suitable for valentine's day

"How NOT to Mend a Broken Heart" was given 2nd honors in the Breaking Traditions exhibit at the American Sewing Expo in Michigan at the end of September. It was an experiment on the theme of "Connections," and I felt good when I finished it.

17"W x 24"H
commercial fabrics and findings; machine quilted; hand embellished.

Statement: Chocolate is buttons, flowers are safety pins, jewelry is a zipper, a trip to new places tries to lace the pieces. More gifts provide snaps and clips, the connections mechanical and uncertain. What can truly restore the fabric of a heart pierced and broken by another heart, disconnected from what it loves?
$500

ducks

These ducks on the Hudson River in Nyack, New York, did their familiar quacking when I was watching them, but then they all started whistling and chirping. That's what the one duck with his raised beak is doing. I don't speak Duck, so I don't know what they were telling me or each other. Interesting how we are able to understand our own species's different languages but haven't figured out how to learn those in the animal world. Just what is my cat telling me when he stares and stares at me and gets impatient when I don't get it?!

appalachian mountains

The sunset from a high place called Jump Off Rock, above Hendersonville, North Carolina, started out like this: hazy, filmy, soft.













It ended with this just a few minutes later:





And, of course I'm thinking, How do I re-create that with fabric and thread?

manipulating the land

From the top of the tallest of the Etowah Indian Mounds in Georgia is this view: The top of the mound, which was built about 1000 years ago out of the soil in the area; Central Pivot Irrigation system to provide water to the crops currently grown below the mound; Plant Bowen (largest coal-fired power plant in the southeast), off on the horizon. Each of these elements is an example of how humans have been doing things to their environment for as long as they have lived on this world. Manipulations not readily seen in this image include houses, visitor center, roads, fences, plantings, parking lots, electric/phone lines. . .use your imagination for the rest.

tile floor

Union Station in Montgomery, Alabama, is now the visitor center for the city. It had been the major train station there, built in 1897 in the Romanesque style. Many of the original features still exist (go see the marble bathrooms!), including this tile floor in the center of the main hall. Difficult to photograph straight on without a very tall ladder. I sort of like this oblique view, though. The photo is indeed a rectangle, but, wow! the illusion of distortion is strong, eh? Good colors, too.

safety in numbers

The original SockMunky is on the left; my creation, who now lives in Auburn, Alabama, and is named Tybee, is on the right; and a new old aquisition is in the middle, named Montgomery for where he was found. They are sitting companiably together here, knowing that it isn't often that they have the opportunity to be together. SockMunky and Tybee lived together for a little while until Tybee moved south. And now Montgomery and SockMunky will be sharing the car for more travels in the South in the next couple of weeks. Montgomery needs a bath, but I have to figure out how to do that without having him fall apart in the process. Suggestions are welcome. He doesn't smell, but he isn't clean, either. And yes, he is missing his right ear.

turtle

This turtle was just waiting to be mushed by the next vehicle on the boat ramp to the Kentucky River at Fort Boonesborough. I moved it to the edge into the grasses, but took photos before that. What kind of turtle is this? It's shell looked as though it had some strange growths on it and it's right hind leg wasn't retracting all the way anymore. Mostly, it just looked bewildered.

quilt barn

Two for one: travel and quilts! I knew that Ohio had a project for putting quilts, of a sort, on barns, but hadn't realized that Kentucky also is doing it. Here is a tobacco barn, on US68, between Blue Licks and Paris. I saw another one in the distance somewhere the other day, too.

drying tobacco

Tobacco plants are quite beautiful when hanging to dry, like in this barn in Willow, Kentucky. I passed many small barns with harvests drying in them. This area of Kentucky—just south of the Ohio River, east of Cincinnati—is lovely; when I got out of the car to take photographs, there were no human sounds until a pickup truck could be heard coming up the road, passing me, and going out of sight in the other direction. And then it was back to the birds and rustling leaves and one flag flapping on its pole in a small cemetery.