Banner Day

 

One of the things I grabbed last year from my parent's house before it was sold was this Giants yard flag. Mom had proudly flown it for many years, and I replaced it for her with a brand new one for her new Mom-do. I really should have just bought myself one as well, but I wanted to see if I could refurbish this one well enough to use for at least this baseball season (starting this week, yay!). I am my mother's daughter after all.

So, I put on an audiobook to finish (All That She Carried) that was due back at the library today, and got out the Sharpies and worked with them for as long as I could because of the fumes. I'm doing the next session outside on the deck in the fresh and very warm air. My plan is to spray this banner/flag with a UV protector spray. 

Here's how it looks after being completely Sharpie'd. Definitely too streaky for me.

Even after doing the whole thing, I think it's too mottled,especially out in the light, this picture is in the shade.

Out came the Tsukineko inks in orange and black, and oh yes that's looking so much better. The inks really flowed nicely and smoothly on the nylon. Also, a whole lot faster than the Sharpies! The audiobook is over and returned to the library, and the flag is in the sun so the ink can dry. Next step is to fix up the degraded SFwhite machine-embroidered stitching and it will be ready for the UV spray and to put out in my front yard before the Opening Day game tomorrow night on Netflix, SF Giants vs. NY Mets.

Homeward Snake

 

Back up the freeway we drove towards home, and the traffic was rather bunchy (when is it not in LA?!), so I got out the Snake in The Garden for more stitching. The offending one is on the right hand side, much too thick of thread in the wrong color.

I used the other color of red tharead that I had along in my to-go bag that was a much thinner weight and went around the oval in-between the green stitches. I think it's looking much better. Still not sure what to do about the chicken scratch stitches in the red oval--either take them out or leave them?

There's how the second oval looks with just the new lighter weight and more correct color thread around the outside in-between the green stitches. I think I like the look of that oval now as is, so I'll be taking out the offending stitches on the first oval I stitched.

Kawandii Around and Around

 

More stitching got done on my kawandii, I'm circling around into the center. Adding new fabrics as I go.

There are a lot of pins hanging out, which is not the best for an on-the-road project. Ouch.

The tools I'm using, I really love this thread, WonderFil Spagetti 12wt in a nice sage green. 

Patterns In LA

I've been in LA this week as my DH attends a conference at the LA Convention center and so I've been walking around the area, or taking the metro, and going to museums. This is the very interesting entrance to The Broad museum.

These next two were taken by accident when I didn't turn my phone camera off and kept walking. It was 97F and I was in the direct sun, that's my excuse. But they capture the excess of pattern one can see in a city (or really anywhere) if you look at things from an unusual angle.

I thought I'd be able to capture the shimmer of the heat-haze of the day off the street and buildings. But maybe it's only visible through polarized sunglasses?

This overlap of both grids and the angles of the posts of the storage system inside The Broad is such a great design.

In the downtown main library, the cupola dome is really gorgeous and pattern-filled.

There's a great exhibit about the building of the library nearby and they included these detailed color and pattern guides to some of those patterns. I bet there's a book out there (or maybe in that very library) that contains all of them. How about any of these as the center of a medallion quilt?

The old library card catalog drawers are still there, but glued shut, still look very cool though.

A riot of patterns looking down into the new wing of the library.

And then one of many interesting mosaic doorsteps. This design would make a great quilt.

Hello Again, Kawandii

 

Back to work on finishing my Kawandii. It's my #2 on the UFO Challenge list, so I'm really trying to get stitched all the way into the center.

There's a lot of pieces left to anchor down, and a lot of pins.

I love the big needle that I'm using, it's so easy to handle.

Improv Mosaic Class

 

On Saturday, Lorraine Woodruff-Long taught BAMQ a great class called Improv Mosaic 1,2,3. This was the example of what we were working towards making in the end. Amazingly, some of us actually got there!

She brought so many great examples of her work, both those finished and others that were in process.

I loved seeing all the details of the piecing and the great straight-line quilting.

This one was on a table on top of stuff so it looks rather lumpy (but it's really not!)

Her "here's-how-I-do-it-demonstration" was really excellent and clear. A great example of how showing the steps several times gets the whole process across to your students. I learned some great ideas for chain piecing which were very helpful.

As we all worked on our blocks, Lorraine put hers up that she was making up on the design wall so we could see the process of how to assemble them. Friend Jaye was putting hers up there on the right hand side.

Here's how my block looks on the wrong side.

Lorraine took reaction shots of many of us with our blocks up on the design wall. Here's Tim getting his moment of fame. She then edited them all together in a super fun reel on Instagram.

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Hope it displays well for you above. It really highlights the fun we have as a group. And the diversity of how we all approached the work for this class. Always so interesting to see what we each come up with.

Here's how most of mine look all together up on the design wall. I made just a couple more of the small ones. It was a real challenge to use all these prints. The only solids I used were off of the free table, the dark teal on the big block on the bottom, the orange and blue checkerboard and orange center, as well as that one tiny square of neon yellow. I also grabbed two prints to add in with the ones I brought from home were the neon yellow grid in that block as well. And also the little blue fish in the center of the block above that one. I mostly stuck with using the FQs from the Advent Calendar.

This was a terrific class, I really enjoyed learning Lorraine's techniques for making this kind of quilt. She has a great teaching style, laid-back but very informative and clear. I liked that she was sewing her own blocks as we all were, and then showing us things as she went along. I'm really glad that our guild had her come in as a teacher!

Freeway Snake Stitching

 

Down the freeway we went, and as I wasn't the one driving, so that meant I got to do some stitching on the Snake in the Garden. This green section in the lower right hand corner is now finished.

Here's how it's looking now. There's one bright green section left to do. 

I started doing this stitching on the red oval in the lower left hand corner and decided that the thread was too bulky and the wrong shade of red, so I stopped myself from continuing on. But I've just found the correct red (the one above), which is a lighter weight thread and a couple shades darker. I'll try that out and see if it makes enough difference.

I am still struggling a bit with what to do with the black and white print that goes down the left side of the piece. I really like how it looks now, unembellished and most importantly that it's free floating, anchored only by the red ovals. It's not like it is going anywhere, and this piece is meant for the wall so it won't get washed. I thought I might do French Knots (or just a stitch) in some of the white or black squares (in the corresponding color) so they don't show up. Decisions, decisions...