Upcoming Herb Classes

Drink to Your Good Health with Herbal Teas, Wednesday, July 15, from 6-8 pm, Green Spiral Herbs in Huntersland, New York. Taste and explore using herbs as teas. Learn the benefits and pleasures of drinking your herbs. Join Herbalist Betty Pillsbury in the extensive Green Spiral Herbs gardens. Cost $30. Email bpills@midtel.net to register.

Herbal Home Cleaning Saturday, July 18, from 10 am - noon, Green Spiral Herbs in Huntersland, New York. Learn to make and use herbal cleaning products that are friendly to the environment, your house and family. Cost $30. Email bpills@midtel.net to register.

It's Wise to Grow Sage Wednesday, July 22, from 6-8 pm, Green Spiral Herbs in Huntersland, New York. Sage is so much more than just an herb to use in Thanksgiving stuffing. Come to the gardens and we will discuss how sage can be used for various culinary and medicinal uses. We will also reflect on the adage, "Why should a man die when he has sage in the garden?" Cost $30. Email bpills@midtel.net to register.

Herb Walk Saturday, July 25 from 11 am - 1 pm, Green Spiral Herbs in Huntersland, New York. Join Herbalist Betty Pillsbury in her extensive gardens, which are a certified Botanical Sanctuary. We'll look at what's blooming and talk about the various uses of plants. Cost $20. Email bpills@midtel.net to register.

Crazy quilts!

This is the block I made and donated to the Alliance for the American Quilt. They asked people to make a 16" block and donate it. The blocks will be sold on eBay. Soon, they will have a gallery of the donated blocks on their web site. I'll let you know when the pics are up.

Also, my quilt, "Crazy Diamonds" was juried into the Knoxville AQS show in the Great American Embroidered Quilt Contest. I can't post a pic yet (shhhhhh, secret stuff), but keep your fingers crossed for me please.

June pictures of the garden

We have had a lot of rain in June. I think it has poured 22 of the 28 days thus far. However, the William Baffin rose seems to be happy. That's valerian just past the roses and it is quite happy too.

This photo is showing the porch bed with lupines still blooming and foxgloves and campanulas coming on.



This was earlier in the month. H. F. Young clematis is blooming nicely along side an Adirondack chair painted the lightest lavender.
More roses. I do enjoy them! I made rose petal syrup last week.

Happy May Day - and Quilt Show

Happy May Day. May Day always reminds me of my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Malloy. She was a DEAR soul and taught me about May Day baskets. You make a basket (we did construction papers ones) and filled it with flowers (real or made of tissue paper) and left them anonymously on neighbor's doors. I hope the fairies have left you some flowers upon your doorstep.

Today and this weekend is "Quilters of the Valley" at the Middleburgh Library. It is a fundraiser for the library as well as being a showcase for the many talented quilters in the Schoharie Valley. My award-winning crazy quilt, "Homage to Ardelia" will be shown. At the Best House (a restored Victorian house), a collection of antique quilts will be displayed. I lent three of my antique crazy quilts for the display. Come on down to Middleburgh and see the gorgeous quilts. Hours are:

Friday, May 1, 10 am - 7 pm
Saturday and Sunday, May 2 & 3, 10 am - 4 pm

Good Weekend

Yesterday, I gave a lecture as part of being the invited Guest Artist at the Q.U.I.L.T.. Inc quilt show in Ravena, NY. Standing in front of about 20 pieces of my crazy quilting, I babbled on about how I make my art and a little of the why. The guild was wonderful. The audience was very receptive. I do believe there were a few who were enticed to make their own crazy quilt.

It has been a nice stretch of weather for the garden as well. DH took a few days off from work to stretch out the weekend. Five new fruit trees went in: Dwarf varieties of McIntosh, Granny Smith and Winesap apples, a Belle of GA peach and a Bing cherry. We are waiting on an order of cider apples as well: Fameuse, Sops of Wine, Sheepnose and Calville Blanc. These are in addition to the white peaches, Medlar, Quince, Empire apple, Seckel pear, Asian pear, Montmorency cherry, Black Gold cherry, Roxbury Russet apple, Luscious Pear, Ashmead's Kernel apple, Cox's Orange Pippin apple, Black Oxford apple and two unknown apples which were here when we moved in.

We also ordered some boysenberries - although they are marginally hardy here. DH loves the jam so much, we had to take a chance and try to grow our own. We were very impressed with the plant quality from our order to Burnt Ridge Nursery. In addition to the 10 boysenberries, we ordered a goumi, Chinese Hawthorne, 2 more Schisandra (we have 2 already), 3 hazlenuts to add to our row of hazlenuts, a Korean nut pine, 2 more Oregon grapes and a tea plant. The tea isn't hardy here, but will join my coffee plant as a houseplant.

Sometime this year, I will put together a complete (?) list of plants we have growing. Who wants to volunteer for that particular project? :-)

Herbs Popping Up In The Yard

It's April 9 and spring sure is slow in making its presence known. In fact yesterday and the day before, we had snow flurries. Today the temperature is reading warmer, but the howling winds still feel brisk! As I was walking around the garden, I noted several herbs that are emerging from their slumber. Here are a few of the many herbs:

Sweet Violet, not the common blue. Smells and tastes oh, so sweet!

Rhodiola. Looks pretty ugly now, but soon it will be filled with rosettes!
Ramps. Delicious wild food!


Angelica just coming up.


Celandine, with its bright orange sap. The appearance of celandine in the spring also harkens the arrival of tree swallows. Sure enough, I saw a pair today.

Coltsfoot, or Son-Before-the-Father, as the flowers show up before the leaves.
Maral Root unfurling.
Stinging Nettles - a power house of nutrients.
Sweet Cicely.
The joy of spring is that every day new life is shown.

Antique Crazy Quilt Motifs

I really love antique crazy quilts. I love to look at them, caress them (carefully of course), study them and admire them. I have a nice collection of not only antique quilts, but antique crazy quilt "smalls". Those are items that have been crazy quilted, but aren't quilts. Things like antique tea cozies, scrap album covers, wall pockets, etc. That's part of the reason I decided to host an Antique Crazy Quilt Study Day on May 9.

Part of the fascination lies in the ingenuity that Victorian needlewomen had when faced with a pattern. Very often, patterns were simply line drawings and it was left to the imagination of the stitcher to interpret the drawing. Here's an example:

This line drawing of a fan was taken from the 1886 Ingall's Pattern book. A lovely fan. Here are some stitched versions of this drawing which I have found on antique crazy quilts.

The fan above was stitched with a metallic thread for the surround. Note the painted flowers and butterflies on the velvet ground.


This exquisitely stitched fan is in the NY State Historical Society's collection and dates from 1884. The fan was in the border of a fabulous crazy quilt. The outer blue portion is a silk ribbon which has been tacked down and then stitched upon.
Here's the same pattern, this time as a block in the middle of a lovely antique crazy quilt. Some of the embroidery is chenille work.
And here is the pattern done in redwork. Okay, bluework. Just an stem stitch, but very effective.

Other options might have been to paint the fan onto fabric. Or to use stuffed, dimensional work for some of the flowers. It's lovely that each pattern was open to the imagination of the stitcher.