Photo shoot with my sisters!

I was so excited to get together and have a photo shot with my sisters. I didn't realize just how much fun that it was going to be for us all. We had a blast! As we took the photos, my youngest sister laughed so hard I couldn't believe that she could even continue with it. I started to model and I became extremely goofy. It was a contagious feeling of happiness and much laughter. So here are the result of the shoot. This was for my etsy store by the way. These are not on any other website. Just here to share with my Re*New fans! So you can see just how silly and goofy that I can get. http://www.etsy.com/shop/Abbyknits1997

This is of me and my sisters which my sisters son took(he is only 4 years old)!

 Me trying to show the size of the crystal necklace that was extracted from Crystal Park near Polaris, Montana. You can find this and other jewelry on my sisters etsy site: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ruthwhitehair Soon to be added to her store so be looking for it. She also has an amazing bracelet all made from these Crystals. I think they are so cool!

 Yep, having a bit of trouble getting this one on. No, I am not drunk. Well maybe with much laughter!

 A bit to far down on my head I think. What do you think?

 Preciously funny!

 This one made my sons and I nearly pee our pants off!

 This one too!

 Cat Woman or something, I don't really know what I was trying to do here, except to be really silly!

 There I go again puckering my lips! Seems to be a common thing for me!

 This is what I call my ridem' Cowboy stance! Way to goofy for me. I can't believe that I did that. That one almost made me pee my pants with laughter. I didn't even know that my sister took this one.

Little Miss Pris! I call this one my delicate petite pose. I am not really sure that this is me, but it was fun to pose for it at any rate!

St. Paul's Episcopal Blessing of the Animals

We do a blessing of the animals every year. This year was a specially fun because our pews where outdoors. There was a nice variety of dogs and other animals including several bunny rabbits and a beautiful chicken. I managed to take a photo of most of the animals but not all for my camera was failing me. Its very old and the last photo that I attempted to take was blurry, I tried three times. Might be time for a new camera! Just before our Priest started to bless them one of the rabbits got loose and there were about 12 people running after it. It was saved just in time for its blessing though. Here are the results from the blessing of the animals, enjoy!

He's Bruno

She's Bruni (short for Brunhilda). She especially needed blessing because the next day she was to go into the OR (operating room) to get her teeth pulled! Ouch!!!!!

She's Tana (short for Montana)! Tana was so excited to be meeting so many animals. Yep, she's a social bug! I had her by the leach for a few minutes and she had the strength to pull her own sled. 

Rhubarb Crisp!

I found a really great recipe in this book that I use a lot called From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens by Phyllis Pellman Good and Rachel Thomas Pellman. I found that I had to rearrange and edit it quite a bit. For instance the temp of 450 degrees for an hour should really be 350 degree for an hour otherwise you will burn your house down not to mention your rhubarb crisp. I also felt that the sugar was way to much so I cut it in half and added more oats as well. What's a good crisp if it is not loaded with oats? So not to delay it any longer the new and improved recipe by: Abigail Turner. 

 There is nothing like a warm crisp to help you get into the mood for fall weather in anticipation for the winter months that lay ahead of you. Ahh.....I love fall!

Rhubarb Crisp

1/2 C. all-purpose flour

1/2 C. whole wheat flour

3/4 C. old fashioned rolled oats

1/2 packed brown sugar

1 stick of butter melted

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 granulated sugar

2 T. corn starch

1 C. water

1 tsp. vanilla

2 C. fresh or frozen diced rhubarb

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flours. Add oats, brown sugar butter and cinnamon until it makes a nice crumbed texture. Divide this crumbed mixture in half. Press half of the mix in a 9" square or round baking pan. 

Combine sugar, cornstarch, water and vanilla and heat on medium high in a medium size saucepan. Add rhubarb. Stir until mix starts to become clear and thick. 

Pour into your 9" pan on top of pressed crumbed crust. Crumble the remaining oat crumble mix on top of the rhubarb. Bake for 1 hour. 

Cut and serve warm with a scoop of ice cream or have some with your coffee in the morning!

Harry Potter Socks

Well if you all can remember that my personal goal was to produce 5 pairs of socks for each of my boys including my husband of course before school started this year. That would have been 15 pairs. They were suppose to be for school. I didn't feel too bad when I only came up with 3 pairs one for each boy. So here are the results, enjoy!

Here is my son Garrett modeling his pair of socks which by the way he had to pick the yarn for otherwise you can just forget that he would ever consider putting them on. We learned that at a very young age. Now knitting is enjoyable again!

I am modeling my husbands socks which are the same basic rib sock pattern as the boys socks are made by from the book "Charmed Knits", by Alison Hansel. My husband was unavailable to do the modeling for me. That is why the feet are so feminine looking. I also didn't have much patience for him to get home so that I might have him model them for me.

Here are Gavin's Potter socks but only he calls them his "Ron socks" Just so you all know these are called "Dobby socks" in Alison Hansels book, "Charmed Knits" and they are found on page #100.

Bitterroot Scottish Irish Festival

  This was such a wonderful treat for our family to attend this event in our beautiful Bitterroot Valley. We went all three days and our boys had an absolute blast! We purchased them some double handed swords(wooden of course). Which they played with for hours. I only wish that our camera could hold more memory on the card. I missed taking photos of the Athletic Games. Which was definitely one of the best highlights of the festival for me and my husband to watch. Lance said he is defiantly entering into the competitions for next years games.  We also enjoyed watching the Highlands dancing free forms and competitions on Saturday. It was a bit drizzly on Sunday with the rain and all, but they had a Sunday morning service under the main tent where they blessed all the Clan Tartans at the end. I became a bit tearful when our son Garrett walked up with our Tartan and proudly placed it on the table to be blessed. I did not get a photo of that but it will remain in my memory for always. Thank you very much to all the organizers of this event in Hamilton, Montana. I hope to see you all next year!

That's Gavin with his double handed sword ready to strike anything that moves!

I loved watching these talented ladies compete. These where my favorite competitors. Such athletes they were. I am looking forward to seeing them again. 

 

The little boy Vikings!

   

That's us holding the Lamont Clan Traveling Plaque. The couple that has it now is one of the vendors and is from Arkansas. We were lucky enough to be apart of that journey!

 

Ah, yes dinner in front of the Angus Mohr stage. Gavin's got a spider web painted on his face. Too Cute!

This was apart of the opening ceremonies. Here you will see the Pipers and Drummers leading the clans out at the end of it. Enjoy! I hope to see you all at next years festival! http://www.bitterrootscottishirishfestival.org/

Art show 2007

I had a show in 2007 at The Frame Shop and Gallery. It mostly consisted of Acrylics and Watercolors. The Clark fork Journal came and interviewed me and also had one of my paintings on the cover of their paper. This is what it said:

  

   

 

 

       

 

 
All Images are under strict copyrights Abigail Turner2010

Bitterroot Art Beat: Abigail Turner

Fledgling artist obliges viewer to become immersed in the allurement of watercolor painting.

By Brian D’Ambrosio, Editor

Abigail Turner has an artful, pert love of Montana and the prevailing natural beauty of all of the seasons. Working mostly with watercolors, her compositions seem carefully arranged for stark simplicity and contrast; shapes, colors and textures are energized with deliberate placement of subdued shades and brightly vibrant hues. There exists a kinship and a link to the outdoors within Turner’s paintings that’s quite evident, something that helps bring out an adventurous sense of realism to her material. Indeed, she has discovered that working with watercolor gives her the ability to capture the detail and composition she appreciates in her subjects. “Every moment and everything has its own beauty. That’s why it is hard at times to pick a subject to paint. I paint the stuff that I want to. Right now, I’ve got ten years’ worth of ideas waiting to come out,” says Turner, who hosted her first art reception on April 27 at the Frame Shop and Gallery, in Hamilton, and who’ll have more than a dozen paintings on display there until the end of May. From her earliest artistic memories of doodling during art class as a first-grader growing up in Juneau, Alaska, straight through to today, Turner continues to be drawn in by the details of nature, humanity, life, birth and death, and she can find inspiration in anything from a seemingly simple flower to a vivaciously vast landscape. The hidden qualities present in an object or landscape give Turner’s mind an intense artistic pleasure and deep satisfaction. These pleasures arise as sensory manifestations expressed in the form of shapes, colors, or sounds, novel designs or patterns, or something else less tangible or physical. “There’s so much that happens over the course of the day that we take for granted or don’t appreciate. There’s beauty everywhere. Art, like beauty, is personal and individual. I want people to feel what I felt when I painted a particular piece: Joy, Sorrow. Happiness.” Turner describes her work as gestural. She works mostly from poignant photographs that she’s taken here and there and along the way. Indeed, it appears as if she’s spent many hours traveling the back roads of the Bitterroot Valley searching out the places that are quickly succumbing to relentless progress. “I feel as if I’ve always had the eye for painting. When painting from pictures, things usually turn out the way I want it too. Sometimes, I’ll work on certain areas first or work on the difficult stuff first – it all depends.” Turner says that she learned to find pleasing, beautiful, and graceful attributes in ordinary objects and things, partly from watching her two children (Garrett is about to turn 4; Gavin is almost 2) – whom she credits, along with her husband Lance, as being inestimable influences on her life. “Because my husband and I chose for me to stay at home with our children, it has slowed my life down to a gentle crawl. Because of this, my children do not allow me to miss the little things, like stopping to smell every flower, literally – or to count every leaf and pick it up to examine it.” Turner applies her children’s world-full-of-mystery-wondrousness and natural equanimity to her own paintings. “When you look at life through the eyes of a child everything is new and exciting. My oldest son, Garrett, who’s almost four, asks me ‘how was this leaf made, mommy?’ or ‘what kind is it?’ I always thought that a butterfly in flight was pretty. But now I get extremely excited when the boys see one, and it’s not just pretty to me – it’s beautiful and magnificent for them to watch.” Trying to carve out a reputation as an artist can be a little bit like swimming against the current: trying and wearisome. Right now, Turner is still a tenderfoot and she’s doing her best to imagine an art world without limits, without boundaries, without prejudice and blame. To her, increased self-confidence and self-esteem are what the future holds. And, she says, she’ll continue to develop and refine the skills that she continues to rely on today in telling stories through watercolor creativity. “I’ve grown out of worrying what people think of my art – for the most part. When people come into the gallery and look at my paintings, they may not like all my paintings, but if only one catches their eye and stands out for them, then I would feel that I did my job as an artist to provoke some feeling or emotion.” Can Turner’s watercolor art evoke an emotion? The answer is unequivocally, yes. Perhaps one of her images, she hopes, will etch an indelible mark in the minds and impressionable retentiveness of those who glance at the artistic arrangements she’s offering with liberated demureness. “Maybe one of my paintings will conjure up a vivid memory for some people and might even affect the viewer in some way. Some areas of my paintings have a life of their own – and people may be able to see that.”