Thursday, November 11, 2010

It took a long time!!

In May 2009, I taught my 2 day workshop "Vase with orchids" at Quilt Canada in Saskatoon. One of the organizers saw my sample, and she mentioned that she had a lot of orchids at home and asked if I wanted a small one (notice the word "small").

The next day she showed up with, in my eyes, a large orchid in a clay pot. No way I was going to leave it behind, so I emptied one of my bags and stuffed it under my seat on the plane. It got home in one piece. Over the next months it grew a few new shoots, which would then turn brown and wither away.

This spring I got fed up and took the plant outside. I smashed the pot to pieces and cut up the plant in 6 pieces. Two were very small and they ended up in the compost pile; the rest I potted up. One I hung in a tree, the others ended up in the shaded area of the deck. A month later, I found the 2 small pieces in the compost pile had roots. I found pots and put them with the others. Later I gave a few away, and the rest are doing fine. No more water out of the tap (runs through the conditioner) but water out of the barn -- and no more brown points. And yesterday I had the first flowers! And it was worth the wait.

I see I have lost a picture of my landscape in progress that I had loaded up and have no idea how to get it back. That will have to wait till later. There was a question about the sky fabric. It is not a batik or a hand dyed. It was a small piece that I found somewhere in my travels. And all I had is being used.

These fabrics are the ones used for the foliage. I try and buy fabric with lots of variations and then I cut where ever I find the right piece. This makes for very "hole-y" fabric. Notice the small piece in the left bottom corner. It has maple leaves, and those leaves are the perfect color for some of the "trees". Notice also the holes.

We had a busy week. On Saturday I taught a landscape workshop in Guelph, and this coming Saturday I will repeat the class. On Monday, I spent a big part of the day with my mother-in-law at Emergency, and finally at 7 at night she was admitted. She is doing well, but will be in the hospital for a few more days. On Tuesday I had a trunk show in Ajax. I do not like to drive in the city and was not looking forward to this. But Laurence came to the rescue. He came along. This way we were able to visit grandma in the hospital first. We took the road through the country, Orangeville, Newmarket and then south and we did not run into heavy traffic till a few kilometers from where we had to be. With him driving, it was a piece of cake. By the time we were done, the busiest time was over and we came home over the 401, through Kitchener. And in the end that way was only 1/2 km farther than the other.

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