Family visit, grand-daughter is here for the summer

Our daughter, Tammy, and grand-daughter Ariel arrived last Thursday from Georgia.  Tammy will be leaving today or tomorrow.  Joshua & I will be taking Ariel back to Georgia sometime in mid-July.

While we're all together, we been having wonderful "family time".  We did some shooting....

My family

Peanut LOVES shooting.  She is wondering where the critters are...

Ariel and Cricket investigated a large tree that came down during some wicked wind we had...

We had a nice cook-out on Memorial day... No pictures.  Duh!

Yesterday, we did some dyeing. It was a lot of fun.  Friend Gena came over.  We dyed, ate, talked & dyed more.

Gena and Ariel

Gena, John & Joshua checking out the water tank (with tadpoles)

Tammy and Ariel collecting flowers for sun dyeing

We each did a silk painting.

Tammy's lily

Gena's koi fish

Ariel's interesting lady smelling flowers

My steampunk White Rabbit

Then we did some sun dyeing (it's really sun "painting", but heck, I don't name these products!).

Ariel's shawl

Ariel's second piece of the day

My rectangular shawl

This is a fun technique.  Wet the item to be dyed/painted.  Apply the desired colors.  Lay it in the sun.  Place leaves, flowers, branches... whatever on the item & leave it in the sun for a few hours.  The shadow of the objects leave an impression in the color intensity of the paint.  Allow the paint to "set" for 24 hours, then iron with a hot iron (no steam). We got our sun dyeing supplies at Dharma Trading Company.  In fact, all the silk scarves, clothing, silk painting kit & sun painting supplies came from Dharma.

Then we played with our favorite technique.  Microwave dyeing.  Again, wet your item to be dyed.  Lay it out & sprinkle dye powder on it, randomly or in stripes... whatever. Roll it up or crunch it up or wad it up... and place it in a ziploc bag.  Add a small amount of water.  Now put it in the microwave for 3 minutes.  IT WILL BE VERY HOT WHEN YOU TAKE IT OUT!!! Add some cool water to the bag. Now, swish it around.  Pour it out & refill the bag with cold water.  More swishing & refilling until all the excess dye is out.  Hang on the clothes line to dry.  Our results...

My yellow shawl

My blue shawl

Ariel's rectangular shawl

Another rectangle by Ariel

My greenish-yellow wrap

Tammy's tiered skirt

Tammy's dress

Dyes for these items were purchased from The Woolery.

Summer has slipped away

Joshua and I made a trip to Ellijay, GA the last week of May to pick up granddaughter Ariel.  She spent the summer with us.

We didn't plan any exciting adventures for this year's visit.  Instead, I focused on teaching her some of the artistic skills I've learned over the years.

I bought several paper crafting and mixed media books at Barnes & Nobel's and Hobby Lobby.  These included:

Coloring Flower Mandalas

Coloring Your Prayers

Coloring Mandalas 2
 
She also got watercolor pencils, felt tip markers, origami paper, and some pastels.

We did our daily walks in the woods with the dogs.

This big oak came down over our lane after one thunderstorm.

We picked mushrooms...

 Chantarelle mushrooms in the woods.

After cleaning.













We did some sun dyeing on silk with our friends Gena Stout and Erika Schindler and Karna McFadden.

Sun dyeing is always so much fun!

I hatched out some chicks (in the incubator) just before we left for Georgia.  And while we were gone, our banty hens hatched out 10 chicks!

 Rhode Island Red chicks and 1 tiny batam chick behind.  We also hatched out 2 Black Copper Maran chicks.

 Bantam chicks are always so cute!

And a mama bird made her nest in the glove compartment of our golf cart.

Ariel and I went to The Pig n' Whistle in Hardy, along with Gena Stout and Erika Schindler, for a tea party.  That was fun.  Julie and Perry Morgan came in while we were there.  It was great to see them.

Sweets to go with our tea.

Erika and Gena

Tadpoles (pollywogs) in our "pond".

The addition that was built last fall is complete now, the cedar siding was put on by our friend Chris Graves in July.

Custom cedar siding on the bedroom/mudroom addition.

Our house, with the addition now complete.  I think it looks great!

Ariel sewed some aprons, and she did a great job on them.


Tammy and Rickie came to pick Ariel up the last Monday in July.  They stayed until Friday morning.  That was a teary day, here at the Teem household.  I really enjoy the summer visits.

I did manage to finish a few projects.  The tunic and sandals were for Tammy.  The alpaca shawl is for sale ($50).

Tammy's cotton tunic.

Cotton crocheted onto flip flops.  Tammy loved them!

Baby alpaca shawl in a nice, summery green.