Plant Nerdiness Immersion!

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I had a wonderful time at the Gesneriad Convention! It was 5 full days of not thinking about anything but beautiful plants. I learned so much and met a ton of fellow enthusiasts.

I entered several pieces into the show- first time ever. Firstly- Miss Siningia, a lady pillow doll. Look, she won a blue ribbon!

Also, 3 plants; they won ribbons too! I was entering into the novice class which means I have never participated in a plant show before. I was the only entrant and I won this giant pink rosette- it all makes me silly happy :-)

Here is my blue ribbon plant-

I won’t overwhelm you with flower photos but these were some of my favs-

This is called Smithiantha ‘Ode to Peter Shalit’. It has beautiful leaves that are velvety plus such a gorgeous flower.

Below is a Streptocarpus ‘Dale’s Flock of Sparrows’.

There was a sales room with (probably) thousands of plants, and almost every talk I went to had giveaway plant material. I now have a bunch of new plants plus cuttings, leaves, and tubers to plant up and hopefully grow. It was such a treat to spend almost a week focusing on my other passion. I hope I can go next year!

Is Been an Unproductive few weeks

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I started working on the mermaids but nothing was working out so I put them aside for a while. I decided that I needed to work on something very different and so, as you can see in the photo, kitties! Also, some summer shirts for me.

I haven’t actually been getting a lot of studio time either. We’ve had guests, and then a family member in the hospital for tests. It’s really disrupted all my ability to focus on my work and that’s life. This coming up week I will be immersed in my plant hobby- completely nerding out with all the other gesneriad enthusiasts at the annual convention. That’s all to say that I won’t be finishing up any of these kitties until after July 6. See you then!

More Skeleton Tattoos

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As I said before, I am working through pattern pieces that I dyed several years ago and there are a lot of skeleton tattoos!

I really like how the fan design on the fabric works with this lady’s body.

A close-up of her antique shell button-

And here she is, hanging around with her friend :-)

I’ve had a tough week all around. A very dear friend has passed away and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it. And, probably related, nothing is working for me in my studio. Sometimes things in the creative process glide along with no bumps. This last week was all bumps. I’m hoping that next week will go better.

A Different kind of Lady

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I am working on more women but not the cozy pillow kind.

When people ask me how long a random piece takes me, I am always flummoxed. So often there are blips along the road to finishing. With the ladies- I sewed up 9 ladies from pieces that I’d cut out and dyed before I left Boston; so more than 3 years ago. I stuffed this first one and … hmm. The head didn’t look right. I went through all the pattern pieces and remembered that I’d redesigned the head shape at some point. I’d traced the new design onto the fabric but years and humidity had disappeared the water-erasable lines. So, un-stuff this lady, retrace her head pattern, retrace on all the other ladies, resew, etc., etc. Onward. It is not a straight road!

Most of the ladies that I have ready to finish have some variation of a skeleton design for tattoos.