Friends of Freedom Park

What a beautiful Fall day to enjoy the color and start of the Great River Road running from Prescott, Wisconsin along the Mississippi River!  The gift shop has been buying my cards for a few years and I always wanted to stop in to visit. 

My cards greeted me just inside the gift shop door. The Gift Shop Manager was away on business, but  I met Jessica Bierbrauer, the Executive Director, who shared additional materials about the Great River Road. The building serves as an educational facility with hands on exhibits, and has panoramic views of the Mississippi River. I wish I had more time to check out all it had to offer but I had a long road ahead of me that day.

I LOVE this rock machine that dispenses gems instead of bubble gum!

There is a sculpture created out of trash collected from the Mississippi River. This reminds us all of our responsibility to be conscious environmental stewards of our natural resources.  

For more information on the Great River Road Visitor & Learning Center, click here.  

Sewing Up a 'Convenience Quilt'

I'm not a fan of the term 'cheater quilt'. It makes what I designed for Modern Yardage sound cheap and second rate. I know full well the difference between a pieced quilt and mine, the hours and dedication it takes, but I do think the pre-printed designed fabric panel deserves a better term. So I'm going to refer to it as a 'convenience quilt'. To emphasize my point, 13 year old Lindsey is going to make the baby quilt in 5 hours while her Mom, Melissa/owner at The Linden Tree, guides her and I photograph the steps. Here goes:

My Amelia Harper panel is available at Modern Yardage. It is 36"x 54" and costs $17. Lindsey first trimmed off the excess fabric and then measured 66" of dark blue fabric for the back.

She trimmed the back panel to 40"x58" and saved the remaining fabric for the binding.  Melissa suggested a batting that would accommodate stitching 7.5" apart- the distance between the fabric squares- and Lindsey trimmed it to 40"x58" as well.

The next step required spraying a temporary adhesive on the wrong side of the quilt back, smoothing down the batting on top of it.  Here Lindsey is spraying just half of the panel at a time in a well ventilated area.

After spraying the batting, she laid down the top panel and smoothed it out, finishing her quilt 'sandwich'.

Then came the fun part of topstitching the front panel. Lindsey 'stitched in the ditch', carefully sewing along all the pattern pieces.

It looked amazing! The whole process up to this point took about 3 hours.

 Next Lindsey trimmed out the binding strips to 2.5" wide, cut the ends at a 45 degree angle and stitched them together. I apologize the fabric looks a different color blue but it isn't.

 She folded the binding strip in half and pinned the raw edges together on the back side panel, leaving the first 5" free of stitches to connect the final strip at the very end.

It was difficult to photograph how she sewed the corners since the thread is the same color as the fabric. Lindsey stitched to about 1/4" from the end and stitched at a 45 degree angle to the corner. She folded the fabric to create a flap and folded again to continue sewing.

 When Lindsey reached the end of the binding, she marked a 45 degree line meeting the beginning strip.

She unfolded the binding, pinned them together and stitched across.

Here's where the bind came together, was folded in half and stitched along the raw edges to finish the bind.

Melissa was close by to guide Lindsey thru the final binding stitches.

Here's a close up of the top side of the quilt where the binding folded at the corner. Lindsey did an excellent job stitching close to the edge nearest the design to give the quilt a finished look. 

Voila! A beautiful 'convenience' quilt done in about 5 hours. Jackson gives his pose of approval.  I'm so grateful to Lindsey and Melissa for showing how my fabric panel can be made into a beautiful baby quilt!  

Japanese Tea Ceremony

Like growing my own flowers to draw from, I like to experience events and ceremonies to draw inspiration from for my art. The Como Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota keeps pulling me back from their large pan Lily Pads, Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival and authentic Tea Ceremony at the Tea House located in The Japanese Garden. This was my year to get a coveted ticket to attend.

A small group of 7 people met at this sign within the garden and were greeted by host volunteers dressed in Kimonos. They led us to the Tea House and talked about Japanese architecture, landscape and the rituals prior to the ceremony. Taking photos during the event would have disruptive, so Itook a few afterwards.

We were led into a small room just inside the front door, removed our shoes, put on sandals and walked on a rock path to the back of the house. We poured water over our hands and touched our mouths with water at a stone basin.  To enter the Tea Room, we had to crouch down and enter a small door on our knees. Another volunteer host explained more about the ceremony which dates back more than 450 years and gave us each a sweet to eat.  The Tea Master came in with utensils like these I photographed at a display in the Conservatory.

It was a slow, graceful ritual as she cleaned and prepared the utensils with a silk fabric. The tea itself in a fine bright green powder that is scooped out of the little box into the bowl, the water is added and then whisked with the bamboo utensil that has a flower-like shape. We were each handed a warm bowl of tea, bowed, rotated the bowl twice so the design faced outwards and drank. It has a pleasant taste and a foamy top to a small amount of tea.  Afterwards the tea bowls were gathered by the volunteer and the Tea Master rinsed and cleaned the utensils with the same graceful ritual as before. 

This is a picture of the Tea Master showing one of the guests the tea powder.

Here is the view from behind the Tea Master's table. (She didn't sit on the floor and neither did we.) 

The alcove had a hanging scroll and simple flower arrangement.

Here are other pictures of the room and exterior of the Tea House constructed on Minnesota materials. The ceremony was 45 minutes but we were told traditional ones may take 4 hours with added elements. They also told us there are only two public Tea Ceremonies are offered in the whole country in Tea Houses like this. 

Frank Lloyd Wright has ties to Japanese art and his appreciation of wood block prints. I read he denied that he was inspired by Japanese architecture though, and that it merely was a confirmation of his own organic architecture principles. Sounds like a Frank Lloyd Wright statement all right.  

I enjoyed the serenity and spiritual element of the whole ceremony and the Tea House. I felt a long way away from the city.  I really liked how the outside nature was a part of the inside rooms. No music was played but for the sound of birds chirping and the wind rustling the leaves.

Here's a link to the Tea Ceremony if you want to check back next year for tickets.  

Card Reenactments

My yard is now a card show of past flowers I've drawn into cards. Here's my Bleeding Heart which has been a favorite and prolific flower in my front yard.

I planted just a few Allium bulbs last Fall and they just bloomed this week. Yes, it's a late Spring here in Minneapolis!  If you like this card, order it soon. It may disappear before Fall when I must prune back on my Etsy offerings.

The white Tulips are my sentimental favorite because this was the very first card I illustrated in my Craftsman Nouveau style.  I also love white flowers and have continually tried to have my version of a moonlight garden in the backyard. There were many more of these before the rain got them last night.

Sweet fragrant Lily of the Valley can be found growing where ever they chose in my yard.

Yep, they sneak into my yard, too. My illustration has elevated this lowly Dandelion to a pretty card.

Another white flower on my deck.  These are petite white Carnations which I had simplified for a Love Always card.

And finally, the Iris is just shy of blooming on the street side of the yard.  It will undoubtedly make it's appearance soon.

All of these cards are available in my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CindyLindgren