A Fabric Collage UFO, Monarchs, and other Summer Diversions

Summer in Maine. There’s a reason it’s called Vacationland. There’s also a reason I take a break from travel and quilt retreats for July and August each year. After making it through the Maine winter, the only reward you’re likely to receive is the Maine summer so you’d better be around to enjoy it. Summer is when my husband Tom and I get to indulge some of our non-fabric collage related interests, with a UFO (unfinished object) thrown in this year—the on-going portrait of my niece, Maia (above).

Usually about this time of year, I share my summer activities here in the blog. It gives me a break from coming up with posts about fabric collage, and it gives my readers a little peek into my life. I always find it fascinating to discover what other interests people have beyond the field in which I know them. The quilt shop owner who collects rocks and minerals and rides Harleys comes to mind. It’s these unique hobbies and obsessions that make people so interesting.

This year I am including Tom’s summer activity as well. As I hope you know he is my partner in this business and helps me write the blog, so I thought you should have an opportunity to know him a little better, too.

If you usually sit down with a cup of coffee or tea to read the blog on Saturday morning, you might want to consider making a whole pot. This one ran a little long!

The UFO

At the top of my summer to-do list is this portrait of my niece. At least I’m on track to finish the portrait. It’s been diverted from my attention for over two years now. As we mentioned in this week’s Throwback Thursday post, I’ve been giving it special attention with in-progress videos and lots of photos. Soon I’ll put them together as an update to my Online Fabric Collage Master Class Manual. More on that in the fall, but here’s some summer photos to show that I’m almost there. As always, you can click on any photos to see them larger.

Inspiration and an Obsessive Diversion

The photos above are those I based Maia’s portrait on. Maia, who is now 20 years old, had a knack for finding baby animals in need of rescue, and participated in raising and releasing monarch butterflies along with our son, Sam. Back then, a dozen butterflies was a good batch to care for. As a family, we learned not to mow the milkweed plants that would pop up in the former pasture that is now our “lawn.” Well, 19 years later, we’re surrounded by thriving islands of beautiful milkweed—and with some ebb and flow, there’s been welcome visitation by migrating adult butterflies (laying their eggs on the milkweed, and only milkweed, to hatch and eat up) ever since.

Even though the kids have outgrown their fascination of raising these truly amazing creatures, I haven’t. Last year I tagged the butterflies I raised for Monarch Watch. With over 100 caterpillars, it became a part-time summer job and I hesitated getting into it again this year. I failed to avoid it, however, and inadvertently escalated the numbers.

I tried not to look too hard at the milkweed, but it smells so good… (And frankly, my curiosity got the best of me.) I found one caterpillar and put it on a stem of milkweed I put in a vase of water in the house. I ordered a new enclosure that I could set up outside my studio door so the one caterpillar (who was I kidding?) could safely grow up outside, but sheltered. You see, in the wild, 1 out of 10 eggs mature to butterflies. My success rate has been 9 out of 10.

I had happened to have ordered two enclosures (just in case), which was good, ’cause when I went to collect fresh milkweed for the guy, I brought back another 17 caterpillars. One thing led to another, and when I finally took the time for a head- and chrysalis-count two days ago, it seems I’ve got 229 butterflies in the works.

What this means for my summer is that every one to two days (I’ve somewhat streamlined the process) I spend a few hours tending to my brood. They grow from 1/16 of an inch at hatching to fat 2-inch caterpillars before they’re ready to turn into a chrysalis. They’re quite ravenous at this stage and will eat through the leaves, flowers, and even the early forming milkweed pods. They also poop a lot. I take a mom’s pleasure in quietly hovering over their enclosures and listening to their collective chewing, punctuated with the faint drops of healthy poop pellets onto the floor.

I set up thin peach tree branches in the back of each enclosure for a chrysalis hanging structure. Some caterpillars took the hint, others continued up the netting to hang from the ceiling, which is part of the intent. Each stage is so amazing to me, the chrysalises are a beautiful green, dotted with metallic gold trim (which begs the question, Why?). See the wings forming inside?

When a caterpillar is ready to metamorph, it secretes a web-like thread to anchor it to what it will hang from. It then goes into a “J” and as soon as you stop obsessively watching and waiting for it, it’s a chrysalis.

After I sweep out the floor, I cut some new milkweed stems and place into heavy glass vases filled with water. Previously I had a hanging enclosure and could not have used vases, but this helps me keep the milkweed fresh for eating and saves a lot of time on my end. I tried to pack the stems tight enough to eliminate too many gaps between the leaves. Unfortunately, a few caterpillars did lose their footing and I’d find them during the next cleaning, drowned. Tom reminds me to look at the big picture, and how many more I’m helping grow to maturity. His suggestion, so far so good, was to cover the vase opening with plastic wrap.

During cleaning, the “crawlers” and the leaves they’re on, are carefully placed on the stretched mesh that makes the top of the enclosure. A handy surface, and I can easily see when one tries to make a dash for the edge in search of greener pastures.

I believe (and hope) the photo above will prove to be the height of the caterpillar count. Most of these guys have gone into chrysalis stage at this time, hanging with no extra work on my part. It takes about 15 days of magic for them to emerge as butterflies.

Above, you can see a variety of sizes of growth—at upper left a beautiful big fellow large enough to turn whenever he’s ready, and a little guy maybe a a couple days old, directly below my thumb. I then place caterpillars and fresh leaves back into their enclosure for more buffet action.

Because I have full milkweed stems in these enclosures, some caterpillars don’t travel far and just turn chrysalis on a nearby leaf (the photo above right is a freshly turned chrysalis—halfway between stripes and gold flecks). Since these are cut stems, it proves a problem in that the leaves can dry out and fall off before the critters emerge as butterflies. So, outside the enclosures on a little table, I have (the otherwise eaten) milkweed stems with chrysalis attached leaves propped against a helpful potted plant to give support while needed. Safety pins have been employed to replace dried leaves as they give way. Quilting supplies to the rescue.

As I’ve been finishing this post, I’m ducking outside to check the progress of one of the chrysalises—#2 to emerge. As they near emergence, the green covering turns clear, finally to the point of seeing the coloring and markings on the wings inside. I was hoping to get a video of the wrinkled winged butterfly breaking out. But just like when it turns into a chrysalis, you turn your back and it’s over. At next check, the butterfly had emerged. It hangs for awhile, the wings need to smooth out (like they’ve already done here), but it also has to drip-dry, the wings are kinda floppy at first. You can see a clear drop of liquid at the bottom of the body, below right.

It’s a girl! When she finally dried enough to open her wings and flap a bit, I could see there was no black dot within one of the black lines on her lower wings—that’s how you know. And look at the variation of orange—from yellow to red—on her. She’s beautiful. I know from past years that their markings are all different and individual, like the stripes on zebras.

I’ve decided not to tag the butterflies this year. As it’s working out, I think many will be emerging after I start traveling and teaching again in early September. Be it Tom, Sam, or my sister, their caretaker will have enough to do without adding that last step of handling and documenting.

I may not have gotten an emergence video, but I did get a few wing stretches, below. I’m naming her Christine, after the love interest in Phantom of the Opera—you’ll understand why later in this post (hint: Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the musical adaptation of the novel). As I drop this video into place, it’s dark and cool outside and she’s still on the stem. When the sun rises tomorrow, it’ll shine onto her and warm her up—I’m sure she’ll fly away then. She could well be of the generation that will attempt the unbelievable migration to Mexico to overwinter. If so, I hope she makes it. Adios, Christine. Vaya con Dios.

On an early cleaning day, one caterpillar (they can move fast if they want to) escaped the confines of the staging area, and was heading up the wall of my little porch before I knew it. He/she settled on the ceiling, went into a “J”, and then a chrysalis directly centered above my studio door. Pretty cool. I hope to catch sight of his/her emergence.

At Home with Pets

Now to the rest of summer life in Maine… Djinni Cat is happily satisfied that I’m home from travels. She’s happy to have a lap available when I’m on the computer or at my work board, and shows her affection with purrs and a bit of drool if she’s especially satisfied.

We re-introduced Kali’s favorite gently treated toy from her puppyhood, “Moostacow,” and she was so happy to see him. He had been tucked away for a couple years due to Felix dog’s propensity to tear up toys. We gave Felix a new Froggie and Foxie at the same time, hoping he was old enough to learn to be gentle too.

He did good for a few weeks, then I came upon the crime scene below.

I re-stuffed Moostacow and set him on a chair for stitching in my studio, but obviously not far enough out of 3-legged Felix’s reach. A few minutes later and Felix was caught with padding in his paws, again. Moostacow has been put together and put away for awhile.

A much more constructive exercise is our nearly daily morning walks with the pups down to the shore, only 1/2 mile away at the end of our road. It’s not unusual to see painters or photographers taking in the Casco Bay views as well.

Yard? Garden? What?

A manicured yard will never be a part of my future—due to both desire and time. It helps being on the edge of a field, benign neglect has revealed not only our milkweed crop, but the many varieties of goldenrod that the adult butterflies can feed on, wild blueberries, and even raspberry and blackberry vines. Who knew?

An early evening visitor recently discovered our peach tree (above). Early this spring, my cute little mama walked down from next door where my parents live, to check out my rhubarb bed and spring clean-up (below).

My propensity to let things grow where they are not planted (Tom suffers greatly about this), has led to the overtaking of a vegetable garden we attempted years ago. This spring I resolved to hold onto one small part of it through the summer. I’ve kinda managed to do that. The rhubarb grows to such monstrous size that it takes care of itself just fine. Next to it, I added a few more feet to a cinder block garden, enlarging it to fit a bed frame lifted from a “garden bed” I’m giving up on.

I love the shabby-chic garden look, and used rusty metal bed frames or containers to corral this year’s seedlings, prior to flying out for two weeks teaching in early June. When I got back, yes, it had grown a bit more, but there was still a path open to the bed (one of my small summer goals).

Now, a couple months later, I can beat a path to my little garden space—through the milkweed and black-eyed Susan’s, aren’t they pretty? Honestly, time to garden has been replaced with time to care for the caterpillars, what’s more important anyway? I do harvest milkweed stalks for the monarch enclosures from between my few vegetables and the path to them, which helps to keep the garden well-enough accessible.

Here’s what I managed for my veggie garden—planting way too many seedlings to start—but amid all that growth have been tasty harvests of snap peas, spinach, Swiss chard, celery, and now little pickling cukes, husk cherries, and four types of tomatoes.

In doing some studio storage cleaning, I came across unredeemable jeans, waiting to be cut up and made something with. Admitting I have no time for that either, I checked the internet for ideas to use up boxes of hole-y jeans. Mulch! They’re 100% cotton and heavy enough to stay in place in a small path. Mere moments and I had easier, and interesting, garden access.

One seedling find this year was Lemon Jewel Marigolds—they’ve thrived planted in the holes of the cinder blocks surrounding the garden bed. I got the marigolds to discourage pests, but also ’cause they’re edible. And they do taste lemony! I munch on them as I walk around, and add to salads and even on top of baked potatoes (above right).

And below, yes those are dandelion greens! Seasoned with liquid aminos (good way to add some balanced protein) and topped onto some curry hummus… mmmm. They’re also good sauteed with a little garlic. It may not come as a surprise to you that our yard sprouts a healthy crop of dandelions every year. I tried a dandelion flower appertif recipe with vodka this spring. I’ll be brewing a bit more next year.

Summer Distractions Galore

Since I want to have dinner with my family tonight, I’d better go faster with the rest of this post….

Maine is full of summertime outdoor activities—concerts like this one above, a Beatles tribute band at our town’s fully solar operated bandstand. And then there are yard sales. Note the chandelier-based serving tray octopus below. If I could have figured out where to hang it, it would have come home with me.

For better or worse, my family (sister and parents, not Tom) is known for our yard sale appearances. Here we came upon a jeweler friend with a booth at a town sale. We hung out long enough for her to take a photo of us—with my sister Heidi, and our friend Darlene.

Yard sale finds from previous years have gone into glass yard art—made during down-time this past winter. My green vase tower got planted for our front entrance area.

More glass and pottery—mostly sale leftovers destined for the town dump—get a second chance in my yard as silicon glued stacks of… stuff.

This sort of creative activity of mine causes Tom, in his words, to “break out in hives.” So this seems like a good place to take a break and let Tom tell you about his summer go-to diversion….

Tom’s Summer Activity (written by Tom)

I spend as much of my summer as possible here:

I’m an avid sea kayaker and also a registered Maine sea kayak guide. This gets me on the water several times a week, whether on my own or with clients. Days like the one above are rare—blue skies and mirror-calm water, but any day on the bay is a good one. I used to have kayak envy. Around here lots of folks carry their boats around on roof racks everywhere they go. Whenever I saw an especially nice one I would rubberneck for all I was worth. But since I got my baby below, a Current Designs Caribou made out of kevlar, I have been quite content.

Sometimes I have a paddling partner.

Here she’s rocking a traditional Greenland-style boat and paddle, though she doesn’t know it.

I see wildlife on my trips, especially birds. Terns and seagulls are most common. Bald eagles are making a terrific comeback in our state.

This year, and for the last few years, schools of fish called pogies (or menhaden) have flooded bays around Harpswell. Many creatures feed on pogies–seals, osprey, eagles, other larger fish. They are also caught in nets for lobster bait. This summer on one trip I ran across a huge school feeding near the surface. I took the video below. The noise you here that sounds like deep-fat frying is the fish slapping their tails on the water.

My favorite kayak trip this year was one I took to Vinalhaven Island, a large inhabited island in Penobscot Bay. I was co-guide for H2Outfitters, the company I work for part-time in the summer. The island is year-round home for about 1200 people, many of them lobstermen and their families.

I like to combine photography with my trips. I have a Nikon DSLR for when I’m off the water, as when I’m wandering around the harbor in Vinalhaven. I particularly like the shot below. The light on the clouds and then on the water makes the shot.

I once had an employer who was a professional photographer, Peter Randall, who was well-known in New Hampshire where he lived. He was also a book publisher. He once passed on to me a bit of wisdom that he had heard from someone else:

“The best photography advice is: f8 and be there.”

Meaning that the technical considerations of f stops and shutter speeds don’t mean anything if you aren’t there to capture the moment.

Many of my best photos are a result of just that: being in the right place at the right time, such as when the sun lit these clouds and the buildings below.

Back to Susan….

Oh Yeah, We Have a Graduate!

Our son Sam, graduated from the University of Southern Maine this May with a Music Theater major and minors in Theater and Computer Science—did I mention Summa Cum Laude?

He’s home now for the summer, as well, and Tom and I want to do things with him, when he allows us to. Schedules are busy enough that we came up with “Summer in Maine Moments” to take advantage of when we can.

With Tom into kayaking, taking an early paddle on a beautiful morning was a given. We could launch from the end of our road, and within three hours had put in some quality family time with a five mile circumnavigation of Birch Island.

We pulled in at a little cove where we’ve camped before, and I took the short video below so you can drift through the seaweed with me.

Another vacation-moment was going to a favorite restaurant, favored by “locals,” but usually avoided in the height of the tourist season. Tom and I don’t think we’ve ever waited an hour and a half to be seated at any restaurant—but we got one of the best tables and views—and a perfect meal.

Summertime and New Year’s, the board game RISK comes out for a multi-evening battle campaign. Sam discovered a “GodStorm” version a few years ago, which puts an element of chance into this game of strategy. Be it skill or luck, Sam slaughters us every time—getting an “I won’t hold it against you” handshake from his dad below.

Very conveniently, the nationally recognized Maine State Music Theater is a mere 15 minutes down the road from us. Sam got into three of their side productions this summer, so performing has been one of his summer jobs. We just saw the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber performance this week—an ensemble cast where Sam had three songs where he was a featured singer. As a proud mom with easy access to the theater, I went to 3 of the 4 performances with various members of the family. The overall talent and energy—nonstop singing and dancing—from these young people was amazing. As I write this post, I have a newly created “Andrew Lloyd Webber” station playing on Pandora, reliving the music and performances in my head.

Because of Sam’s interest in musical theater, we’ve taken out season subscriptions to MSMT as a family for a few years. Next week, Sam finishes his part in the summer lineup with a children’s theater production of Grimm’s The Little Mermaid. The next evening, he joins us in the audience for The Wizard of OZ.

An interesting tidbit about the movie’s Margaret Hamilton above—she actually came to Maine and performed her wicked witch role for MSMT in 1961, many years after the movie. All summer, there’s been rotating costume exhibits in the MSMT lobby, leading up to this season’s OZ performance. As fabric oriented readers, I thought you may enjoy these photos. I’m looking forward to seeing the costumes in action.

My blog-writing time is up (dinner and a movie with my guys tonight), so I’ll end my annual “Summer in Maine” post with Dorothy’s famous quote—which Felix demonstrates his agreement with in video below—”There’s no place like home.”