June's Progress....

Hello Readers!

I've been neglecting the blog. That means there will be a lot of pictures and a bit of chatter from your's truly. It has been better than a month since the last post. Lots of things have occurred.

Better get a cuppa something and settle in for a spell. I'll try not to bore you all to tears.

It is Tuesday, 5:35 a.m. 21 June 2016

Ma turned 84 yesterday. 

She and I went on a mini vacation to see my sister Kathy in Abilene for two days back around the 5th of June.

It was hotter than the hubs of hell that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday when we went to Abilene. The cows took full advantage of their recently filled water holes. This is what is called a rainbow herd. There are cows of many breeds in this herd. I think these cows were at the junction of K18 and 181?  I could be wrong about those roads...over by Bennington. 

I wish I could show you all the video of the really cool dust devil we saw less than 20 miles from home. I can't do that though because I don';t know how to put video here (or anywhere else for that matter.) 

I can show you all some of the art along the road to get to Abilene. 

This fella sits along K18 in Lincoln County, Kansas. There are several of these metal statues along a stretch of that highway. Look at that gorgeous wheat field in the background! The 500 or so miles we traveled on our trip gave us many views of wheat fields, golden, bursting with wheat kernels, ready to be cut. I'm sure all those fields are cut by the time I'm writing this. 

The combines were already on the job not far from the roadside monster.

 Those full water holes for the cows were a bit detrimental to some of the wheat fields. Hail flattens wheat and those rain storms that filled the water holes dropped hail and heavy rain. Along with a tornado or two as well. Here the grain hopper is being emptied into a farm truck to go to the elevator.

And there's the combine cutting along. 

While in Abilene with Sister Kathy, we were in a hot barn-like building, going through box after box of junk. Mostly just filling boxes, sorting somewhat and readying those boxes to be moved to another location. There were spiders and mud daubers to contend with. I was more supervisor than anything as I can't lift heavy boxes. I did a lot of sitting and exercising my jaws while Ma and Kathy did most of the work. It was a fun two and half day diversion. Was good to see my sis and her clan. That hadn't happened in a few months.

I came home with about three pounds of chocolate from the Russell Stover's plant in Abilene, so all in all it was an excellent trip!

I had a yard sale since I was last here. I deemed it a Make Me An Offer Sale. That worked out well. Folks would bring me a pile of crap they found among the tables and boxes scattered across the front lawn and I would ask them how much it was worth to them. I got some very generous contributions to my cause and I got some miserly contributions but all in all, that too was an excellent trip! I hate having yard sales. They are a lot of work! As I've already stated, I am a terrible worker. A lazy bum! But I'm a great supervisor. Ma and I worked our butts off for a week, out in the burnt house (aka storage shed) going through all my accumulated crap and the boys came along to help set the sale up. I ran it all by myself for the last two days. Youngest son, RW, came along and helped put it all away. This successful sale of mine would not of been possible without their help! Thank you much Ma and RW! I love you both beyond words!

I was sitting in the bright orange dentist chair in the driveway when I took this picture while Ma and RW were hauling things into the burnt house. Ma and I had got most of it boxed back up or thrown in the dumpster by the time RW showed up. That boy was in a FOUL mood when he got here but was smiling by the time he went home. His wife pissed him off earlier in the day. 

If you are wondering where the bright orange dentist chair came from, I'm not exactly sure. Brother Sammy dragged it home, along with two other dentist chairs (in pieces), an xray machine and a beat up old cook stove. He said the dentist in Smith Center gave them to him. 

I had a few offers on the dentist chair but it wasn't mine to sell. One lady said she'd be back to talk to Sammy but she didn't come back. It's too late now if she's changed her mind. That chair is gone! The bright orange faux leather cover is laying on my livingroom floor waiting for me to cut it into more manageable sizes. I'm thinking Annie's Kitty Book will be covered in bright orange vinyl.

I wrenched my back the day before yesterday and haven't had the energy, or flexibility, to pick the dang thing up and cut it into smaller pieces. A dentist chair has a LOT of space to cover! There's a ton of that vinyl.

I have no pictures of the dentist chair. Brother junked it.

I guess I should get on with what I've accomplished since the last post instead of prattling on like this.

 I've been doing a fair amount of crocheting since the last post. This is a little crossbody bag crocheted from crochet cotton with little silver rings crocheted into the design. It's about 6x5x3  inches or so. I didn't really measure it other than to put a water bottle in it to see if it would fit. It did with the closure open. It has a long handle so you can wear it across your body.

 I'm still working on the crocheted paper basket. I'm ready to unwind another hank of paper yarn and roll it into a ball so I can add it to this basket. At the moment I'm dealing with some blue rug yarn that is in need of untangling and rolled into balls so this basket is going rather slowly. And paper yarn is not a quick material to crochet up either. This will be a pretty cool basket when it's done. Not sure how tall it will be but it's roughly 9 inches square on the bottom.

My niece Allison asked me to make her a prop to take to a Comic Convention earlier this month.

 She gave me four choices of the characters she was interested in. I chose Cactuar because he looked like something I could pull off in 9 days time.

 He's made from felt, stuffed with polyester filling and embroidered with crochet cotton and embroidery thread. His antenna are supposed to be black but I couldn't for the life of me locate a black pipe cleaner in this house at the time. A few days after I had already sent him off to Allison, I found a whole bunch of black pipe cleaners! Go figure!

She was pleased with him. He's about 10 inches tall or so.

 And yet another crochet project. This one is fuzzy yarn crocheted around yellow poly farm rope. I really like how this bag turned out! The rope is entirely hidden by the yarn and it's a very sturdy bag. It's quite large enough to take to the farmer's market or the beach.

I can't tell you why there's a winter scarf hanging off the back of the rocking chair when the weather outside is decidedly NOT of the winter variety! 

I did some drawing a couple of evenings since the middle of May.

 All drawings are marker unless otherwise stated.

Blue Cat on drawing paper. 3.5x5.5  inches

 Crazy Old Girl

not sure how big this one is...three inches by six or so. This one is done on the back side of a card that came with my electric bill last month.

 Solemn Flamingo

3.5x5.5 inches on drawing paper

 Funky Bird

3.5x5.5 inches on drawing paper

 Gray Cat

3.5x5.5 inches on drawing paper

 Snake

2x4 inches or so scrap of drawing paper

 yellow lizard

same as the snake

 This is a little book I'm working on. Not sure just where it's headed but onward I will plow because it will morph into something eventually. At the moment is it just one signature of a potential book. Painted newspaper on copy paper. It's about ATC size.

My spider friend isn't done yet.

 I spent the last three days working on this fella. If you are afraid of spiders, I'm sorry I didn't warn you about this one. He is rather life-like except that he's silver.

 His legs will be bulked out some. They're rather thin for such a big spider.

 Here's his underside. I think I will cover him in masking tape and paint him black before covering him with glitter in shades of black and brown. His body needs a little bulking out to make him thicker but I think I'm onto something with this critter. Thanks to Mel for sharing Mr. Finch's critters. That's where the inspiration for the spider came from. Though my spider looks nothing like what Mr. Finch creates! Wow! His creatures are fantastical!!! You should take a peek if you haven't seen these delightful pieces of art!

 Fish #1

paint and glitter on cereal box chipboard. I covered it with a layer of gel medium so that glitter isn't going anywhere it shouldn't. This one will be headed out in today's mail as a post card.

 Fish #2

This one doesn't involve glitter, just paint and a googly eye. This one will also be going off into the postal system on today's mail run.

 And still more fishes. The two on the bottom are done. They are made from toilet paper tubes and painted with acrylics. The top fish needs an eye still. He's cereal box chipboard painted black with acrylics. The flowers are fingernail polish and the fins and tail are covered with glitter. It will get a coat of gel medium to tame that glitter before it goes anywhere.

 I call this one Cellular Activity. It's done in markers on drawing paper. I was surfing the internet, wasting time and came across a picture of cells. My muse screamed about wanting to draw pink cells so I went with it to avoid a disagreement. I'm not particularly fond of the color pink but I seem to use those pink markers a lot.

 Just a simple mug on a piece of sheet music. 3x4 inches or so. I'll give it some color one of these days.

 If you look up in the side bar at the top right you'll find a link to Drawing School. I can't for the life of me remember that man's name at this moment but I drew this palm tree and the coffee mug at his direction. I will give this one some color some day too.

 I've made a few balls of plastic bag yarn, cut a bunch more bags into rings in preparation of making more balls of plarn and I've got this market bag well on its way to being a market bag that is functional. I have lots of crochet projects in the works so don't expect this one to be done too awfully soon. I did a couple of rounds on it today.

 A bunch of tiny fishes in the works. Not sure if these will become little book covers or magnets. They are not done yet. I still need to give them fins and whatnot. You'll see these guys again. Glitter seems to be on the muse's radar this week.

 Another crossbody bag. This one crocheted from VHS tape. Six hours of cartoons! You can't really see the silver rings incorporated into the bag, but they are there. This bag will be done as soon as I finish sewing rings along the handle. I'm about a third of the way done right now.

This isn't really art yet. I put tiny screw eyes into these little doodads yesterday with the intention of making a junk necklace, maybe a bracelet. The banana is too big for a bracelet though. Putting tiny screw eyes in is not an easy task! I used my screw drill to start the holes. I need to drag out my tiny vice and I think the hole making would go faster. I got a few new holes in the middle finger of my left hand! 

That's about all from me today. 

A run to town to the grocery store, Jmart and the post office is the only thing planned for my day!

Thanks for hanging in to the end!

Remember 

Be kind to one another!

It matters!

Peace 

831

Flowers and some other stuff

Hello Readers!

It's been a few days since I was here last so I decided I better get caught up with keeping up with what gets done.

I've turned a year older since the last time I was here. I've been an old lady for a long time, I just got a little older is all. I don't really feel old in my head. My body, on the other hand, thinks it might be ancient! I'm still alive and kicking though so all is grand in the whole scheme of it all.

Or something to that effect.

Ma baked me a cake.

It was tasty AND cute! The picture is out of a magazine. I include it here so you know what the cake was suppose to look like. I'd say Ma nailed it pretty close. The caterpillar is suppose to have antennae on either end of him. That's how some caterpillars roll to confuse their predators. (Though if a bird pecked off the ass end of a caterpillar wouldn't it be just as dead as it would be should the bird choose the other end?) At any rate I loved my birthday cake! Three of my sisters and Ma showed up for the party. We made quick work of that chocolate chip bundt cake!

 I drew these three little chickens a week or two back. They are all roughly an inch and half high by an inch or so across. They will end up in my glue book. I've added a few more pages to the glue book since the last post.
I emptied the drawer in the desk in the livingroom where I throw all interesting things that come in the mail. Except for mail art, that has its own special spot--and it ain't in a drawer! I used a lot of that stuff to add to the glue book/junk journal, whatever you want to call it.

 I drew some birds on drawing paper. The big sharpie I was using to draw with, I thought was black. It's actually a very dark midnight blue. This one is about  5x7 inches or so. I didn't really measure. It was a scrap of clean paper that I took out of the scrap box by the paper cutter.

 Swirls of color. Markers on drawing paper. About the same size as the birds above. This one will end up in the glue book as background.

 Tulips bloomed. This is the first I've seen of any yellow tulips in the flower bed. I didn't plant them there. Last year there were red tulips in a different spot in this flower bed, but they haven't even set on any blossoms this year. The yellow tulips were a nice surprise. I discovered them on my birthday.  Those are peonies in the foreground of the picture. They don't get enough sun where they are planted. They haven't bloomed for a long time! Like 10 years!! I really need to sweet talk someone into digging them up and planting on the west side of the house where they'll get all the sunshine they need.

 I crocheted Ma a new dish cloth for Mother's Day. She said she would use it for a wash cloth, not a dish cloth. Whatever works for her! It is crocheted with cotton yarn. It's dish cloth sized.

 I played with the watercolor paints three days running. This was the first attempt at iris painting. I am rather pleased with it, though I can see lots of room for improvement. This is painted on manila drawing paper, 3x3.5 inches. I glued it to the front cover of a little book. You'll get to see that little book once I get it sewed together. I haven't cut pages for it yet. Maybe in the next post.

 The next day I tried another iris. I like this one too. It is done on linen textured cardstock. 3.5x3 inches. It will go in a magnetic frame.

 I drew some more fish. Markers on old sheet music.

 The paper I drew these fish on was cut 4.5x4 inches. I drew the fish to up as much space as possible on the page and then cut them out.

 I'm not sure what will happen with all these fish. Book covers, maybe. I just don't know at this point.

 It rained like crazy late on Mother's day afternoon. There was a bit of hail, some wind, some wicked lightning and a tornado the next county over. We all fared the storm at my brother's house. I usually go next door when we are put in a tornado warning. And I always keep tabs on the weather when it looks like it might get hairy out. I don't want to be in my own house if a tornado hits! I'd rather brave it out in the basement next door like a rational individual would do. Though I have to admit, when I was a younger woman, I loved being out in the storms, driving around, seeing what I could see! I was young and foolhardy. I'm still foolhardy at times, just not when it comes to storms.

 We were treated to a double rainbow after the storm.

 I made a few books.....This one is made from pre-cut pieces of a kit teaching kids about different foods. This one is all about pepperoni, cheese and crackers! I don't know why you need a full set of silverware to eat cheese and crackers and pepperoni, but they came with the plate so I glued them on as well. This one is about 6 inches across. It's sewn in the japanese stab binding which I glued the plate over so you can't see it.

This one came from the same type of kit as the other one. The kits weren't to make books. The kits consist of the plate and everything on it, nothing more. I thought they were kinda cool and would make unique book covers. I should have taken into consideration I would have to cut each page separately because of the shape of the books, but it all worked out OK. This one represents sushi. It's sewn in the japanese stab binding as well but I didn't cover up the stitching on this one. They both have roughly 30 pages of copy paper.

 This is the little orange book cover you saw in the last post. This is the backside, showing the closure. It's just a plastic green button sewn on with the same thread used to bind the book. It started out life as a Jello Pudding box.

 It has 9 signatures of 6 pages, giving it roughly 120 pages. The paper is some old forms I dragged out of a dumpster some years back. The bee on the front is a twinchie done in markers on cardstock. I drew it back in 2012, I think. We'll never know the date it was drawn unless we take it off the book to see what it says on the backside of the twinchie. I'm not THAT interested in knowing the correct date so we will just go with my best educated guess of sometime in 2012.

 I crocheted another basket. I show you the close up so you can see the specks of yellow. Yellow stars. They are quite subtle on the basket unless you look closely!

 It's a cute little basket, nothing special really. It stands about 4 inches tall and is about 5 inches across. I crocheted it out of curling ribbon. 

 This is a UFO. I crocheted this earlier this afternoon. It will be the back side of a hot pad mat once I get the front side done. I believe this one will have a day of the dead theme. That's subject to change though once I get started on the front. It will be whatever the muse wants to do at the time. I'll applique felt onto felt and then sew it to this square of crochet. The mat, when finished will be the size of this mat, which is 10 inches square. It's crocheted out some bulky greenish gray yarn I picked up somewhere.

 I finished the crochet cotton crocheted market bag. I used up a lot of half used balls of crochet cotton on this one. I didn't put much of a dent in the stash of white crochet cotton, nor in the stash of green. I did empty a few cardboard tubes of thread though. I keep those cardboard tubes that crochet cotton is wound on and use them in paper mache projects. This bag is about 14 inches from the top opening to the bottom. I wanted to reinforce the handles someway but I couldn't get that to work out for me so I just put a few more rounds of crochet on them and hope they work out all right when someone goes stuffing a bunch of stuff in it.

 I did this drawing of donuts in marker on watercolor paper. Not sure what will become of it. Perhaps a book cover with some sprinkles sewn on? Yeah, I might do some embroidery on this drawing. That thought just now crossed my mind. It's a tad plain at the moment, but some glass seed beads sewn on as sprinkles would sure jazz it up! We'll see what happens with the donuts..... This one is 3.5x4.75 inches.

 I've been playing with my new toys. In reality, only one of them is new. I've had the other one for a few years and didn't really know how to use it despite the fact it has its original instructions to go with it. And the new toy didn't come with instructions, which in turn led me to figure out how to use the old new toy.  In case the picture didn't clue you in that I am talking about flower looms, well, I've been making loom flowers!

 Lots of loom flowers! They are mostly blue because Ma saw them and wanted a few to patch up a pair of pants she has. I don't how they are gonna look on a pair of a pants but if she wants them there, I'm cool with that! I made this first batch (which are included in that picture with the lot of them) 5, maybe 6 six days ago. When I talked to her a couple days ago she said any old color would work, not just blue. So I made a few other colors since then. I made 6 of them earlier today that are included in the picture also.

 I caught Murray asleep on the sofa the day I made that flower and decided I would take a picture of it next to the sleeping cat. She woke up and caught me.....

This is the old new toy. It's called a Crazy Daisy Winder. It's a cool little gadget. This particular one is older than I am, I'm sure. The instructions that came with it has no zip code on the address of the manufacturer and there's a seal on the instructions that I can't read either. I believe it is a Union seal of some sort. I'm thinking 1950s vintage. It is easier to make loom flowers on this thing that it is on the new toy...

 This is the Hana Ami Flower Loom. I can't read Chinese or I would tell you the brand name. This one works on the same principle as the daisy winder. This one makes lots of different sized flowers whereas the daisy winder only makes 2.5 inch flowers. I'm still trying to master the hana ami loom and all its parts.
I figured out the daisy winder in one session with a youtube tutorial. I wouldn't have bought the hana ami loom if I had already figured out the daisy winder. The daisy winder has been sitting on a shelf in my cutting room for at least four years. I didn't realize it was a flower loom until after I had recieved the hana ami loom and started researching how to use it. I ran across a tutorial for the daisy winder and light bulb went off above my head, a ding sounded in the room and I said, outloud, to myself, "Hey! I have one of those! So that is how that works!" I went and got the daisy winder off the shelf and went off making loomed flowers. I suspect there will be more of these.

 I guess you'll just have to look at this one upside down because blogger refuses to let it stay the right way. This is Yellow Kitten Killer....was supposed to be Yellow Killer Kitten but I crossed the L's in killer before I wrote kitten when I was signing the backside. I go with the flow! The stream was a tad crooked at the time. Bad Kitty! Bad Kitty! That Murray cat inspired this painting in watercolor on cardstock. She's always bringing me dead critters. This week I received a sparrow, a couple of little mice and field rat. In her eyes, I am a terrible hunter and I need all the help I can get. She brought the rat in last night. I thought there was something terribly wrong when she came in from outside. She was making the most gawd-awful noise as she headed down the hallway in my direction. I got up to see what the trouble was. She dropped her catch and looked at me. Then she meowed clear as day as if to say, "I brought you something!" I tossed it out in the yard on my next trip passed the front door. It was back in the deskroom doorway this morning. Or maybe, I have gotten two field rats this past week?

Miss Lola thinks I am much better hunter than Murray does. She does sometimes catch mice, but not often! She is such a fat thing! I don't say that to be mean. I say it because it's the truth! LOOK AT HER! She's lounging in the sun ray on the livingroom carpet, looking out the front door at a bird probably. She pays close attention to those birds...not like she's caught one anytime recently though. She had just settled down after having killed that little dark blob behind her on the floor. That's a catnip filled felt fish. She finally lay down, rolled onto her back and took a nap in that sun ray.

 I've added Eric the Rooster's tail feathers to my natural collection. I've added a few other things to it as well. I have a naturally dehydrated frog...tiny little frog that my sister gave me. She found it on the concrete at her Father in law's house.  And there's a new snake skeleton...half a snake skeleton, it's head and maybe a third of its body. Little snake, all of three inches of it. My brother found it when he was clearing out some brush behind his house. All of those bones and such were either found by me or given to me by someone I know. The duck skull is still my favorite, followed by the goat skull with horns that hangs on the wall in the deskroom where the computer lives. Youngest son gave me the duck skull. He found it at the lake. Oldest son gave me the goat skull. One of his buddies gave it to him and he gave it to me. Eric had some pretty tail feathers! They go nicely in the collection. I almost forgot about the vulture feather Ma brought me the other day. She said she found it in the Dollar General parking lot. I didn't have a vulture feather.

And there's Ma herself with Murray who loves Ma!

That's about all I have for you all today. The old body has been in rebel mode so I've not been out of the house since Sunday. I haven't been to town since Friday. Tomorrow is a run to town day...the cupboards are getting bare and I need to get out and get stink blown off! I leave you with a view of the north field.

It appears all we will have this year to look at is an empty field. Not exactly empty...it's full of last years soybeans still...I don't know what's going on with the field. Perhaps he will leave it fallow this year. I can't remember a year he didn't plant something though. Guess we'll have to wait and see!

Thanks for hanging around till the end!
Remember...
Be kind to one another!
It matters!
Peace
831