It's looking like it will be 70's and sunny for our holiday weekend! I hope you have a great weekend, and remember those who have sacrificed to give us the freedoms we enjoy in America!

Most of my sewing lately has been re-run card designs, so I haven't had anything new to put on here...I dug into the archives again and found a picture of a Kindle bag I made a couple of years ago. It has Timtex interfacing for stiffener, and thread painted flowers.

It's been quite the winter around here, but it is finally coming to an end...We reached 60 degrees for the first time yesterday, and had no frost for the first time at our house last night. Still waiting for leaves, and still 3 foot snowbanks along the edge of our road, 6 feet at the corner of some driveways... Now they are saying 70's over the weekend, it's going to be a little hard to sew....I'll have to do a bit though, tourist season is here!

Today I was playing with silk screening a negative image instead of a positive. Birch trees work well for that since they are supposed to be light colored.. I then continued the stitching above and below the print to complete the trees.
I also tried silk screening on a pieced background. I did have to touch those up in a few places, but it worked pretty well, and will open up lots of possibilities! (another pillow top, see yesterday's post:-))

Watching it snow on May 17 gave me the urge to make some bright flowers! I had recently been given a bag of fabric scraps by a friend, which included several quilt blocks and pillow tops. I turned one of the pillow tops into 9 cards. I just cut out a rectangle, added a solid square, some quilting, and a thread sketched flower. I always cut my initial rectangle a bit large, so I can trim it to size and re-square it after all the stitching is done.
I wanted to do straight line quilting, but I don't have a walking foot, so I knew I had two other options. Using a regular straight stitch foot wasn't one of them, the fabric creeps too much. One option is to use the straight stitch foot, but put a piece of card stock under the edge of the foot and sew along next to it. This works great, but is a little tedious. The second option is to use a free motion foot, which is what I did. The foot doesn't press down on the fabric, so no creeping. The drawback here is that it's harder to make a straight line:-) Fortunately, if it's a bit wobbly it doesn't bother me:-) For really nice straight line quilting, there's really no substitute for a walking foot!
I also played around with some different methods of filling the petals, some straight lines and some squiggles, I think I like them both:-)

Screen printing doesn't always go as planned...sometimes you end up with a Pinocchio moose:-) If the ink crawls under the edge of the screen, there's nothing to do but thoroughly wash the screen and start over...

The birds are back, which means it's time for me to try to get pictures again. I was definitely not cut out to be a wildlife photographer, to do it well requires too much patience and willingness to sit in cold swamps and things....But there was a pair of swans on a pond near my house, with a parking spot even, so I made another attempt. I had a nice, sunny spot, so no sitting in swamps...The next challenge is to get them when they are not feeding or sleeping, or just in some really weird position...

They usually look like this...

or this...

It was also a little too bright out, but luckily I usually just need the shape of the bird to use in my quilts, so I think I got a few that should work. I'll leave the fancy stuff to Mark "Sparky" Stensaas...http://www.sparkyphotos.com/

The good news is, I have a new computer, and we seem to have recovered all of our files, which is huge for me. I always say my entire brain is on the computer:-) The bad news is the new computer has Windows 8, which is pretty much like learning a new language. I'm very glad to have a 13 year old boy who can figure that stuff out quickly and teach me:-)
The picture is a birthday card I made recently, trying shadows....

Well, the new computer is here, but there's nothing on it yet, hopefully I'll be back in business soon!

We're having the winter that won't end here in Alaska...I actually went skiing yesterday, on a lake even, and today we're getting more snow. I've been having lots of techology problems, which is making it hard to keep up on my blog...I think a new computer is going to have to happen soon!
This is a birthday card that I made for a friend who is a retired Alaskan sheep biologist, it was fun to make!