Return of City Sampler

 

The first project I started working on at the retreat was sewing the rest of the between-the-blocks sashing to the blocks for my City Sampler that didn't have it applied yet.

I was really glad that I'd used these straight pins that have the numbers to keep track of the rows as I went along. It's a lot of blocks!

The whole time I was working on these I kept saying to myself, "Oh wow! This one is so great! I dyed that fabric? It's beautiful!" I was really happy to jump back into this colorful project.

Finally, all of the 90 blocks out of 100 that needed a sashing piece had one attached.

And then  all 100 blocks were sewn into 10 rows of 10 blocks. The next step was applying long pieces of the same fabric to the bottom of each row. And then to sew those together and press each and every long seam towards the sashing. I didn't take pictures of this step as it was rather involved and I was getting very tired. 

But then unfortunately, I ran out of sashing fabric. As I'd cut the sashing pieces out years ago, I can't remember if I knew that or just cut a bunch and figured I'd cut more later. Anyway, now I have to find the Exact Gray Solid to continue. Wish me luck on that one. I don't have a picture of the 7 rows that got sewn together but I'll put it up on my design wall and post it later.

More YES

On the last day of retreat I worked on making more Y.E.S. Paper pieced blocks for my YES coat. These are printed out from EQ8 on newsprint. I couldn’t do the fold and flip paper piecing method because my glue stick was no longer glue-y.

Give a Y, give me an E!

 Just what I wanted, easy to not really see the YES in the blocks but it still is distinct enough if you really look.👀 

What an awesome retreat, really enjoyed it and getting a chance to know more of the bamq people. I tried my best, but I overdid  it and my knee is very unhappy with me. A good reminder of why I’m having surgery.

Yarned Up

 

One of the places I like to go when we visit San Diego is Apricot Yarn & Supply. It's very nearby to Visions Museum and is just a really lovely shop. As I'm neither a knitter or a crocheter, it's just fun to go in and goggle at the beautiful colors and textures and of course to pet stuff. But I usually like to buy something aspirationlly, shall we say?

I bought this really nice variegated sock weight yarn and a smallish crochet hook with a larger grip. This crochet hook fits my hand very well and is nicely balance. Will I ever crochet an actual sock? Or perhaps something else? I unfortunately realized a bit too late that the yarn was much too fine to try and crochet with in the car as I'm not that practiced. So now it's in my yarn basket in my workroom. Maybe I'll try crocheting while I watch SF Giants baseball games this season.

63 Out of 100 Days

 

Here are seven more days worth of the 100 Days Project. I'm away at the BAMQ retreat and have scheduled this post and sewn ahead of myself a couple days.  Hopefully I remembered to post all 7 pictures of the new 9" segments.

My plan is to bring this giant roll of sewn Scrap Tape along with me to keep up on the days while I'm there. I'm planning to use the scraps that I generate as I'm working on the projects that I bring to the retreat, so there will be a distinct look to those segments.

That white on white checkerboard fabric is so odd, but so cool. I thought it looked good around some fabrics that had bits of white.

A checkerboard of mis-cut cornerstones for the 4 I's quilt makes an appearance. 

More bits from the making of Bohemian Wife blocks appear.

This combination on the left is a great palette for a quilt, the grey orange, purple, yellow on purple/pink, then a chartreuse, woohoo!

One last segment for the week. Can't believe I'm up to 63! 

April's Showers=Flower Friday

 

It's April. It's a Friday. It's time for a Flower Friday! Here's the cherry tree in full bloom at the beginning of the month before the rain. All that rain has led to a great bloom so far all around.

My grandma Trudy's orchid continues to reliably bloom every year.

Indoors, two refugees from a bouquet, surviving and floating for a little bit longer.

These Columbines, always such a surprise, I forget they might show up.

And I don't always know what color combinations that they'll be. These flowers are a little like a secret between me and the bees as they don't really turn their faces up to the sun.

There are several pots that the Columbines come up, and they seem to stick to a few color combinations with variation year to year.

Pink and more pink!

Some of the variations might have to do with the amount of sun these different pots get. I enjoy them all and I'm always happy to see them bloom.

Climbing roses to be blooming very soon.

This scented geranium bush is enormous and I need to divide it and replant some elsewhere, but for now I'm enjoying the cute little flowers and the lovely scent.

Speaking of scent, the lilacs are going gangbusters this year probably from all the rain. 

The center of these yellow-orange on orange Calendulas are so mesmerizing, and apparently attractive to bugs too.

A couple new plants that my family planted for me, as I'm off garden chores until I'm rehabbed from an imminent knee surgery. This is a Hybrid Pacific Coast Iris in New Yellow. I love the maroon ribbing. This is planted in the filtered light of the Fig tree so hopefully it'll be happy.

Another new plant my family planted for me is this Abutilon Pictum Thompsonil, the variegated leaves and the sort of variegated flowers are really pretty. I hope this one works out and makes it through the summer.

The Poison Tree, that's what my family calls it (it is very poisonous, Angel's Trumpet) is enormous and heavy with blossoms. It takes a lot of trimming to keep it in bounds. 

That's all for now, I can't walk around the whole yard unfortunately as I have stay on stable surfaces. Making this garden over the years has been one of my favorite things I've done in life.

All Packed

 

Well, I'm finally all packed up for the retreat, phew! That's pretty much all I did today. So, I have a range of things to work on, a small quilt to quilt, and many things to piece and maybe some paper piecing. I'm really looking forward to this time away with BAMQ.

The studio assistants were trying their best to blend in and ignore the hubbub. Korben will let me spin him on my work chair more than ten times. It's very funny. I think he'd make a good space-cat.

When Leeloo is asleep with her eyes closed you really can't see her.

No picture of Meg because she's figured out I'm going somewhere and her face is too sad 😢

Thread Choosing Time

 

I'm planning to get the quilting done on the 4 I's quilt at the retreat this weekend. 

I don't want to bring my entire case of Aurifil as it opens up too easily, so I'm picking a big range to cover all the colors.

There are a lot of shades involved in this quilt.

Of course I'm taking these pictures in the late afternoon so there are Many Shadows.

I think this is going to be a fairly easy quilting project.

It's a pile of thread already and I haven't even gotten the grays out yet.