Miscellaneous

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My father painted this 'birch' tree in a corner of our living room, probably about 1960. It's still there, and every year at Christmas time I hang cross-stitch ornaments all over it, and put up a montage made from Christmas cards in front of it.

The faces in this jewelry were made from oven-bake clay in August of 2000. I laid out flat layers of clay to make a face (Roj Blake of Blake's 7 - British TV series) then rolled the layers into a thin 'cane', before I sliced off slivers and made them into beads, cabochons & button covers. They are distorted, but he's still recognizable on most of the beads.

This is a flag made for a friend who wanted something to make her house easily identifiable when her science fiction club met there. The peaceful alien was inspired by a similar one I saw on a printed calico fabric which I had used in the background of a small wall-hanging quilt and in the necktie of Fox Mulder (media-bear). The flag is made of ripstop nylon sewn on the background and then the background is cut away so you can see the image from either side, in reverse, but that doesn't matter in this case.

These two rugs are latch-hooked with heavy rug yarn on a mesh fabric. This one is based on the Log Cabin quilt block, used in a Streak of Lightning setting. It always amazes me how scraps of rather boring yarns or fabrics can become quite cheerful when grouped. 'Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations' as Mr. Spock would say. I bet you never knew he was a quilter.

This rug is based on the Picket Fence quilt pattern. If you are careful enough about using light colors on one pair of diagonally opposite corners, and dark colors of the other diagonal opposite (and don't mix up which is which in any of the blocks) and medium intensity colors in the middle pair of the 6 'pickets' that make up a block, a secondary pattern of 4-pointed stars and 4-armed pinwheels forms. I wasn't as careful as I should have been, because I had limited colors in my scrap yarn bag, so there is one red patch next to an orange patch of near equal intensity. Oh, well, in every quilt there is supposed to be a deliberate flaw to show that you are humble and not claiming to god-like perfection. I've never had to put in a deliberate flaw. I make enough mistakes accidentally.

Ivy was a topiary plant with a metal globe on top, which was supposed to be trained into a formal style. Formal? Moi? I added a metal crossbar bent to form arms and slowly trained her to be a person all her own. She had chenille bees for eyes, and on holidays she got dressed up (I think this was her Easter outfit, wish I had a photo of her in her Halloween outfit- she had fangs, and little skeletons for earrings.) Ivy lived for years, growing more beautiful and self-assured every day. I was training her to grow fingers when an unexpected cold snap hit (we live in South Florida where the weathermen do not like to say it's going to be cold) and the cold transmitted through the glass of the window she was touching killed her. Alas, poor Ivy, we shall not see her like again.

I found a few photos of Ivy at Halloween. She's got blue parrots for earrings, though, so this must have been taken before she put on her skeleton earrings. Still you can see her fangs, centipede eyebrows, and ghosts in her spanish moss hair as she prepares to have a nice crunchy snack. And below she takes pride of place on the Halloween snack table.

Dayna tried to help me manicure Ivy.

She was pointing out any bits I missed.