Tuesday, October 23, 2012

New article up at the Examiner, on grape hyacinths (muscari), and easy and inexpensive spring flowering bulb!http://www.examiner.com/article/bulb-grape-hyacinths

Friday, October 19, 2012

New article up at the Examiner: free ebook on growing blueberries! http://www.examiner.com/article/free-blueberry-ebook

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

New article up at the Examiner, on the unusual wingthorn rose: http://www.examiner.com/article/the-perfect-rose-for-fall-color It's a spikey, gothy plant that shines in fall after the leaves fall!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

New article up at the Examiner, on the differences between heirloom, open pollinated, hybrid and GMO seeds: http://www.examiner.com/article/heirloom-hybrid-gmo

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

New article up at the Examiner, on growing African violets from leaf cuttings!http://www.examiner.com/article/african-violet-propagation

Friday, October 5, 2012

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Monday, October 1, 2012

Steamcon 4- Bast skirt

I have finally- with less than three weeks to go- started on my costumes for Steamcon 4. Saturday's costume will be the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast, but with a Victorian style rather than see through, skin tight, Egyptian draping.

I found a heavy brown, ankle length skirt at a thrift store that looked like it would work. But it needed something that said "Egyptian" so I decided to put a decorative band around the bottom with hieroglyphs. So, after letting out the skirt just a little (thankfully, it didn't have a band, so a little unpicking, steaming, stitching and fusible web later, it fit), I took a narrow piece of ecru cotton and free hand drew hieroglyphs all around it.
















Next, I went over the pencil lines with a brown permanent textile marker.











Then, I took artist's acrylics and painted the heiroglyphs in two shades of brown with a few touches of gold.













I pinned it to the skirt a couple of inches above the bottom, and top stitched it down.















I used a line of dark brown and a line of gold stitching on top and bottom. Then I unpicked the edges of the band, so it's rough and old looking. I can't decide whether to wash the skirt again before wearing it, to make the edges even more frayed. I also can't decide whether to try and antique it a bit with some dye sprayed on. For now, though, this is it.

New article up at the Examiner, on the colorful vine Virginia Creeper!
http://www.examiner.com/article/vine-virginia-creeper