Hurricane Earl is heading north and Cape Cod and the islands should feel its effects tonight. Yesterday was busy with hauling boats and putting away outdoor furniture, not to mention cleaning up the junk that somehow accumulates in the yard. This morning the scene on the bike path in Sippewissett and West Falmouth was calm and serene. If you don’t see a new post in a few days, it might be because we’ve lost power, but hopefully we’ll weather the storm OK.
Rose hips are everywhere this summer. The rosa rugosa plants are not native, but brought over from Asia hundreds of years ago. They love our climate and grow like weeds along the bike path, on road sides and along the edge of the beach. First, they bloom with the most brilliant deep pink flowers.
And then form rose hips that look good enough to eat, although they don’t taste very good. Years ago, I made the mistake of calling these beach plums (which are a totally different edible fruit), but the “botany police” corrected me.
They turn wonderful shades of orange and red and look as exotic as sea creatures, like mini octopi.
This fairy is in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk .
Sunday was another beautiful morning on the bike path to Woods Hole. All around me there were people setting up traffic cones and water stations for the triathlon. I managed to take a few pictures before the race started at 7:30. I’ve just been informed by a reader that the invasive knapweed below is a neuro-toxin and should not be handled!
Young Queen Anne’s Lace looks like an umbrella forced inside out by the wind.
And then later, the flower forms into a properly domed umbrella.
How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence. ~Benjamin Disraeli
Here are a couple of pieces that I made in 1982, when I was transitioning from 3d sculptural work to flatter, framed pieces. I started using the term “fabric relief” about then because people kept asking what they were called. It’s still hard to explain what I do at cocktail parties!
The water coming out of the hose is metallic thread. The figures playing croquet are very early “wee folk” with cloth heads instead of the painted wooden ones I use now.
This is a detail from the strawberry garden scene in a illustration from Mary Had a Little Lamb. The stones were glued onto the velveteen background fabric.
Here’s another Mary character in her garden, this one from The Hollyhock Wall. Her hair is wool fleece and the background is embroidery on dyed velveteen.
“Eleven, Twelve, dig and delve”. This illustration is part of a rhyme in Pocketful of Posies. The straw hat is made with thread wrapped wire and the spade blade is a heart charm.
Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.
With a good balance of sun and rain, along with warm temperatures early in the spring, it’s been an incredible garden season. Both vegetables and flowers are healthy and beautiful. At this point, I just grow flowers that are easy and take care of themselves. If they live through the winter, I divide the plants in the spring and give them away or find new ground to cover.
I forgot to cut back the trumpet vine this year and it looks more like a tree than a vine.
The clematis is so showy and brilliant purple.
Lilies are taking over!
I love the way hydrangea look at their different stages of growth. This could be clusters of french knots or seed beads.
More and more lillies.
My husband and I went 50 miles down Cape to the National Seashore and visited a cedar swamp. The outer part of Cape Cod has low growing pines, which are stunted from the wind and salt spray coming from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also much more sandy and open to the elements compared to the forested, sheltered and harbor filled southwestern part where we live.
The Cedar swamp is a short hike inland and downhill to a protected, peat-filled wetland. A board walk circles through the forest, so you can really see inside. This light and decay resistant wood was prized by the early European settlers and quickly cleared out of the Cape’s swamps.
The resilient cedars have returned, but the trees are no where near the 3′ in diameter that the settlers cut. The green moss-covered ground contrasted with the red tinted swamp water. A biologist friend told me that the orangey red color appears when the iron in the decaying material is oxidized.
It’s a magical place, with so many perfect areas for fairy houses. I wish that I’d brought some dolls along, to take their picture, but the park service wouldn’t have liked me dancing across the moss!
Here are some fairies that were caught on film during the month of July a few years ago. They were all sighted within a 1/4 mile of my house.
Also, take a look at my interview with the Empty Easel, an online art magazine which features practical advice, tips, and tutorials for creating and selling art.
Riding around on my bike in the early morning, I can’t help but revel in the show of both cultivated and wild roses around town. As a young person, I did not understand why my mother and grandmother got so excited about flowers. Sure, they were pretty, but why would you spend so much time and energy growing arranging and gazing at them? As you can see, I’ve grown into a flower freak after all! Here are some I saw and photographed in Woods Hole.
This is the first harvest of peas from my garden this summer! Lately, I only plant snap peas, having given up on the chore of shelling regular peas. Later in the season, I’ll be shelling Lima beans, though, which are just starting to climb like Jack’s bean stalk. One pea plant is a rogue, shooting up way beyond the Burpee’s Oregon Sugar Pod II plants.
It has a pink and white flower and we shall see what kind of pea it offers.
The sugar snap peas are so tender when they’re young.
Early in the season the pea plants are healthy and lush. In a few weeks, I’ll barely be able to keep up with the picking. When the leaves are forming, they look like fans or complex origami.
The plant’s tendrils remind me of hopelessly tangled and knotted thread.
Soon, the peas will be growing so fast that I’ll miss picking them while they’re small. There will more than we can eat, so it’s blanching and freezing time! See some of my artwork that includes peas in an earlier post here.
Dandelion
This little guy was able to hold onto a dandelion long enough to take his picture. And this fairy wanted to swing on a poppy stem, but looks a bit wary. Learn how to make dolls like these from my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects.
Red Poppy
SALLEY MAVOR 