A Chair Re-Padded

 

We have two extra dining room type of chairs around the house, and they've both had the gold texture-y upholstery fabric absolutely shredded by several generations of cats. They both needed recovering, but only one got removed from the chair so that I could work on it. I glued together pieces of the leftover memory foam pad (from making outdoor bench pads) into pieces of franken-foam that would be close enough to the right shape and size. It's a very squish-able and not super firm type of foam that will be able to be manipulated into shape.

I measured out some of the upholstery fabric that I had left over from making a futon cover 16 years ago. It's still an interesting pattern but in a rather boring color way. If only this was bright colors! Maybe next time the chair needs recovering...

After a million staples and some hammering and folding and cutting, it's all secured and done.

My DH installed it (it just screws back on) and now it awaits the next few generations of cats. So far, they've just been sitting on it nicely to look out the window.

So now I need to get the next one done, as the rest of the Franken-Foam is awaiting.

Into the 70's

 

The Scrap Tape is Really Really Big now that I'm pushing through right into the seventies.

Speaking of the Seventies, these oranges (from the orange bullseye) keep bringing those vibes.

All over the map with this one, hand dyes, to clothing scraps, quilt back scraps and piecing cotton scraps.

They're all just scraps in the end. Which somehow all go together.

So there's a skull in there now. Not a surprise I suppose.

I like all the blues and blue-greens with the other colors in this one.

I made a dress out of that starry gold a long time ago, I really like that fabric design.

I like the look of the letters print with the other prints and solids.

Still love that hand-dyed grey, and I managed to do a bit of fussy cutting to get that purple flower center.

4 I's All Quilted

 

I've gotten the whole 4 I's quilt all quilted now and am working on the finishing steps.

I'm very pleased with how the quilting and thread color choices turned out.

Really pleased with this section.

If you're around the Bay Area on June 1-9th, come see the quilts at the San Mateo County Fair. There will be a small exhibit of BAMQ pieces.

May To-Do

 

Well, here we are in May now, and as you can see in this beginning of the month design wall picture, I've gotten stuck with the Bohemian Wife still up on the design wall. I worked around the blocks instead of actually working with the blocks to get them into a quilt top. More on that later.

Okay, today I'm having knee surgery, and my doctor doesn't know if it's going to be the less complicated recovery or the easier version that I've experienced before. The more complicated one will be no weight bearing or bending my knee for 6 weeks. We're talking crutches and a leg brace. It's likely going to be that one, but I won't know for sure until I wake up from anesthesia. Either way is fine with me, I just want to have a stable knee again. 

Sooo... that means this to-do list post may or may not be completely thrown out the window depending upon how the recovery goes. I've put two of my hand-stitching projects on here, so either way, I'm going to be doing some sewing somehow some way.

Begin Something New

Keep adding to the Scrap Tape for my 100 Days project.

Continue Assembly

Sew the rest of the columns for the Temperature Quilt. OND, get them done.

Bohemian Wife - cut strips, assemble sections.

Pantone Project - continue making the final blocks, work on an overall design.

City Sampler - source more grey sashing material, continue assembly of the quilt top with sashing.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut lining pieces.

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching

Kawandii - Finish hand stitching/assembly

The 4 I's - sew down facings, sew on sleeve and label, send in quilt to exhibit.

Quilting

Trinket

Metro Twist

Slopes

Final Steps

Japanese Houses/Village - add machine embroidery stitches, add a label, take pictures.

Take a picture of the finished Blue Squares quilt.

Okay, that's plenty! Hopefully I'll be able to do at least some of this as I recover during May.

Mindful May

 

I'm being cautious calling it Mindful May, because who knows? May just might turn out to be marvelous, magical or majestic, etc. I am not dwelling on other more negative possibilities, at least for now, because it's May! The month of go outside and smell the roses and plant things and start watering and maybe do some dyeing because it's warmer.

For the monthly marker photo, I knew I wanted to use this dramatic shadow photo I took at the bamq retreat. My initial use of this photo was to pair it with one of the many flower pictures I took in April.

But once I got this result in Percolator, which I really really loved the graphic/cartoon look, nothing really combined well. So, for the first time in a while, my monthly marker is only one photo instead of two combined.

Here's my 30 seconds of 1SE, One Second Every Day for April in a short video.

 Monthly I-Did-It List for APRIL

1. I kept up with 100 Days project of sewing 9" of Scrap Tape per day through the month.

2.  I made more Pantone Project blocks and gave them to friend Jaye.

3. I did some more hand stitching on Snake In The Garden.

4. I did some more hand stitching around my Kawandii at Sew Day.

5. I sewed together the September column for the Temperature Quilt.

6.  I designed a quilt in EQ8 for the bamq exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair,  paper pieced the four blocks, layered, free-assembled into a top, free motion quilted and then entered the quilt.

7.  I packed up for the BAMQ retreat, helped with some of the work of the event, and  enjoyed getting a lot of work done.

8. I paper pieced another Y.E.S. for the Y.E.S. coat.

9. I got most of the City Sampler blocks assembled into a top but ran out of sashing material.

10. I made the rest of the blocks for the 5x5 quilt.

I went to the BAMQ retreat and did some family and friends visiting stuff.  I continued going to PT for my knee with no improvement and got knee surgery scheduled for May.

I attended several online CST lectures and groups, attended a BAMQ sew day, blogged here 30/30 days woot!, I  instagrammed 5 times,  threaded 14 times, facebooked 0 times and Blue-sky-ed 11 times. 

This month was definitely a productive one given the work and travel of the retreat.

April Cornucopia

 

The surprise bloom on my what I was calling a "jade plant" but is really instead a sedum praealtumv aka shrubby stonecrop or green cockscomb. It's running amok now that it's not in a small pot, and actually flowered for the first time ever! Anyways, here's a cornucopia post overflowing with all of the links to media of all sorts that I enjoyed this month.

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After reading several pieces about the passing of Faith Ringgold, (may she Rest In Power) I kept coming back to this quote about her American People series painted in the 60's: "“I couldn’t paint landscapes in the 1960s — there was too much going on,” she explained in a 2018 interview with Hyperallergic. “This is what inspired the American People Series. For me it is important to make work about peril if it’s your story. One can find beauty in horror that you can share through your art and ideally effect change.”

She continued: “It’s important to me to express the ills of society that are widely accepted while also delivering the message without only seeing the ill. I try to show both the good and the ill. For example, Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ — all the bad and evil was depicted in such a way that you can deal with it. For me that is key.”  

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A really clear video tutorial from Snuggly Monkey on visible mending (or just mending) with a Speed-weve Loom. Now I get it!

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Don't forget PIQF is in July this year instead of the usual October. So that means entry deadline is June 17th. And the New Quilts of Northern California exhibit deadline is even earlier at May 24th.

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I'm probably going to try and make an Alison Glass "Stamp Quilt" using her new stamp stripe print and the free block. I don't know if I'll do the sew-a-long that she's hosting or not, but I love the idea of this postage stamp block. There will be fussy cutting in my future.

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I've always admired barn quilts, and now you can get one for your own house (or barn) through Quiltfolk and EQ8. You can choose from some standard blocks or even design your own in EQ8. I have to say that I'm very very tempted. Not that I have a barn or anything of course, but I could see one of these mounted over my 2 story studio window.

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Oooh, go spend an hour watching a video with Bisa Butler and her amazing fabric art portraits.

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Table Scraps

 The colorful scraps I’m working with today, along with my lime green stapler and magenta rotary cutter.

4 I's Quilting

 

One of the other projects I spent time on during the retreat was free-motion quilting the 4 I's quilt for the BAMQ fair challenge exhibit. I spent most of Saturday working this and still didn't finish. It was very very hard to "stay in the zone" during a retreat, and memo to self, don't try it next time. Is it award winning quilting? Well, no, but it's done by my own hands, as in non-stitch-regulated non-ruler using free motion quilting that shows my character and my style. 

I still have the green sections on the lower right as well as the gray borders and triangles left to do. All those thread color changes were worth it as the quilting isn't too prominent. I've got to get this done before the deadline which coincides with my knee surgery date, a double deadline!

70 Out Of 100

 

Mostly regular scrap basket piecing on day 70, only the bright fuchsia triangle is from the retreat.

Mix of retreat scraps and regular scrap basket scraps. I do like the skinny strip of piecing between the pink and the light blue.

More grays from the YES coat piecing mixing it up with 5x5 pieces.

Grays from the YES coat piecing.

A bit of skinny strips piecing. I love this solids combination. The grey is from the City Sampler sashing, the orange and green is from my 5x5 blocks.

Some more skinny strips piecing.

The scraps from the retreat start to move in here at day 64.

 

Retreat Treats

 

Pre-retreat shopping at Family Threads Quilt Shop, I didn't go too crazy. I found a selection of the ombre confetti fabric 1/2 yards. I've always wanted to work with this fabric, it's just so pretty and I love the idea of trying out using ombré in a quilt design. I also had just seen this Ombre Triangles pattern from V and Co, and had it in my mind. I also got some Magic Pins fork style as I enjoy using their straight pins. They are marked as "fine" but I found them to be way too thick to use in cotton, maybe they'd work on upholstery or canvas?

The goodie bags were filled with fun stuff like Quilty stickers, one special sticker made just for the retreat, a sparkly scissor guard, really nice thread, candy & gum, a keychain. Best of all, one of the retreat committee people made everyone (wow!) a table pouch. The part that sits on the table is a fabric covered heavy piece of tile, so the bag that hangs down won't fall off. Really fun.

And lastly, I won something at the retreat! One of the larger prize bags got divvied up into smaller things which let more of us get the thrill of the win. This lovely bundle of fat 1/8ths. Norma Rose by Natalie Barnes for Windham Fabrics. Such great colors and the fabric designs are super interesting, all of them will play very well with many other fabrics that I already have.

Stress Stitch Stage

 

All of a sudden, I find that I'm in a new stage of life now. One where I'm accompanying my folks to doctor appointments to take notes and make sure questions get answered. As well as to hang out and provide company during hours long infusion time. Good thing I have some stitching to bring along with me. Cancer still sucks though 😠