Stained Glass

 

I’m enjoying seeing my Uncle Chris’ stained glass art in their house.

We had a sudden blast of bright sunlight so I quickly snapped some pictures.

Really lovely designs. He gave a tour of his glass studio as well, and it’s a great space to do art. He’s not doing too much with it now and he has a big quantity of older blown-glass sheets. He’s trying to find someone to gift them to. I hope there’s an art program or artist who can use them. 

Wandering Wednesday: Canada

I’m traveling with my mom to Canada to go see her sister, my Aunt Suzi. We left early from San Francisco with this beautiful sunrise.

The view from the plane window was as usual, very exciting.

We got to take a ferry ride over to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island where my aunt and uncle live.

My cousin, My-Linh was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and make sure we made it to Nanaimo.

We were lucky with the weather, it was a little rainy on the journey over but a very smooth ride. My cousin saw a pod of orcas on her way over to get us, but we didn’t spot any on our ride.

We’re staying with my cousin who has a nice view of the bay from her deck. 

The view from my aunt and uncle’s is even better. They’re right up the hill from the other ferry terminal so there’s always something to see. Just so lovely!

Old Town Bin

I was leaving on a trip this week so I packed up all the assembled block units I’ve made so far. There’s a whole lot. I just didn’t want them to get knocked down by cat action.

I’m glad to see this assembled quantity of work completed so far. I’m going to be happier once I get to the actual block assembly point.
 

Go Giants

The 3-d printed container got a new buddy, so we swapped the lids around and now there are two black and orange arrangements. 

That obviously required some San Francisco Giants stickers. I found some perfectly sized ones for sale on eBay and they worked out pretty well.

One is currently empty and the other one has foam with pins stuck in it. Not exactly the right kind of foam as it's rather stiff and unforgiving. And we also put a big circular magnet in the bottom to help hold the pins down. 

More Pieces

 

More sewing on another one of the clues for the mystery quilt, Old Town.

These are fairly small flying geese and I'm liking the look of the coral/melon color choices. Having the corners be scrappy is an interesting look isn't it? Quite a few more of these to go, but now I've got the hang of making them in an assembly line.

So many half square triangles. It's fun putting them up on the design wall like these so I can see how the various fabrics play together.

I've got quite a few more sets to make of these half square triangles, but now that I've learned the tricks for making them it'll get easier.

Chain Pressing

 

It's likely that we've all done chain piecing at some point, but have you ever tried chain pressing? Maybe I'm the only one, but I finally tried it. This was a tip in the directions for the Old Town Mystery quilt that I've been working on. If you're chain piecing, cutting each pieced pair apart, and then pressing takes a lot of extra time when you're doing 100's of HSTs, etc. And especially when you're working in matching sets like I am here.

I think I'd heard of this concept at some point in the past, but to me it sounded fussy and fiddly. I figured I would get it all tangled up or just take more time to arrange on the ironing board. But I finally took a chance and just tried it, solely because it was explained so well by Bonnie K. Hunter in the Old Town directions. And what do you know...it really is quite easy and works very well. I think you have to definitely have at least a stitch in-between each piece so there's enough maneuvering room.  Now, I haven't tried this out for other sorts of units to see if it would have the same sort of easiness, but I will definitely try it again. 

Here's a short video that shows you how to do it.

Labeled and Bound

 

I was working on getting the binding on to one of the BAMQ Community Giving quilts yesterday and just in time, I remembered the label. This is an embroidered label that one of our members made and was handing out at Sew Day last weekend. It's so nicely done, isn't it?  I sewed it right into the binding so that it would be secure.

And here's how the quilt looks with the binding completed. I believe that this quilt is one of friend Jaye's donation quilt tops, but I wasn't able to find it on her blog, so maybe not? Anyways...it's done now and I have to remember to turn it in.