Prayer Garden, Iris Blooming

Welcome to my garden spot in Grand Junction, Colorado. Here is a quick tour...

Don't blink. Beneath the wall the bearded irises are in bloom, the tall uppermost petals so gauzy, so delicate, that each bloom, once opened, lasts hardly longer than a day. Look, you can almost see through them. As fleeting as a rainbow, and with the same rain-washed colours, they were named after Iris, the messenger of the gods, who as a rainbow linked heaven and earth. It's the same derivation as the iris of the human eye, the coloured membrane which separates the inner from the outer chamber. Both have the same mysterious, shifting, shimmering quality, the colours depending on the viewpoint of the observer, one colour flecked by, veined with, shot through with another.
... excerpted from The Morville Hours, by Katherine Swift (Walker & Company)

This is where I like to sit in the late afternoon, when the sun casts long shadows:


This is a plaque my mother had in her garden for several years, and one which I fondly display:


This garden spot provides the space and quiet environment for devotional time. Many people that I've come in contact with over the past days are remembered here, as well as prayers for friends and family who are near and far away. Our clients who benefit through therapy dog visits, including hospice patients, the inpatients and outpatients at St. Mary's Hospital, clients at the regional center, blogging buddies, those whom I keep up with on Care Pages are all remembered and prayed for, some especially in this garden.

Please come visit us here sometime soon. I would very much enjoy your company.

Triangular Lace Shawl Completed

After two months of compulsively knitting, the persimmon color lace shawl is finally completed.

When it was just lying there in a big lump of knit stitches, it surely did not look like it would turn out to be similar to the finished product shown in the book A Gathering of Lace. (Meg Swanson)

Here is a picture from a previous blog post when the shawl was started....

Cotton fabric and beaded knitting markers are laid on the bottom of the picture, but the knit material is shown at the top; this was about five inches into the knitting project.

After it was knit, then the blocking of the shawl was begun. Here it is being blocked on towels after it was washed:


Can you tell it took up most of the available tile on the bathroom floor? And here it completed, dried, blocked and draped across a chair, in all its glory:

OK, I take that back about being in its glory because the camera image did not show the persimmon color of the yarn (100% washable merino wool from Knitpicks).

The finished dimensions are 63" on the top by 44" on each side of the triangle.

One modification I made to the pattern was to add a 2 stitch attached I cord on the top edge of the shawl. Not only did the extra edging add a bit of decoration, it also hid some of my knitting mistakes along the top. This video was helpful in explaining how to knit an attached I cord as edging:

Thanks, Julie, for this added instructional tip!

Do It Yourself Mosaic Table Tops

Here is a current picture of the completed small mosaic table topper. A week ago, its beginning was written about here at making-mosaic-table-top. Grouting has been completed and excess grout has been removed with water and a lot of elbow grease. Note to the wise: a manicure after the grouting process is recommended, as it takes a toll on the nails.

This site on E-How basically explains the process in making a mosaic. Ensure that the thickness of the ceramic tiles used by breaking up with a hammer are all the same if you desire a flat surface.

Ceramic tiles are less expensive than glass tiles, although both types of tiles have sharp edges when broken. The glass tiles give a bit more luster, so choice of tile material is a matter of personal preference. The small blue tiles shown in the above picture were made of glass, so the contrast was preferable not only in color, but also in textural effect.

The larger table top (44 " round) is almost finished. It still needs to have excess grout removed from the tiles. A picture of the larger table top (using same motif as smaller table) is shown below.

A Dremel tool to sand the edges will finish off the sides more smoothly.

While doing a bit of research on mosaics, I found this type craft goes back several thousands of years. One reference, found here says:

The history of mosaic goes back some 4,000 years or more, with the use of terracotta cones pushed point-first into a background to give decoration. By the eighth century BC, there were pebble pavements, using different coloured stones to create patterns, although these tended to be unstructured decoration. It was the Greeks, in the four centuries BC, who raised the pebble technique to an art form, with precise geometric patterns and detailed scenes of people and animals.

The mosaic here shows the god Neptune with Amphitrite (on the right) and is in Herculaneum, Italy. It is a wall mosaic which uses pieces of glass to give the vivid colours and reflect light. Glass was not suitable for floor mosaics.

Some mosaics from the Byzantine era look very similar to how they appeared over 4,000 years ago. So my table tops should hold up well outside under the patio roof, at least during our lifetime.