Annual Spring Report 2016

The photos below were all taken on May 1st, the date I have used to compare the progress of spring for some time now.

The woods have just a hint of green, – most trees have only small buds, while a few early ones are sporting tiny leaves.

The pussy willow has been out for some time. There is still lots of snow in the mountains and temperatures have been quite low so far.

Crocuses are mostly finished, most of the daffodils are budding, and so is the cherry tree.

 

Only the very early daffodils and the ones growing in the most sunny places are in bloom.

The tulips along the south wall have large buds.

The spiraea bush, – the very first bush that was planted in our garden nearly 40 years ago, is starting to sprout leaves, but no flowers yet. The rose bush to the right was planted about the same time, and will hopefully display its white roses in a couple of months.

The field looks yellow and bleak, but there must be something green growing underneath since the deer turn up grazing there almost every day.

 

🙂

Eldrid

 

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Transforming a Pillow

The mention of shoddy in my previous post, reminded me of a pillow I rescued from the bin when sorting out things at my parents’ house last summer.

I think it originally came from our grandparents’ home, and I remember sleeping with that pillow when I was a little girl. It was very lumpy back then, and even worse now. Nobody else wanted it, and my first thought was to toss it, but then I rather liked the two fabrics it was made of, and since it would also be good for supporting the breakables during our drive back home, it went into the car instead of the bin.

Back home I opened it up and emptied the filling into a plastic bag. This is what shoddy looks like after it has been inside a pillow that has been used for more than 60 years. Very lumpy indeed.

Shoddy is made from old woolen garments, like the socks in my previous post, which have been shredded and carved into fibers, and then carded and made into fillings for pillows and duvets. Close up, one can see some of the original threads and many different coloured fibers.

I washed the fabric and put it away in a plastic bin.

Then we bought a new sofa, and I needed a couple of new pillows. I had seen one in a recent quilting magazine which gave me some ideas, and when looking through my stash for some background fabric, the old pillow came to mind.

I brought it out, and decided to use both fabrics, and I could even keep the old seam. I cut it one ruler width from the seam on both sides, and then cut the length into two parts, one for each pillow.

Then I added strips of a blue cotton damask fabric, which I had dyed myself many years ago. The two backgrounds are a bit different in size as the inner pillows I had available were of two different sizes. I also turned the stripes horizontally on one, and vertically on the other.

Then both backgrounds were layered and quilted with a wavy, on point, grid.

Next, I drew lots of circles in three different sizes on paper backed fusible web. They were ironed on to the back side of many different yellow, orange, red, and some purple scraps.

 

Then I placed my “flowers” on the green and blue background. I moved them around till I was satisfied with their placement, then ironed them down.

 

I sewed around each circle using the satin stitch on my machine. Since the background was layered and quilted, there was no need for a stabilizer.

I drew some stems with chalk, and then sewed them using a wider satin stitch.

In order to make some leaves, I ironed strips of different greens onto fusible web. Then I drew some leaf shapes in different sizes, and made some templates which I used to draw on the paper side of the fusible web already ironed to the strips. I cut out lots of leaves so I would have some to choose from when distributing them on the background.

When I was satisfied with the placement, I ironed and sewed around all the leaves using the satin stitch.

Then I only had to make backings for the pillows. Since I did not have zippers available, I made the envelope style backing. I use that a lot.

And onto the sofa they went.

🙂

Eldrid

October

……. where did it go? The month seems to have passed so quickly I hardly noticed we are already into November.

After  two months of almost constant rain, it finally cleared up at the beginning of the month. We had some early frost which brought out the autumn colours.

Early in the month, the sun was high enough, and warm enough, to thaw the frost in the fields as it rose towards midday.

There was a storm or two in between, but we do not mind that when most of the days are sunny and quiet.

The leaves started falling, and were able to settle quietly on the ground or in the streams. Usually they are blown away or swept quickly into the sea by the rushing waters.

Some trees hang onto their leaves longer than others, – or maybe it is the other way around; – the leaves hang onto the trees…..

By now most of them are gone.

The sandbox in the garden is covered with a tarp to keep out the cats. It collected a lot of water throughout September, which froze to ice.

The plastic toys were trapped.

The water on the handrail also froze, creating beautiful patterns.

Below the photo is enhanced in a photo editing program to show the pattern better:

Eldrid