The rhubarb is fat and juicy again! Cousin Dan loves my rhubarb pie and they arrived just now, in time for dinner, so he’d getting a pie.
It’s been sunny and nearly warm today, a lovely Mother’s Day. Daughter Called this morning when I was outside and she was missing when I called her this evening. But we left loving messages to each other! 😀

The lilacs are blooming today, too and perfuming the air. Hope your day was beautiful!

This one is about 18 X 24 I think and plenty big for now. It’s maybe half done. I’m trying some things that are new for me and they aren’t all working. :confused: One good thing about oils is that you can scrape it off and try again! And again, if need be.

But It hasn’t all been painting. Randy and I took a trip to Red Bluff yesterday (& I once again forgot to get photographic evidence!) to the 6th annual fiber On The Foot show. It was mostly alpaca breeders, which I believe is how the show started, but there were also a few sheep and angora goats and one Llama. And some Very Nice handspun yarns! Some breeders also had knitted or woven things for sale as well, and there were spinning demo’s and a lady giving a lecture on (I gathered) pricing of fleece for a gathering of breeders. It was a small show but well done. We enjoyed it and talked to some nice people and handed out a few brochures. We may join as a vendor next year if there is any interest.

This box of stretcher bars and roll of canvas were given to me so I thought I’d try my hand at making my own but when I started putting them together I learned that I am less ambitious than I thought! This one measures 36″ x 44″. I don’t think I’m ready for that, tho my sister did remind me that I have paint rollers in the garage! But I bought some shorter bars to go with the 36 inch. That will still be the largest canvas I’ve worked on. I think I’ll be doing some cutting down on the rest as they look to be mostly about 44″. I’ll have to work up to that. :laugh:

This one is framed for the June ‘student’ show. It’s from our section on florals. I enjoyed it but flowers aren’t really my ‘thing’. I’ve done as many as any painter, I guess, and they usually turn out well if not spectacular. I have 4 pictures framed for this show.

I just realized that I’ve never posted this new guy to the blog. It has been a big hit and Randy is being kept busy in the shop. They are cute, don’t you think? Anyway, this is the loom the previous blocks were woven on, in case you were curious.

I’m trying to show these on Raverly but I don’t know how it works so this is just an experiment! lol But the samples are fun, anyway.

…wait a day or two. The sun is shining and it’s in the upper 70’s today but the forecast is for maybe more snow by Wednesday! 😥 Oh well… I took a photo for cousin of the really new, tight buds on the lilac. She said she wants to be up here when they bloom. I was thinking about two weeks but… who knows! At this rate it could be a week or a month!
I got some yard work done today, cleaned up branches from the last wet snow and moved some planters into their summer spots. Brushed about a gallon of down out of Cori’s coat. She was leaving trails of it! 😀 Jack, being an outside dog again, is not losing his so fast.
Craft-wise, I have my knitting in a mess, I have three weaving projects going but not very fast, a painting half done and another one due on Wednesday that isn’t even started. I do have my 4 framed pieces ready for the next show so am ahead there. I guess that’s about it. Not keeping this blog up very well these days, but as you can see… I really don’t have much of interest to share.
Hope your weekend was exciting without being uncomfortable!

It’s also Randy’s birthday and since their job is laying out a foundation on a clay hillside, he got his BD off this year, too. They are calling for more precip tonight, but I hope we don’t get much more white stuff or trees are going to start breaking. They’ve started leafing out and a lot of them are blooming… Bad timing on Mother Nature’s part. Yeah, like.. what’s new? 🙄 Oh well, we got a nice bit of rain first, which we do need.

Randy thanked me for the dinner and said I did the steak just right. (whew!) I rarely cook those because I’m never successful. Racheal Ray I’m not! But I did research and got advice and used the timer! So dinner was a hit. 😛

We also got some work done in the shop and I did a little on my art as well and did some weaving. A pretty full day, all in all, considering that I took a nap in there someplace, too! :laugh:

Our local supermarket has new plastic bags, a lighter weight, but strong. In a transparent light green color with a teence of darker green print. The produce bags are an even paler, nearly white, green with a little darker green print… very color coordinated! But I was dinking around with them and found that cut into strips about 1/2-3/8″ wide and looped together they make a nice ribbon looking ‘yarn’. I wove this square to see what it would look and act like. It looks very pretty, I think, with a nice conservative shine sort of like the artificial raffia I once bought.
I have a fair collection of these bags and I think I’m going to get out the 12″ square and make some summer placemats for the picnic table. You can find instructions for these on the web page. http://www.hazelroselooms.com/project_files/ThankfulThanksgiving.pdf
They should be washable by hand tho I expect you won’t want to set anything too hot on them. Your color scheme will be determined by what your local store carries! But mine were pretty easy to weave, which is one thing I wondered about. Just cut the handles and the bottom seam off the bag, lay it out flat, and start folding it evenly. That way you can cut the loops easy, once you have it folded about 3″ wide. Then just loop them together and weave. I’m going to fringe mine so just keep any color change ends on opposite sides and the tails will blend right in. If you want to share pictures, I’d love to see what you get! 🙂

Indeed, there are many of them. The tree’s too… plum, peach, the sour cherry, and bulbs galore, but here’s my favorite, which I got as checkered lily, tho I see it called many other things. There’s only one of them left but it’s faithful. I guess I should buy it some companions. We have wild fritillary… Red Bells… but I’ve never managed to transplant any to the bed, or get the seeds to sprout there.
We go from 80 degrees one day to barely 60 the next. I guess that’s why it’s called spring… Mother Nature springs back and forth before she makes up her mind to summer! 😀
Hope it’s bloomin’ where you are, too!