ugak bay home is also home to a pod of harbor seals, the sweetest things. they thrive on sea urchins, and this year left me a bumper crop of empty urchin shells washed up on our beach. i love everything about sea urchins; the spines, the subtle colours, the patterns. so i combined one perfect urchin with a piece of my beloved weathered dock, which made it through this winter but my husband assures me is destined for the midsummer bonfire in a couple weeks... and i have a princess urchin sitting on the dock of the bay... it makes me smile. hope it makes you smile too. the best part is i got to create it all outside, in the sunshine!! in two days i broke a sweat, got a sunburn, wore shorts, and got a bee sting. these things don't often happen here on kodiak. happy summer! and please take a minute to go look at all the beautiful shell artwork at ABAA's blog!

summer solstice is coming...

2009-06-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

this week i've spent working on pieces for the Summer Solstice Small Art Show hosted by liz at emerald isle framing. artwork needed to measure 6x6" square, but could have dimension. i was feeling non-dimensional this week.

this is my first piece. the center of the sun is made from a pile of the fuzz ball scraps i snip off my hand dyed fabrics before i dry them (i really am i mess, i can't throw anything away and have jars of these fuzz balls lining shelves in my workroom) i added some machine quilting and some beads. it was a little jump from my usual colors and i had fun with it.

this is my second piece. i started with the collage center and the midsummer mermaid. included the tide table for june 21, added a pearl and some beach glass, and last, a photo of the old ferry the kalakala, which used to run between kodiak and bremerton washington years ago. it was abandoned here in kodiak until a salvage company came and towed her back down to bremerton several years ago with plans of turning her into a restuarant. we haven't heard anything since, but i hope they did something with her, she was a beautiful art deco ship. anyhow, i sewed that down to a piece of marbled cotton, gave it some quilting and sent it on it's way.

and this is my very first ATC i've ever done. i've had a stash of angelina fibers forever and not used it for anything other than some fairy wings for a dance recital a few years ago, so thought i'd try it out. i sure love the sheen and sparkle of the stuff. i raided my son's fly tying bench for the fuzzy stuff on the edges. the color in the photo isn't really correct, in real life the purples and olives all blend nicely together instead of shouting at each other. i hope to catch on the the photo thing soon...

new mermaids!

2009-05-27T11:18:00.001-08:00

Mermaid Heidi

Mermaid Maddie

i just finished these two new mermaid boxes for a friend who is moving off-island. one is for her sister, and one for her daughter. it was fun getting to be a little more personal with them, and giving them real faces! it's also nice to know where they are going to be living! sometimes it's hard throwing your work to the wind, so to speak.
while i was working on them my new diamond bits came for my dremel tool, so i got to drill my first bits of seaglass for them. it works so slick, and now they get to bring a part of mill bay & mission beach with them.

anyhow, now on to a piece for the summer solstice small works art show...due in 2 days. it would be nice to have some sun for inspiration...but rain keeps one focused.

new challenge at Awfully Big Art Adventure

2009-05-22T21:54:00.000-08:00

rosie & linda have posted a new challenge at bigartadventure.blogspot.com ~ the theme is shells. who can resist that??? go take a look, it's inspiring. and they give us 3 whole weeks to create & post. i automatically thought of all the pasta shell necklaces my three kids have made me over the years... i have a shoebox full of them.

a sunny day for graduation

2009-05-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

i haven't been doing a lot of artwork lately as we've been busy getting ready for devon's graduation from high school, and we did make a quick trip down to ugak. it was hot! and i don't get to say that very often! also dry. the boys got everything opened up, tuned up, and ready for summer. i aired out the lodge and de-spidered - ugh they are horrid and huge down there. the annual shedding of the shells has already occured and there is a continuous line of hollow perfect little crab shells down the beach. how do they get out of them like that? anyhow, now we're all set for summer, and can't wait for cullan to finish school so we can head back down.
devon graduated sunday, it was a beautiful sunny day and the speakers had mercy on all of us crammed into the auditorium and were blessedly short. yesterday i put him on a plane to anchorage to meet with his air force recruiter. he will finish his last paperwork, get his physical
and take his oath. when i pick him up tonight, he will be in the air force. as i sat boo hooing in my car after his plane took off i realized that, just like every other major event in his life, he was meeting this one full of confidence, with his goofy grin, and a giant scabby scraped left knee.

i won bead soup!!! yee haw!

2009-05-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

thank goodness we don't have close neighbors, because this morning when i discovered i was a winner of one of beverly gilbert's amazing bead soups, i did the happy dance in my pj's out on the deck. and to get to choose which one...over the top. i couldn't pick. i'm trusting ms. beverly for that. my family is notoriously non-celebratory. say the word birthday and all 4 heads get buried in the sand. so this is like the best mother's day ever for me. i encourage whomever may read this to check out beverly's blog & website. she is the zen master of colour and bead artistry.
beverlygilbert.blogspot.com
www.gilbertdesigns.net

the sun is here!

2009-05-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

we are having a burst of the most beautiful sunshine ever. on kodiak, when the sun comes out like this, no one stays inside. duffy and i have been out on our favorite beaches all day long. he's a smelly salty wet dog, and i am sunburn. it's great. and, i can finally post a photo of my tiny little patch of crocus blooms - i have been seeing so many pretty flowers blooming on blogs from everywhere for a month or so now, now i can be one of the flower crowd.

it doesn't get much sunnier than this. now we just need the green to come in. this is gibson cove, a favorite place for duffy to swim with the sea otters.

i have finished two projects. i lugged my sewing machine outside and made a new sassy dog bed for duff, he loves the pin up girls. then i completed a mosaic lamp i've been wanting to get to all winter. it has mother of pearl buttons from my grandpa's shirts, and "pearls" from an old necklace of my grandma's. i wet felted the shade, and will probably sew "stuff" on it this afternoon, in the sun, on the deck. yay!

i wish i knew how to get that evil glow out of his eyes - my photo program doesn't register it as red eye... he really is a nice dog.

clarice is finished!

2009-04-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

the whole sparkley effect doesn't really show up for lack of sunshine, but this tail shrieks when the bright lights hit it. a friend tells me she is elegantly overstated.

the golden circle hook was too fun to make. i wonder if it would really work.

i love the pale back side, again the sparkles don't show, but they are there. this fabric turned out perfect for this. while dying it, i threw in some of thea's white socks & tank tops, so she's set too.

i finished clarice very late last night, everyone was asleep so i celebrated with duffy. this morning was overcast, but no wind or rain, so i decided to take photos of her down by oscar's dock for atmosphere (trying to make up for lack of photo skills.) it was a big risk, as the seagulls were out full force, but i had cullan along to warn me in case of incoming...you know. just one close call so all was fine. and the whole time there were a couple of sea lions playing behind us, i'm sad they didn't show up in the photos, just their ripples.

so, i turned her in to KICVB right after. they will be displaying the tails at various businesses around town until may 16, when they will be auctioned off at the annual chocolate lover's fling. it will be fun to see them all.