The Changing of the Kitchens

Tree Peony (before the hailstorm knocked off all the petals)

Bleeding Hearts which we have in pink and white varieties

The most fragrant white Lilacs

Now that the weather is starting to warm up and the garden is sprouting wonderful perennials, it heralds the start of barbecue time. That means we are moving to the downstairs kitchen.

Everything from the upstairs kitchen is packed up and moved to the refrigerator, and cabinets and pantry downstairs, since we want to be out on the deck for our meals, including breakfast.

If it is too cool to eat outside we will eat at the counter here.


Our own version of the Riviera, the grill undercover to the left.

Our lavish plastic dining set. This table doubles as a dye table, should the spirit move me. The deck has a few puddles, as we had a bit of rain this morning.

The scenery is nice and just getting started.


I like a jammed together flower garden. It keeps the weeds to a minimum.

The upstairs kitchen, denuded almost and ready to be scrubbed down for the final closing of the season.

In Illinois we make a big deal about the change from Winter to Summer, noting that Spring is hard to pin down. One day it can be 85 degrees and the following night we can have another frost. Since Dave was home on a Saturday (!!) we took advantage of the nice weather and did the move.

I was distracted by all these events and stayed out of the studio, but I did want to share what is going on in there.

This is a tiny, 4x6" quilt which I made about four years ago. I no longer have the thing, but came across the slide of it when I was sending off some old slides to get published. I projected the slide and took a digital pix of it. I have always thought the layout was interesting and wanted to make it larger, so while the slide was projected on my wall, I traced the whole thing and now I had a pattern. Then I downloaded the digital pix and printed it out as a guide to color.

You know I could have just looked at the picture and winged it, but no... I wanted to have the exact dimensions so I made tracings and constructed it dizactly the same only larger.

Here it is, 30" x 22". 99% silks.

It has major problems. For one thing, I hate hate hate that it is a compostion floating on a background. In the smaller version that wasn't as noticeable. In the larger version it is really clear that I need to connect the image to the edges in some way.

Also there needs to be another half circle imposed somewhere else. In the small version, there were important hand stitched elements which added interest to the design. These will not translate in the same scale to the larger piece. I will have to come up with a replacement for them.

I really don't like the work at the point that I left it, but feel confident that I can fix it.

However, the layout is more important than anything else and should be reconsidered for a second attempt.

It will have to wait, since it is Sunday, and Dave and I have another day together, in which I promised not to conjure up anymore Honey-do projects.