Splendiferous September

 

September has arrived, and so far, so splendiferous. extraordinarily or showily impressive, magnificent or extremely beautiful. I keep telling my studio assistants that if they sleep so deeply in the studio they are at risk of being decorated, as in the above monthly marker photo.

I started with this picture of the Mosaic table runner.

Then I ran it through the app Percolator.

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And then in SnapSeed I overlaid this picture of curled up sleeping studio assistant #2.

Here is the 1SE video for August.

 Monthly I-Did List for August

1. I worked and worked on sewing the 200 HRTs needed for the Lupine Mystery quilt.
2. I finished up my efforts for the 2026 ICAD.
3. I pin basted the Bohemian Wife quilt.
4. I started sewing together the first blocks for the Lupine Mystery quilt and finished them.
5. I made a pair of pillowcases for an exchange.
6. I made two big Bow Tie blocks for the BAMQ BOM.
7. I quilted and finished the Mosaic table runner.
8. I made a big Square in Square block for BAMQ BOM.
9. I dug out and actually worked on the David Owen Hastings class piece (on my UFO list.)

There were definitely some interruptions this month, some bad like the Meg foot injury and a four day fever I had with an additional few days recovery time. Then there were some good ones too like the local music festival, and the usual extensive summer gardening efforts. Mostly I think I was still in recovery mode from the unpleasantness from July, as they say "getting older is not for the faint of heart." Here's hoping that September will see some more sewing and finishing.

August Cornucopia

 

The end of August means it's time for a cornucopia post. This is a gathering together of links to various media that I've consumed, enjoyed, or learned from this past month. Hope you find something of interest to you.

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The interesting and terribly cute Seattle raccoon named Jimothy gets an EQ8 free quilt designed for him.

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I saw some clips on social media about the LA Public Library Guinness Book World of Records largest pop-up book, but this video is truly amazing. What a creative feat of paper engineering!

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A new and very fun collaborative app (so far just for Apple phones)  from Zak Foster, Our Daily Quilt

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OK GO has a fun word game, called Say The Same Thing, now in an app version. 

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💓RIP Dolly Parton, I will always love you💓. Did you know she did a version of Stairway to Heaven? She asked Robert Plant if she could add a new verse as she had a slightly different take on the song. He of course said yes. What a gift to the world she was, she'll always be missed and loved. 

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YMMV

I haven't sewn at all this week, had a weird fever for several days, which took a bit to recover from. Mostly just spending my energy keeping the plants (and the family) alive. So this is a bit of a YMMV *(Your Mileage May Vary) post. This is a picture of a succulent that's on our outdoor table that I eat lunch at when it's not too hot. I truly love the ombré colors of the leaves, sometimes when I'm not careful watering it holds on to one perfect drop of water in its center. The sun dries it out quickly of course. But it's always nice to catch the sun shining in it.  

When I was feeling yucky, my DH bought me a popsicle when he was out and about. It's supposed to be SpongeBobSquarepants, but looked a lot like how I was feeling at the moment. When you have a fever and don't want to eat anything, a popsicle really hits the spot. 

We've been making popsicles lately, and I made some with coconut/pineapple juice, wow was that ever weird. The saltiness fell all the way to the tip of popsicle and concentrated itself (heavier than everything else I guess), so the first lick was Super Weird. But then it was as good. as I'd hoped it would be. 

Hot tip:  The 

To The Power of Seven juice from Trader Joe's makes insanely good popsicles.

I took the traditionally terrible pictures of the lunar eclipse, which we had a lot of cloud cover for, but it opened up just enough to see the moon with a big bite out of it. But with the naked eye, I really could see the moon quite clearly, more than usual. I like the slightly red-orange tint around the edge, it was a visible "Blood Moon" in SoCal apparently.

We had a red flag warning on Friday because of the remnants of two tropical storms combining and coming through, so I spent a lot of time watering outside "just in case", even while it rained a little bit on me (as I was watering). The clouds were weird that day and it was very muggy for an hour or two after the rain.

And I happened to notice when my car turned over 86,000 miles *exactly* which was for some reason, worth a picture, even on Bear Creek Road.

Hopefully back to some sewing content soon!

Shades of 2022

 

Today was a super fun sew day with friends and I brought one of my UFO's to work on. This was from a wonderful class with David Owen Hastings. A virtual class that I took way back in pandemic-times in 2022 with SBAMQG. It's based on a Salvador Dali print that we have up on the wall. 

It had been quite a while since I'd worked on it, so I propped up the note in all caps that I'd left for myself. The key thing I learned in the class (and in many others as well of course): when sewing curved pieces of fabric together, don't forget: CONCAVE ON BOTTOM. It just works better that way.

A fabric layout for the next block along with the sketch/"pattern" with color choices and sewing order noted. 

these were the three blocks that I'd finished in the class.

And here are the three I made today. Yes, that one on the bottom was the last of the day and I really should have quit while I was ahead, etc and I'll be re-making that one! And the one on the upper left, that pinned-on dark blue shape is tbd on whether it is staying or not.

Here they are all together. I think I might need one more that's got the red/orange/yellows happening.. I have to go check my class notes to see how this is supposed to turn into a quilt top.

More of a Bowtie

 

I got a question about my original Bow Tie block that I made for the BAMQ BOM, why did I make it look like little butterflies? Good question! So, I thought I would try to make an actual bowtie looking block.

I used the same pattern to make the same size block,  and shaded it in for myself on the directions. That helped. I still don't see the shape as a bowtie, but I like how it looks.

And of course, now there are even more teeny tiny HST's™ to add to my envelope.

So there's how it all looks todgether.

Bam Bom Catchup

 

I realized I of course had missed out completely on the July BAMQ B.O.M. This month is square in a square. My studio assistant pretended to be napping but she was keeping a sharp eye on me.

Especially when I used the spray bottle of starch when it was time to iron.

There it is, a nice big block. And yes, I wish I had paid more attention to the direction of the dots. But it's not too bad.

All together now! It's getting pretty big, and I may go back and make some more of the alternative versions and sizes of the blocks.

Mosaic Runner Done

 

I did a little more quilting in the smaller squares on the Mosaic Runner.

But eventually, I stopped due to the bobbin running out. And it seemed done enough to m

I made a 2" binding out of smallish pieces of some of the darker fabrics that I used in the top. And that's all done.