Rainbows in Waterfalls

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Update

August 21, 2012

Just so you know, we did finally get the bag of clothes he had left at camp – about 3 and a half weeks later. We put it in a black trash can in the middle of the yard for three days. We know for sure that the temperature got up to 141 degrees. My handy-dandy meat probing thermometer told us that.

Then we put the bag it in the freezer at 0 degrees overnight. I threw away the suitcase and washed everything else in hot water then ran everything through the dryer twice. Six weeks later, no sign of bedbugs!

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Bedbugs

Bedbugs!

August 8, 2012

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Author: Jiří Humpolíček

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks!

It was Tuesday, early evening a few weeks ago when my 18-year-old son called. He was supposed to be at church camp. (He has never called from church camp before – this is a reason for concern.)

Me: Hello.

Him: Hey, so they closed camp and I was wondering if I could just drive down to OKC to visit (insert girlfriend’s name).

Me: What?

Him: Yeah, so they closed camp and I just left so I was wondering ….

Me: Wait, why did they close camp?

Him: They found bedbugs.

Me: Whoa, what? They found bedbugs? Where?

Him: Creekside.

Me: What cabin were you in?

Him: Creekside.

My mind was racing. I had spent months trying to figure out how we were going to coordinate his travel plans with our travel plans in a way I felt comfortable. Possibly more on that later. Now he was calling to tell me he was coming home from camp three days early and he is bringing bedbugs with him????

PHIL Image 11739

This picture is public domain from the CDC: http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details.asp?pid=11739

Him: The bedbugs weren’t in my room.

Me: Still!

Him: So can I go see GF?

Me: (Thinking: Why did I ever give in and let him drive to camp. I have always thought there needed to be a rule against that. Why do they always make the parents be the bad guys? This would be his last church camp. Why did I let him talk me into letting him drive? This wouldn’t even be an issue if I had stuck by my guns and NOT let him drive to camp. How did predict that this was going to be a disaster?

Me: No!

Him: Why not? (Oh, to be 18 when life is so simple.)

Me: It’s after 9:00 and it’s a 3 hour drive. You wouldn’t get to see her tonight anyway.

Him: I checked the GPS and its only 2 hours away.

Me: No its not. I’ve driven that drive and it is 3 hours. (Not only had I driven and know it is three hour drive, I double checked with MapQuest and it is 2 hours and 57 minutes. Apparently truncating makes things sound better.)

Besides where would you stay? It wouldn’t be fair to call your brother and say, “I’ll be in at midnight so can I sleep at your place.”

Him: He won’t mind.

Me: Hey, are traveling with the group? I thought we agreed you were going to stay with the group on the way home.

Him: No. They were probably going to stop and get something to eat on the way home.

Me: You were supposed to stay with the group.

Him: Sorry. So can I go to OKC?

Me: Here, talk to your dad. (Me to hubby as I was handing him the phone – “don’t let him go to OKC)

His one-and-a-half-hour drive home gave us time to briefly relax and try to come up with solutions to all these new problems. What were we going to do with the bedbug clothes, he is still going to want to see GF, just not tonight, and what do we do with our travel plans now?

Try explaining to an 18 year old the importance of leaving all of his camp stuff as far away from the house as possible. He will explain to you how he looked through it. He knows what bedbugs look like. The camp dean looked through his stuff. The camp dean knows what they look like. An exterminator looked though his stuff. He is not bringing any home. And even if he did, the best way to get rid of them is to run your clothes in the dryer for a few hours. Easy. And just in case, they wrapped everything up in lawn bags for the trip home.

Well, I didn’t want them in my dryer or my house even if they were bagged up. I called my uncle, the exterminator, and he said to throw those bags in a car with the windows rolled up in the hot sun for a few days and that ought to kill anything.

My son did come home with a lawn bag, neatly tied but that only contained the sleeping bag and clothes that were left on the floor after he had packed up his suitcase. (That makes me feel more secure!) He had left the bag with his suitcase as well as some other stuff at camp.

Nearly three weeks later, we have yet to get the suitcase full of clothes back (I just hope they are in the back seat of someone’s very hot car) and the bag with the sleeping bag is still unopened in the sunniest spot in our backyard. To tell you the truth, we have considered throwing away the clothes because we figured it would be cheaper to replace them than have the house exterminated.

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Sunflowers in Blue

July 24, 2012

Here are some more of those Woodland Sunflowers from Vail, Colorado. This time they are painted in blue.

I dyed SilkPaint! brand resist to make dots in the centers of each flower. After it was steamed and washed twice, some of the centers still seemed a little stiff. I don’t know if the stiffness will wash out eventually.

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Things That Last

July 22, 2012

I inherited this set of pots and pans from my Grandmother (yea, they have lids, too – actually there are a few more pieces).

About a year and a half ago it was frightfully cold outside. I had heard that when it is really cold outside you can throw boiling water into the air and it freezes so fast it makes snow. Well, we decided to try it. We boiled some water in one of those pots, ran outside and swung the pot, making the water fly into the air. The only problem is, the pot handle broke off and the pan went flying! We were so shocked that the pot broke, I don’t know if we made snow.

I was really sad that my pot handle had broken. I like these pots and pans a lot; and they had belonged to my grandmother! I don’t know how old they are. If I had to guess, I would say they were made in the sixties or seventies. I Googled the brand and was soooooo excited to find out that I could order replacement parts! I ordered the new pot handle and now the pot is as good as new! YEA!!!!

Ok, so about a year later, I was putting another one of these pots in the cabinet and accidentally dropped it. You guessed it, the handle broke! Well this time, I counted up how many pots still had old handles and ordered enough to replace them all. I haven’t actually replaced them all yet. I figured I would just wait until they break to do that. But when they break – I’m ready!

I love those old pots. I love that they remind me of my grandmother every time I use them. I love the way the cook. I love that they have lasted all these years. And I love they I can still get handles to replace the ones that break.

I love things that last!

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Rain

July 19, 2012

My, oh my, how I wish we had rain! Parts of my yard crunch when I walk on it. Other parts are just bare, dry dirt. I seem to have kept the flowers alive but not without effort.

We did have a little downpour the other night. The next day the flowers were blooming! It is scary that I can water like crazy with tap water just to keep the plants alive but they are not happy enough to bloom but just a little bit of rain makes them bloom beautifully. It really makes me wonder what we are drinking.

This is another Chiffon scarf. It reminds me of a gentle rain. I used salt to get the raindrop effect. My friend Robin wants me to make her one like this in black. I think I’ll call it Midnight Rain.

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Rainbow

July 17, 2012

This is my rainbow scarf. It should go with just about anything, right? I was trying to blend the colors. I used only magenta, yellow and blue. I was hoping to blend the in-between colors into orange and green. It didn’t really work.

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Hydrangea

July 15, 2012

This year was the most beautiful year ever for my Hydrangea. I think it is because we didn’t really have much of a freeze this year. Usually it only has about 5 blooms and they are kind of hidden under the foliage. This year the bush was full. I took this picture before the blooms got heavy and weighed down the branches making the plant look droopy.

Doesn’t this scarf remind you of the Hydrangeas? There is blue, purple and pink with a little green thrown in for the leaves. This hydrangea scarf is painted on Chiffon silk. It is very light-weight and airy. I love it! New favorite?

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Prom Hankies

July 12, 2012

I thought it would be fun for my son to give his girlfriend, Samantha, a silk hankie for prom. I didn’t like the first one so I a made a second one. Her dress was a shimmery champagne color so I think the second one probably worked better anyway. He never said which one he gave her or whether she liked it (them).

I was practicing writing with dyed resist. I used SilkPaint! brand in both cases. I painted the resist on first then painted the background around the letters. I don’t think that was the best way to do it though.

I love hankies. I think they are so gentlemanly. My grandfather always carried one so I tried to get my husband and sons to carry them but it didn’t work out. I carry a hankie which is the part I cut off the first scarf I ever painted. It is so soft and absorbent. It is easy to wash in the sink and it dries super fast so it is ready to stick back in my purse within an hour or so after washing.

I think I’m going to make some more for myself really soon!

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Stained Glass

July 10, 2012

Last week I was at a Church camp for youth who are considered leaders or future leaders in the Methodist church. They are all truly inspiring. Each one has talents and abilities but most of all they have the most amazing compassion. I feel so fortunate to have shared a week with them each summer for the past four years.

Since I had promised myself I would keep up with this blog, I had typed out posts in advance and set them to publish at a later date. If the Stained Glass scarf below looks familiar, that is because I meant to have it post on July 10 – I accidentally typed June 10. Oops!

So, here it is again (if you’ve already read it).

This was my experiment with mixing colors. To this point, everything I had made had more pastel colors. I was going for darker jewel-tone type colors in this. People tell me it looks kind of like stained glass. I drew the shapes free handed. My only consideration was to keep them about the same size.

The water soluble resist had been dyed black. As you can see, all the color washed out. That was frustrating! It was fun mixing the colors but they didn’t really come out the way I thought they would once they had dried.

Lessons learned: mix the colors much darker than you think you need.

The good news is – this scarf will go with just about anything. I think it is one of my favorites to date.

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