Sounds like quite the visit with your friend and Jack. Your butterflies are really going to be pretty! Love your background fabric.

I am working now on leaching a bunch of of clay colors. That's about as exciting as pre-washing and ironing a big  batch of fabrics.    (Leaching is a process of removing excess plasticizers from brand new packages of clay.)

DH has halved my metal garden stakes (stakes I used to hold up Oriental lilies in decades long gone) so I will have durable metal stakes for my polymer creations.

I am flipping through old claying magazines looking for inspiration for funky flowers, etc.  None of my creations will aim for realistic "sculptural" flowers. No, they will be flowers, birds or bugs from Looney Tunes by way of Picasso or Salvador Dali. 

Right now I am testing for clay strength with baking times in the oven, etc.  Here is Scrapper the Freckle bird and a couple of bug friends; these will also be used for varnish testing.  (Well, look at that .... Scrapper is standing on her nose!)

Flower is far too small.  Notice that I am experimenting with a clay color I do not like.  LOL

My DM would smack your hands for starting another project before finishing the glorious one you are working on now.  Good thing she's been dead and gone for twenty-one years and never made it to your neck of the woods while she was living ....

judyinohio said:

My DM would smack your hands for starting another project before finishing the glorious one you are working on now

I hear your Mother talking.   Generally speaking, I have typically worked on one machine pieced project and one "road project", as they were mutually exclusive.  But this reverse applique was an itch I wanted to try.  I'm not overwhelmingly in love with the process, so when I finish this one, I probably won't do another. 

(Unless I want to try a batik base fabric and see if that don't ravel as easily)  :-)

Love the bugs!

Cris in MT

Thank you, Cris.  I will work on the idea a little more ... make smoother lines, etc.  At least I know direction to head in. All of them will probably have blue eyes ...

Love those lady bugs!

The ladybugs are so cute!

Geraniums are pretty much a winter plant here unless you take them inside in the summer.  I'm pretty much limited my planting to desert flowers.  There are some beautiful ones.  Lots of pretty yellow lantana blooming now.

Great double pinwheel quilt.  Very colorful.  Should make the baby notice.