Category Archives: Mayan- Parrot Priest

Childhood Memories, Daily Practice, Mayan- Parrot Priest, Mayan- Vulture Priest, Squares a Dancing

Studio Time

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Hello
Another week is passing and summer is in full swing. I love the color that is all around me at this time of year.   This week I spent a lot of time in the studio and enjoyed every min.  That is where the work gets done!

This week was also a  lay off week for the Textile Artist Stitch Club so I gave myself a little assignment. I found this project that I had started on a visit to Florida with Susan a few years ago so I decided this week would be a good time to complete it.   I cut the bird stencil with Susan and applied the color then too.
It is 15.5 “ X 19.5″. I am happy with the final results.

I spent the day with Liz today. We had fun.    We ended up reorganizing the work space and sorting through our collection of stuff.   It was a job that we really needed to do.

 

 

 

Progress Report: Parrot Priest: Mayan Series # 5 This work is 20″ X 23″. It is fused down ad then out line stitched by hand. The Parrot is my favorite part of this project.

 

 

I am getting good at doing the feet for these fellow as they are all so similar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monkey Priest: Mayan Series # 6 I did the drawing and then enlarged it to make a pattern this week. Head dress, clothing and hand position are the things that change for the most part with these little fellows.

 

 

 

 

Blue on Blue This project is             36.5 w X 41″ l  . I really enjoyed the play factor in the work on this project. I love all the textures and tints and shades of blue too. It was a good work to try stuff and explore.

This work is really a collage of textures using silk papers, ribbons and various unique weaves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Garden I did a lot of hand work on this piece at the end of the process. My stitches are mostly in the applique of the circles and not decorative. That is a way to go on the next piece.
Nancy is the person who pushed me to make this into a garden setting.

Wool Birds Doing the birds for “Susan’s Birds” got me to thinking how much I like bird shapes. That coupled a big bag full of felted wool that my friend Angela gave me, were the inspiration for this new start. Then while I had the roving out I thought I’d add the light chests to the little birds. It will be fun to play with this piece and see were it leads me.

 

Felted Dryer Balls I finished up these five balls this week. They were all started way back in Feb. But got burred. Good to move forward with this project and complete the task.

Felted Back grounds- Landscape When I had the roving out to finish the dryer balls I looked at the colors and started playing with layouts. I will use some of the wool from Angela’s bag for this too.

Shore Line I was looking at a calendar page and thought the simple background would be a good place to add some machine drawing on top. Time will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Projects    I pulled fabric for two new projects this week too.  Not sure what I want to do , but I feel that the colors work well in both collections.

 

 

 

 

Squares a Dancing  I just keep working away on these fellows.    I now have 117 finished.

Childhood Memories- Summer: Grandmother  Ester

My parents went back to school in the summers following grade five. Mom went back to Greeley Colorado and Dada went to the University of Iowa in Iowa City. As kids Gene and I stayed with the grandparents alternating from week to week. Dad would drive in and make the exchange on Sunday afternoons and spend some time with us. I have a difficult time recalling what happened each summer so I will talk about the homes of Grandparents as separate entries. First I will cover staying with Grandmother Ester and Grandpa Merit my Dad’s parents. They lived on a farm they owned about five miles outside Morning Sun Iowa. Both of their families live within 30 miles of that small town. They were Presbyterian and the church was an important part of their social lives. The daily routine in that house involved reading a chapter from the Bible every morning after breakfast. When they got to the end of the book, we would start at Genesis again. Gene and I both went to Vacation Bible School at the Sharon Church that was on the opposite side of town and surrounded by a cemetery and corn fields. We always had to memories a new Bible verse every evening for the next day so I knew lots of them. Grandmother usually stayed and helped distribute a sack of cookies and juice  for the kids in the late morning.
The summer that we were studying Romans I learned to carve Ivory soap. The class did a map and I carved three domed homes for it. I later carved an own out of some green soap that was part of a book report for school. I loved the stylized illustrations in the little hand outs that we got in church school and spent many hot afternoons trying to mimic that style of drawing.
Because Mom was in Greeley, Dad encouraged me to write to her. I do remember doing that several times over the summers. When I was done I went to Grandmother for an envelope and after the add was added, Grandmother gave me a nickel and told me to put the letter in their mail box across the road, saying the mail man would add the stamp at the post office in town. That system worked as Mom did get the letters.
Grandmother Ester had a big garden on the south side of the house. Her fruit trees were there too. I remember climbing and picking the cherry’s from the cherry tree. I love her cherry pies. She also had a peach tree and a plum tree, but I have no memory of helping with the harvest of those. Tomatoes, beans, peas and onions were always in the garden too. She canned and froze lots of things. They rented a locker from a man who ran a big freezer with lots of smaller units called lockers in town and she kept some frozen vegetable there along with cuts of beef. When we went town on Wed night for the usual grocery shopping,  the locker was the last stop before we headed home. Grandmother did not have a strawberry bed but the farm north of theirs did and we went there to pick berries. That farmer had big 2″ X 12″ boards laid out across the patch to walk on and harvest the berries. After the season was over, they took the boards up and let the plants spread out. In the following spring the farmer would put the boards down on the older plants to  assure that the  newer plants were always vigorous. As a part of the strawberry season we always had a family ice cream event. In the late afternoon I would go with Grandmother to town to the ice house where she would purchase a block of ice. We drove home and Grandmother made power milk biscuits. The family started to arrive. It usually consisted of Grandmother’s sister Helen and her husband Bernard along with their grown childerden’s families. The men cranked the ice cream churn in the basement. I tried once, but found it too difficult and I really wanted to play with the other kids any way. We all ate out doors at the big pick nick table  in the fading evening light and enjoyed our home made ice cream , biscuits and strawberries. It is still one of my favorite desserts.

Please stay safe and I will write again next week

Carol

Childhood Memories, Felt Work, Mayan- Parrot Priest, Scrap Happy Quilts, Squares a Dancing, Textile Artist Stitch Club

Mill Site Lake Aug 2020

Hello,
Nancy and I had a wonderful time last week at Mill Site Lake visiting Judy’s Camp. We took up a treadle sewing machine that one of my daughter’s friend gave to me as she was cleaning out her mothers house. The Amish family was very happy to get the gift. Then when I got home the woman across the street offered me a second machine. So Nancy and I will make a second trip north later this summer. Judy Showed off her Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt.

 

 

 

We made a trip to purchase fresh vegetables for dinner and stopped at a spring and filled the water bottles while we were there too.
Jake, Judy’s new puppy keeps her active and brings her lots of joy.    He is funny little guy and he likes to chew shoes.  I found a solo shoe in my car- one of a set that I had take to the Risque Mission that had fallen out of the bag.  So I passed it on to Jake and he was very happy.

 

 

 

 

 

Over the last two week I have been doing my Textile Artist Stitch club assignments. Haf Wieghton challenge was to make medallions. I enjoyed this process.

 

 

 

 

This week Cas Homes challenge the students use crumpled paper as a new element in their stitch work. I did a landscape as she suggested. I made it my own by doing the free motion tree on the machine too.

 

 

 

Progress Report: Golden Garden I am having fun working away on this piece. The base is all built from fabric that I have altered except for one piece that is less then a fat quarter. I have added ribbon, and organza shapes on top. Then I faced circles that I am appliqueing by hand.

Repair While I was up at Mill Site I work to repair this quilt from Grandmother stash. The brown shapes were falling apart. So I cut the same shapes from some of the old fabric from her house and appliqued them on top. The Blue, white and red print  piece with the pins is ready for the stitching.( center top ) All seven of the shapes are covered and requilted down now.

Blue I am having a good time layering this piece. I am not sure that it is finished yet , but it is getting close.

Parrot Priest- Mayan Series # 5 I worked on this at Mill Site too. All the outlining is done and I am now quilting around the figure.

 

 

 

 

 

Bunk Bed Quilts All the rows are completed for the bunk bed quits. I am waiting for a trip to the fabric store to purchase backing material so I can finish.

 

Felting- washer balls I am in the middle of preparing these to pass on to my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Felting landscape I started this yesterday at the end of the day. I want some additional greens so I ordered some and they will come Monday.

 

Squares a Dancing     I worked away on the squares over this two week period and  and finished 21 of them.   I like how this project is going and I am enjoying the use of only a few stitches with lots of different colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Childhood Memories – Christmas
We drove home to Morning Sun and Grandview for Christmas like we did for Thanksgiving. Most years while we lived in Carroll we had a nearly visit from Santa before we left. Because Gene still believed the first years, Mom wrote a special letter to Santa to alert him of our need and set up the date. I do not remember anything special gifts except for one year when I got a rhinestone setting jewelry kit. It offered me many hours of glamorous fun. The five hour drive ended at Grandmother Ester’s home as it did with Thanksgiving. We always slept there and enjoyed the time on the farm. Grandmother Ester had a cedar tree that Grandfather Merrit had cut from one of the fields was in the living room. Ginger bread was Grandmother’s tribute to the holiday. We had gifts for both of them of course.
On Christmas day we got up early and drove to the Cocklin house. I remember there was always homemade egg noodles on Christmas day. As I got older I got to help roll out the dough. It was always one of my favorite parts of the feast. Grandpa Howard did the turkey. One year he stuff it with rice that the had soaked in Hawaiian Punch. It was pink of course- I have no memory of the taste- but it never reappeared on the menu. Several Christmas’s we did family portraits. Mon was the oldest and we were usually the first to arrive and as the other families appeared they took their places and had pictures taken. From my point of view it took forever for the other families to arrive- but then they were celebrating the normal tradition of Santa’s arrival that morning. Uncle Dale was the second child. His wife was Barbara and they had five children. Danny was the oldest and 6 month older then I. Next was Timmy, followed by Tommy and Lisa, who was the last child in that family to be born in Iowa. Following Dale’s love of hunting and fishing the family moved to Alaska before Darcy was born. Uncle Dale is still alive as are the next two children in that generation. Aunt Marcaleen was the next child and she married Paul Bell. Russell was their oldest followed by Tracy, Doug and Kelly. The youngest child in Mom’s generation was Aunt Shirley. She was married to Jerry Dean and they had three boys, Curtis, Casey and Scott. Some years Grandmother Ruth’s younger brother Dan and his family came to Christmas dinner too. Dan’s wife was Lovell and their kids were Jerry, Claudia, and Garth. The kids were all older and I do not have much in the way of memories of them.
When the Bells showed up things really started to move for us kids. Many years we wrote and preformed a play in the later part of the afternoon. We dressed up and used the pocket door in the den as our curtain. I do not remember the stories we preformed, but I do recall one year when Doug did commercials between the acts. He stole the show with his presentation for “Grandma Moses’s Spider Taffy.”
As we got older we started shooting skeet in the afternoon. I can’t say I enjoyed that much, but the men did. As the afternoon turned toward evening folks drifted off and we too returned to Grandmother Esters with our happy memoirs of a good family fun fill day.

Enjoy the summer and stay safe

Carol

Childhood Memories, Mayan- Parrot Priest, Mayan- Vulture Priest, Scrap Happy Quilts, Textile Artist Stitch Club, Textile Artist Stitch Club

Thankful

Hello,
I hope everyone is continuing to do well in these trying times. I feel so very thankful  to be an artists and a person who can entertain myself. Being able to set my own rules and goals allows me to choose to be selective in who I have contact with as well as where I choose to go. I can and do make my own fun. This week was quiet but I am still playing in the studio

There was a new assignment from Gregory Wilkins this week. We are building a mixed media collage with lots of stitching. I love his last bit of advice” It is not done until it is over done.” What and excuse to just keep going.   I had fun stitching down  big sequins, key pads from a saxophone, some  of Grandmothers Ruth’s old glass beads and old lace on my painted base.

Progress Report- Vulture Priest- Mayan Series # 3 I finished this piece yesterday. It is 21″ X 23″.   This series is proving to be a challenge in the assembly process.  Cutting all the little fabric pieces and putting them back together is a bit of a challenge. 

 

I am learning a lot about stitching small circles too.

 

 

Parrot Priest- Mayan Series # 4 When I start ed quilting on the Vulture Priest I started the drawing on this work. It took the better part of three days to get the fabric cut and fused down. Now I am ready to begin the stitching outlines.

 

 

 

Time Check Last week was an off week for the Textile Artist Stitch Club so I put my time in on this little work. I think the class is helping me think in a new direction.

 

Bunk Bed Scrap Happy I started this Scrap Happy as a Christmas gift for the twins. Putting the rows together sure goes fast when there are only 10 rows of 5.

 

 

 

 

Squares a Dancing I put in a lot of time doing hand work in the evening lately. With 91 squares done now I will soon reach the original goal of 100. But sense I cut up two more pair of Eric’s pants for bases I will keep going until I have used them all up. Then I will decide on the size of the final quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 New work  

 

I usually audition fabrics before I start a new project.  These are the ones I am thinking about at the moment.    After several days of looking I have decided that there are really two bases here.  So I may just make two

 

 

 

 

Childhood Memories-Thanksgiving- the Feast

The meal for Thanksgiving was a big job and Grandmother Ester’s big day. When we returned from our little family walk the first thing I did was get dressed in fancy attire. When I came down stairs the work began. Grandfather would have turned the dinning table and added all the four leaves. The pad was added and then the white Damask table cloth was all spread . My job was to set the dinning room table with the good china from the china nook and the silver from the credenza. I was given Grandmother’s silver plate dinner ware many years after her death. I decided to use it daily and enjoy it. I did that for many years until the plating wore off some of the piece. Doing so made me feel like Grandmother was a daily part of my life for years. Back to the Thanksgiving feast. I carefully arranged the plates for 16 and put out the utensils and napkins. The five kids ate in the kitchen. People began to arrive  around 1:00. First were usually Aunt Helen and Uncle Bernard followed closely by Jim and Herta with their three kids, Charlie, Mary Helen, and Tom. Then the other sisters and there spouses.  Grandmother Esterd was the oldest of the family.  There was aunt Loretta and uncle Bert, aunt Illa and uncle Nathan, aunt Ethel and uncle William, and the two aunts who lived together because they had both lost their spouses- aunt Vivian and Lovel . Everyone broth in food and it was a major pot luck. Grandmother Ester always did the turkey and dressing along with the mashed potatoes and gravy. There always were two dishes- oyster casserole and Golden Glow jello salad. Pulse pumpkin, apple, and cherry pies with lots of whipped cream. One always ate too much. The talk was lively even for us kids. When the dishes were done then men would turn the table back and take out the leaves so they could watch football and the women would play Canasta at both ends of the shortened table. When I got older one of the Aunts tried to teach me Canasta- but I did n’t really get it. We kids would retire to the upstairs and play board games. Monopoly mostly- Gene loved that one. The Bates family had animals on their farm and  they always left early so we never rarely finished the Monopoly game. It was cool up stairs and Gene and I often took a nap. Folks drifted away as the afternoon wore on and we ate a leftovers that evening. Dad and Grandpa would go out do his few chores too. It was a big and happy family get together with great feeling of warmth and love.
The next day we would drive to Grandview in the early morning and meet up with Mom’s parents. Many times we joined the Bell family and went from there to the Christmas Parade in Muscatine. It was the start of the holiday season. We would window shop and then go back to Grandmothers house in Grandview in the afternoon.   One of the other activities that was a part of that weekend was the selection of one’s magazine subscription for the year.   It was  a Christmas gift from Grandmother Ruth. I sure enjoyed that gift. My parents always chose National Geographic. My choice for years was one called “Pack-O-Fun”. It was full of little craft projects one could create from trash like plastic berry boxes and egg cartons. The start of my “ look at one thing and see it’s possible reuse” , I guess. As the Cocklin family grew it became cumbersome to purchase gifts for all the kids;there were 14 grand kids on that side, so at Thanksgiving time we would draw one other persons name. That was much much simpler and with time that even disappeared. Being together was the important thing in both families.

Please stay safe and keep creating

Carol

I will be away nest week so the next post will be  August 6.