Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week, Wild Roses

wild roses, near the beach at Carkeek Park, Seattle

Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.

~Walter De La Mare

Look What I Found. Mixed Media Monday

Oh my. All you have to do is go to Bumbershoot Supplies to see "what I found" :)

But for this week's Mixed Media Monday challenge, I focused on one of the most special places in the world to me, the ocean. We are blessed  in Seattle to be very close to water everywhere, including salt water in the form of Puget Sound. And the Pacific Ocean is not too far away.

This is a 6x6 inch art quilt using my hand dyed cloth as a base and featuring some of the treasures I have collected in my trips to the beach.

One of my favorite poets, ee cummings, captures my feelings about the sea so well:

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Monday in Seattle. Picture and Quote for the Week.

(tidepooling, minus tide, Carkeek Park)

...it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

~ee cummings

Picture of the Week

(Perfectly pink wild rose, Carkeek Park.)

Inspiration at the beach

I took these photos at Carkeek Park, Seattle, at a recent minus tide in June.

Eric loves to see the tiny crabs.


There is all kinds of wild life under the rocks. It's like visiting another planet.

The colors are typical of what you see in Seattle in June. Still lots of grey, but beginning to lighten.

Except sometimes you get a lovely surprise jolt of color, like this wild rose...

...which looks just like these flowers at Bumbershoot Supplies. Amazing...

Bumbershoot Supplies update: lots of flowers

So, what will I do with the time liberated from caring for our foster kittens? 2 blog posts in one day! This one is an update on some new supplies that have arrived for Bumbershoot Supplies, and I'm pretty excited about them.

First are the vintage 1940's to 1950's glass Japanese flower cabochons. These are such a lovely piece of history just to have and hold, and also of course for use in your mixed media, paper and jewelry arts. All of them are simply gorgeous, with lovely detail and beautiful colors.

The painted ones you see above were originally hand painted (just stop and imagine that for a moment...), but over time have lost varying amounts of their color, for an authentic shabby chic feel. Below are some really unique glass wreaths, and wonderfully, these came with their original tags.

We've also received some new hand painted Japanese plastic flower cabochons, also 1940s-1950's vintage. The ones I'm showing below are vibrant hot pink.

I wasn't sure there was any such color in nature, but then I saw this wild rose on the beach at Carkeek Park in Seattle...

There are many more flowers available at Bumbershoot Supplies - head on over and check it out!