Embroidery

I have been sewing up a storm, and my machine has been embroidering for many hours. I saw a few photos on one of my Groups that really caught my attention. These are 3D free standing lace ornaments made with my embroidery machine. They are from OESD and I ordered the CD from Amazon last week. They arrived in a few days and I have been embroidering out some beautiful ornaments. There are also some flat designs, such as the angel and dove. They have applique sections, in which I used organza. They also feature velvet textured stitches that must be cut open with an exacto knife after stitching. I couldn't resist trying them as tree toppers on my little trees in the living room. They look so beautiful with the light shining from inside.

Baby Shower

Two weeks ago we had a baby shower for Marie. A teacher she works with made her a cake to go with the theme, elephants. Isn't it cute?

Baby coming soon

In a few weeks we expect a new addition to our family. My daughter and her husband, Mike, are expecting a baby boy. There was a shower for the baby given by her mother-in-law. I would say Elisette could give Martha some competition. She prepared & decorated quite a spread.

Halloween costume making

Julian asked me to make him his costume this year. He wanted to be Pikachu, one of the Pokeman characters. He was very specific about the details he wanted and gave me a little toy to use as a model. He wanted to have his face behind the mouth which was covered with red knit fabric which he could see through if it was light enough outside. He didn't want to have a mask or cut outs for his eyes. Here is how it came out.

The garden harvest continues despite the dry weather. Those hot days of August and early September have finally gone and the cool evenings are very refreshing. Of course they slow the ripening of many of my crops, but that is actually a relief since it gives me a break from trying to use and preserve the harvest. We finally had a day of rain but it barely soaked the ground. Thankfully, the soaker hose has kept the tomato plants happy. One of the best tomatoes I have grown is an Italian plumb type. I'm not sure what the variety is because I grew them from some seeds my son Peter gave me. I saved some seed to grow next year. These tomatoes are a rich red color and are heart shaped. They are about the size of an actual heart too, not the little plumb tomatoes I have grown in the past. They are very meaty inside with fewer seeds than my other tomatoes.
Among the successes of this summer in the garden; eggplant, peppers, yellow summer squash, zucchinni and pumpkins. I have some white pumpkins growing this year, plus small orange sugar pumpkins and a couple of BIG ones. I have to get out there today and tend to the crops. It has been a wonderful experience to grow enough to share, especially when my coworkers tell me the tomatoes I brought in were the best they have ever tasted! Several dozen went to the local food pantry too!

Summer Garden July, 2010

Companion planting trials. Pumpkins with corn and cabbage with onions and monarda.



Things are progressing well in the Z Farm garden. I harvested lots of squash and beans. Made some zucchini bread, now that the weather has cooled off a little. Flowers are in bloom and tomatoes are finally ripening. It seems that every year we have lots of green tomatoes hanging on the vines and they just refuse to turn red until the calender says "August"! Well, they are worth the wait. The bean and melon plant Julian started as a kindergarten project, are growing out of their alotted space! We actually have some melons ripening. I discovered a pumpkin in the patch too. I tried some companion planting this year. I now have pumpkins growing among the corn stalks. I also planted a small raised bed with red cabbage and brussel sprouts. I read that cabbage likes onions and rosemary so I added those in between. I also planted monarda, to attract pollinators. The bees love it! So far, they all seem to be happy together. I am noticing some leaf damage on the cabbage but nothing really bad, just a few holes in the leaves. Since I will be shredding the red cabbage up for salads, it shouldn't make much difference.

Summer Road Trip 2010

I just completed a 10 day road trip with my daughter, Marie. We covered 9 states in 10 days. We started the trip by visiting the Rodale experimantal farm nearKutztown, PA. From there we traveled through Amish country, stopping at Burkholder's Fabrics in Denver, PA. What a great store, if you are a quilter! Many rooms of beautiful fabrics. We headed south, through the Blue Ridge Mountains and stayed at the Skyland Resort in the Shenandoah National Park. Definitely will return to this beautiful place. Despite the fact that the Northeast was experiencing the hottest temperatures on record, we took a room with no AC,or TV for that matter, only a ceiling fan, and were quite comfortable because we were up at the topof the mountain, at 3,680 feet! It was nice and cool and the views were breathtaking. From there we headed further south to Raleigh, NC to spend the night and then made our way down to Wilmington, NC to stay with our wonderful friends, Clair & Fred. What wonderful friends they are. We were treated to a Down Southern Boil cooked by daughters & the guys.

We enjoyed their company for 2 days and then headed to Winston-Salem and a ride through the Smoky Mountains, a visit to the Cherokee Museum and then on to Knoxville, TN to the AQS Quilt Show, where we saw some beautiful quilts and met Alex Anderson, in person. We enjoyed a nice conversation with her and her assistant.

We also just HAD to go up to the top of the Sunshere! (My idea, Marie was feeling a little squeemish) But we got an awesome view of the city.

From Knoxville, we headed over to

Frankfort, KY. Frankfort is actually the capitol of that state, not Lexington or Louisville! We stopped to do a little shopping and picture taking, and made it to the Woodford Reserve Distillery, just after they closed at 5:00 pm. Soooooo, we stayed overnight in Frankfort and got to the distillery in the morning, just as they opened.

What wonderful horse country it is over there!

After stocking up on gifts, we started to head back east,

and home. Since we hadn't reserved a place to stay that night, we decided to make it a driving day and set our goal on getting

to Gettysburg, PA before sunset! We made it, booked the last room in the Comfort Suites hotel and headed out for dinner, our last dinner together on the trip. We were up early in the moring and hit the road, stopping at the Amish Farmers Market on the way. We stocked up on fresh fruit, had the best chicken fillet sandwich EVER, and then headed home.

At the market, I saw the best gift for my soon to be born grandchild, an Amish made rocking horse! A little Amish boy was riding on it as we walked by and Marie and I stopped to watch him. A few minutes later, the boy was done playing, Marie was busy looking at a print at the ajacent shop, so I made the purchase. I put the rocking horse in the shopping cart and when Marie was done she turned around and saw it. She said "Thanks Mom" with tears in her eyes. A good hug made it the best ending of our trip ever! We arrived home safely after a few hours more of driving and New Jersey & New York traffic. It was the best trip we ever had together and I am so thankful that we did it! We will have the memories and pictures for a long while and we will be able to tell the baby that we all took the trip together!

New garden addition, "Grow Camp"

I am sooo excited! My husband & I completed assembling the new addition to our garden. We bought it online at Costco and it is called a Grow Camp. Basically it is a bottomless box with an attached frame that has plastic film on each end and mesh screen fabric attached at the top that is attached with velcro along the sides and across the bottom of the sides. It also came with plastic film that is also attached at the top and fits over the screen and is also attached with velcro along the sides and bottom. I am posting some pictures. It assembled easily enough. We just had to make sure we were attaching things facing the correct way. It is easy to assemble things backwards. Once it was up, I decided to get some dirt and use it as a covred raised bed. It took a LOT of soil, 30 bags plus a whole garden cart full of compost. And it could really use more! I planted some cucumbers, parsely, red cabbage so far. I may remove the red cabbage since the book says it takes up a lot of room. I think the cucumbers will like it! I'll probably plant some peppers, since they like nice warm conditions. I stuck my transplanted seedlings out there too, just placing them in trays on top of the soil for now. They sell planting trays for the Grow Camp. I will probably order some of those, since you can hang them from the cross braces to form a shelf above the plants in the soil. I love it! I am hoping to extend my growing season and have peppers and root veggies long into the fall.

April,2010

The play, "Beauty & the Beast" was a huge success. Three sold out performances! The cast and crew were wonderful. Now that the rehearsal frenzy is over and the weather is better, it's time to get the garden ready. Yesterday was a warm, dry day after almost a week of rain, rain, and more rain! Our heavy clay soil just holds that moisture and it takes time to drain. I was able to clean up our side flower garden and the raised beds. Thank goodness for those raised beds. I have been building them over the years, since we have a yard full of boulders that we can't budge. So... the solution was to use them as borders and build up the soil around them to make the raised beds. With our heavy soil, it works! I planted asparagus in one bed. Today I will plant lettuce, spinach and chard. I also harvested a whole bucket of Jerusalem artichokes from the bed I was preparing for the asparagus. They just multiply! There are still many areas of the garden where they grow every year.

Costumes are progressing. This is a vest for one of the "Knives". It still has to be fitted and is minus the buttons. Since we had bad weather today, all after school activities were cancelled, so the fittings will have to wait.

Craftzine.com blog : Tokyo International Quilt Festival 2010

Craftzine.com blog : Tokyo International Quilt Festival 2010

Costume progress

So far, the napkin rings for the napkin costumes are complete except for fitting them to the characters. I also made the tops for the salt & pepper costumes. So much fun to create these.

Costume shop visit with "characters"!

Our trip to the costume shop, for fittings, was successful! Of course, the students had fun trying out their costumes, and then some! What an awesome place. Wall to wall costumes of every kind can be found here, and they found them!

Costume production in full swing!

Costume construction for the Stratford High School production of Beauty & the Beast is in full swing. Sixteen villager skirts have been completed by the team. Now, my job is to make the salt & pepper costumes, napkin rings for the napkin costumes, assorted capes and vests and search for shaggy gray fabric for the wolves' costumes. With a week off from teaching, I am hoping to get a lot done. Wednesday, we are taking the main characters up to an awesome costume warehouse to fit them for their costumes. Thankfully, we are able to rent these costumes at a reasonable price. This allows us to really put our focus on the other characters. Yesterday, we cleaned and organized the costume closet. Susan, Kate, Laura and I had fun sorting through some of the donated clothes and props. There were some really beautiful clothes from the sixties era that looked like something Jackie Kennedy could have worn. Lots of stuff that reminded me of "Laugh In" too. I think we had more fun trying on some of the hats and props, than cleaning and organizing.
Today, I spent the day organizing my ideas and testing out some embroidery designs. I have posted some pictures of the evolution of the costume ideas so you can see the process.

First I sketch out my ideas for costumes and run them by the director, choreographer and others involved in the play. For the napkin ring belts on the napkin costumes, I wanted to embellish them with embroidered roses.

First, I searched through my designs to find the perfect rose. Next, I stitched out a test of the design. I used my embroidery editing software to combine the design elements to make my final design. The fun part was stitching it out on the belt fabric. It is a silver "pleather" which I hope will look like a metal napkin ring when I sew piping on the top and bottom.

Hunkering down for the winter

With the cold, windy weather we have been experiencing, I have been getting some sewing and machine embroidery done. We are in full swing of costume creation for the high school production of "Beauty & the Beast" which will be performed at the end of March. The major character costumes will be rented, but many of the others will be created. We have already sewn about 16 villager's skirts.



I made some pillows for David and Gena's apartment. Dave came looking for some big pillows he had stored in the basement. While clearing & cleaning a while ago, I'm pretty sure they were thrown out. So, feeling guilty about that and wanting to create something with embroidery and colors to match the sofa, I made them some pillows. I used a design from Embroidery Library.



This inspired me to embellish some plain pillows I had, so I sewed up a floral design that has some texture to it. I'm posting a picture of that one, too. The flower petals are cut open after they are embroidered. This gives them a velvety texture. They are very pretty and it is nice to be able to color coordinate them with my upholstery designs and colors.
I also bought a new serger. It's a Baby Lock because I love the air jet threading on their machines. I am signed up for lessons and haven't had much time to use it yet, but I will!

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year from snowy CT!