oh the abundance!

snowballs, with their corpulent fluffiness exude the tone of the moment. the rampant billowing spring growth, luscious greenness and flowers make you want to wrap your arms around this plant and give it a big kiss for the pleasure it evokes.other bits about the garden are lilacs, the buds bursting on the blue ceanothus, kolkwitzia (aptly named beauty bush), columbine, chive flowers, species geraniums, red twig dogwood flowers, weigela and a mess of other stuff.

emerging gunnera leaf

if ever there were a man eating plant this has got to be it.

summer on nantucketthe latest cards on towhee from my oil paintings.

dandelion seed everywhereat least you know we don't use poisons in our garden.
i think dandelions are pretty anyway.

i added a new bird to my life long checklist yesterday. it was a yellow rumped warbler. a cute little guy with very distinctive yellow bar markings.
it's so exciting to see a new bird for the first time, racing home, trying to remember all the details, and finally thrashing through the guidebook to try to identify it. the overwhelming desire for proper identification can supercede any other tasks that are pressing until the creature is located. and ultimatley, voila, there it is with it's name in black + white. joy.

happy birthday!they'll go to after school practice.

thanks kim for the link to cool borders.

petals everywhereviburnum 'mariesii' is such a great shrub! happy happy
just can't get enough of this sweet plant
petals swirling in the wind and rain look like a snow storm from the huge prunus padus tree

in printmy painting koura is on the inside cover of the latest arts + humanities council magazine called exhibition.it's shown on top of a project in progress...a quilted grocery bag made from samples of outdoor fabrics, that were sent to me years ago and have just been sitting around collecting dust. i've been wanting to use up my accumulations so the batting is felt that i bought for halloween costumes long ago. the outdoor fabric will make for a strong construction for my grocery bag.

oh the fragrance of spring!daphne 'carol mackie'
erythronium oreganum
fothergilla major

busy busy busywhite bleeding hearts
bluebells
leucojum
'pocahontas' lilacahhhhh all the little sweeties of the garden are up and bloomingforget-me-nots, viburnum, daphne, fawn lilies, anenomes, apple trees, mock orange, rosemary, geranium hymalayense, ceanothus, spireae, lilacs, rhodies, the last of the magnoliassoon the roses will be coming onspring, oh glorious spring!

at this time of the year little botanical treasures can be missed if you don't step outside at just the right moment. one jewel i'm glad i didn't miss is this Rhododendron schlippenbachii that only blooms in years that it feels like it. last fall i pruned the vine maples that were growing so huge that they were cutting out quite a bit of light over this shrub. i guess the rhodie is rewarding me for allowing more light to reach its lovely emerald green obovate leaves with its delightful diaphanous petals.

ahhh the fresh color of spring!this is kerria japonica that has moved along with me from garden to garden. i first purchased it at a strybing arboretum plant sale, in san francisco, which i miss being able to attend verrrrry much.

happy easter!these are the pysanky we made this year

in printa detail from my painting 29 is on the cover of the seattle review. this is the literary journal for the university of washington's english department.

blissfulwhen i planted little shrubs from cuttings and young trees a dozen years ago i imagined that someday it would look as it does now. patience and anticipation are what guide a garden designers hand. i have to stop and soak in the image from my kitchen window as the collision of bloom from buttery corelopsis, forsythia, cornus mas, ribes sanguineum to that wonderous prunus 'accolade' just define a perfect moment. i know while i stand there in ecstasy that the image will change soon from its peak to the sublimity of falling petals and then ultimately the focus will turn elsewhere in the garden. but for that brief moment every little problem melts away as i gaze upon those soft colors, spellbound.

grocery bagjust finished my new grocery bag. it's made out of a weird crinkly fabric, with cotton embellishments, that is quilted with cotton batting sandwiched inside to give it some body. this was a fun quilting project, on a reasonable scale, after doing that monster quilt.
grocery bags can be more than utilitarian. they can be a fashion accessory.

San Francisco has passed an ordinance that will ban petro-based plastic bags from being distibuted at businesses. I suggest that our city council consider adopting an ordinance similar to San Francisco's that reduces pollution and dependence on petroleum based products by requiring environmentally friendly bags to be used in our city.
IKEA has made a bold environmental statement by charging for their plastic bags in an effort to encourage customers to bring their own bags and curb waste. I think it is time our city take the lead in the northwest and require compostable bags or renewable material bags (paper or natural fibers) to be given out at stores here as an option to bringing your own bag while shopping.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai has taken the lead in Kenya to ban plastic bags there in an effort to curb a vast pollution and related health problem.
Waste can be reduced for our landfills and our environment can become cleaner without discarded plastic bags floating around endlessly. As those bags end up in our natural areas they pose a danger to endemic wildlife. Please encourage your council members to take a bold move towards a greener future and reduce waste.

i've been wanting to mess around with collage for a while so i thought i'd make a digital collage of bits of my paintings for the illustration friday submission theme of "i spy". next i'll try with the tangibility of papers + glue.

finished!

now i have to return to that gustav klimt quilt that i started years ago.

requiem for a quilt storeup in port townsend today for a regatta and then popped in town to visit my favorite quilting store in washington, quilter's cove. walked up and down the street.
it was in that block, but where?
was i crazy?
gone.
the owner retired, so said the owner of edge to edge. she made it all the more distressing adding that there were huge discounts on all the fibers just before the store closed. weird...i was on their mailing list. sad. i had bought many fabrics from that store over a decade.
now that store is a memory stitched in the works that were made from their fibers.

patience

is a virtue
i submitted this painting
(koura, oil on canvas)
in oct. 2004
for publication in exhibition magazine,
the literary/art journal of the b.i. arts + humanities council,
and i just heard today that it will
be published in their april 2007 issue.

happy spring!!!!

almost finished quiltingnext is to sew on the binding

...............

birdies on the last day of winter

steller's jay

chestnut-backed chickadee

ring-necked pheasant

let me know if you know what kind of gull this is