A rainy afternoon in Branson

Normally, I have to work on Monday's. However, I traded days with my friend and co-worker, Renee, and was able to take advantage of a coveted 3-day weekend.

Today we headed down to Branson Landing.

Did a little shopping at T.J. Maxx in Branson.....here's a tip....WAY better selection than the T.J. Maxx in Springfield. I got a cute pair of shorts and a pair of capri pants!!

When we got to the landing it was bright and sunny, but when we stopped in at "Bar Louie" overlooking the lake, it started to turn overcast......

and then started POURING down rain!!!! Talk about cooling things off!!! It was really pretty to see the steam coming up off of the water.

A little rain couldn't deter our good times....tried a Tropical Heat margarita....it was pretty to look at, but that's about it....I thought it tasted like MEDICINE!!! Hmmmmm....Absolut Pepper Vodka has NO PLACE in a margarita....yuck!

I'm working diligently at adding more items to the Etsy store and the Ebay store....but today....it was all about a little R & R!!!!

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Simply Sunday

Ahhhhh Sunday! A great day for lying around!

Cleopatra prefers to lay on one of my hand-hooked rugs.

Ribs are being marinated and beans are being cooked....the perfect start to a Sunday afternoon!

Duplication

Duplication

Is this a good thing or not? In some ways it can be great....if we're working on the background of a rug and we run out of a color that we are using it is nice to be able to duplicate that same color and go on our merry way.

But, what if we just CAN'T get that same color? That's when we have to dig in deep and use our imagination and figure out a way to make something else work. I've learned this lesson the hard way.

One of my first rug hooking teachers told me to buy enough wool to cover the area I wanted to hook 4-6 times. Well, me, being the thrifty gal that I am thought I could get by with 4 times the amount........WRONG!!!! I started a big rug....one of the first ones where I dyed all of the wool myself. And low and behold....I ran out of my background color and had at least one more square foot of the background to hook. I tried to order more of the base fabric and the company was out, so I had to get another wool that was CLOSE. Of course this affected the dyeing and the colors were different....mind you not GOBS different, but they were different enough that I couldn't continue on.

What I had to do was go back and pull out random strips of the original wool and hook in some of the new wool. Well, that was a great lesson! It taught me that whimsey makes for a better rug and that I also need to plan on getting 6 times the area that I am going to hook. Here is that rug in one of my earlier posts.

Now speaking of duplication....someone on here noticed the clematis picture on Dulcy's blog and commented that she'd love to have that color wool.....here is something that came out of the dye pot yesterday and is really fairly close. This Clematis wool can be found in my Etsy store a little later today.


These days, more and more, I'm relying less on dye recipes and more on my creativity. I tell my students to get what they like, because I can't guarantee that I will be able to re-dye some of the wools that I bring to the store. This, I think, has also led them to be more creative as well and look more at values of colors rather than just colors. Learning what colors can work together is such a valuable tool. Here are a few of the fun colors that I came up with on Saturday.
We're going to be grillling out and having Mojitos by the pool today, so I probably won't get these listed on eBay or Etsy until late tonight or sometime on Monday.



Two of my student/friends got a chance to go to a rug hooking class with Karen Kahle and I think they learned tons about value! Hopefully they'll post their finished pieces on their blogs when they get them completed. If you click on Karen Kahle's name it will take you to her Flickr page...just gobs of drool worthy photos.....I see myself doing one of those proddy rugs...I've fiddled with proddy as an embellishment, but would love the brainless task of just making a large one to use up lots of my odd pieces of wool. Perhaps in one of my future posts I'll do a proddy tutorial for ya'll.....drop me a line in the comment section down at the bottom here and let me know if that is something you'd like to see on here.

Perhaps I'll start one of those soon....yeah, like I need another project....I still have the Truvy rug to complete....maybe I'll work on that today. And then I bought a cute little top for my niece, Madison, and she wants butterflies on it and dangly whispy things hanging from the bottom of it. How fun is that going to be ?! I just love making girly stuff!!

Okay....I've rattled on long enough....here are a few pictures from this morning's garden.


















Go forth and be creative,
Tammy

Springfield's Xeriscape garden

Wednesday is my "day off" from work. I love having that day off because it breaks up my week and I never have to work more than two days in a row....it's truly a luxury!!



This week on my day off I went with my husband to Springfield's Xeriscape garden. Xeriscape.....now there's a word for you to try out on someone!!!
Xeriscape gardening is actually "common sense" gardening....planting "like" plants together that have the same watering and sun needs...or "smart" gardening.

We had a great time taking pictures and trying to capture butterflies on film, as well as this odd little bug or beetle that was housed in this lupine....kind of like a little beetle condominium!!!

I've been trying to open myself up wider and wider to color.....saturated colors....saturated colors that you see in nature.
I'm dyeing wool this coming Saturday....getting up waaaay early while it's still cool and hope to get gobs of fun colors!!! Hopefully, inspired by some of these pictures that we took on Wednesday.

Pastels are good too....gotta love those girly girl colors as well!!!

We also visited the Springfield Art Museum where Watercolor USA 2007 is in progress. Another very inspiring place to be!!!

Thanks for taking time to walk through the garden with me!!! Hope you enjoyed it!

Tammy

My real job

Not much to say other than you might find this entertaining.
I'm in a video that is on our hospital's website.


http://home2.coxhealth.com/video/WHV_nuclear.wmv

By day I work in nuclear cardiology....if you watch the video you can see where I spend 40 hours of my life every week.

Go forth and stay healthy,
Tammy

Twirling!

If you haven't noticed I've slowed down on my blogging just a bit and I really need to get more hand-dyed wools in my store.

I'm feeling a shift in my life and feel like I'm working on finding my "true" self in my art.

I want to create things that remind me of some of the best parts of childhood....you know what I mean....that feeling that you would get when you would

twirl in circles with your arms out wide...

until you fell down laughing in the grass?!

That giddy feeling of riding a ride at a carnival with your best friends.....

or rolling down a grassy hill with your cousins at your grandma's house in the summer time?!

I feel myself going there and I hope to share some of that with you in the upcoming weeks....so stay tuned and get ready to get in touch with your inner child.

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

Days in the sun

Imagine my delight when I went outside this afternoon and was greeted by these snowballs hanging in the top of the patio umbrella. How fun is that?!

Yes folks, my husband, Kenny, has been at it again....he truly is the king of the garden!! How lucky am I to have a man that is so creative in my life?!

This is one of our best friends, David. He is the owner of Savage Pilates Studio here in our hometown. Our dogs, Cleo and Truvy, refer to him as Uncle David....they get so excited when he comes over to visit. He is another person I'm lucky to know.

Wow! We've had soooo much rain this past week and the garden has just started laughing with color....it's everywhere....so happy!!! Last week the pool had to have water let out of it 2-3 times to keep it from overflowing....it was crazy. Of course all of the rain and thunder made Cleopatra on edge most of the week....poor baby.

The plumeria is starting to bloom! So much prettier with the flowers on!

And the hibiscus is beautiful as well curled up like a little snail...just waiting to burst out in glory.

The cleome's are really taking off brightening up the back of the yard.

They make me think of powder puffs.....yup, really girly powder puffs...the things fantasies are made of.

The coneflowers are also putting on quite a show....they make the bees so happy! In the morning they are covered with bees gathering their pollen to make sweet honey.

The Gooseneck Loosestrife looks like little puffs of clouds for this froggy to land on! Or perhaps he's soaring above the clouds.

The side yard has gone absolutely wild!!! There is not even a path to walk through it now and I just love it.....so, so wild and carefree!

Who could be happier?! This is the view I get to see out of my studio window when I sit down at the sewing machine.

Go forth and be creative,

Tammy

p.s. A big thanks to Kenny for all of his great photography :)