Last Try

It's been almost two years since my last post.  I guess that I stopped because no one was responding to my posts.  I'll try this one last time and if there are no responses I won't post again.

Seems like I've gotten away from art quilts for the time being and gone back to my first love before I discovered quilting.  That love is pastels.  Sometimes I produce something good, but most times they get put in storage to refer to and learn from the not so good.  I was working on medium size paintings but then went to minis just to practice techniques.  My latest mini, 5" x 7", is of an Indigo Bunting.  They are such a brilliant blue when the sun hits them.  I tried to get that to come through in my painting and somewhat succeeded.  Have a look...

Northern Spotted Owl

While visiting my sister who works for the USFS in Washington state I was fortunate to be able to go out with one of the Northern Spotted Owl researchers to attempt to find one of these rare birds.  I got the call 1/2 hr. before we were to leave so I hurriedly got dressed.  We met and hiked in on snow shoes about 1 mile up a mountain into a fir forest hoping to find one.  Boy, it was a great cardio workout getting there and all that running up and down the stairs the past month paid off.

Once up the mountain to an area where he'd located owls in previous years he began imitating the call of the No. Spotted Owl.  He paused several minutes between calls and after the 3rd attempt I saw an owl fly in and land about 50 feet from us.  I began snapping photos fearing it would disappear but little did I know how tame this species is.  It sat on a bare fir branch gazing at us with those enormous brown eyes.  I can't begin to describe the feeling one gets gazing upon such a magnificent bird.  He looked for and found a band on the owl's leg from a previous year's banding.

                         First View of the Owl

While following Stan up the mountain I'd noticed a plastic tube with holes in it attached to his backpack. I wondered what it was.  Inside he had mice that they raise in their office area.  He took one out and placed it on the ground.  The Owl quickly came down and grasped it flying back up to a fir tree.  He was hoping to get it to lead us to a nest, but the owl quickly ate it.  He figured the owl was especially hungry so he released  a second mouse.  This time the owl flew to a nearby fir broom, a deformed, gnarled mass of fir branches caused by mistletoe growth, where they will most often build nests.  We followed it there and found that the owl was stashing the mouse.  It sat and watched us waiting for another mouse.  A third mouse was released on the trunk of a huge fir tree and the owl immediately came in and grabbed it from the trunk.  Again it stashed it.

                            Mouse in talons

Reluctantly he released his last mouse and again the owl stashed it. Again she waited for another mouse to be released and when one didn't came in quite close to beg.  He said he never gives an owl more than 4 mice since they will quickly relate humans to giving them food which could produce disastrous   results.

                The final mouse caught not 6 feet from us

After the 4th mouse was released Stan got out his notebook and found the owl we were watching to be a female.  They should be on nest by now and it's usually the males that come for the released mice to take back to the female at the nest.  This was not a good sign since it could mean something had happened to her mate and there would not be a nest this year unless she found another mate.  He'll return in a couple of weeks to check the area again.  This particular female had been banded as a chick and was 13 years old.  She probably would have mated the first time at age 3 yrs.  and had been in this area since that time.
He said there are more males than female No. Spotted Owls in the forest.  They just had to find one another and she might have to move from this area to do so.

                     Waiting for another mouse

There are four groups of two researchers in the northwest area of Washington and Oregon who look for, and keep track of the owls and their nests.  They work from 2-10 pm daily.  Stan and his partner cover 100,000 acres of forest usually out alone but in radio contact.  Necessary to aid one another and for safety reasons.  They must constantly be on the alert for the silent Mountain Lion and occasional bear.  (He found fresh tracks in the snow, a bit early, in the area we were at.)  They go out at night and listen for owls.  If heard they mark the area on a map and return early evening and call the owls in as he did for me.  Hopefully the released mice will lead them to a nest.

After the nesting time they work on compiling their data and turning it into a central office.  In his recording notebook he has all his data from the early 90s to the present.  I asked how many nests/pairs they found yearly.  In 2010 they found 12 pairs that resulted in 7 nests down from 75 nesting pairs in 1992.  This does not bode well for this species.  Last year they found a male Spotted Owl mated and nesting with a female Barred Owl which produced offspring called 'Sparred Owls.'  My sister was able to hold one chick while they banded it.

All I can say is a big THANK YOU Stan for an amazing experience and beautiful bird.

Spring!!!

The snow drifts are about gone.  Only a few left in our grove but firm enough to walk on top of rather than sink into.  The grass has a slight green tint to it meaning Richard will have to get the lawn mower out ad read to go in another month and my tulips are beginning to poke through the ground!  The only bad part is that all those noisy, obnoxious grackles have returned from their winter vacation south.  Now, I do love birds but these characters are not on that list.

A busy week.  Tonight I have a drawing class again.  I've always loved to draw but have gotten out of the habit with all that fabric to take care of in one way or another.  So I'm hoping this will jump start my interest in drawing more once again.  Last evening I drew a Sedge Wren singing from his marsh perch.

Tomorrow evening we will attend my grandson's induction into the National Honor Society.  He's a great kid and not just because he's my grandson and well deserving of the honor.  Thursday I have to do laundry and pack.  I'm headed off to Washington state to visit my sister for 10 days.  Ahhhh...

Post Card Trading

It's time to trade postcards with people from all over the U.S. and some abroad.  This happens about twice yearly.  Themes are always given and people sign up for a particular theme, make fabric postcards to fit that theme, and mail them off to the recipients.  This trade I signed up for 'Fruit' and 'Birds'.  The latter shouldn't surprise you.  I finished them today.  For the fruit theme I chose to use a pear and both a red and a black cherry.  Who knows why I chose such a combination.  They're made entirely from fabric scraps of which I still have plenty left.  For the bird theme I dug out my old college (so you know they're old) set of linoleum cutting tools and cut a pair of herons into a small block and then printed them onto a mottled green fabric to represent a marsh.  Always fun to make but even more fun to see what creations I'll get from others on these same themes.

Peekhole On A Winter World

The latest challenge for my on-line group, Fast Friday Fabric Challenge, was issued last Friday, the fourth Friday of the month and was to depict dimensionality in a quilt or Trompe l'oeil pronounced Tromp loy.  Most of this type of work is very realistic and I jumped at doing this. While looking over the links for this challenge I happened to remember a picture I had drawn several years ago and surprisingly was able to grave the correct sketch book even.  But I was even more surprised at just how many 'several years ago' was.  Seems I drew it in 1980!  Still worked...  So I took a photo of the pencil drawing and then printed it onto an 8" x 10" piece of fabric.  The 3 faces weren't as dramatic in black and white so I used colored pencils to give their skin and shirts some color.  I quilted the faces very little so as not to lose their power. Yes, all the pine needles are individually cut averaging about 1" x 1/16" in size.  Only took a few hours one evening.
 Then, since I love birds, I put a lovely little White-crowned Sparrow on a branch for the father and sons to look at.  The shadows are all thread painted.  It's 15 1/2" x 17".

Again, a Long Time Away

I'm not a very good journalist so not a good blogger either.  Since I've last been on we've made a trip to Kansas City to the NCAA Division I volleyball tournament to take my granddaughter and enjoy her for the weekend.  She's an avid fan and great vb player herself at only 12.  Misty Mae Trainer posed for a photo with her.

The first of the year we ventured south to Arkansas to my daughter's wedding.  It was a nice ceremony albeit a bit cool on January 1st.  The day before it had been wonderfully warm.  Too bad it couldn't have lasted.

From there we trekked south into lovely Mississippi and drove a bit of the wonderful Natchez Trace, on to Biloxi and the warm Gulf breezes before ending up in New Orleans and the French Quarter enjoying the food and street jazz there.

Home again and I worked for 2 weeks at the local quilt shop while the owner was away.  While there I made a table runner and 3 throw size quilts for her to display in the store and eventually sell as kits.  I had started a 4th but didn't finish it so brought it home and finished it this morning.  Not my colors but a lovely quilt anyhow.

Autumn Maple

This piece is the latest on-line challenge piece for my yFast Friday Fabric Challenge group.  The challenge is revealed the 4th Friday of each month.  This month we were to choose a Haiku or write our won and then illustrate it using fabric with an emphasis on thread work in the quilt.  Haiku is a Japanese form of Poetry written with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the last line and usually about nature.

This is probably the least variety of fabrics I've ever used in a quilt, just 4 different pieces.  A year ago I bought the hand-dyed fabric from Laura Wasilowski at the Des Moines AQS show.  Once home I wondered why, but it worked well as the background for this piece so I'm glad I bought it.  It was shades of light grey-blue, light rose-pink, and light yellow.  The first two reminded me of a dreary fall sky telling one winter would soon follow the loss of leaves.  I chose a maple tree because when I looked out my window the day the challenge was announced, my maples were loaded with gorgeous leaves that were beginning to fall.  Once started the light yellow was too light so I darkened it with a light wash of color with paints and quilting.

I quilted leaves on top of the fused pieces on the ground and then decided to do the same with the tree.  The tree's leaves actually ended looking more like oak leaves, but they'll do.  I decided to add a fence row disappearing over a distant hill to fill the space in the lower left corner.  It ended at 16" x 26 1/2".

The Haiku was written and the quilt over half completed when I decided to change the last line which I personally like better, but others may disagree.  Here are both versions:

Leaves, orange, red, gold
Gnarled maple dropping its crown
Which is last to fall?

Leaves, orange, red, gold
Gnarled maple dropping is crown
Earth's winter blanket.