Flowers at Their Peak

I love to take photos of the garden flowers. Here are two beauties at the edge of the pond. The mauve peony poppies are like weeds and have to be kept down. They self seed and can take over any area. I let a few here and there just come up to fill any empty spots. I got the seeds from the boss's wife (husband's boss- I work for myself/customers).
Here is a lily with two blossoms open and two more to come. I have been planting my lily bulbs in pots and then I put the pot in the ground. I have pocket gophers all over the garden. They had tunnels under this one and would have eaten it if not for the pots. Most lilies not in a pot are eaten now. We have gotten three gophers from this part of the garden. Let's hope they do not come back or dig a hole in the pond liner this winter.
We are starting to eat tomatoes and basil from the veggy garden. Peas, lettuces and spinach are done. I will keep you updated on the garden.

Wave Quilting

I have been doing long arm for customers for more that 10 years now. I like to do free motion quilting the most, like this one in the photo. This week I asked the owner of this quilt if I could post a photo. She would like to remain anonymous. It is a sampler style quilt set on point with the two boarders. I thought because the colours and the flip flop batik were so much like the water or beach that the wave quilting would work best. It really does feel like a water or beach quilt now.

Scrabble Tile Charm Swap

I made a few scrabble tile charms for a swap. I did two for Twilight - Alice and Bella. The next one is the Heart group - I used a photo of one of my quilts that had hearts on it. The next one is the Skull group. I did Donald Duck for the Disney group. The Horse photo is my horse done for the Animal group. And the last one is a lily from my garden for the Flower group.
I followed directions for these one a web site. Here is the link http://www.makeandtakes.com/links/scrabble-tile-pendant-tutorial I printed photos and then sealed them with Mod Podge, Cut them to fit the tiles and glued in place. When dry I could add the Diamond Glaze. When dry, glue a hanging bail on the back side.

Pumpkin Charms

Halloween Fibre Charm Swap. Here are the little smiley faces. I am so pleased with how they turned out. This is the first time I have tried Felting. I dyed the wool then started to wet felt the wool into balls. It takes about 10 minutes for each ball. Start with a chunk of warm wet wool and some soap in you hand. Then roll softly and slowly adding more presser to the wool. Rolling Rolling. I could speed up the rolling when it was looking round and starting to stick together.
When the orange balls were made and dry, I got out my jewelry findings. I had some trouble getting the jewelry pin into the balls of wool. I sewed the black beads on for a face. I made the stem out of green beads. I added a silver leaf at the top with the lobster claw clasp. I have a few extra and plan to make some earrings for myself.
I bought wool last week to dye. Here are the dye supplies set out to get started. Below are the pots simmering on the oven. I dyed green thinking I would make the stem from wool but it looked like Florida oranges not pumpkins. I had to dye twice as I did not dye enough the first time. I was surprised how much wool is in a little felt ball. To do my 25 balls I should have dyed two oz of dry wool.

Three Dotee Dolls

"Madonna the Mermaid" is for a Swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. Her chest is made with two shells that I sewed on but had to add glue as they were wiggling all over the place. She was going to knock an eye out with them. (Ha Ha Sometimes I think I am funny)
Some of the beads I have used have come from old necklaces. I have a bread bag full of old necklaces form a neighbor and I look at garage sales. Each of these three dolls have at least one bead form the bread bag of necklaces.
"Rainbow Man" is for the Anything goes category. I love this print of cotton and the Lime green (what other colour would I use). He has a charm that says "Laugh".
Here is the Cupcake Dotee Doll. She has a pink wool frosting hair style. I have used my hand thread to stitch her body lines. I think her name should be "Pink Frosting". Her cherry bead on top is from the necklaces.

I have made all my dolls with my our patterns. I just drew a little on paper, sewed some and then made some changes. Before this swap I had not heard about Dotee Dolls. We were given a link to a blog here it is http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com/ She has an Etsy site were she sells kits too. I think hers are a little smaller than mine. Check it out if you would like to know more about the world of Dotee dolls.

Here is the Two Peas in a Bucket swap board link http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=list&forum_id=14

Saskatoon Picking

Today me and my two boys picked Saskatoon berries. I am planning to make some berry pies later in the week but we needed to pick them. I will have to make peach pie as one boy does not like Saskatoons and I still wanted his help. So our trade is "If he picked enough berries for a Saskatoons Pie I would make him a peach pie." I have to buy the peaches.
Our dog the Chesapeake Bay Retriever found out just how good the berries are. Here he is nibbling off berries. He first tried to take from our buckets but did not have any luck with us. I think this is Chessy style. He also ripped down on small tree from the truck just to get the berries up higher.
A good start to a bucket of berries.
Saskatoons are a native berry to the western prairies. I know my grandmother picked and made many berry pies. Some make Wine or Jam but we like the pies the best.

Look at these purple hand. It will take a day or two for the purple to wash away.

Internet Connect - Wall Quilt

This Quilt is called Internet Connect. It is in the Connections Series of quilts and has been shown at Art Galleries in Alberta and B.C. It is 38"W X 45"H. I have hand dyed all the cotton fabric for it. After the main body was pieced I used letter blocks to stamp words about the internet. I asked the school kindergarten teacher if I could use her great old set of block stamps. I then quilted it on my long arm machine and then quilted the large triangle pieces by ruff edge applique still with the long arm.

Fibre Charm Swap - anything goes

Here is the last fibre charm swap I was in. I love all the colour in these little beauties. You should click on the image and enlarge it to see them better. The charms I made are on the bottom. I have been doing these charm swaps on Two Peas in a Bucket. I think that I should get my Edmonton and Distict Quilters Guild to do a Fibre Charm Swap. I will have to talk with the program poeple and see if we can do it this year.

Telephone Line Quilts

Telephone Tag by Cathy Tomm 26" X 15" Fibre art with covered cords
Connections is a fibre art series made by me and two friends, Dawna Dey Harris and Sharon Willas Rubuliaik. We call our group Filiamenta. We have been showing fibre art together for more than five years. These two quilts are in the Connections series.
Party Line by Cathy Tomm 13" x 42" fibre art with covered cords

Fish Pond

I thought I would share my pond with you today. It is a bright sunny day and perfect for sitting by the pond to enjoy the trickle of the water fall and the splash of the fish. The water lilies are blooming.
Today the pond needs the filter washed out and the water level topped up, but this will only take a few minutes. We built this pond ourselves and moved in many field rocks from around the rock piles and fields on the land. I have four fish this year, one gold fish and three koi.