Spring Seeds

As I was driving into town today, the car's thermometer read twenty-two degrees below zero.  That's a pretty normal temp hereabouts, but even here it is a bit TOO cold for the end of March!  It amazes me sometimes, the optimism that it takes in order to build fires against -22 degrees while at the same time planning for putting seeds into the ground to grow in a mere two month's time.

On Sunday, I went to a seed swapping bruch at Maple and Me's.  You can admire my valiant restraint as you notice that I only came home with 7 packets of seeds!  I should have expected such a thing.  Faced with a table full of so many varieties of unprouted plant live, so many different beautifully manifesting hopes for the future, my "I'm not going to plant anything this year except perrenials" somehow evaporated...  You see, this summer season is about the deep preparation that will support the next few decades on our land: pigs, pastures, perrenials, prep.... and now peas!  Peas give fix nitrogen into poor soils and can be direct-seeded even this far north.  And they're yummy.  And fairly simple to grow as I recall.  So that justifies two of these seed packets.

Another three are flower seeds from a dear friend's garden in Junea (she just happen's to Maple & Me's mother): primroses, day lillies, and blue poppies.

The other two packets I managed to come home with are some beets from Pingo Farm, a local farm that has been breeding vegetable strains from Russian seed stock to do well in our Zone 1 climate.  They have sweet peppers and cantelope and watermelon and tomatoes too!!!!  Next year.  Next year.  Not this year. 

And I also brought home 9 summer squash seeds.  Assuming a 100% germination rate, that's perfect for three mounds, which can be placed away from the pig pen/garden to be, and only require hauling in a pickup truck full of topsoil and/or manure - I'll use the rest to get going on the flower bed by the house.  These ones I will start in the house just as soon as I remember to stop by a gardening shop for some good soil.  Squash plants in the 4-5 inch range transplanted in late may do well, I'm told.  We have one more year's subscription to Calypso's CSA veggie share for this summer - thanks mom! But I find that we never get enough summer squash for the mounded dinner plate full I crave once or twice a summer.  Besides which, the freeze well and are great in winter soups.

So that's the story of why I broke down and brought home seeds.  That, and despite my place-my-energy-into-prep-work-it-will-pay-off-down-the -road intentions, I really can't quite imagine a summer without something growing which means that I'll likely pick up parsley and calendula and cilantro seeds along with that soil.

In other news, hiding down here at the bottom of the post where the Darlin'Man is least likely to notice it:

There are three birthdays in my family within the next month, so I've been busily contemplating all the things I will make.  And then last night I sat down and put a dent in my man's gift.  Though, I am a little concerned that I'm losing what little hipster cred I have by opting for nicely, perhaps even traditionally, sized cross stitches as opposed to the oversized one that are popular on design blogs. 

The Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap

Last year, I ran across someone in the blogosphere who had been a part of the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap. 

 

It looked like a whole lot of fun, and like a really low-pressure but motivating way to play around with the sort of art-quilting that I am always reading about and oohing and ahhing over in Art Quilting magazine.  I read- by which I mean oogle- the magazine every month since Interweave substituted my unfortunately-now-defunct-FiberArts subscription for Art Quilting.  I see projects and think to myself  "I could TOTALLY do that."  But I never do.  And prior to the other day, I hadn't ever really done any work with appliqué or raw edge fabric or fusible interfacing or or or...  Patchwork and embroidery, but both separately.  So I was psyched to come across the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap, which would give me the reason, the motivation, and a supportive community to play with a new medium.  So sometime last year, probably around this time, I signed up to be notified of the next one.  I'd almost given up on it happening again when the time came around this year.  It totally lived up to my expectations!  It was super fun and inspiring.   We were matched up with a partner somewhere in the world with whom to swap postcards.  My post-pal Kylie, lives in Australia and has a beautiful art blog
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The theme this year was "Discover."  I tossed around a number of ideas, I chatted with my Darlin' Man about maybe using birch bark... he was a fan of the idea of doing a birch bark canoe in birch bark on my postcard.  I suggested that maybe he would like to join the swap and do that card himself as I had something else in mind.  For some reason he wasn't super-psyched about that idea.  I decided that I wanted to explore "Discover" on an interior and spiritual level.  It is what I spent a month doing this summer after all!

 

I have prayer flags along the roof line on the upstairs porch that I see out of my bedroom window.  I was noticing them one day, and remembered the stash of worn prayer flags that I have in a trunk in my studio.  I've had prayer flags constantly up at every house that I've lived in for the past 7 years or so.  When the colors get really faded I replace them, and have been keeping the faded flags for an art quilt of some nature.  The current ones on my porch are the first ones that I have had actually disintegrate, the threads dispersing prayers on the wind.  So I decided that I would use a flag as the base layer for my postcard quilt. 

I started thinking about other spiritual depth and discovery associations, and came up with the idea of the skeletal leaf, the hills, and the spiral.  I dug through my stash to find evocative fabrics, working with the theme of this deep and creative blue.  I've been doing dreamwork and analysis the last few months as well, and am working with images of vibrant red and deep electric blue dragons and lizzards from a series of dreams.  So I figured I would explore within that blue color palate...   The diagonal strips are from an old pair of thai fisherman's pants that were made from recycled saris, the purple and gold brocade is from a bag of scraps I picked up somewhere, as is the middle hill.  The patterned cotton cloth is from my stash :-)  I used a bit of a variegated novelty yarn from a prior weaving project as a bit of trim and glitter.

 





I was so pleased with myself for figuring out how to free-motion embroider on my vintage sewing machine (see below), and I quilted the layers together with a variegated sewing thread.  You can just barely see where I free-motion embroidered "Discover" in the center of the quilt.  And then on top of the hills, there's a shape that reminds me of the red rock formations of Navajo land.  It was a happy accident, as it came from sewing under and between the writing spaces on the back...  But is very fitting and appropriate and really felt like it finished the peice...

I feel like I've discovered a whole new medium, and am really looking forward to exploring what I can do with cloth and thread...  and embroidery. 

 

I was more than a week late with sending out my postcard, so I mailed it with some Alaskan goodness to my swap pal in Australia....

 

 

 

 

 

And just for a bit of shameless bragging, I would like to call your attention to this lovely vintage Sears sewing machine that has served me for a a few years now.   I found her (for free!) at the transfer site.  And, her gears are all real metal, not plastic!

Challenges...

Well, this letter writing challenge may have been a bust from a perspective of the number of peices of mail I sent out.  But I'm ok with that.  Because I habitually write letters anyway.  And I love writing long gossipy thought provoking pondering missives, which sometimes take a few days to compose.

I also don't mind because while I may have only sent out 13 letters instead of 24, and while many of them were sent out ingroups of three and four at a time, rather than one every day; the challenge got me to dig out my valise of paper crafting supplies and make some cards, valentines and otherwise. 

The block prints are cut out of my calendars for the last two years, so are NOT my original artwork.  But the pasting and stitchery and bits of paint are mine.  I made a card for my sister last year out of a knitting block print on hand made paper, with multi-colored stitching and buttons and beads and things.  I keep meaning to make more.  And now I have.  I like the idea of the block prints though, and think that I may just have to learn how to carve prints (I'm sure its easier than I've built it up in my mind to be), so that I can do this style of original cards to sell at market.  The bottom left card is from the inside of a Yogi tea box, and the pink scrap is the wrapping paper that rose soap comes in.  The pressed flowers are from the river bank.

And, I became intimate with my mailbox.  Because I have one.  Not a PO Box, a real mail box!  You know, the metal kind, with the little red flag...  It may be two miles away, but its wonderful.  And I learned that the mailman will pick things up out of it, so I no longer have to remember to stop by a blue drop box in town.

In addition to the previously mentioned letters, I have written to my Grandmother in Texas, and to a(nother) good friend in New York. 

I also recieved the dearest letter from Mary Robinson Kowal, the founder of the month of letters, enclosing a bit of brown ribbon saved from her wedding 10 years ago.  I will have to make something lovely out of it, and pass the love along. 

I'm not sure that a daily challenge, or even a weekly one fits my life or my blog right now, but I did enjoy the oomph the challenge gave me to do some things...  And I'm thinking maybe, a MONTHLY challenge?  Well, that just might be something that would fit in well.... stay tuned!