Wandering Wednesday - Judy's Sewing

I was making my usual round of errands through Santa Cruz, and saw a Going Out Of Business sign on Judy's Sewing in Santa Cruz. This is really sad, they've been in business a long time, I used to go to their store in Scott's Valley. Judy's has been a long-time go-to LQS for me, I will miss having it as one of the local options.

I think it's just very hard to keep up specialty brick and mortar stores these days. They had a big sale going on, so I scooped up some end of bolts and other fabrics, as well as two spools of Bottom Line thread.  I really hope someone buys the business and it doesn't close down.

Holly Hedge

This applies to a lot of life, not just writing, of course. But sometimes, to me, my writing time feels very selfish, since it's only for me. The results of my quilting time is at least shared with other people, by either handing them a completed quilt, providing art for the walls, or something to look at online. My writing is just mine though. So it feels selfish when I spend a lot *or any* time on it.

But I don't sleep well if I don't write every day. Some internal processing mechanism of mine has come to depend upon getting some of the words out of my head so that's it's quiet enough for me to get to sleep.

 As inhospitable as a holly hedge, that's what it feels like sometimes, taking that time out to write.
All prickly keep-out's, should's and you-oughta-be's. Being inhospitable to one's self though is very short-sighted isn't it? You're the one you spend the most time with, and your ongoing, life-long conversation with yourself is pretty important. So really, c'mon,  it isn't selfish to take the time to write, if that's what's required to keep that conversation going. And to get to sleep.

Wandering Wednesday-Local Yokel

 Some local yokel type of pictures from the last week or so. First up, some Scotts Valley movie marquee humor. Say the words out loud to the cadence of Queen's song Bohemian Rhapsody and you'll get it.

 A old rock wall in downtown Boulder Creek.

 Cartoon pink clouds as seen from Costco in Santa Cruz.

 So. Much. Rain. At. Once. It's been a very wet week, almost up to 10" total!

And all of a sudden it turned slushy and hail-y and almost snowy. A few hundred feet higher, and we would have had real sticking-around-snow.

Ribbons and Rulers

 These ribbons are so gorgeous, Renaissance Ribbons doing such a great job of translating quilt/fabric designers work into such a different medium. Not sure what I'll do with these, but they have some great project suggestions on their site.

A trip to my LQS, Modern Handmade last month. I'm going to give this BlocLoc ruler thing a try, starting with the Flying Geese version. More on that later after I've tried it.  I also picked up a quilt pattern that caught my eye, (you can see a peek of it on the top there) which is not a thing I usually do, but it looked like such a great way to highlight great fabric. And then three fabrics on clearance sale, love it.

Making Choices for Good Fortune

Here's the fabrics I picked out of my stash to do the Good Fortune quilt.

 I was trying to make sure I've got the right color assortment according to how much yardage of each color is called for in the pattern, so I stuck a ruler up against the whole stack, and then did the percentages math... I might be short on oranges or reds, but I want to try and do this quilt without buying any more new fabric. I'm going to start sewing and see how it goes...

Here's the fabrics fanned-out a bit, the lighting on the whole thing isn't very even so the greys look much whiter than they are, and the blues look muddy/darker than they are.

 This shows the greys a bit better I think. I hope they're neutral-is enough, I don't have enough cream colored fabrics in my stash to even come close, so I'm trying this with the lighter greys.

 I think this is going to be a fun and colorful quilt to work on!