Beading Resumes

Was starting to make mistakes so decided to take the rest of the day off from writing and started beading instead.  Am working on the branch portion now, trying to integrate it as part of the whole piece.

More bead soups, this time greens, browns, and brownish purples so as to look like an actual branch in my crabapple tree.

Ok I know I've shown this last one before, multiple times actually, but I sooooooo love this color combination!  The only colors that make me even more happy are sage greens, purple sages, and golden greens.  It's hard to explain... except to tell you to go hang out on the open prairie in the fall.

Hot in April

Young male red squirrel resting on a red oak branch.

Oak Leaf Cloth

I wasn't too thrilled about having our oak trees pruned in July but it needed to be done as I could no longer see to safely back out of the driveway, oak trees pick the darnest time to have a growth spurt.  So I pulled a bunch of the red oak and burr oak leaves aside in addition to some acorns and put them in a metal pan until I was ready to use them.  And then it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained.  The end result was an oak leaf acorn soup.  So today I will dye some cotton yardage and see what I come up with.

I added some rusted coffee tin lids in between the layers of fabric as I shoved it into a five gallon plastic bucket.

Final layer of oak leaves, branches, and acorns.

Topped off with rain water, that had been sitting for several days in another bucket, and a lid to keep the skeeters out.

Bird Nest

John and I picked pears yesterday, I was able to find a tree via freecycle that needed picking. I found this beauty on a lower branch as I reached down to pick a cluster of fruit.