Happy Birthday Katie!

Happy Birthday Katie!

Reek Sunday and Croagh Patrick

Caught up with Tommy and got a key (yay!) Got a lot of work done on the mural clouds. Should be finished with the sky on Tuesday. Also did some more work on Croagh Patrick. Seems kind of fitting to do work on the Holy Mountain on Reek Sunday.

'Reek Sunday' is the last Sunday in July and on that day over 25,000 pilgrims visit the Reek. People come from all over the world, including pilgrims, historians, archaeologists and nature lovers. The tradition of pilgrimage to this holy mountain stretches back over 5,000 years from the Stone Age to the present day without interruption. The first stop on the pilgrimage is Saint Patrick's statue erected in 1928 by Reverend Father Patterson with money he collected in America towards the rebuilding of Saint Mary's Church in Westport.

It was on the summit of the Croagh Patrick that Saint Patrick fasted for forty days in 441 AD.

The Black Bell of St. Patrick was a highly venerated relic on Croagh Patrick and the oldest reference to it dates back to 1098 A.D. Tradition has it that the bell was originally made of white metal, but became black from constant pelting at the demons who came after Patrick on the Reek.

The Holy Mountain

Clouds - left half

Clouds -right half

Flooring is here

Wall lamp

More delays from the wall painters

Took yesterday and today to spend with my Dear Hubby, I learned to 'mud' drywall today in my BIL's basement. So far, I've helped DH to put in a cement floor, frame the walls and now drywall. These skills will no doubt come in handy when we buy a house and build the sewing/painting/printmaking/ceramics/silversmithing/flameworking/sculpting studio of my dreams. Need a big, big, big studio...

Found out today that the wall painters won't be at PJs until next week. They are really slowing me down with my own work there. I was hoping tp have the 4 smaller pieces done by the first of August. Hopefully the walls will at least be painted by then, so I can start those....

Point Betsie Lighthouse - 36 X 36 - Acrylic - 2006

Offline for 2 days...

Yikes! How did we ever function before the internet? I just lost my modem for 2 days and felt so disconnected from the world. (ATT customer service is outstanding!)

Here are some late progress pics for the PJs mural:

Tuesdays progress

Wednesday - working around the spot where the wall sticks out. Starting to look like Croagh Patrick.

Finish of Wednesdays work

Look Pat -- Paul's putting up the lamps!

Lamp lit over the bar

I'm hoping the painters have come since Wednesday, so I can work on the smaller pieces. It's so humid from all the rain that the big piece need overnight to dry. If the painters come, I'll be able to work more efficiently, moving from piece to piece...

Good Day to Work!

Got a lot accomplished today. Worked on the big mural at P.J. MacIntyre's (27' x 7'), worked on the big quilt, and started work on the Celtic Cats piece. Here's some P.J. pics.

Ready to paint

Wall ready, prepped with gesso

First layer, sky background

Irish blessing will be over this door

Will be a 7-foot pint - that's a lot of Guinness!

Back hall -signs for restrooms

The best laid plans...

I did get all the family stuff done and worked on the quilt top for a while. It's a French braid quilt. The design/technique is from the first quilt book I ever bought -- French Braid Quilts by Jane Miller. I have no idea why I chose to make a king size quilt as a first quilt. I'll have several other pieces done before I ever get this together...but it will be lovely when it's done. Almost done piecing the long strips.

Nine of these, about 8 feet long

Well, the plan sounded good, but I got a little waylaid with a trip the the Irish Festival in Berea. The mural and other work that I'm doing, is for P.J. MacIntyres. Patrick Campbell is one of the owners and was in Lord of The Dance for years. (He's going to have a dance school above the bar) I've never seen him dance so I had to go... It was awesome to see him dance! And he's one of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.

Me and Pat

Mission for today

• Get the family obligations out of the way
• Finish the king-size quilt top for the bed
• Start on the quilted Celtic wall-haning for Eileen
• Decide what to make out of Moniek's ugly FQ
• Gather some elements for the SOST quilt

FYI:

Eileen is my lovely friend, neighbor and manager of The Treehouse

Moniek is my partner in the Ugly FQ exchange on the Carol Doak PP Yahoo group

SOST = Sisterhood of the Sagging Tits

Quilted coffee table and cornhole boards

Just finished a pair of cornhole boards for Rocky River Brewing Co. Who the hell named that game?? Forgot to take a pic outside, but here's one with the flash glare.

Rocky River Brewing Cornhole board

My dearest TJay has been sucked into my quilting madness. Maybe it was watching me, day after day, cutting apart fabric into little strips and triangles and squares, and then sewing it back together... Now he spends his spare time cutting oak, poplar and black walnut into little diamonds and triangles and squares and then putting it back together. Hmmmmm, I think I see a pattern here. My dearest is making me a table in a lone star design with shooting stars on the sides of the big star.
Quilting in wood. We started the design in Electric Quilt 6. Then he fiddled with it and changed it and changed it some more. He finally decided to glue it to the base before it drove him crazy. Once it's glued, that's it. Can't rip out the stitches like I do. It still needs to be planed and sanded and sealed and it needs legs, but OMG -- it is amazing. I love that man.

The Quilted Coffee Table Top -- 2.5' x 4'

A New Start...sort of

I keep hearing that a blog help some folks keep on track. Well, it's worth a shot. I'm past the half-century mark. I shouldn't still be wandering down one artistic path after another, should I? Or maybe I just ought to keep track of my wanderings? That's probably a more realistic goal. Yeah, that's the ticket. Where have I wandered the last few years?

• watercolors
• oils
• pastels
• acrylics
• etching/printmaking
• woodcuts/printmaking
• lino-cuts/printmaking
• mono types
• jewelry design/beading
• wine making (yes -- it's an art)
• cement/hypertufa sculpture
• photography
• silversmithing
• lampwoking
• quilting
• felting
• fiber-art
• mural design
• the Great Lakes lighthouse hunt (over 200 so far)
• the artful garden

Yikes! As Grandma said in American Wedding: "Focus, focus!!." Actually, I am very focused right now, on a 27 x 7 foot mural that I'm working on for the new P.J.Macintyres at Kamms Corners.
I think that everything else is going to come together in fiber art. The passion I feel for this medium is unbelievable. I think this is where it will all come full circle for me. Something for me to think about until I write again.