July Cornucopia

 

July is over, I'm betting it was hot at least some of the time. I bet I went places and did things. I also know that I spent time online reading and consuming and enjoying things and here are links to some of them:

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A great look at this year's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.

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A tarot specific zoom-ish platform, Moonlight, for performing readings online, haven't tried it myself but it looks cool.

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Playing card holders, what a great idea! Why didn't I think of this when my kids were little and would get frustrated at holding their cards when we played card games?

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A collage call for Atoms For Peace due August 7th.

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A great tutorial on making cloth covered buttons that are used in embroidery called Kurumi Buttons.

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The five minute trailer for Paul Simon's The Story of Seven Psalms. The whole piece is 33 minutes and there are links to it in the YouTube, well worth a listen

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A hopeful piece about Climate Change and Rebecca Solnit.

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Podcasts worth a listen:

Threads of Sustainability - Bridget O'Flaherty 

Slow Burn season eight - Becoming Justice Thomas. ~ totally fascinating.

The excellent Deja News, only 6 episodes, showing how today's news events have echoes and lessons to learn from the news of yesterday. 

Make It Work

 

I picked up a "Make It Work" bag from BAMQG Super Sew Day. I'm supposed to put these elements together into a quilt top for our guild donation efforts. It's going to be a challenge, but I really like the colors. Time to use my Kitchen Sink Quilting skills. On the left is part of the March Temperature Quilt layout.

I also was feeling happy about getting the Orange You Glad bullseye quilted so I also picked up an assembled donation quilt that needs quilting. It's fairly small and simple and the fabrics are super cute. I'm not going to densely quilt it so it'll get done quickly.It came all rolled up, a top, a back and the batting.

Cute fabrics, huh?

I like the fabrics on the backing.

After all the quilts had been photographed and rolled up and put away, that left behind the table runners. So here's a group photo of four of them before they get put in the closet where they should live unless they're out on tables. Three are recent finishes from this year, the Rock Candy on the left was from back when I did Journey2Nebula

Yes And

Another project I worked on  at Super Sew Day was to make this for my Y.E.S. Coat. I really need to on the muslin together and see what else I need to make.

The photographed quilts are all rolled up, bagged and tagged. Off to the quilt closet for now. The main thing is that all this bulk is now out of my work space.

 

Orange Photos

The stars aligned and I finally did my big quilt photography project yesterday. The power was on, it wasn't too insanely hot to iron and use the hot photo bulbs, and I had enough energy reserves. I started with photographing Orange You Glad as it was already pinned up on the wall after being washed and dried.

The cast of the photo of this quilt is finally much closer to correct because of the photo bulbs I use for lighting.

I'm pleased with how the majority of the photos turned out. But boy am I ever pooped today, it really takes a lot of physical effort.

But hey, now I can update my website with the last couple of years of work.
 

A little behind the scenes peek of my set up. I use my ring light phone holder as a tripod holder. Yes, I'm using my iPhone to take the photos. It honestly works as well as the 35mm digital camera that I have. One of the big secrets is to use the timer delay so the camera is steady when the photo is taken.

Set Sail Faces

 

Jaybird quilts has adapted their Set Sail pattern to work with the new Tula Pink fabric line Nightshade Déjà Vu. I really like this lattice sort of design. There's a handy dandy fussy cutting video using their SuperSidekick ruler. And a handy dandy pdf on how to adapt the pattern to fussy cutting with fabric requirements as it was written to maximize usage of a fat quarter. I think I'm going to try making a small size of this one, I really like these faces, and I don't always like the faces in Tula Pink fabrics (I know, I know that's sacrilege or whatever).

There are two fabrics in this collection with faces though. They're the same faces but in very different sizes. My plan is to try to use both. I am going to change up some of the colors of the quilt as designed, Definitely not using a pink for the lattice but tbd on that choice. I may also pull in some fussy cuts from other Tula Pink fabrics that fit this theme. 

Almost The End of ICAD

 

As I near the end of this year's ICAD, my theme of words in landscapes is slipping away from a bit sometimes. I think of this as a view out of a city window.

With Unclear Consequences

What Would We Find Here Beneath The Surface?

Come Ashore

Encountering Traps

The Mysterious Giant's Face

Solace In Lush Highlands

Pink Door Surprise

 
There was a total surprise in my post office box yesterday.

I had honestly completely forgotten about ordering the new Pink Door Fabrics subscription box. The boxes correspond with Tula Pink's three collections a year and are timed with their release.

The tape was not sealed, but not broken. Maybe because of the heat in transport? Nothing was missing so it was ok.

Happy Mail indeed!

Inside was a stack of the new Tula Pink fabric fat quarters Nightshade (Deja Vú) and a bundle of coordinating solid fat quarters.

And there was some matching Aurifil thread too, in 5 colors.

There was a By Annie pattern, Glo and Go which is a roll and bag combo. There was also a nice long black By Annie zipper, and a couple sliding buckles. Very cute zipper pulls, an enamel magnetic pin and a very shiny sticker that says "I Sew At Night" (hah!) Some random stuff, but very useful and/or cool overall. I'd say for the price it's a good value.

I really love the selvedges with the colors used marked by skull and crossbones.

My studio assistant thoroughly enjoyed the whole unboxing process.

She settled in as soon as the box was empty.

Orange You Glad Finished

 

It was finally time to finish this Orange You Glad bullseye quilt which was begun in April 2022. I dug up the orange binding that I had made back in October and took this picture to commemorate the occasion complete with the kinda dumb note to self. As if I wouldn't know this orange binding would be for this quilt.

As I rounded the fourth corner...I realized I was not going to make it to where I started. Sigh, so close, about 18" away from finishing. One more WOF 2.5" strip cut, ironed and sewn on later and then I was done.

I think the darker orange Alison Glass print worked out well as a good binding frame to the craziness of this quilt.

It's a bit confusing when you try to look at the quilting to focus only on it to separate it from the top-stitched circles from the block construction phase. 

And here's how it looks: "Orange You Glad?" Done! I took this picture before washing the quilt, and if it greatly changes in size or looks I'll be sure to update this.

Thanks to friends Jaye & Adrienne, I literally couldn't have done this without you two.

Ta-dah Trinket

 

I now declare this a quilt top! The Trinket quilt, still as yet unnamed and going by the pattern name is fully assembled. Very pleased to have it done and now I have to post it on Instagram to get "credit" as an official sew-a-long finisher. 

Plans for the back include the 4.5" squares of fabric that I didn't use on the front, and a couple of the bonus paper pieced blocks (yet to be made). Beyond those ideas I haven't gotten too far on that. I'll be using the solid dark purple for binding though.

Nearly A Trinket Top

Zooming along on assembling the Trinket quilt. All the rows sewn together, with the top two rows joined up.

Pleased with the diagonals of these two blocks kinda sorta meeting up.

 

Here's where I left off joining up the rows. Note, those long seams haven't been ironed open yet so it's a bit lumpy..

It's kind of a slog doing all these long seams but I am pleased with how it is looking.

The squares are mostly meeting up well at the intersections and fitting, but some of those paper pieced blocks have Major Bias on the edges to deal with. And you can really see the richness of that purple up close, I think it goes really well with the saturated color of the Alison Glass fabrics. 

Nearly there.

Summer Flower Friday

 

It's a Friday and it's the middle of summer, so it's time for a Flower Friday. The Gerbera Daisies are doing well but taking a lot of water if they're in too much sun.

A Watsonia bloomed that I'd forgotten about, this one is an interesting plummy-pink.

The bees and hummingbirds are loving the Gerberas.

I'm  so glad that we made the drive to go get these in May at Kitayama Brothers.

The roses are almost done for the year.

More daisies, but this time the smaller version, Santa Barbara Daisy. It's enjoying a mostly shady spot and spreading all over.

The Acanthus really had a big bloom this year.

Day lilies for days.

I always forget all the different color combinations that I have planted. They have all bloomed this year which I think is a first. 

Some of these got sun-blasted when we got up over 100F so I didn't get a picture of the fully opened flower.

Getting a little crispy, but still, this is my favorite color combo.

We've never had so many blooms on our pomegranate (and now baby fruits), this is after a huge amount of pruning and that unusual amount of rain.

The Gerberas in the backyard are doing pretty well too. I put some there where they are deer-proof just in case our local deer went against the rules like they do sometimes.

This sage flower spike is so hard to photograph, but boy does this plant smell good.