Farewell Courtney Milne

Wow - such sad news!  Sunday, a truly inspirational prairie photographer passed away: Courtney Milne

Courtney Milne captured exactly what I love about my homeland.  In fact, 13 years ago when I moved away from Saskatoon, I purchased some of his photo cards from the Berry Barn at a farewell tea before I left.

I kept those photos taped to my wall near my bed for years in my little loft in the big city by the mountains.  I stared at them and cried often for being so homesick for our land and living skies.

After three children, ten years, and a seemingly shrinking townhouse, it was time to move.  My husband said, "you cry all the time when those storms don't come.  You want to move back to Saskatoon?"  So we did.

I still have Mr. Milne's photographs.  They sit on my altar.  Seriously - the land and sky is where I feel power and spirit.  That's my religion.

And so a big part of me is saddened by this death.  To honor his photos (though mine DO NOT compare), my daughter and I drove up and down gravel roads off local highways to take pictures.

Arwen and her Lego camera.

I never met him.  I knew nothing about the man.  My heart just responded to his photos.  All I could think when I saw his pictures was that he really knew where my heart was at.  He really loved the prairies. 

Many people drive through here and joke that there's nothing to see.   My answer is, "then you aren't looking".   There is so much quiet, powerful beauty here.

Maybe that's why it's so meaningful for me to put the prairies to fibre.  There's so much overlooked inspiration; so much disregarded spirit here.  Mr. Milne certainly captured the beauty of our surroundings for the people who missed it.  For that I thank you.

from "My Sweet Prairie"

xo

The Other End of the Spectrum

After finishing that orange Daisy Daisy quilt, and collecting masses of tigerlilies from the garden, I am completely drawn to the other end of the spectrum.

I don't have a clue what will result, but I do know that I have the perfect thread!!

 Oh yeah.  : )  I like it!!  So I begin strip piecing.  I love when it ripples like candy!

My plan is to make a child-sized quilt, and hopefully create a documented pattern along the way.  : )   Quilter's Connection Magazine is a new Canadian publication that needs patterns submitted, and I'm feeling responsible ; ).

~Monika K.

Sewing in Saskatoon

Sunday Snapshots in my Sewing Studio

Before I go to bed, here's some more pretties from my studio.  I think I'll make this a regular Sunday thing.  

First up, my favorite reads:

Here is my darling canary, Pippin.  He sings when my sewing machine is humming and makes me totally happy!!

I will to be sewing more tomorrow.  Sundays are never good for that - too much family home & shopping errands & endless housework.  

see you tomorrow!
~Monika

Rosehips Under Glass

Here it is, as promised!  The rosehips by the shore... transformed into fibre art. 

 

I did the stitching on a very tough canvas-like fabric called Buckrum.  It's under glass in a dark cherry wood frame.  It's amazing.  But the glass glares so bad when I photograph it that you cannot see the art.

I think it looks really sharp with the black matting.  It brings out all the black threads.

I stitch-sketched all the focused foreground and left all the blurry background unstitched.  I then pushed the berries and leaves and stems forward with a blunt tool in order to create a trapunto effect.  I then flipped the piece back and pushed the background deeper back by stretching the canvas with the same tool.

Nice.  I like it. 

But now I just want to make more!  : )

~Monika

happy to put her photos into fabric 

End of Summer Photos

Here are some gorgeous rosehips that were just reaching for the water over the edge of Jackfish lake.

These just need to be turned into fibre art!

Gorgeous.  Just a gorgeous day.

I just love them.  And then my camera ran out of battery power.  (choke .. gasp.. ack!)  So enjoy these these next two...  one of the rocks at the end of summer when the levels go down.

And something you see when you drive the Saskatchewan highways out by lakes and farmlands...

Pretty funny eh?  : ) 

now back to the sewing room...
~Monika

Don't try this at home folks.

I have an HP inkjet printer.  I found a recipe of the internet for a solution to use to set the printer ink for permanency when printing onto fabric.  Here's the ingredients:

30 parts hot water, 10 parts alum, 4 parts washing soda, 1 part fabric softner.  Soak the printed fabric.  I found the grams translated on the internet as well.  Click on the photo to see the recipe card bigger.

I had a page of postcards printed.  You iron your plain fabric onto the waxy side of freezer paper and then cut it to 8.5 by 11 inches to fit your printer.  I cut my print in half to keep one original.  Here's how the colors compare after soaking.

ALL the blue drained out and turned the solution blue.  ; (  Look at the little window in the prints.  See how it's lost the color?  Ick.

Back to the drawing board.  If anyone else knows the trick, please email me!!

~Monika with fabric-softened hands. 

Orange Photos... and book reviews!

A few more pretties from my studio...  

Discarded from the public library.  Shame.  It's my favorite storybook EVER.  You must read it.  It contains the meaning of life.

I'm serious.  I cried when I first read this.  Isn't she fabulous??  And of course, my childhood idol is/was Pippi.

Since we are on the subject of orange...

Tiger lilies from my back yard!  yum!

Enjoy the hot autumn sun & long shadows.  

~Monika K.

Daisy Daisy on Display

From now until November 20th, this eye-popper is hanging at McNally Robinson's Booksellers in Saskatoon along with other quilts made by members of the Saskatoon Quilters' Guild.

If you don't like orange, this quilt is not for you!  lol

It is for sale, however the bookstore provides the space only and will not sell directly.  This won't be for sale in my ETSY store while it is exhibited.  If interested, you'll need to contact me directly MySweetPrairie@gmail.com

Have a sun-shiny day!

~Monika K.

Sunday Snippets of my Sewing Studio

I did A LOT of rearranging and reorganizing yesterday.  I doubled my space!  Gotta like that.  I have a giant L shaped office desk to sew on , and another L shaped desk back to back with it.  That's where I am now sitting with my laptop & camera and morning coffee.   So let's start!

This is my middle child.  He's sitting at the corner of one of the desks.  I'm sitting behind him.  He likes this new clean uncluttered desk top and has arranged his science 'items' so he can invent.  I moved a pencil yesterday and he noticed.  : )  He thinks this is his desk.  : )  I actually do plan to set up a second sewing machine here for my kids or sewing clubs!  (GREAT IDEA HUH!?)

Here's what I'm sitting on right now.  My Mama Bear quilt is hanging over the railing.

That looks SO Canadian, doesn't it!?  : )

And now - for my thread!  I have an old stained-glass medicine cabinet for my sewing threads.

And then there's the clear craft case for all the decorative rayons.  It's like a paint box for sewing!  It folds in half.  I found it at Zeller's.  Here it is opened up:

And then yesterday I did another treasure hunt and found a spice rack for TALL thread cones!  It's perfect.

Those are my new threads from Connecting Threads.  I LOVE the size!  They are fat and huge but still fit on the thread post in my machine.  Brilliant.

Some women have shoe fetishes.  I have a foot fetish.  ; )  Check it out.  THere are actually three missing from the photo!

My 'to sew' reminder board...

And some reading at the window.  I love the giant 5 ft by 6 ft window.  I lay down a white cloth and take most of my photos of art here.  The natural lighting always keeps the colors truer that way.

See the greeting card with the bowl of cherries?  My husband got me that card for an anniversary years ago.  SWEET huh!?  Life is like a bowl of cherries.

: )

Have a great Sunday, and a special thank you to all the wonderful fans of this blog and of my work.  You feel my soul!

love Monika
*

Saturday Morning Stencils

I have never stencilled before - ever.  I've always drawn everything free hand.  Last week I bought this stencil from Dollarama because it had a pretty bird cage design.  I am a bird owner / lover and was planning to enter a piece for the Quilting Arts calendar competition.  The theme is Pets.  

So my daughter woke me up at 5 am and then fell back asleep.  I could not.  The house was quiet.  I went into my sewing space and took out a pretty yellow washed batik fabric, my oil paint sticks, and began...

 I used Yellow Ochre with a bit of Burnt Sienna.  Tada!

I love the color scheme.  It matches my canary.  I find yellow such a happy color.  So there.  I stencilled.  Then I notices that there were also leaf stencils in the same package.  So I pulled out some dark brown cloth and began another piece I've been storing in my imagination.

I added in some antique white, Oxide of Chromium green, and Alizarin Crimson for the maple leaves.  This one will be a wall hanging featuring the gorgeous Harvest Moon!!  LOVE it so far.  It sure is nice to finally put all these paintsticks to use.  

And of course, I must feature the colors of my paintbowl!

Fall is in the air!  It's the end of August and you can feel it.  The sun is HOT and the breeze is cooling off again.  I love that feeling.  Soon it will be time to bring out the quilts and smell that gorgeous autumn air...

~Monika

relaxing after clipping 40 toenails and fingernails, and doing a few haircuts out in the backyard. 

Today is the day!

Today is the day that I promised myself I would sew instead of blog/etsy/photo/email/facebook/flickr/soopsy.  Well.  It's not even 10 am and I flunked.  lol  Oh Well.  I hopped online here to post this.  After returning from my morning walk, I found the Fall 2010 Saskatoon Liesure Guide on my step.  Inside is the ad!

gotta fly

gotta sew

love M.

TAFA List!

I suppose I do use a lot of exclamation marks in my posts, but I am so happy!!  : )  Just a quick blog to share tonight before I hit the hay...  Through Flickr photosharing group searches, I came across the TAFAlist group.

I just applied for membership and was accepted.  So check it out (and check on the other members' beautiful creations there!)  The TAFA List  If you click soon, you'll see My Sweet Prairie on the homepage.  

ps.  Thank you TAFA creator! ; )

~Monika