Category Archives: Mayan – Monkey Dancer

Childhood Memories, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Mayan - Monkey Dancer, Mayan- Turtle Dancer, Squares a Dancing, Textile Artist Stitch Club, Thoth

Smoky Fall

Hello,
It is a gray and cloudy day here with the smoke from western fires mixed in our air.     I am not complaining – I am just surprised at how far the smoke has traveled.    My sympathy goes out to the folks in the fire area .    The  burning   wildfires continue to bather me.   I want to make a third quilt noting these destructive events .     I tried to dye, reds, oranges, yellows and blacks  last Friday with that in mind. I was not successful! I am not sure exactly why, but Liz did mix lots of new dye last time. Hopefully tomorrow when we dye again I will get what I want and can start the work.

 

 

 

 

Textile Artists Stitch Club started a new assignment on Saturday with Clarissa Calksen. She showed us how she creates potatoes and puffs and how she suggests we assemble them. I am still building my forms and I have yet to embellish them. I seem to be working slowly on this new project, but I really like the challenge.

The Pixies had a meeting this week and we are going to continue to work with crows. My flags were a success.
FAB also had a Zoom meeting and it was stimulating.

Progress Report: Monkey Dancer- Mayan Series This piece is 21.5″ X 23.5″. This series continues to fascinate me

Golden Garden    This work is 38″ X 49″.       It is made completely from fabrics   I have altered in some way.   Some I did with Liz an some in the QBL class in the summer of 2019.  There is silk folded dyeing, silk screen, direct painting and a bit of shobori in this one.

 

 

 

I am enjoying using my fabrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turtle Dancer- Mayan Series I finished cutting and placing all the parts for this work yesterday. Now I need to begin the outlining in black.

 

 

 

 

Green on Green I finished assembling  and quilting on this work  this week . I am ready to do the hand work of stitching down the binding now.

 

Squares a Dancing. I finished seven more of these fellows this week I now have 168 done. I also cut into 5 inch squares the last pair of Eric’s pants.   With these last squares, I   thinks I am nearing the end of this project.

 

 

Wool Rug     The work is 29″ X 36″ . This project is now on the floor in the entry to the studio.   It is made from wool scraps form shirts and extra’s from a jacket.    Lots of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Thoth  Pillow       I finished this pillow this week too.  I like to make a form and stuff it with the extra batting that I cut away from projects.   That is what this one is full of.   I made the stencil  of Thoth  for a quilt that I did for my husbands  office   years ago.   The quilt is hanging in the living room now.

 

 

Childhood Memories: Grandpa Merritt’s Domain

    Grandfather Merritt was a farmer who used diversity to make himself successful.    He was a short  round man, who wore a straw hat in summer and a felt hat in winter.  The only time one did not see him in a hat was indoors or on Sundays at church.   He had the perfect farmer  tan.   For work days he wore a blue shirt and blue and white striped  Oshkosh Bygosh bib overalls.   Sunday was a brown suit, white shirt and tie.      We went to church on Sunday morning and came home for  lunch and a quiet afternoon, that often included a nap with an occasional Bible story  from   Grandmother’s  Bible story book for  Children. The “Blue laws”meant that nothing was open any way.  We then went back  to Church for the evening service .   Grandpa raised a variety of live stock and the land beyond the door yard, with the exception of the chicken yard was his kingdom.    He did visit the chicken yard when, he cleaned the manure  out  of the chicken house and when he chopped off the heads of chickens for our chicken  dinners .      The barn  yard surrounded the house on three sides and the  forth side was the road.   Next to the house on the south was the two bay garage.    A turquoise blue ford occupied the first bay and Grandpa’s green ford pickup occupied the other.  There were windows along the back of the garage with a work bench under them. There was also a set of stairs that lead up to the top of the garage were lumber was stored.   Farmers have to be able to repair machinery so he often had odd stuff on that work bench.   Grandfather used lots of bailing wire to “fix” stuff too.

    Beyond the garage and across a gated lane was the sheep shed and a small pasture. I remember one spring job for Dad and Grandpa, was to sheered the sheep. Gene and I had a job too and that, with the help of Snookie- a white maxed breed dog, was to separate the lambs and move them to the barn yard. Snookie could also cut out one ewe at a time and herd it into the pen for shearing. Dad and Grandpa would select a ewe and after turning it over would tuck it’s head  under and between their legs  to hold it still. They then would begin shearing  at the throat,   and cut the wool as close to the body as they could down to the flank of the ewe. They slowly turned the animal as they worked from top to bottom until they reached the other side. Keeping the fleece in one big piece was the goal. When they were done shearing they released the ewe into the farm  yard to find their lamb again. There was lots of bleating. Grandfather put a tight rubber band on all the lambs tails when they were born. That rubber band cut off the blood circulation and the tails would eventually fall off. This was done for sanitary reasons. As the shed and pasture emptied. Gene and I would collect all the lambs tails. After shearing 75 ewes, both Dad and Grandpa always had blisters at the end of the day even though they traded the electrical shears and hand powered ones back and forth. Snookie, Gene and I heard all the sheep back into their pasture and barn when the shearing was done. It was a full days job.

Stay safe

Keep Creating

Carol

 

Childhood Memories, Flag Challenge, Mayan - Monkey Dancer

Beginning Fall

Hello-
Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of fall.  I see a few Box Elder and Wall Nut leaves drifting down on my walks this week so I see deviance of  fall’s approach.   I love the changes but there are still lots of flowers blooming and there is color every were.

I did make a button necklace for my friend Chris to celebrate her 75 Birthday.  There are 75 buttons on this necklace.  that was the challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

This week was quiet as there was no assignment from Textile Artist Stitch Club and Liz and I  are going to dye tomorrow. I had two Zoom meetings and they are fun but no images of others work comes from those experiences. Susan did challenged us to make flags this week using Robert’s crows shots. This is my solution. I enjoyed it and they are up on the studio now.

Progress Report- Wool Birds I finished this little piece this week. It is 20.5″ X 21.5″. It was a jump off from Susan’s Birds a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monkey Dancer-Mayan Series I am doing the quilting on this work now. It is moving slowly along.

 

 

 

 

 

Bunk Bed 1-I have finished assembling the first of these quilts. It is ready for quilting and the finishing of the binding.

 

 

Green on Green. It is an assembled top now. I think it will become one of the quilts that I donate to the nursing home for folks in wheel chairs.

 

 

 

 

Wool Rug I could not get the oval rug to do anything I was happy with so I started again. I am trying another approach were I am working on a squared format.

 

Squares a Dancing There are 161 completed squares now. In my cleaning yesterday I discovered another pair of pants to cut into squares so the end is still a ways off.

 

 

 

Childhood Memories – Farm Summer 4
Many evenings after supper Gene and I would play a game we called “Over the Mountain”. We would go to the garage, a stand alone building. While standing on opposite sides of the building, we would throw a ball over the garage after “Yodeling “. If one caught the ball then, one would run around the garage trying th surprise the other person and throw the ball to hit them. If you caught the ball the throw was worth 2 points and if it hit you, or you dropped the ball it was a negative point. We played that game until the grandparents got new aluminum siding.
There was an old Poplar tree in the back of door yard. There was a great swing hanging from it and we all had a good time swinging there. The one spring the tree was struck by lighting and had to come down. I think our youngest cousin, Mike missed the swing the most.
The house was five miles from town and the view north was across a very flat landscape. On summer night one could see the street lights out the front room on the second floor. Mom and Dad usually slept in that room. Gene took the middle room and I slept on the sleeping poach on the east end on the second floor of the house. It had three windows on three sides. The bed had a brown metal head board that had a flowers painted on the center panel. There was a chest of drawers with all the leftovers from Grandmothers dress making in it. I loved looking through those scraps. Some times I even got to take one of the rolls and make a dress for my Betsy Mc Call with it. I especially love one bit of scarp that had a purple pussy willow print. I made my dolly a K amino with that and I still think it is among the doll clothes in the doll chest. One could hear the windmill turning on nights when there was a breeze. I could also hear the sounds of the hogs as they opened and closed the grain dispenser as they were aluminum and dropped with a distinct sound. Some nights it was very hot with out any wind and Grandfather would sleep out on the picnic table under my north windows. If it was very quiet one could hear the sliding squeak of the corn as it unfurled in its growing process too. There were also crickets and cicada in late summer. Many nights I fell asleep to the sounds of summer there.
In late summer Grandmother’s Gladiolas would bloom. She was always proud when that happened, and took them to Church were they were put in the big vases on both sides of the choir in the front church just behind the pulped.
I helped Grandmother with the laundry sometimes. The lines were quite long and they hung down low, especially with the weight of the wet laundry. But Grandfather had set up two ten foot long 2″ X 2″ boards that he had added a screw eye to at the top of. . He had run the lines through the screw eyes. This meant that one could lower the lines so one could hang the cloths and when one was done, the polls were razed and that pulled the lines up and the wet clothing too. They really flapped in the breeze and one could walk under them as well.
The year that Mom graduated from Greeley and I was ready to begin my seventh grade, Grandmother Ester was fed up with my hair and took me to the hair dresser. She went every month and her hair really was that old lady blue with lots of tight curls that were popular at that time. The shop was in a fellow farmers house and consisted of as sink, a hair drying chair, a chair like in the barber shop and several chairs for others. There were lots of women’s magazines there too. I got a pixie cut and the care of my hair was a lot easier- even I could comb it out. Mom was not at all happy with my appearances when she first saw me. “Thank goodness it will grow back,” she said.

Take care

Keep creating

Carol

Childhood Memories, Mayan - Monkey Dancer, Mayan- Turtle Dancer, Squares a Dancing, Textile Artist Stitch Club, Thread Painting

Lake Visit

 

Hello-
Summer is winding down and I see signs of fall around here. When we went for our second trip to Mill Site late last week, we saw many trees starting to color. The second Treadle Sewing machine went to a second family and they were very grateful. It is good to pass things forward. Judy has been working away on her piecing.
That is the part she enjoys the most and she had two projects. This one with little pink squares and a second in shades of blue. She and Nancy spent a peasant morning arranging the squares for that project.

Liz ans I dyed today. We had a good time as it has been a long times sense we did any of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed my Textile Artists Stitch Class from last week with Anne Kelly. The project was a book of memorable experiences or trips. I did mine on the trip to Australia that I took with Wendy last Nov.
Page one is of a Pygmy Penguin. That was a cold and enjoyable evening.

 

 

The second is a Koala. We visited three parks were they were on display and we even got to hold one.

 

 


Then I could not forget to honor the dive day on the Great Barrier Reef. The water was so pleasant and the sights so wonderful.

 

The last page was my celebration of the ocean and the wonderful time we had.

 

 

 

Then this weeks Textile Artist Stitch Club teacher was Allish Henderson. She had a do a portrait collage on hand made paper and with free motion drawing. And easy thing for me with all my work for the childhood series.

 

 

 

Progress Report: Golden Earth I am done assembling this base. It has lots of my hand dyed fabric in it. Now I need to do the top work and finish it

 

 

 

 

Wool Birds I am almost done quilting on this project. It is fun and simple.

 

 

 

Monkey Dancer- Mayan Series Last evening I finished the outlining of appliqued parts of this work. I will start the quilting soon

 

 

Turtle Dancer- Mayan Series I have only drawn this work and need to enlarge it and start the pieces.

 

 

 

 

Laura’s Blue Birds I made these little Eastern Blue Birds for my friend Laura. She liked my Bee shirt and said she too had a short that needed spots covered. I will trim them up and send them in the next day or two.

 

 

 

Bunk Bed quilt 1 I am putting the boarders on this quilt now. It is a Christmas present so I have lots of time. I will make a second that is very slimier for the other bed. Then the twins will have a set.

Wool Rug This is a pure experiment. Liz got me started on it when she showed me the tool she had purchased to roll the fabric. I thought it looked remarkable like a belt buckle and went home and found one . The matched and I was off and running.

 

 

I followed the instruction and created a monster of a ball of the wool. Note the red buckle.

 

 

 

 

I started to assemble it yesterday. It is slow work and I had to improvise the ends as they were wadding up. Good thing this is not going out into the world.

 

 

 

 

Masks Eric wanted a new mask without a tie in the back so I tried a new design. I will make a few more as I fear that we will be wearing them a while.

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New Green    I started a new top using lots of the greens I had hand dyed.  It is very early in the process.

 

 

 

 

 

Squares a Dancing    I finished 21 squares in the last two weeks.  I am still enjoying the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Childhood- McElhinny Farm Summer 3
Spending time on the farm meant Gene and I had to find or create our own fun. We spent a lot of time playing in the creek in the east meadow. I learn one summer about the effects of fertilizer runoff from the farms up stream, as that caused a algae bloom in the creek water way. Sure made for a sluggish flow. The only place in the creek that it did not grow was in the pools under the trees where the cattle often stood in the afternoons to cool off. Gene and I would waded in and used sticks to haul out big clumps of the green stuff. We piled it on the rocks on the shore where it looked like green and gray laundry drying there. I was always amazed at how small the piles had become when we went back to the creek a few days late and all the water had drained out.
On the farm north of Grandmother’s farm and across the gravel road lived the Cumming family. It consisted of three folks, Holt, Lillian and Sue. Some afternoons and after a call from Grandmother, Gene and I would walk up the road to join Sue in some play. They had an old plow horse that we would ride bare back. The horse was named Ginny. Sue would set in the front follow by myself and Gene was the last. When Ginny had enough of our foolishness she would run across the pasture and down a gully, quickly charging up the other side. We would all slide forward on the down plunge onto the horses neck and just a quickly, slide backward and off Ginny’s rump. Gene always landed on the bottom with Sue and myself on top him. Ginny would gallop away and that was the end of that game. On one trip down to the Cummings we spent the afternoon making sorghum. With the plants in old grain bags we beat the bags on the steps to remove the seed from the tops of the staffs. Then the seeds went into a hoper and were grown down a bit before they were cooked. We never got to taste the fruits of that afternoon, but we still had a good time. There was yet another farm with kids farther north of the Cummings. Buddy was the oldest in that bunch and he was a year older then Sue. Sometimes we were all together and playing. One of our games that was strictly a farm kid game, was played only when the corn was tall, it was called “ Halls and Doors”. We would go out in the field and space our selves at the end of a row- a hall and then quickly run down between the rows all counting to ten as fast as we could. When one reached 10- we called “Doors!” and then everyone had to change rows and begin to count again. If one caught up to a fellow runner in the field and tagged them, the person tagged had to stop and count to twenty before they could move again while the rest of the folks went forward. The goal was to get to the end of the field first. This game has disappeared because the new improved corn plants can be plated much closer together and there are no more “Doors” wide enough to pass through in the fields. One time while we were in the south meadow of the Cummings farm we were all climbing trees. Buddy was showing off and making his sway back and forth. He lost his grip and fell to the ground braking his right arm. It was a very clean break and it looked like he had a second wrist. He yelled and cried all the way back to the house with the rest if use following. Lillian bundled him into the car and we all went home. Buddy proudly showed off his cast at church on Sunday the next time we saw him.

Enjoy fall and all it means to you.

Stay safe and be creative

Carol

Childhood Memories, Flag Challenge, Mayan - Monkey Dancer, Textile Artist Stitch Club

Tomatoes

1 Comment

Hello,
I sure am enjoying the wonders of summer. I do not grow tomatoes as the squirrels always take a bit out before I harvest, but my friend Betty and her husband Dave do and they kindly share.

 

I spent a day with Liz and her neighbor and we did Shobori in Black. The tee shirts came out great.   My dyed stuff is  in the washer at the moment.
Julie Booth was the instructor for the Textile Artist stitch club this week. We are only working with the blanket stitch this week in black and white. We all drew numbers and used her chart to determine our parameters. Mine Format was circular with the layout to be scattered with thick lines that were jagged. I am still working on this one.

 

Progress Report: Golden Garden This work is 32.5″ X 45.5″ . I added the buttons to the center of the applique yellow circles at the end of the week before finishing it.  All  the   base fabrics but one are   ones . I hand altered in some fashion.     

 

Many are from different classes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monkey Priest Mayan Dancer Series   

I am making slow progress on this fellow.   I also decided to call these new ones dancers because of the new background fabric.

 

 

 

Flag Play Susan challenged us to do flags this week. I decided to do the work on interfacing and draw/paint with water soluble crayons and pencils as I have never really explored these before. I am learning a new skill and I like the little challenge.

New work After finishing Golden Garden I am moving onto a new piece here.  The birds are wool with a felted chest of white.

 

 

 

Squares a Dancing I now have 126 square for this project. I am still coming up with different ways to develop circular patterns

 

 

 

 

 

Childhood Memories-  The McElhinney Farm  II

The garden was as imports for the successful running of the farm as the animals and field s were.  Grandmother Ester loved Zinnia’s and always grew then from seeds of the previous years flowers at the east end of the garden. It was fertilizer ed with manure form the chicken house so the garden was always bountiful. Grandmother grew two species of tomatoes- reds and golden ones. She said the golden ones were less acid. Another memory of food was summer of lunches. Grandmother told us in the morning if we were going to have corn for lunch so when she rang the big bell mounted on the gate post in the door yard we knew what to do. You could hear the bell from a long way off and we would come running to the machine shed. Behind the shed was the corn field . Grandfather Merit planted seed corn in the first eight rows to fool the raccoons and it worked. We knew to go into the field and count eight rows in before we started picking. We were to pick as many ears as we wanted plus one for Grandmother and two for Grandfather. We then shucked the corn and carried it back to the house. After handing our corn to Grandmother were she put it in the boiling water. We went to the basement to wash up and then returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table. The lunch was the fresh corn with as much butter as one wanted along with as many tomatoes and ice tea too. It was great and it is still one of my favorite summer lunches. She also grew beans, peas and onions as well as other vegetables..
I really did not have choirs at the farm but I was often asked to gather eggs. I did not mind that job too much with the exception of one hen. I though of her as the “Mean Pecker” because she always peck my hand when I slipped it under her to get the egg. I often skipped her nest and let grandmother get extra eggs from her the next day. Grandmother’s egg money went for fabric and other extra’s she wanted.
Bailing hay was a big event at the farm, Grandfather would watch the weather and when conditions were right he would cut the clover. After it had dried it was raked into rows and the neighboring framers showed up. They came with their trackers and hay wagons and the many jobs were divided up. Gene and I always wanted to help. They never seemed to find a job for me and I was sent back and forth from the field to the barn and back again before I was told to go help Grandmother. I was in tears when I got to the house” Gene is littler and younger and they let him help,” I lamented. Grandmother gently explained to me that it was a case of the men not feeling that they relieve themselves without embarrassment.
I remember when the phone line was added to the McElhinny Farm. It was a party line and their ring was two longs and a short. But one also heard all the other rings when the line was in use. I was a bit scandalized one day when I came in to find Grandmother listening to a neighbors conversation. Dad pulled me aside and we a talk about being judgmental of others . He told me to think of two reasons why she might do that and then empathized with why a person might be doing an action before I judged their actions. That idea of thinking of the reasoning for actions of others, served me well through out my life.

I will be away next week on Thursday so there will be no entry  as I am off to deliver a treadle sewing machine to an Amish family.

Keep Creating

Carol