Nineteenth Weekly Study Square

 The nineteenth Weekly Study Square Quiltlet is entitled "Get Your OY On". There was a whole lot of oy happening as I worked through making this quiltlet. Mostly due to my turning a cone of Madeira Poly thread upside-down. A huge amount of it slid off in its finely wrapped loops and the resulting thread tangle wrapped-up my attention for quite a long time. After saving some of the thread and doing some of the stitching, the rest of those tangles made it onto this quiltlet forming the letters O and Y.

 Close-up of the "O" thread tangle, stitched down with the same thread in a zig-zag.

 Close up of the "Y and some of the other stitches.

The orange background is the fabric envelope my new cellphone case came in. I love how it glows against the green and fuchsia.

Words of the Week:

• bulb


• perch


• pension


• ambulance


• pincer


• blanket


• hospital


• motel

52 Weeks of Being 52

This is my 52nd year, and I've started a visual journal titled:

52 Weeks of Being 52

It just seemed so perfect, 52 weeks in a year, why not?

 This is my "title" page, I'm not sure it's completely done or not. I'm using a Strathmore Visual Journal that has nice thick watercolor paper that is suited for mixed-media work. And my media was indeed mixed, as I used Prismacolor colored pencils, Derwent Inktense blocks, Sakura Pigma Micron Pen, rubber stamping with Distress Ink pads and a few stick-on foil stars.

I won't promise that  I'll share all of the pages here or not, or even manage to share them as I create them (hopefully) weekly. But I'll try. And since I'm 52, I get to get away with things like that!

Great Gifts

It's great having a friend who can make you presents when your birthday rolls around yet again. Friend Jaye made me a handy-dandy One Hour Basket in lovely purples. It's nice and roomy and has just enough stability to stand up on its own.

And inside, four double-sided cloth napkins with a cute coffee cup print. Wakey Wakey!

Green and Orange

 Two color mosaics I made recently, using pictures from the last few months.

Orange and green, green and orange they always go together, don't they?

Eighteenth Study Square

The eighteenth Weekly Study Square Quiltlet is made up of selvedges and printed ribbons as well as a few fabric scraps in-between. I liked the look of all the different fonts lined up on top of each other. The numbers in circles of color on selvedges is one of my favorite parts of fabric, weird huh?

Words of the week:

• address


• leather


• measure


• misnomer


• sedative


• bonus


• wire


• finger

Three More for the ATC Collection

 I was lucky enough to swap for three new ATC's at the December CQFA meeting. And got to keep one of mine. These little beauties just shine, don't they?

 Jaye's has a lot of really nice details, and I of course, love this color combination.

 Maureen's has so many great colors and textures.

Virginia's is a perfect little composition.

Painted Silk ATC's

Here's the story on my ATC's for the CQFA meeting.

 I started out with this cream colored luscious piece of textured silk-blend snagged from FabMo.

 Using my Tsukineko ink brushes I highlighted the ridges with red.

 And then dotted the whole thing with blue. Blending the two colors with a wet brush, the inks combined with the crinkled texture acting as a mild sort of resist.

Keeping in mind that when it dries, it won't be as dark or intense, while it was still wet I added more color with Inktense watercolor blocks and then wet brushed the additional pigment to blend.

 Here's how it looks after it had time to dry and was heat-set with my iron.

 Measuring and cutting the 2.5x3.5" ATC's out of the stitched piece.

 I did some minimal quilting on each ATC, I didn't want to smash down that wonderful crinkled texture.

 Closeups of each one. I used striped washi tape which I machine embroidered either a 2 or a 5 depending on how many lines of quilting were in the ATC.

 Then I added a small piece of pink dyed wool roving, held down under some paper lace that I stitched down.

 I stitched around the edges and then zig-zagged once also.

I was really pleased with how these ATC's turned out this time and I was happy to have something to trade at the CQFA meeting. More on that tomorrow.

Thankful Post

 Looking back at November, there's a whole lot that I'm thankful for.

 Spike absolutely loves the new dog bed. As our resident cat-dog, his word is respected by the dog-cat who could have cared less about it.

 Some early winter figs still ripening on my tree.

 Downtown Santa Cruz, at the MAH for Radical Craft Night working the FabMo table. Super fun, and absolutely mobbed.

 Rainy windshield + Neon

 My turkey turned out pretty damn great this year.

 We finally carved our pumpkins, just in time for my husband's late November birthday. A new tradition is born??

 The reason I insisted on at least cutting into the pumpkins, (which I am no longer authorized to do given past events, sigh.) Roasted pumpkin seeds. We made about 6 cups of these, which lasted a few days. nom nom nom.

Our Japanese Maple finally began turning color.

What a difference a week makes!

 The angel's trumpet is still growing and blooming, no hard frost yet. It's almost visible from the second story window.

Harvested my first (and only ever) pomegranate!

100Days100Blocks Video

Here's a video I made of all 100 blocks from the #100Days100Blocks project. Just something fun seeing them all moving around set to music before I struggle to assemble them into a top.

Seventeenth Study Square

 The seventeenth in my Weekly Study Square Quiltlets. As soon as I put those triangles atop the rectangles, all I could see was houses, so I went with that.

A detail to show the embroidery stitches I used.

The words of the week were:

• leaf


• joint


• epidemic


• bandit


• crown


• food


• manure


• catastrophe

100/100

 Here are the final ten blocks completed from the #100Days100Blocks project. Hard to believe I made it through all the way. Block 91 above is a fun combination where I got to highlight those pink deer. I'm so glad the deer I see in my yard every day are normal shades of brown.
Block 92, once I see a face in something, I can't un-see it. Pareidolia perhaps? Hmmm, that would be a good quilt title to use at some point.
 Block 92, one last angry elephant before I let you go. I don't really like the way the framing is split by the center fabric going through. It looks like a blocky letter D or a snorkeling elephant.

 Block 94, I liked having this big space to show almost all of the butterfly (or moth?)

 Block 95, I lied, here's some more angry elephant. I just love that fabric design, it's so beautiful and swoopy and then you look more closely and see what it really is.

 Block 96, had to get one more yellow deer in the quilt.

Block 97- This might be my favorite use of this crazy-mod black/white/color print.

 Block 98, I really liked this arrangement of rectangles/square, and another lotus-tiger.

Block 99

 Block 100!! So thrilled to have made it through this long project, thank you Gnome Angel for creating such an inspiring community. and I'm looking forward to participating in the #100BlocksFinished project, wherein we attempt to get our quilt tops completed by 1/25/17. Stay tuned for that.

If you want to do the 2017 #100Days100Blocks for this same project, it starts in May.

Here's the arrangement I'm likely to go with, but I'll likely tinker with it a bit more. I'm planning a grey sashing background that will separate the blocks.