Getting Ready + More Sunflower Love

The last Creative Retreat of 2017 is this coming weekend. I have a full class of knitters and it should be a fun time - as all of them have been over the years. I can't believe I have been doing the retreats since 2009. They have morphed and changed over the years. I think I have them where they need to be now. I'll be working on some new ideas for Retreats for 2018 since I have students who love to return and learn something new. I so look forward to meeting new folks and welcoming back students to the farm who have been here before. Hopefully I will take some photos to share with you all next week. 

The sunflowers have been changing daily. New rows and varieties are opening each day. Kind of crazy that I find so much joy in just looking at these beautiful flowers. I love to watch them bud, then bloom, and finally grow older and decay. It is such a short season of bloom. It is truly stunning to wander through the rows with flowers much taller than I am. The bees are working like crazy collecting the pollen. I've been working in my pottery studio which is just a few feet from the flowers so in the evening after I am done, I wander through the garden, collect some blooms and dig around in the garden for something to use for dinner. We have had a great harvest of squash, green beans and basil. The tomatoes have been far from prolific but luckily the veggie farmers have been more successful than me. 

Here are a few sunflower photos from the past few days. Where I remember, I have added the name of the sunflower with the photo. All the seeds were purchased from Sunflower Selections. 

A budding ProCut variety

Blooming Procuts

Procuts are the variety that you purchase in the grocery store and farmers markets. They yield one flower per stem. They aren't my favorites because they are a little too perfect but I always grow them anyway because of their vase life. They come in many colors. 

This is one of my favorite sunflowers. It is called Stella Gold. It has very long thin petals. I love how it ages as the center grows and the petals become less prominent.

Here are some overall shots of the rows that have been blooming for a little while. 

Here is another view of my garden. You can see the zinnias and other flowers in front of the sunflowers. 

Here is a photo of my pottery studio where I have been spending some nice hours making. Can you see the dahlias blooming at the lower left. I have never had much luck with dahlias because I don't put them in early enough and I don't water enough. This year my sister Laurie gave me some tubers and at least the red ones are blooming. 

I hope your days and evenings are going well. Autumn officially begins this week. I can feel the season changing. Have a great day everyone. 

Late July, Garden + Clay Sunflowers

My cutting/veggie garden is coming along slowly. We finally got a good bit of rain and all the little sunflower seedlings perked and popped up. (I cannot water my garden because we do not have enough water in our well. For my potted plants, I use gray water from the kitchen dishes and that keeps them alive and growing.) We have eaten some zucchini and summer squash and soon to be feasting on some cukes. Next week I hope to finish mulching the garden with leftover bales of hay. In this photo, you can see some broken down cardboard boxes that I put under the hay to keep the weeds away. Never enough cardboard.

I don't have a lot of perennials because having any kind of garden with sheep is difficult. I do have this stunning fig leaf style Hollyhock that is putting on a spectacular show. Margaret Roach had a great article on hollyhocks on her blog/podcast recently. I want to grow some other colors. It sounds like mid-summer is the perfect time to start seeds for bloom next year. Here is the link. 

Back in May I started fooling around with making plaster molds from clay sculptures of sunflowers. You can see that post here. I learned something new doing them - making a plaster mold from wet clay sculpture - which was rewarding. I bisque fired a few of the experiments and this week I finally got around to experimenting with the glaze step of the project. I had in my mind how I wanted them to look but wasn't sure how to get the look with the glazes I have.

I am stumbling around with the glazing on my pottery. It is all new to me - mixing glazes and wondering how they will fire. I've had some failure but because it is new to me it is intriguing. I can't spend too much time on it because I need to make pottery to sell in the fall for the holiday season. I spend endless amounts of time reading websites and trying to figure things out myself. Definitely not the best use of my time. I guess the wonder and the curiosity of it all is good for me and my mind instead of the same old same old. 

The last thing I should be doing is blogging today as I have 6 students coming for a retreat this weekend but I wanted to pop in and connect with you all out there as this blog has a bit neglected. Summer rolls on. Julia had a birthday and we've got some places to go before it is over. It sure is flying by. 

Hope you all in the northern hemisphere are enjoying summer. Have a great weekend everyone. 

Sunflower Season 2016 + Back To School

The sunflowers are doing their thing. All that worry about drought and birds stealing the seeds on my part and those little seeds came through for you and me. The garden is a splendid sight. What is amazing to me is that I began planting the sunflowers in late June and then did 3 more plantings through the end of July. I thought I would have a staggered crop considering planting dates and "days to flower" from the seed catalogs. But I was wrong. Over the past couple weeks, pretty much every single variety of sunflower has popped. Some are already done and I never snapped a photo because I was away.

Usually the sunflowers don't peak until about the the 18th of September. Not this year. They peaked in late August. I think it was the extreme heat that really made them grow and mature. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't even have time to harvest bouquets for the house until this past weekend. I was running around with the end of summer trips and chores while the sunflowers were doing their thing in the garden. Luckily I got into the garden to take these photos to share with all of you today. I'm going to try to get out again this week although the look of the flowers has really changed. 

Summer is officially over here. Julia started her Senior Year of high school last week. It is amazing how fast it has all gone. I'm sure many of you feel the same about the years your children or niece's and nephew's or neighbor's kids have been attending school. As a Mom, sometimes it seemed to take forever but now I look back and feel the years whooshing by. How did it go so fast and I haven't aged one bit? 

Julia has been in the local school system since she was three years old, beginning pre-school at the age of 4. It has been challenging at times, dealing with her special needs and health issues. I have learned to try not to measure her against other children. That has really been the hardest part of being her parent for me. I have to remember that she is Julia and not someone else. I am a typical oldest child (#1 of 5 kids), over-achiever somewhat Type A kind of person. I have had to learn to shed those personalities as a parent. I've learn a lot about myself but there is always more to learn. I cannot say I am always patient with Julia and sometimes I get incredibly mad at myself when I find my temper flaring. We have made it thus far though and I just love her so much and am so proud of everything she tries to do - succeeding or not. She is such a sweet and caring kid. 

We were talking the other night - her Dad and I - about how she really seems to be shining this last year of high school. She has some fun classes including wood shop and her favorite Yearbook class. (In "shop" she is beginning a "quilt inspired" table top.) She has volunteered to lead the entire school over the loud speaker each Monday morning in the Pledge. I think that experience will do her lots of good - her first chance at public speaking - even if she doesn't realize it. 

Here I will indulge you with 2 of her last "first day of school" photos. She complained to beat the band but she did it. 

That is her custom mocha I make her every morning to get her day going and on the bus at 7. 

I hope you all are settling into your fall schedules. This week is the 168th Annual Franklin County Fair held at the Fairgrounds in Greenfield, MA. It is one of those old-timey family friendly fairs and if you are local-ish, I highly recommend a visit. Animals, races, quilts and needlework, apples, fair food, and a demolition derby. Just walking into the Round House brings tears to my eyes. I'm volunteering at the local church food booth which should be a fun time. 

Such a Beautiful Time of Year

Thinking about what to title this post this morning and I didn't want to be a bummer. I know that summer is over with the arrival of Labor Day and Julia is already back at school. But I must admit, I love this time of year when the heat subsides and the colors start changing and the warm gold tones are all around us here in New England. 

I was sweating bullets this year with my usual lateness in planting my garden. This year I was slowed by not having a rototiller working. When it came back after a several hundred dollar fix, the tire went flat. I gave up on asking The Farmer for anymore garden help because he is so darn busy haying and moving sheep around. I called a local landscaper who for $100 did a bang-up job plowing my soil. Next year, I will call Doug early. Someone remind me please!

I have pretty much given up growing many veggies because they are in such bounty at the Farmers Market where I sell our lamb meat at. And those organic farmers do such a superior job to what I ever can do. This year, I limited my veggies to cukes, zucchini, yellow squash, and basil and put the rest of the garden into annual flowers for cutting bouquets. Flowers are seriously what I love. They inspire me and give me great joy. 

I put half my garden into sunflowers - about 13 varieties. I didn't begin planting until after the 4th of July and was still planting in late July. I have been sweating bullets that they wouldn't bloom. I can't water because we don't have enough water in our well so I rely on Mother Nature. About 2 weeks ago, we had a massive morning thunder and lightening storm which caused all kinds of grief but it did wonders for my sunflower crop. The water combined with extreme heat and humidity and a thorough weeding job did the trick. I'm happy to report the Sunflowers at Leyden Glen Farm will bloom and it will be a gorgeous show here on the blog. 

Here are some photos of my late summer garden. I hope you are enjoying your day off if you have one for Labor Day. Hopefully I will now be back here on the blog a bit more now that summer is over and a routine has developed. I missed writing to you all! Enjoy the day!

Farmers Market Stitching + Sunflower Embroidery Reveal

Every Tuesday, I sell our lamb at the Tuesday Market behind Thorne's Marketplace in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is a lively market but honestly, I can never tell how I am going to do sales-wise. I just try to go into it with an open mind and not stress about the dollar outcome each week. It's hard because our farm is our business and livelihood but I try not to get too discouraged. 

One way I keep the stress out of my mind is by bringing something with me to stitch. It's a nice chunk of time when I am in one place and depending on the traffic, sometimes I get a lot of work done. 

Yesterday, I had a visit from Cheryl who has just begun stitching again. She is a knitter but she has been inspired to pick up a needle and thread. She purchased my Circles Sampler kit and ran out of a color of thread. I brought it with me and so I got to see her progress so far. Here it is. 

Cheryl is so excited about her project. (Here is the link to order the kit.) As her skills have increased, she is doing what I wish every stitcher would do - making up stitch combos up on her own. Cheryl is winging it! Go Cheryl. She has even signed up for my Crewel Embroidery Retreat August 8/9. I look forward to spending more time with her. You can sign up too! Here is the link. 

Last year, I worked on several different Crewel Embroidery projects at the Tuesday Market, including my Sunflower Pillow that I have been sharing here, here, and here over the past couple months. I finally had the chance to sew the backing on and take a finished shot of it. 

Here it is being blocked before sewing.

Here is a Tutorial for sewing a Removable Fabric Pillow Cover.

AND.... Here is the finished Sunflower Pillow. 

At this time, I do not have a PDF Pattern or kit for the Crewel Sunflower Pillow. Let me know in the comments or in an email if you would be interested in buying it. Depending on the interest, I may or may not put the effort in. 

I'll be back with more tomorrow about my adventures at the Tuesday Market. I have a very fun little story to share with you all. 

Sunflower Crewel Embroidery - Preview 2

This is the second in a series of sunflower inspiration for a crewel work embroidery piece. I began this piece last year, during the summer Farmers Market in Northampton. See the first post here. 

The second sunflower I stitched was inspired by the Sungold and Greenburst varieties. I have been growing Sungolds for years. They are long season flowers - taking 90 to 110 days to mature. The stalks are covered with blooms. The Greenburst Sunflower was new to me last year and I am definitely going to plant them again. They are similar to Sungold but are quick to bloom. On both of these varieties, there will be a huge top flower and smaller branching flowers below. Some people call these very fluffy sunflowers Van Gogh Sunflowers as Vincent loved to paint them and helped to make sunflowers the iconic flowers they have become today. 

Sungold Sunflower

Greenburst Sunflower

This sunflower was really fun to stitch. I blended different colors of yellow and gold to give a natural shaded look to the flower. I used turkeywork stitch for the fluffy outer ring. It is a looped stitch which I then cut to mimic the fluffy sunflowers.

Isn't the sculptural quality of the turkeywork beautiful?

For the petals, I chose Needleweaving to approximate the long thin petals. I love this stitch because it is so sculptural and again - a fun stitch to do. 

For the center, I blended two colors of green to resemble the center of the Greenburst sunflower and worked French knots to resemble the small bits of this pretty sunflower. 

This flower was so much fun to make. I used the Crewel Wool Thread that is available on my website here. The background fabric is pure linen which is also available on my website in 10 beautiful colors. All Crewel Embroidery is fun - I must admit. Although not all my work is as representative of nature, this project was. As I stitched each week, I couldn't believe the number of passerby's who stopped to chat - telling me about someone in their lives who used to stitch and embroider. Stitching in public is a good thing to do because it causes people to stop, chat, and remember. And maybe I can cause the person to pick up a needle and thread too. 

I hope your week goes great. Have you heard about this study? It connects the crafts and art to good health later in life. Cool.

I teach Crewel Embroidery on-line on Craftsy - link for 50% off on my sidebar. I am also offering an advanced Crewel Embroidery Class here at the farm in August. Info here.) 

Hydrangea, Sunflowers, More Inspired Projects, Kate's First Big Sheep Job

It's that time of year in New England where you see fluffy hydrangea blossoms all over the place - in people's yards, outside manicured storefronts, and in cemeteries. I have a few different varieties in my landscape - like the one below. 

Hydrangeas are pretty irresistible - because of the long bloom time and the way they turn from white to light pink, then to a darker rosy brown. And they are super easy to grow - I like that. They also look great with sunflowers like in this arrangement in a maple syrup bucket.

 

Once in a while a reader will send me a photo of something they made which I inspired. I love getting those photos. Joanne from Shelburne sent me this photo of a wreath she made using the patterns and idea from my 50 Sunflowers to Knit, Crochet and Felt. I think it would be nice to come home to such a decoration. Great job Joanne. This would be a fast gift to make up for the holidays and a little different than the regular knitted gift, right?  (Joanne's son happens to be the musician Seth Glier - have you heard of him? Cool.)  

Here's a little more sunflower inspiration. These are from my newly re-released book Colorful Stitchery. Embroidery napkins with a simple sunflower motif. I used regular old cotton floss and stitched on purchased napkins from Crate and Barrel. You could easily make the napkins too. 

You can order a signed copy of Colorful Stitchery or 50 Sunflowers to Knit, Crochet and Felt in my webshop here. Or if you are on a budget, here's the link to the big boys in the sky. I, of course, really appreciate the support you all give me when you can purchase directly from me. 

The sun has come out after a very dreary rainy day yesterday. Here is a kooky Hyperlapse video I took this morning while I was helping move the sheep. The video shows Kate working on her own for the first time - doing a really big job. It went pretty well considering! I know many of you come here for the sheep and lately the blog has been all about sunflowers and stitching. A Hyperlapse video is some kind of Instagram phone app. First try for me. It condenses several minutes into seconds. It kind of makes me sea-sick to watch it but it is also kind of funny too. Go Kate! I was so proud of her.