pine needle basket #3

Just finished this pine needle basket. I tried a different stitch and it was working until I got further apart with the stitches. The needles began sticking out more and more. So I changed stitches to an X. Parts of it look better than others, but I really like the base that I found online.

Pine needle bowl

I just finished my second pine needle basket - I think it is really a bowl. Read in a booklet that one could finish them with Mod Podge, so I tried it. REALLY SMELLY!!!! But it made the bowl very sturdy. Now all I need to do is figure out how to make them perfectly round.

wedding ring quilt

Getting ready to do some quilting.

Didn't work ....have to take my machine in to be fixed :(

Now I find out it was the thread-cannot use cotton to do free motion quilting, have to use polyester.

2015 project

In 2015, I made this soft book with the contributions from a few friends. We made a list of things and each person took a few and made blocks. I filled in some things to add and turned it into a book rather than a quilt.

Where I've been
What I like
Things I've done

1949 to 1969- names of places I lived (towns, streets)

Pansies and cats

Photography
1970's- 1980's - places (towns, streets)

Aikido
I like to read SiFi and fantasy

Chocolate
Marriage

Artists I like
Bellydancing (did it for a few years)

Italy (Lived there for a year)
Redwoods, California poppies

Massage therapist
spinning, weaving, crochet

Quilting and Sewing

1990's onward (countries, states)
genealogy

Acupuncture
Who contributed

Memories

Memories of nature

Age 5: Lindsey, California - Living in a house in the middle of an orange orchard with winter smudge pots.

Age 8: San Jose, California - Climbing my grandmother’s walnut tree and (Santa Cruz mountains) summer with a grandparents in the redwoods, a swing hung between two giant redwood trees, mornings in an open kitchen draped with a tarp whenever it rained. 
Age 15: San Jose, California - Walking to school under old gnarled live oaks that caused large cracks in the sidewalks. Picking up fallen figs in our backyard, fallen almonds at grandparents, eating grapes and avocado’s from grandparents’ yard.

Age 20: Los Angeles, California - Trying to learn to meditate in college at UCLA under some pine trees while people commented as they walked past me.

Age 27: Different trees, landscapes, ice, as we drive across country for the first time heading for Florida.

 Age 30: Formia, Italy - Orchard of olive trees surrounding the apartment buildings with Vesuvius and Ishcia in the distance.

 Age 35: Chesapeake, Virginia - Learning Ikebana with flowers from the yard and fallen branches. The Great Dismal Swamp, mosquitoes and snakes in the yard. Azaleas and  FIREFLIES!!!!

Age 48: Columbia, Maryland - Making a diary of the seasonal changes – light green leaves appear turning darker then into yellow, orange and red before falling to the ground. How the color raises from bottom to top and then down.

Age 56: Columbia, Maryland - The leaves falling just before our move and glad I did not have to rake again.

Age 63: Coos bay, Oregon - Walking the long driveway in different seasons. Watching as the trees sway in the wind and wondering which of the fragile alders’ widow makers will fall in the next big storm.

Age 70: Remembering the smell of the redwoods and watching the ones we planted grow taller each year. Noticing how quickly the seasons change and the years go by…

Fog

FOG

Fragile strands rise from the sea

Reflecting the union of earth and sky

The delicate touch, a shroud of mist

Crawling through trees, alder and fir

Around all hills and not very high

It follows the waterways wherever they go

Dew collects on nets of silk

Sparkling brightly from as the sun rises high

The blanket recoils in the heat of the day

The haze dissipates and fades away

Just so it can come another day