Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Whether it's digital or film, sometimes the images just stay in the camera too long! In May, over Memorial Day weekend, we went up to Rochester, New York, to see my youngest--of three--graduate from RIT. While there we visited a wonderful state park built by the Civilian Conservation Corps on the shore of Lake Erie. It was a beautiful but slightly chilly and windy day.

There were great rocks along the shore. There were only a couple like this. I just love the texture, but have no idea what kind of rock it is.

So here we are, one glad to have finished and one glad to have paid the last tuition installment. The other one--my husband--is taking this shot. He's glad, too.

The weather in general has been pretty variable in late spring and summer. In June this large branch came down in the nighttime. Of course the irony is that we had just had the tree trimmed so that it wouldn't bring down the power lines in bad weather. But--you guessed it--not only did it fill half the backyard and crush some of the fence and some of my clematis, it also ripped out the power and phone lines. We weren't the only ones to have trouble and, compared to other residents, damage was minor. The clematis is no worse for wear and the branch just caught the edge of our roof. Being without power in hot weather isn't fun, but we managed. I even sat on the front porch and embroidered.

This is a piece I have been working on for a few months. It started with a grid and blobs, then I screened in the circles. It really should be rotated once counter clockwise for its true orientation, but this is how I had to work on it on the space available. So tilt your head to the right and look at it.

Then I just screened in some darker blue. Don't forget to tilt your head. (Sorry about that. I didn't plan ahead by rotating the image before I uploaded to Blogger.)

And here is part of it now. You can see that the circles and the blue washed out to be lighter. Then I screened in the reddish circles, but only three. I added small squares of commercial fabric in the reddish circles, so it won't be whole cloth unfortunately. I have been working hard on the concept and execution of whole cloth and it has been a challenge. I have also embroidered golden lines from circle to circle. Now I just have to baste it and quilt it. The question is: can I get it done in three weeks for a deadline? Stay tuned.