I Like #309

 Welcome to another week of things to like!

I definitely like seeing good friends!  My friends Betty Busby and Gale Oppenheimer were here last week, Betty has a solo show at a local gallery and it was super fun to hang out with them at the opening last Thursday.  The whole show looks great, I may try to do a post of it.

The rain has stopped and now it's very very hot and dry, but that did mean I could get out into the garden last weekend.  I cleaned up the garden and picked all the crabapples (they were very ripe) but that took all my available yardwork time so this weekend I absolutely must mow, the yard is a complete jungle.

I picked a bunch of tomatos, they're very tasty.  There were a bunch that were really a bit over-ripe already so I cooked them into tomato sauce which I then promptly forgot about when I went outside to pick crabapples.  It burned up completely, with a giant thick layer of hard crunchy sludge on the bottom of the pot and the whole house smelled terrible.  Alas.

I did pick 5 boxes of crabapples off my tree, lots of them are wormy, but I'll cut the worms out. I'm hoping to start processing them this weekend, so we'll see.

.

The tree is definitely much happier now though!

The flowers are still growing too, but I'm seeing more of the buds that are burned up and brown before they can open, it's just that time of the year I think.

I saw this beautiful but battered butterfly in the garden the other day, I wonder what happened to him!

I also liked getting to spend some time quilting this week, the pups definitely helped and I got another baby quilt finished for a baby shower this week.

And finally, no week is complete without the pups. They especially love "helping" with the clean laundry and the quilting

I hope everyone is hanging in there.  Click over to LeeAnna's to see more folks sharing good things.

I Like #308

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  This weekend it was fairly pleasant temperature wise and I spent half of Saturday helping clean up the grounds at our church.  But since then the temps and humidity have both gone way up and at this point outside is turning into a place to avoid.  

I spent some time this weekend quilting up a couple of baby quilts,  this first one is one I pieced over the holidays using some orphan blocks from my mom and the second one used a panel (and matching back) I found in some boxes that my sister's mother-in-law destashed to me (thanks Mary!).  They both turned out super soft and snuggly.

Brett's birthday was this week so we went out for sushi last night.  I took him some garden flowers and mad a tiramisu cake.  I'd never made tiramisu before and this is sort of a twist on it because I couldn't find lady fingers anywhere but it turned out very tasty.

My friend Betty Busby is here from Albuquerque this week because she's having a show at Artspace Untitled here in OKC.  It's a wonderful venue with a fabulous gallery space as well as lots of workshop area.  I got to go over and hang out/help a little while they were installing and then the owner Laura kindly hosted a dinner for the local fiber arts community.  The reception is tonight, next week I'll share some pictures from that.

The pups are good.  I loved this picture- it looks like they're planning something secret. 

I hope you're not too hot wherever you are! Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I Like #307

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  It was a good week here, my birthday was Sunday and I had lovely conversations with lots of family and friends.  They are such a blessing to me.

Brett and Cash came over to play and we grilled and had peach cobbler with some local peaches a friend brought me.  And then on 4th of July another set of friends came over for lunch and brought more peach cobbler with their peaches.  So so yummy.

On Monday, Brett and I went and enjoyed the OKC 4th of July celebration, the OKC Philharmonic did a great free concert in the park followed by some fireworks.  The music was fantastic and the clouds were beautiful.  Lovely evening!

The dahilas are still growing apace.  They're getting a little wilty around the edges, but still so beautiful.  This purple one is new, I don't remember planting it and this is its first blossome of the season.  So gorgeous.  It's still been raining more than usual for this time of year which is fantastic for the garden.

I dyed a dress a couple weeks ago and I love how it came out, but clearly I didn't get all the loose dye really fully removed and the first time I washed it, I dyed the whole rest of the load pink.  Alas!

Spooky and Blue say hello!  They don't want me to sew, they want me to snuggle and play!

I also blogged about a recent quilt finish this week, so click here and here to read more about that!

Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

Solar Punk: Finished

 Earlier in the week I talked about my new solarpunk quilt.  When we left off, I was here, with the major design elements in place, but with the whole thing feeling finished.  

Here's the final piece, and I think it just feels a little fuller.  I added quite a few more plastic bits around the trees.  I also added the orange fuzzy circles in the backround and I think they add a bubbly sense of movement and fun.  And I added a bunch of details with paint markers/pens which you can see better in the close up.  Finally, I decided it needed a dark border to finish the edges.  Previously I'd finished the edges with a couched yellow yarn (you can see a bit of it dangling from the bottom right corner in the picture above, but it felt unfinished somehow and I though the skinny dark border would pickup the dark bits in the quilt.

Here you can see the edge better, it's a dark purple traditional binding, and then I stitched on a fun piece of blue trim around the outside edge. 

Here you can see some of the tiny little polka dots I added.  In my brain, they're good vibes, good music, good mist, good something emanating from the little floating ships.

I'm happy with the way it came out, fun and sunny and bright.  I'm not particularly optimistic about it's chances to get into the show; I feel like they'll probably be looking for things that are a little more refined, but it's a fun piece and I got it done!  I know the future isn't always good, but with all the stressful things surrounding us in real life, I like a positive imaginary life!

It's always sunny in the future, c. Shannon Conley, 2023, 38" x 26"

The artist statement for it says: Not all technology-filled futures are dystopian. Here I embraced solarpunk and an optimistic vision of the future where we use technology to generate clean power from the sun, conquer pollution, and save the planet. The neon-colored 80s kid inside me has hope for a reforested future of humans happily living among the trees, in harmony with the natural ecosystems and flourishing as part of the great biodiversity of Earth rather than at its expense.

New Quilt: Solarpunk

 Recently SAQA had a call for entries called StitchPunk which was interested in quilts inspired by steampunk and other related genres.  I love this idea, and I generally really enjoy sci-fi literature, sci-fi art, the steampunk genre.  I cannot wait to see what quilts are actually in the show.  A few artist friends of mine have made pieces that were amazing.  I really wanted to make something for the call,  I think it's super fun and likely to be something very popular with the viewing public, but I didn't really have a solid idea.  I don't do very many representational things so I struggled on that front.   In reading about all the related genres, I was most struck by the idea of solarpunk.  So much of futuristic speculative fiction is focused on dystopian imaginings of the future, I was intrigued by the idea of a future where we'd used technology to actually better our condition, to generate clean power and clean up the environment, and prevent climate change.  A sunny colorful quilt fel more like where I wanted to go.  I had a vague idea for a fairly abstract interpretation of a community in the trees, and I knew I wanted to use a bunch of plastic out of my recycling bin.  I got started late (this spring was tough) but I got it going finally.

Earlier this spring I painted a bunch of large pieces of fabric, in anticipation of filming my segments of The Quilt Show and some other quilts I knew I had coming up.  This yellow painted piece was originally designed to be used for a smocking demonstration (it even has the smocking grid marked on the back), but I decided the bright sunny color was great to use for my solarpunk piece.

After finishing the quilting, I got out all my clear plastics out of the recycling bin.  Since I'm using regular spray paint, I only use clear plastic because I paint it from the back (so the front doesn't chip off).  These were mostly Sams parmesan cheese containers and cherry tomato containers.  Here's some of the cut up plastic after painting.

I marked the broad design with washable markers and then added a bunch of color fo the tree with shiva paintsticks.  I really like those for adding gradients of color.  Then it was just a matter of starting to hand stitch on my plastic bits.

I mostly stitched them on with the quilt suspended between two work tables so that I could easily get to the back of the piece.

I got this far and felt sort of stuck.  The main design elements were there (the trees, the little flying houses and houses suspended from the trees), but it didn't feel done.  Come back later this week to see how I finished it.