Stamens Stamens Stamens

When I was photographing flowers up close and personal over the weekend, I was pretty intrigued with the flower stamens...especially the ones on the Japanese kerria. 

I had never noticed just how cute, crazy and wiggly they were.

And I had completely forgotten until then that I had a collection of artificial stamens in the house...two drawers of them!

About ten years ago I took a decorative ribbon class with Candace Kling in San Francisco (she also teaches a class on how to make flowers out of ribbon). After the class, I bought a lot of these stamens and then went to Lacis and bought even more. I had every intention of covering just about everything with ribbon flowers because "more is more, less is a bore" you know. 

Candace is an extraordinary artist. Her flowers and ribbon sculptures are exquisite. I consider myself a perfectionist but she's a perfectionist operating at a completely different strata. I remember saying something about aiming for 100% so that I could be satisfied with reaching 80%. She looked at me kind of funny with that one because when she aims for 100%, she gets 100%. 

When I got back to Kansas City, I never got around to making the ribbon flowers because sadly, aiming for 100% was only getting me to 50%, if that. I am not a good ribbon flower maker....and so when I wanted to duplicate what was so inspiring in her class, I ended up using artificial silk flowers instead. Ha ha ha.

This is a lampshade I made that is covered with three different colors of dupioni silk. Around the bottom edge is a ring of artificial flowers that are sewn directly to the shade. 

The shade was turning into such a garish girly thing, I decided to hang "garters" at the bottom. And would I possibly be putting my newly acquired ribbon folding skills in action? No...I wasn't too good at that either and ended up cutting the dupioni in strips with my pinking shears and then machine basting down the centers to gather them. At the ends I bent some wire and added beads.

Over the top garish, no stamens, no ribbons, no out of the ordinary sewing skills, but I still am rather proud of the thing. 

Meanwhile, I've newly discovered those drawers of paper stamens and gorgeous ribbons in my house. I've got to think of something interesting to do with them.... :-)

Orangeness

The flowers are getting a little less yellow...

...and a little more orange.

Maybe a lot more orange, although this is a very soft one...

And this is just a border of orange but it definitely makes a statement with it.

One little fish can't help but be a perfect orange...

This little bee is sort of a burnt orange (look how straight those back legs are...that bee is on a mission)...

...and then these two were on their missions too, or something, whatever they were doing it involved a lot of speed. These ladybugs are not exactly orange but then, they're not exactly red either, sort of in the middle.

And this tulip could probably be described as red but there's still some orange in it, especially at the edges.

Last night I was driving west and when I reached the top of a hill, saw the sun in the process of setting and it was huge. HUGE. I have got to remember to throw that camera in the car because it was a perfect ending to an orange day. That double-size sun was so golden it could be described as being an orange. I remember first seeing it when I reached the top of the hill and I'm not lying here, out of my mouth I heard "Ohmigawd." It was that stunning.

First bug of the season

I found this little guy crawling on the keyboard of my computer this afternoon. She got picked right up and put back outside. What a face! ...if you can find it...because I can see several.

Anyway, once she was put outside, she was off!

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

Gotta go, go, go, go, go, go.

I can see why they named a car after this little guy. Those little legs were fast and steady. I'm sure their speed could be measured in miles per hour.

Once the little beetle flew off, I went into the backyard to photograph my remaining Thalia daffodils. They're one of my favorites and I need to remember to plant more in the fall. They're late bloomers and although the blossoms are small, they bloom in clumps. They also are heavily scented. They are so white and delicate and pretty.

But to their right, another one of those crazy ladybugs with the many faces and spots traveling at an insane but steady speed.

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

She was just as fast but I think there was something wrong with her steering wheel.

She could only make left turns. Nothing but left turns.

Round and round and round she went. 

I gave up before she did. I left her while she kept driving in her circles. I hope she eventually settled down and found a good parking place for the night. :-)

Stray cats

I woke up this morning to see something encouraging and rather civilized. These two have warred with each other for over three years but there they were, perfectly and blissfully passed out, sleeping in the sun together...

This is usually the scene. Two bad cats claiming their turf.

March came in like a lion and left like a lamb...and sort of did the same thing with these two. Hope the effect sticks.