Lichens

Lichen inspiration from 2009, winter is still lingering here and I'm longing to get out into the woods for my Spring foraging activities.  Nope not lichens I merely photograph those, I'm talking morels and other edible yummies!

WIP - Queen Anne's Forest

Queen Anne's Forest (lace) No. 1
4x6 inches
Painted Timtex, Machine Embroidery

I will be adding indigo dyed silk organza to this piece later this evening.

Tendrils

Poison Ivy

Texturally speaking it IS inspiring, but I'm tired of itching like mad! I managed to get into a pile of the stuff while picking berries in the woods.

Wild Flowers

I've been spending a lot of time in the woods of late, getting inspiration, photo journaling the native plants throughout the seasons. When I'm not in the woods I've been in my garden, it's starting to warm up here and we are in the throes of creating a new compost pile - just in time for dye season!

You can see what I've been up to at my nature blog Thistle Quill, and over at my home blog Survival Kitchen and of course some artwork pieces on my art blog

Wood Anemone and Blue Violets

Rain Rain Go Away!

Dh and I went out morel hunting this morning and found a couple pounds, and I discovered that my waterproof leather boots are not so waterproof anymore. They are five years old and I'm sure the coating has more than dried off by now. Since the boots are still rather new I'll be working on waterproofing them once again.

Tis the Season

Picked 20 morels this morning, good haul after last nights gully washer - one tornado that went north of town a piece yet. Most places got two or more inches of rain last night, we got 1.6 inches in less than an hour. Heard tales while morel picking of some places getting five inches, tis a lot of rain. Too many people walking around in the woods, the place is getting to be really trampled.

Hand work

My shoulder has been bothering me, too much lawn care, so instead of wrestling large pieces in the sewing machine I've been doing a bit of hand work.

I started this piece tonight by needle felting various fibers using the Janome Expression, and now I've plans to do a bunch of stitching to the surface. This pic is the inspiration a red velvet spider mite on some moss. I took this photo last Sunday when we were out looking for morels in the woods.