resurrection fern

Victoria Day Launching of the Bluenose Ship Jacket

Victoria Day is the traditional beginning of summer in Canada and although the weather was anything but summer like this weekend I decided it was a great opportunity to launch my new ship jacket. The inspiration for this jacket was a famous ship from Nova Scotia , the bluenose . You can read about my connection to Nova Scotia in an earlier post . Okay, picture me standing on the dock with a large bottle of the very best champagne , the band is playing and then with a huge smash , the sounds of broken glass and wasted liquid my boat is christened, The Bluenose Ghost.

This is a very inexpensive white linen jacket that I stripped of buttons , shortened the sleeves and removed the epaulets ( never liked these things) . I drew an outline of the ship on the linen, and then started cutting and sewing the ship and its sails using only vintage fabrics from my stash. The only new fabric in this is some small pieces of felt. I added vintage trim, lace, ric rac and buttons. Vintage buttons, how I love thee!!!. The last step and the one that takes the longest is to embroider all the details of the masts and ropes , waves in the water , etc. The last time I did a boat I did the embroidery before the applique an most of it was lost under the sails. Here are some close up shots . It is hard for me to pick a favorite sail but I will tell you which one is the most special . It is the larger blue sail on the left side of the ship. If you look very closely on it you will see that the center of it is a different fabric from the outer portion. This came from a very old vintage sheet I found at a rummage sale ( yes, under a table) . It was so old an soft I was going to buy it no matter what condition it was in. It felt like your favorite denim jeans that you have worn for a million days and they are so soft an thread bare that they feel like they are a part of you. When I got it home, washed it and was folding it I noticed that it had circles of different fabrics in it. Some wonderful person had patched its holes in a very beautiful unique way with tiny little handsewn stitches. The patches are like little works of textile art. I am thinking of framing a few of them and I was very happy to include one in this jacket of mine. Here is a close up, see if you can spot it.

Inside the jacket I printed onto yellow vintage seam binding the name of the jacket, Bluenose Ghosts and I also printed a line from one of my favorite songs from damien rice . The line is "cold, cold water surrounds me now" . My youngest daughter did a modern dance solo to this song this year and every time I saw her dance it I had tears in my eyes because it was so beautiful and moving.

And for a little comic relief I added a little embroidered ghost with you guessed it a blue nose to the interface .

I am looking forward to warm weather and wearing this jacket to my favorite beaches this summer. I am sure you will be seeing more of it soon. Have a wonderful start to your week.

The Dear Margie Column

Yesterday I received a question in an email that I thought really deserved an educated response so I forwarded the question to a flickr friend of mine that that found me ( in the virtual sense ) through elsita's blog. She lives in Australia and takes some of the most amazing nature photographs that I have seen. I loved her answer so much that I asked if I could copy it here so that others might benefit from her wisdom. The words will be hers but I am going to use some of my photographs to illustrate the points she makes. Patricia wrote Dear Margie
I’m working on finishing up a memory quilt for my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday on Saturday (yikes!). This is my first quilt, so it’s quite scary. But I’ve had a great time putting it together. So I only managed a quick break outside before the rain started up again. I photographed a few more leaves and mushrooms for inspiration, though my photos are far inferior to yours. Any tips on improving my photography would be much appreciated—perhaps a topic for a future post or tutorial? Dear Patricia, That was a great question but I am no expert having only picked up a camera myself less than a year ago. I forwarded your question to a flickr friend of mine and she was very kind to send me an amazing response with five tips. These are all things I believe as well although I am sure I would not have articulated them quite as beautifully. So the words that follow are Mary's and the pictures to illustrate her points are mine
Here would be my tips (which I know you do as well).

1. Get out every day with your camera and take photos , even if it is only in your own back yard. You may have a great camera but if you do not develop an "eye" , you will miss all sorts of opportunities!

2. Gaze closely at your world, looking for insects, the shapes and colours of leaves, the buds and promise of flowers. If it has rained get out with your camera - there are then opportunities for photos of drops and reflections.

3. Look up and out! Nature is not just in the detail but in the big picture - the sky, the clouds, the avenue of trees, a pounding wave.

4. Observe and learn from photos and books - Flickr is inspirational. If a photo has the words "more properties" on it I will always look to see how the photo was composed - aperture, shutter speed etc.


5. Finally - and this may be strange - LISTEN. Many of my photos have been taken as a result of hearing birds cracking seeds in the trees above, the beating of wings overhead, the hum of the bee. Let all your senses be alive to the possibility of the photo.

Thanks Patricia for asking the question and a standing ovation to Mary for her fantastic answer. If you have any suggestions for future DEAR MARGIE posts leave a comment below and you never know your question may turn up in a future post. Have a wonderful sunday . I am going on a walk through the trilliums with the curator of Botany for the Royal Ontario Museum. I hope he has some answers for my questions.

My Saturday Morning

Here is my saturday so far. I woke up at 6 am , had coffee and a hard boiled egg and worked a little on my jacket. Went to our annual community plant sale/trade. Went to the local farmers market and my favorite local wool store ( UNWIND) . Dropped my 35 year old guitar off at the music store to be restrung . Stopped at starbucks on the way home to bring my sleepy daughter a skinny vanilla late. Put the produce away, checked by email ( hi elsita!!) and contemplated doing some housework:( There you have it and it is only noon here in Ontario. Here are some pictures I took to document my morning. Have a wonderful day everyone.

Lucy and Carolus Invite You Into The Woods

Today is a very special day !!! This is my 100th post on this little blog on mine. I have been saving these pictures I took when the woods were just waking up after a very long winter in Ontario. This is also a great excuse ( I don't really need one) for another giveaway. If you leave a comment you have a good chance of winning a set of cards I am going to make using the photographs from this post and a few others of my favorites from this spring. If you have children , gather them round the monitor I think they will enjoy this.

Once upon a time in a small town lived two bears, Lucy Emma and Carolus. Their mother named them after two very special people who taught the world about flowers and plants . They were Carolus Linnaeus and Lucy Emma Braun. They spent many mornings in their garden enjoying all the flowers there and learning the names of them. One beautiful spring morning Lucy and Carolus's mother suggested they go for a walk in the forest that was very close to their home . She packed up a small picnic for them and off they went. The forest was beautiful that morning and it didn't take long before they found a comfortable spot under a large tree to set down their tablecloth .

They were enjoying the mint tea and biscuits in their basket when they heard a small voice behind them.

Sitting in a branch was a very dapper little hedgehog whose name was Sacajawea . Lucy invited her to join them since they had plenty of tea and biscuits for all.

Sacajawea lived in the forest and had spent her life studying the native plants that grew there. Lucy and Carolus wanted to hear everything they could about these plants so that they could become as familiar with them as the flowers that grew in their garden back home.

They learned so much from each other and were having so much fun that even the rare birds of the forest like the wood duck came to see what the excitement was.

It was time for Lucy and Carolus to return home so they decided to meet with their new forest friend once a week so they could learn more about the forest and then share this information with their friends and family. They wanted to do all they could to help Sacajawea and ensure that she always had a beautiful place to live in the woods.

As the two bears left the woods that morning with their minds full of new plants and flowers and their heart filled with a new friendship formed the sun began to shine through the trees. A perfect end to a perfect morning.
I hope you enjoyed this little story I put together. The bears are ones I have had since I was a very young girl and they were already vintage when I was given them just in case you are starting to wonder how very old I must be ( Not that old!!!) . The clothes they are wearing for this photo shoot are the outfits I made for them again when I was young . That is part of this blogs story of the resurrection fern. You see what I am doing now, knitting and sewing , etc started a very long time ago and although there have been period of draught the interest and skills were never lost. Neither was my strong curiosity and love of the natural world.
Don't forget to leave a comment for the draw that will take place on monday morning. A reminder it isn't too late to make me a swap offer for a vintage fabric bundle. I am going to get these ready on the weekend when it is raining. I will leave you with a thought for the weekend. " To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while." Josh Billings

A Tisket a Tasket a Green and Yellow Sewing Basket

I was trying to think of a title for this post and the ella fitzgerald song ( one of my favorite vocalists of all times) floated into my cerebral cortex. That song is taken from a 19th century love poem. Well it fits because I love sewing baskets. You have seen some of the fantastic ones I have found filled with treasures on previous posts but you have never seen my collection. I have found all of these at thrift stores , rummage sales or garage sales and have never paid more that a few dollars for any of them. If any one asked me for a list of best buys at thrift stores ( no one has ) vintage sewing baskets would definitely be on that list. They are not easy to find because they are often not in the area of the shop with other sewing related items. The last one I found was in the darkest corner of value village under the shelf where they have large bags of old towels that people buy to use as cleaning rags.

The first sewing basket I collected was the small round one with the gathered fabric top in the last photograph in the middle of the left column. It is also probably the oldest one in my collection. The most functional award goes to the large paisley green one in the last photograph ( top right corner) It sits under the desk that holds my sewing machine . The green heart one holds my favorite vintage buttons and the most adorable award goes to the little house with the pincushion chimney. Almost all of these baskets are but to use storing buttons, thread and trim . One can never have too many sewing baskets or vintage tins in ones sewing area for storage. Tomorrow is friday and the start of our first long weekend of the spring/summer in Canada. Yay!!!! I just hope the weather cooperates, it looks pretty darn gloomy out there today.

Ms Elsita Mora meet Mr Rob Ryan

I had two wonderful surprises in the mail this week ( wow and its only wednesday) , a present I bought myself for my birthday last month arrived from England and a surprise from sunny California. Ms Elsita Mora I would like you to meet Mister Rob Ryan .

Now don't get jealous Bill but don't they look amazing together! Many years ago when my oldest children were young I used to order kits from england to make children's clothes . I was very excited to hear that this company was making a comeback and even more excited when I heard to celebrate there restart one of my favorite artist rob ryan designed fabric for a skirt ( for women!!!) . The company is clothkits and they are definitely worth checking out. I can't wait to get sewing this weekend to make the skirt. I told elsita how much I loved the buttons she was making and how I would love to knit a sweater around a set of them . I had no idea she was going to send all those fantastic things. Here are some close up shots so you can see what I mean. I love them so much and I know they will make any item I place them on look fresh and unique. They are so inspiring.

The kit comes with everything you need and the pattern is marked directly onto the fabric. It comes with lining, interface, zipper, a custom clothkits label and even thread. How cool is that !

The only thing I am missing is one of those little house elves that can operate my sewing machine or maybe a solar powered machine that I can take out in the woods and enjoy the fresh air, wildflowers and sew at the same time. That might be a good first invention for the lab Dr Elsita and I are starting. I have a 10 hour work day ahead of me so I better post this , finish my coffee and skidaddle out of here.

What Do You See?

At this time of year although I absolutely adore the majestic views of the sky when I look up and the layers of green and yellow when I look across the farmers fields and meadows. One of my favorite places to look is down, way down. You already know how I love the forest floor but what about my garden and the paths and surfaces around my home. What do you see?

Do you see garbage, plant waste, potential compost ??? Well I see material to gather up and be inspired by.

I see large complex flowers made out of plant matter.

While I was outside gathering magnolia leaves one of our cats, edgar started climbing the tree. I thought he was really sweet hanging out in the lower branches so I took some pictures but then he kept going higher and higher and then realized he couldn't get down . I had to climb the tree to rescue him . Sorry there was no one around to take a picture of edgar and me in the magnolia tree.

Thanks so much for all the response to yesterday's call to trade or swap for vintage fabric. It isn't too late to respond. I will be going over comments over the next few days and getting some bundles of fabric and trim together on the weekend. I want to give you a link to a fantastic website , the human flower project . Have a great day and don't forget to look down!!

Step Back in Time

This morning I want you to imagine yourself living in the 1800"s in a small town or village in Ontario. If you were a woman you would be making your own coats like my friend minnie did by spinning , dying, weaving and sewing. You would also be making just about everything your family and home required . If you didn't have the skills or materials you would trade for it with in your community. I took a visit to a favorite place of mine recently, Black Creek Pioneer Village and I wanted to share some images with you.

I love the idea of trading rags , wool or grains for cloth and this leads to a proposal I would like to make to you. I really am running out of space for all the vintage fabrics and trims that I have collected over the years. I proposed renting out some storage space at the dinner table the other night but that idea didn't go over well. I could sell some on etsy or ebay but I really don't need the money and don't have the time to photograph it . If you want to offer me a trade for something you make or think I would like the I might open up a swap shop. If you don't have anything to trade ( I might not believe you because I think everyone has something worth trading) you can write me and tell me what you would do with the material and we can see if my heart strings get pulled in your direction. If you have been reading this blog and never leaving a comment this is a great opportunity for you to come out of the your closet to claim something from mine. Make me an offer !!!!!

Happy Mother's Day

I wanted to wish all my friends a very happy Mother's Day and leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of animal mother's I have taken this past year and one from my photo album ( you should get a kick out of this one) . Don't forget to think about Mother Earth and all her children today!!!

I love that last photograph taken before the birth of my fourth child. Just in case you were wondering the baby in the little girl on the rights belly still hasn't come out.

The Trilliums are Talking but is Anyone Listening

It was a beautiful morning yesterday and I set out for a walk in one of the patches of woods near my home. We had a large amount of rain this week so everything was so very green. I walked of the trail as I so often do . The trilliums are peaking this week and the forest floor was white and green. I sat down on a fallen log to drink my vanilla latte when I noticed something I had never seen before. Right beside me was a white trillium with green stipes.

It had exactly the same shape and size of the trillium grandiflorum I blogged about previously.

I looked around some more and noticed more variation on this theme of green and white trillium. I was perplexed as to why there were so many different phenotypes of this trillium in an area smaller than my living room. Some were entirely green and some had different number of petals and stamens.

I couldn't help but think of these variations, especially the all green ones beautiful yet tragic. These plants depend on pollination to reproduce. Depending where the trilliums grown the pollinators may be beetles, ants, bees and butterflies. The all green ones with distorted flowers and stamens will be unable to reproduce by this method and they will die. When I got home I tried to find out what might be causing these changes. The answer is a sad one. These flowers are diseased and they are dying. They are infected with a very small bacteria called mycoplasma. Certain types of mycoplasma cause diseases in humans as well as other plants and trees. They are different than most bacteria in that they don't have a cell wall only a cell membrane and they infect cells by becoming intracellular similar to viruses. No one knows for sure how the mycoplasma infects the trillium but it is thought that it uses a vector, the leaf hopper to do its nasty deed.

I tend to take a holistic view to health and disease in my practice of medicine. If I was a plant doctor I would want to try to find out what has changed in this plants environment to weaken its natural defense mechanisms that is allowing this disease to spread through out the population of trilliums. I don't blame the leaf hopper the problem is bigger than that.

What really disturbs me is that no one seems to be asking these questions? The trilliums will turn green and then die and no one seems to care. This is the provincial flower of Ontario and is on all our official plaques, license plates , flags, etc. My husband and I have signed up for a walk next weekend " Tip-toe through the trilliums" with the curator of botany for the Royal Ontario Museum , Dr. Tim Dickinson and we are going to talk to him about our concerns. I will let you know the outcome of our discussion. Have a wonderful weekend.