April Cornucopia

 

Here's a month's worth of the links that I enjoyed, found helpful or just wanted to share.

These automatically posting monthly cornucopia posts are working out pretty well. I think I'll continue to do them.

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The SAQA conference was organized around the area of the world known as Oceania. The exhibit produced for the conference,"Impressions of Oceania From Around the World", was really terrific. You can see the artworks here in a virtual gallery.

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Lisa Walton, an Australian quilt artist has a wonderful video interview series with other quilt artists, you'll recognize a lot of names, and I think she's a great interviewer.

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The Izumo Museum of Quilt Art is described in a post on Okan Arts, it looks like it would be a really lovely place to visit. Putting it on the....someday list. 

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This is a great interview about Linda F. Martin, a super-interesting quilt artist, I had never encountered. Really lovely portrait work that uses the fabric to tell part of the story. 

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Have you started reading any of the great SubStacks out there? I really love reading Virginia Heffernan, Roxanne Gay, Judd Legum,  I'm cheap and only read the freebie version of the newsletters these writers put out, 

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The artwork of sardine cans of all things, collected here on a website (mostly in Portuguese) is very inspiring. The array of fonts and illustrations is endlessly fascinating. Reminds me of this collection of California orange crate labels.

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Fibershed is an interesting organization in Northern California that's trying to work on the idea of an integrated regional fiber system that pays attention to the soil, the people and the environment.

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Triangle Experiment

Well, the triangle experiment didn't work out too well. Some spikiness was achieved, but not consistently enough to really make it work. A bold design element like this needs to be well-executed, and this is not. Which is okay by me, I was trying something new, cutting fabric with printed out paper templates was challenging. Because of my newbie EQ8 design skills the sizes and angles were funky and I couldn't use my tri-recs ruler.

But, I learned that this fabric combination works well for this piece, so I will use these triangle sections somehow because I like the angles.

My first impulse was to sew the sections together. And I like how it looks, but a little too harlequin-y for this piece. I think I'll cut them up somehow, maybe on a diagonal? Or perhaps cut each section into 4 pieces.
 

First two to pick up the yellow from the batik frame.

The black yes, but the other two are a little iffy.

I really like the grey print with this combination, it adds something modern.

Now I had to sneak in the sewn together triangle sections and I have to say I love it. But, that dot and fuchsia fabric isn't going to work, I have other options to put in there.

Coat Class

 

I'm so excited to finally get to take a class with Rachel D. Clark in June with one of my guilds, South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild! It's on Zoom of course, someday soon we'll be able to be meeting up in person I hope. The class is going to be about making one of her famous quilted jackets. Not that I'll be needing a jacket anytime soon, but maybe I'll get it done by the time it gets cold again.

I went ahead and bought one of her patterns as well as her booklet about the special techniques she teaches. I chose the classic A-line because that's usually pretty flattering. 

Now to plan out what fabrics I'll be using....My first thought is something monochromatic and neutral. Like all dark greys, I think that'd be pretty and easy to wear. Especially since it's a long coat. But maybe I should go for color color color? Ack! 

Keeping It Spiky

After cutting all the triangles out, I'm kind of wishing I'd done these as foundation piecing now. Or only cut out one of the blocks to make sure it would work out. I got on a roll cutting yesterday so...welp. It's all cut out now so I guess I'm sewing.

Wish me luck as I try piecing these things. I just want them to be spiky! I can always adjust the size because the center embroidered rectangle can be trimmed a bit. Before sewing I went and looked at this post about sewing 1/2 rectangles and then I remembered friend Jaye had a great round-up post on HSR.

Love That Lioness

An initial fabric pull for the Sister Artists 2 quilt is up on the design wall along with the wonderful embroidered block it will be centered around. I love that lioness.

But where to go from there?

I decided to use some of my newly acquired skills with EQ8 and make up a medallion quilt design.

 Okay, pretend the lioness is a watermelon for just a second, this is the quilt I designed in EQ8. I've got the instructions and measurements from EQ8, and I'm setting off on making this. I've got a bunch more solids chosen to use as well as the fabrics shown above. Also, these colors won't exactly be followed (of course). 

More Rings

Still cutting and playing around with different combinations of greens with the ring parts.

It's really fun to try out different combinations. I'm having trouble settling on one choice and sewing it together.

The orange ring is the only one that's all sewn together because I'm still swapping different choices in and out.

I like that cotton boll center fabric, it reads close enough to the word fabric.

Here's how two of the rings look from a little farther away up on my design wall, along with the Sister Artists 2 fabric pull. 

I'm on the hunt for more cover versions of June Carter Cash's Ring of Fire, here's Coldplay. A surprisingly good cover. And no, that's not going to be this quilt's title, although it is tempting.

Squishy Mail

 For the ring quilt layout I decided on doing, I needed more of that awesome word definition print, and found a few yards at The Patchwork Co in New York. It got here pretty quickly, along with a couple others too (of course).

And I'd pre-ordered this Wabi Sabi by Marcia Derse panel ages ago from Fabric Party and promptly forgot all about it, so it was a nice surprise to receive this awesome piece in the mail.

Squishy mail is the best.

International Conference Time

I'm so glad that the international SAQA conference, 'Oceans Apart, Connected by Art' is happening virtually this year. Because I"m really out of it after getting my second vaccine shot yesterday. Feeling flu-ish and if I had to get up and go somewhere, it would not be happening. Instead I'm resting comfortably and reading and looking at great art quilt pictures.

It's being held entirely on this app called WhoVa which is pretty slick and works very well for this type of event.

And for non-participants in the conference, there's something you can go check out, The Spotlight Auction, a fund-raiser for SAQA of 270 small works for sale.

Rhubarb Gone Wild

It was so hot this spring, my rhubarb went a little crazy and bolted, sending up a giant flower stalk out of the center. 

I was looking up whether or not to cut it off or what the heck to do with it. Turns out you can eat the flowers. It looks like little broccoli florets. This weekend we're going to try it out, but for now, check out how cool this looks.

Wandering Wednesday - On My Street

 I haven't gotten off my street much lately, except for boring errands, so here's some of what I see everyday when I walk the dog with my DH.

The cherry tree is out and blooming in my back yard. It's visible from the street above and is quite beautiful.

Deer are out and about in force, visiting us while we have our lunch out on the deck. All those giant logs are left from the trees that we had taken down last year. The oak is going to be firewood at some point, and the fir will stay there or be used as hillside retaining structures.

The madrone are flowering--big time.

The street below looks like snow drifts from far away but nope, it's the flowers that have fallen and accumulated.

A repeat picture, but I love this native plant so much, Pacific Hound's Tongue. It's all over our property and in several spots along our road.

We're trying to get our neighbors to band together to make our street less of a green tunnel.

Ring Variations

I was playing around with different variations of a mostly green ring.

Oh! I just noticed that two of the petals are switched. I'm trying to keep the words "right-side-up".Memo to me, switch those the right way before sewing together this block. That's probably going to be my biggest challenge with this quilt once I get the block sewing nailed down.

With two print green outer ring sections.

With all print green outer ring sections. I'm remembering that one of those is sewn together in the wrong order, which makes the ring a little lop-sided, but I kind of like it. 

Looking at these, I'm thinking I need to try out some green square cornerstones instead of the orange ones before I sew this together. 

The design I originally came up with was going to be all greens in the background except for the yellow-to-orange-to- red-orange rings. It's the one on the lower right. I didn't bother to color in the greens in the background because I'd spent so much time on the all-green one above it. 

I did color in the interior green solid rings and the word print orange peels here:

How about a Blondie cover of Ring of Fire?

Will I run out of Ring of Fire covers before I finish this quilt? Who even knows, it's early yet....
 

Ring Class

 

The BAMQ zoom class with Latifah Saafir was great. She walked us through every step of her pattern Put A Ring On It. She had very clear instructions and demo videos. The members taking the class asked great questions too which helped me quite a lot listening to her answers. Latifah is a wonderful, giving teacher who is clear and enthusiastic which is a great combination.

After going through making the whole block, once you get the hang of sewing this type of curve, the sewing itself is not so hard. The design and the actual cutting out of the units is a bit more to master.

This is a design in-process picture. I was going to go with using the same solid orange all the way around the ring, but went with a similar orange print for half of the squares.

This is the one ring I completed in the class. I really like how it turned out. There are some things I need to do better on the next one for sure. I got a lot more pieces cut out too, so I'll be working on sewing some more rings together.

And now after all the sewing and cutting I came to realize that I was in the situation where I have to find some more of this fabulous fabric to execute my design. Thanks to friend Jaye and her amazing online finding skill, I managed to get 3 more yards of it which should be plenty.

Another Ring of Fire cover by Social Distortion.

Quarter 2 Finish-a-Long List

 Trying this Finish-a-Long thing once again as it worked for me pretty well in the past.

Lists work for me (sometimes), so here's my Proposed List of Finishes:

1. Calendar Quilt - this is in the just blocks stage.

2. City Sampler - this is in the blocks+sashing stage.

3. Kaffe Blue Squares - this is in the take to the long-armer stage.

4. Safe At Home - this is in the finish the backing stage.

5.Lone Round Robin - this is in the binding, sleeve, label stage.

6. May You Ever Return - this is in the top nearly completed stage.

7. Living Room Pillows - this is in the materials assembled in one place stage.

8. Sister Artist 2 - this is in the make an entire quilt around this embroidered block stage.

Ring of Fire

 

I started cutting out the rings for the Put A Ring On It class tomorrow, and I have to say, I really liked using this template. Once you figure out which lines are which, it's a very smooth operation.

It was definitely a little strange cutting an inside curve, but it was very easy with the smaller rotary cutter.

A lot more cutting left to do today to get ready. I need some music! How about one of the best covers of one of the best Johnny Cash songs, Ring of Fire by Wall of Voodoo:

Ringing In

 

I've finally started getting ready for the BAMQ Put A Ring On It class that's coming up this Saturday. 

First, I tried coloring some of the ideas I had, and honestly got a little boggled with it. There are so many options!

But first steps was actually taking the Clammy rulers out of their packaging. And also finding my 28mm rotary cutter. It's all so much less abstract once the ruler/template is actually in your hand. I pulled some green fabrics too. I think the rings on my quilt will be solid greens and maybe orange/yellow too. 

I was looking at examples of what kind of fabric choices other quilters had made for this pattern for inspiration, and it was all over the map. I definitely wanted to use something with text somewhere in my quilt (if not the whole thing). I decided on this awesome word definition fabric for the orange peel shapes. The Clammy template worked out very well for fussy cutting these. I decided to count up the words that will show completely when the shape is sewn, and that final number will be the quilt title. XX Words. So....at least I've started.

Continuing on with music videos that relate, because why not? We all need more music, and this 1979 disco one hit wonder still holds up.

Wandering Wednesday - West Cliff

 

We took a nice stroll on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz with Meg. Sometimes we go for months without seeing the ocean which is pretty dumb since we live only ten miles away.

It was a glorious day, and not too crowded on the sidewalk because it was a Monday.

How much longer will this stop sign be standing I wonder. The ocean and rust is fascinating to a forest dweller like me.

Criss-crossing paths through Lighthouse Field. I was glad we didn't have to walk through the spring growth of "weeds" because there were A Lot of gopher holes.

This arch is just down the coast from Natural Bridges state park. The bridges there are much bigger than this one. Actually now it should be just Natural Bridge, because one of them collapsed.

I always try to count the number of shades of blue and green.

This part of the coast is very curvy.

There was one hawk looking over Lighthouse Field.

My DH got a good zoomed-in picture of the hawk. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't try and scoop up Meg, but it was definitely watching us as we passed  by.