Happy Anniversary Old Man!

this past week we celebrated our wedding anniversary 

so I made this card for my DH

the App card for I came from Starbucks so I added the love and the you to create

the I Love You App

inside the card reads

"You're still my favorite app!"

Chris

Painting my way through August

I keep thinking that I have painted all the flowers I could ever paint - and then when I need to loosen and warm up, I paint another one

and another one

and then I brought some Impatients and some Allamandas from our yard into the house, and painted them

I put them in a small flower painted pottery vase (made in Sweden), and they really brightened up our table.

I am currently doing a destash of beads (some are handmade lampwork beads), yarns, and other items on ebay - my ebay name is mcaground so if you are interested, be sure to check out my listings. I have also listed quite a few watercolor books and other books on half.com so if you are looking for anything in particular, please let me know in the comments section and I will contact you.  Just so you know, another great site on which to get books is Paperback Swap - it's sort of a trading site and I love it - I have gotten some great books and I also list lots of books there.

Hope your yard is filled with beautiful flowers!
Thanks for stopping by,
Chris

Some things that are making me happy

Maybe you know (or not) that the east coast of Florida is very very dry - when we do get rain, it comes in torrents but between those times, it is very hot and dry so unless you water or plant drought resistant plants, you don't have many flowers.  We are of the group that do no water our yard but we do have several stunning hibiscus plants, some flaming orange ixoras, oleanders, night blooming jasmine, bouganvillea, azaleas in the spring (but we do  have one that is blooming right now - go figure?), and allamandas all across our back fence.  I picked a few allamandas and impatients (they grow everywhere!) for our table. I love these little oil lights that I bought a long time ago at Pottery Barn - I filled the glass bowls with white sand and added small shells from my collection (I put out lots of shells throughout the house in the summertime).

My Margaret Dashwood shawl is continuing to grow (but I admit not very quickly). I love the yarn and the pattern but I keep getting distracted by painting, watching episodes of Midsomer Murders from the library, reading new books (right now I am totally absorbed in Broken Harbour, the new book by Tana French - it's brilliant!), drinking iced tea, eating summer meals like boiled shrimp, caesar salad, and French bread, sewing a new top from my favorite pattern (the Mimosa top from The Sewing Workshop - I just finished my 4th one but I did make "a few modifications"), thrifting (a blogpost for the future), and playing with the cat in the bathtub (no water but she loves sitting in the cool tub and batting at me as I run my fingers along the shower curtain).

What are you doing that's fun this summer?
Thanks for stopping by,
Chris

Backgrounds are so difficult - I need some input

I recently was paging through an old cooking magazine and saw an article about quinces, a cross between an apple and a pear.  I used the article as an inspiration for a study of quinces (which I think came out quite well) but now I have a dilemma - what to do about a background?

Should I just add some shadows and leave it white?

Should I paint a background - solid or varigated, one color or multi, and what color(s)?

I looked on the color wheel and the compliment of yellow green is magenta so perhaps a dark background - a magenta black combo) would make the quinces really pop but then again.....

What do you think? I would truly appreciate your thoughts.
Chris

Give me shelter (Sketchbook Challenge)

The Sketchbook Challenge prompt for August is Shelter in any and all of its forms - be it home, umbrellas, a leafy oak tree, a cocoon, a favorite sweater, a book, whatever constitutes shelter from the elements that threaten us.  Above is a quick sketch that I painted of one of the roofs in the Chinese pavilion at Epcot - so filled with color and elegance.  Be sure to check out all of the wonderful sketches on flickr.

I have been painting, knitting, reading, and quilting in the past week - no time for blogging but I promise to try to do a bit better in the future.

Thanks for stopping by and hope your summer is going well.
Chris

The Finish Line (or UFO Quilt Sighting)

I finished quilting and binding this quilt on Sunday afternoon - I actually began this quilt in 1992 and the fabrics in it reflect the passage of the years and the trends in quilting fabrics. There are Liberty cottons that I purchased in 1991 in Bermuda ($18 a yard in those days!), Gutcheon and Jinny Beyer cottons, cottons from the Dutch East Indies, Italy, India, and Japan, cottons from our travels in the Bahamas and down through the Islands, cottons from the 2000s after we came back to Florida - such a treasure trove of memories.  I had begun the quilt in 1992 and actually put the cut out pieces and finished blocks away in storage while we lived on the boat.  The bag of pieces would be gotten out occasionally and new pieces added over the years until finally this spring I finished piecing the front, pulled out some large pieces of Liberty tana cotton for the backing, and began to quilt it.  I got it out a week ago Monday and began to hand quilt it, working from 9am to 5pm (with time off for lunch and other necessary house cleaning and cooking chores) pretty much every day through Saturday - then bound it on Sunday - what a joy to see it completed!!

Do you have any UFOs (unfinished objects) in your studio or packed away?  What a wonderful feeling it is to finish one (or two or three or ?)!

Hope your day is filled with joy and abundance!
Chris