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.

Fairly Recent New Inputs

 

We had an excellent BAMQ meeting on Saturday, and as per usual I snagged something off of the free table. Is this not the cutest fabric ever? I have had several cats over the years who definitely believed they were part deer, because of their outdoor interactions with the local deer gang. I totally missed this Violet Craft fabric line from 2016, so it's fun to get a "vintage" fabric that's new to these eyes at least. I love how the free table changes over the year depending on who is doing a stash cleanout, etc.

And then there was a nice surprise, I won the drawing for the BAM BOM prize this month. And it's all yellows and oranges. These are great, I never have enough yellow choices.

Then I realized I hadn't posted my recent purchase from the great quilt shop, Sewlarium in Portland. The owner has been making very entertaining reels on Instagram recently, one that spurred me to shop online at his shop. Another one of the William Morris/Kaffe Fasset fabrics, an interesting check, too cute to pass up vintage looking owls and a speckled orange.

And how nice, he threw in one of their shop stickers which is so hilarious, I love it so much.And then way back in June, I went shopping for the fabric to make the pillowcases for friend Amy, which I found at Hart's Fabric in Santa Cruz. 

That's three of the fabrics there, the other one that Really Doesn't Fit In,  is for the medallion quilt I've been collecting fabrics for.

Also in June, I went to Santa Cruz Vac n' Sew, because I needed some more lime green for the 6x6 quilt, that's what those two greens are, then there's the yard of toweling that I got for more napkins,  and some upholstery thread and sewing machine needles. The Marcia Derse fabric is from The Granary.

Really catching up here, again in June, I went to a doctor appointment that is dangerously close to Golden State Quilting, and apparently I was in a shopping mood. I got two more new Marcia Derse prints, a couple of FQ's in acid green and yellow, a new Quilter's Select ruler, a mini braid template, 

and finally a FQ pack of the newest Anna Maria Horner fabrics. Aren't they just so fun and exuberant? Seen here with the two FQ's I got down at the bottom.

Well that turns out to have been a whole lot of fabric acquisition since the last time I updated the fabric tracker.  I swear, July was such a weird mind-bender that I was wondering where all this new fabric came from, so I'm glad I went through this exercise for this post and to:

Updating the 2026 fabric tracker: 

26.25 fabric in

- 26.85 fabric out =

-.6 NET Fabric Usage

Mosaic Runner Quilted?

 

Before the BAMQ meeting today, I had just enough time to do most of the walking foot quilting on the Mosaic table runner. My machine mostly behaved, but I think something may be going wrong with the foot pressure and maybe stitch length regulator?

Pretty sure it might need some more quilting though.

I think I might go around each "frame" once, especially in the bigger blocks. Probably not in the smaller ones.

A lot of dense quilting would get pretty lost in the sauce here!

 Pretty close to done, but I need to figure out a good binding, solid? a mix of the same prints? We shall see...