Jocose July

Welcome Jocose July! Joscose means: humorous or liking to play. Sounds like a very good plan for July. Keeping a sense of humor as it heats up in my work room is very necessary.

I chose to start with this picture of some of the HSTs I made for the Lupin Mystery quilt.

I ran in through the app Percolator.

And then combined that with the super dramatic and showy Passionflower in the app, SnapSeed.
 

Here is my 1sE video for the month, one second of every day of the month of June..

 Monthly I-Did List for June

1. I started working on the Lupine Mystery quilt again with various sizes of HSTs in different color combinations and sizes. It was A Lot of HSTs all at once~300!
2. I started working on the HRTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt and used a new ruler.
3. I made five Community Giving blocks.
4. I worked on binding a Community Giving quilt.
5. I made my BAMQ BOM blocks just in time, Drunkard's Path and X+.
6. I started on my yearly participation in ICAD.
7. I set up and started using my new Oliso iron.
8. I participated in three exhibits at once in June, BAMQ AT SMCF, BAMQ at the SM Library and SLV Quilters at the BC Library.
9. I got out and started working on my Mini QCR Pumpkins project to finish for the BAMQ UFO Challenge.
10. I finished quilting and then did the binding on my Six by Six quilt for the BAMQ UFO Challenge.

I found that I got plenty done this month, including going to both the Sew Day and meeting for BAMQ,  had a couple great visits with family, kept going to the gym (yay me!), did a whole lot of gardening (see the June  Flower Friday post), kept going on two weekly PT appointments for my right wrist as it is working and helping how I can keep using my right hand like I need to. The plan is to continue keeping up the forward momentum throughout July. 

 

June Cornucopia

 

Personal Size Watermelons - a sign that made me lol (and take this picture) in the grocery store.

Hopefully June was filled with as many "personal size" watermelons (or the equivalent) as you could handle. This is a cornucopia post, filled with watermelons, and links to the things I've enjoyed, read, consumed or spent time with online this past month.

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I think this free EQ8 quilt design is a rather brilliant use of HSTs, Gem Galaxy. 

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This fabulous exhibit of embroidered dresses is detailed in a new book: The Alphabet of Expectations: An ABC Primer for Today's Girl

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This discussion of why we don't finish the projects that we start was very useful to me, some different ways to think about the reasons and the changes we can make.

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This is a great short video from PBS Canvas series highlighting two recent San Jose exhibits that dealt with women and technology, very interesting stuff. Really nice to see local museums shine in a national piece.

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United We Stitch sounds like a pretty cool project to work on, and an exciting display to see in person.

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I found this EQ8 blog post on designing a 250th quilt that will utilize charm packs pretty interesting and useful, as well as this follow up post. I've had some trouble with using the cutting charts that EQ8 calculates, so this should be helpful.

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Almost Mini Pumpkins Top

 

I buckled down and got all of the mini pumpkin blocks stitched together.

It took a while but they turned out well, except for one trimming mistake that I made.

All the blocks completed and up on the design wall together. Yes, it's going to end up being a rather large table runner. It may instead end up being a sort of banner/wall quilt. Depends on how I feel in the fall I suppose.

I've gotten the blocks sewn into rows and now just need to sew them together.

One New Mini Pumpkin

 

I had enough time today to sew together exactly one mini pumpkin block. 

The block went together very easily.

Sewing slowly its the main thing.

That and remembering how to use the Quick Curve Mini Ruler to trim the block down.

And the power went back on just in time to be able to give this a quick ironing

Ghost & Regular Mini Pumpkins

 

I had to switch over to cutting out the background pieces for the new mini pumpkin blocks from a new fabric as I ran out of the topo map one (there in the upper right hand corner. I think they'll work well together in the whole quilt and not be too jarring next to each other.

Lots of slicing.

There's how the orange pumpkins look with the backgrounds included. Amazing how big they are before all the seams get sewn.

And then I cut out the pieces that are required for more ghost pumpkins, which is closer to the look of the original pattern. Ooh no, that dark grey I used is not going to work. I'll dive into my BAM BOM bag to find a good medium grey to substitute instead.

Now to make these into pumpkin blocks instead of pumpkin pieces.

Mini Pumpkins

 Oh yes, that's right, I'm supposed to be working on finishing up my #5 on my BAMQ UFO list. It's the Quick Curve Ruler Mini Pumpkins project that I started back in 2019. These four blocks were the only parts that I had finished.

I also had put aside the right size squares of orange fabrics that I was meaning to use. So I dug out my Quick Curve Mini Ruler and tried out my smaller rotary cutter. Unfortunately the blade isn't quite wide enough to reach the cutting mat through the ruler thickness and fabric. So I just used my regular rotary cutter.

The cutting of all the curved orange pumpkin sections went pretty quickly. I found that I had four top "stem" units made. Now I need to cut the block backgrounds and make two more top of the block "stem" pieces. I will either make another grey pumpkin block or cut new outer edge pumpkin pieces for that bottom one. It just looks too strange of a shape because the outer curve is too match-y with the background fabric.

Three Exhibits At Once

 

It has been quite the month for me as far as exhibits go, I had three quilts simultaneously on display in various places. And I only have gotten to one of them myself.

First, was the quilt, Ocean Effect, that I made for the Bay Area Modern Quilt exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair, "Modern Art Meets Modern Quilt." This is a picture of the exhibit showing off many of the great modern art inspired pieces that we made.

And I even won a first place ribbon! Photo credit for both of these pictures go to one of our members, Erin M.

Secondly, another BAMQ exhibit, this time at the Redwood City Public Library Downtown, right in the children's section. Sixteen quilts representing popular children's books. When I was in there checking out the display, there were several kids and their grown-ups choosing their favorites. It's a great display.

My Wizard of Oz quilt

And then, much much closer to home, the San Lorenzo Valley Quilters put out a call for quilts to be displayed at the Boulder Creek Library. 

Luckily for me, my wonderful DH has gone to the library and shared this selfie with my quilt, Burn Grow Slide that's hanging up. 

It's great to have the opportunity to support libraries by sharing my art.