Over the bounding waves - and pounding flowers

Today we are in Victoria, BC to see the Tall Ships. What a sight to see nearly thirty of them sail into the harbor. Tomorrow we get to go on some of them. My choices are Christopher Columbus' Niña, the Bounty, and the USCG Eagle. The Bounty was constructed in Nova Scotia using the original ship's drawings on file in the British Admiralty archives. It was built in 1960 for MGM's Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando. The Eagle is my husband's choice, maybe because it is huge, nearly 300 feet long. I told him I would go along since all the sailors were so good looking. The Niña is a replica, of course, but it is really a beaut. This is a picture of her, only 68 feet long.

The most unexpected part of all this is we had Admiral's Club tickets (gave us some extra perks) and sat with a couple who just moved to Vancouver Island from Calgary, AB. She wants to start painting in watercolors. I told her about 'flower pounding' and she asked a million questions. She'd never heard of such a thing and even though she is not a quilter, she wants to try it. I felt like I'd made a friend forever!

How to Pound Flowers

Since Marilyn asked, some of you might want to know too. Flower pounding is kind of messy, but not as bad as first thought… like poor posies being beaten with sledge hammers until all their ‘blood’ comes out…

The flowers are pulled apart so you can put them flat, and arranged on the back side of PFD (prepared for dye) fabric, usually one at a time and face down. Cover completely with masking tape so no ‘juice’ can leak out. Then you turn the fabric over and put it on a piece of board or masonite with a towel under it. (This can be quite noisy) Then start tapping with a hammer, usually a small one with a very smooth head.

Depending on the flower, the results may be a surprise. Purple might come out as red, or even yellow. It was a lot of fun since the flowers look like we made them up, not like the flowers we used. Just pansies retained a bit of their distinctive shape and color. Leaves do nicely too, but are place right side up so the veins show in the fabric.

There is a book called Flower Pounding by Ann Frischkorn. This link goes to Amazon.ca, but it is available in the USA too.

And HGTV has a site with more complete instructions, and this one has some other ideas about using this technique.

Rose in my Heart & Pounded Flowers

Here is the first heart mat. It is from a foundation paper-pieced pattern by Bobbie Osborne. I liked it better before I put too much quilting on it. Maybe I'll make another one. This one is just a tad over 12" square, which made some of those leaf pieces very tiny. A bigger one would be easier. Also, I'd make the background lighter and give it more contrast to the heart.

These other two pictures are the results of a flower-pounding class I attended on Saturday. My quilting buddy that I team-teach with offered it because some of the ladies in our little group had never tried it. I hadn't either, wasn't that interested, but we had fun. It was noisy, and the place smelling like silage when we were finished, but we laughed a lot and found out that some flowers do not pound into the colors we expected. One purple one made yellow. Dandelions became green.

I've yet to embellish these. I started with some outlining using a Pigma pen, but they need more of that and some beads. Embroidery could be nice, but my needlework might ruin them.

Five Questions

Fabric Mom, the gal with giveaway Fridays, has these questions on her blog. They seem like a good idea...

What was I doing ten years ago?

We were building a house and getting ready to move in! After moving a zillion times, and 25+ years of marriage, this was the first house we'd ever built. My, how time flies. Our kids had all left home and we had lived in the same city for six whole years, a record for us. (See below). At that time, I had made only a few baby quilts and was working on a queen-size. Now I have finished about 90... of course some are little, most are wall or lap size, and a few queens.

What 5 things are (or were) on my list to do today?

1) Attend a flower-pounding session with the "Fellowship Peacemakers" from our church. Most of us had never tried it before and by the time we were done, the room smelled like silage! LOL. I'll post mine results later. This was noisy but fun.

2) Finish the material I plan to teach Sunday morning (a ladies Bible study class).

3) Pull a few weeds from the garden in the back yard.

4) Exercise for at least 30 minutes (No one groan... this is really my hardest daily to-do item.)

5) Call my daughter for final arrangements for Father's Day. She and our youngest son are taking us golfing. It will be "best ball" for her and I, a pair of duffers who can be really annoying to the more serious golfers in the family.

Snacks I enjoy?

Nuts, chocolate and Hawkins Cheesies (that's why I must exercise), and fruit.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire?

Redo this place or move to a little-care house/yard (or get a couple of houseboys!). I'd like a bigger studio and a smaller kitchen, and after treating family and friends, I'd likely give most of it away. (Don't line up... I've not become a billionaire yet!)

Places I have lived?

Alberta & Saskatchewan in Canada; Alaska, California and Illinois in USA, moved 28 times within those places.

This is supposed to be a tag, but as Fabric Mom said, if you would like to play along too, please do. Just post the answers to these questions on your blog.

One down, nine more to go!

No photo of this one yet, but I have finished another mat for the writers conference. It is a paper-pieced one from a free pattern. I like the pattern but am not sure I should have quilted it as much as I did. It looked good plain.

If anyone out there has some heart block or heart ideas, I'd love to hear from you. This is a writers' conference based on the theme, "Out of the abundance of the heart the pen writes" and I'm doing small mats to put on the tables. Since this is the chosen decor, they need to be colorful! After the conference, I'll be giving them away, so any contributors are in line for a small parcel in the mail!

This photo is one of the ideas that I already have lined up. The picture is a bit fuzzy, but doable. Send more via comments or email me.

Here is a little mat that I started and finished this week. It was a kit, so I didn't have to pick the colors, only cut out the pieces and sew it together. How refreshing!

Although it does not have hearts on it, it will go on the registration table at the writers conference. This is the event that is about "out of the abundance of the heart, the pen writes" and for which I offered to make several small heart quilts to decorate the tables. I've got some good ideas (thanks to several of you), but if anyone has a block pattern with hearts or a heart on it, send it to me. I'm making a draw from the contributors and someone will get something from this project! (See this post.)

K-3 Detail showing beads

Here is a photo of K-3 Pieced Border & Beads. I simply outlined the kaleidoscope and happened to randomly select the bugle bead colors for the first few that I sewed on. Then I noticed that the alternate colors fit in with the border design. It doesn't show in this photo, but it was done with the "strata" from the center, so is in the alternating colors of the kaleidoscope. A happy accident. I finished it last Saturday.

Now I'm working on a heart quilt. I'm still open for ideas, so scroll down a little bit to that post and send me some!