Being and Doing

I'm enjoying the softness of Spring right now. As of yet, no dust storms, thunderstorms, tornado warnings, or freak blizzards. Just the slow, warm greening and blooming of the neighborhood.

 Penny and her friend, Stickers are also enjoying the morning, wandering through the Iris beds.

I am following one of my current favorite subject matters: the bee. The marvelous bee and it's marvelous product, honey.

A bee has made its' way into a larger quilted piece I am doing for a show  in June. And as a busy bee myself (certainly not doing Spring cleaning or raking the  dead leaves from the garden beds) I have recently been painting and printing  on Lutrador. Lutrador is a stiff, non-woven fabric, like an interfacing or a very  thick fabric softener sheet. It can be treated like paper and fabric at the  same time.
Here are a couple of my handmade stamps:

And here are some of the Lutrador squares I have painted, stamped, and stitched, looking all ready for Spring:

Sometimes I enjoy the process of doing, without any idea what I am doing it for. Many bits and pieces of drawings, or stitched fabrics, or collaged papers lie around for months in my studio before I have an Aha! moment and add them to something else I am working on. Hence the little embroidered bee at the top of the page has now landed itself in a larger quilt.

I did make a few small coin purses out of some my Lutrador experiments.

And I turned one of my squares into a finished piece I am entering next month in a Quilting Arts magazine challenge. For some reason the photo will only load sideways even though it is upright in my files. I do not have full control of my own blog  :-b  Please twist head right and get a good neck stretch.

I also remember how important bees are to our ecosystem and how I love to see them hovering over my Russian sage blossoms near the pond. A little Google search reveals fascinating sites about the history of beekeeping, poems and stories about bees, and some incredible photos of our fuzzy little friends in action.