January Cornucopia

The first cornucopia post for the new year is here on this last day of January. One of the reasons that I like doing these cornucopia posts, they help me close tabs on my laptop as I'll put a link on these posts. The ones that are actually worth sharing with you that is.

The above picture is of the weak January raincloud filtered sunlight as seen through a piece of dried roasted seaweed in a moving car. I thought it ended up showing an interesting mix of color and texture. 

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This emoji that I'm using for a divider in this post is named "anger" but I don't think it looks like at all like that. It reminds me of embroidery stitches. So--to be clear--I'm not dividing this post with anger but with beautiful stitchery.

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JennB. has done the experiment (and the math) and proven how to successfully add borders to a quilt top without ending up with waviness. 

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I'm enjoying Nadia Embroidery's posts on Substack, a very interesting and beautiful follow if you like embroidery.

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I really like this Flower Breeze block, this video tutorial is a great explainer.

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A daily embroidery journal, over several years, very impressive and beautiful.

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I really like this free quilt pattern from Art Gallery Fabrics: Full Bloom 

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UC Berkeley's free earthquake app is pretty cool: My Shake

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I'm really enjoying the 30 Days of Drawing with WendyMac this month. I'm trying to do it on my iPad which has been a real challenge for me.

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The 2025 Declutter Challenge that Just Get It Done Quilts is hosting has been very useful. 

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I enjoyed listening to the first episode of The 100 Day Project podcast.

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This episode of The Smithsonian's podcast, There's More to That about How to Use Renaissance Paintings to Improve the Farming of Tomorrow was really worth a listen.

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I saw this great idea for doing a crocheted granny square for each book that one reads during the year based on the colors in the book cover. This would take a whole lot more colors of yarn than I have on hand (and I'm Not Buying Yarn). 

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A completely ridiculous game, "Click the Clicking Clicker." A fun and relaxing almost soothing relaxer.

Final-ish Form

 

It was all green stitching today. That and going slowly to avoid sewing over the pins.

The green acid lake is looking turbulent enough.

I did chicken scratch quilting on the edges of each raw-edge. Blends them together well enough.

It was hard to cut off this part at the end, but this quilt needs to be 24"w x 36"h.

There, the background is all stitched. I did do some extra around the sides and bottom for the trimming to size.

The boat is the last part to stitch on, and the look of it will be quite different when I'm done.

Blue Finish

 

The new blue worked out just fine. Thankfully I had a large selection of light blue thread to choose from.

Now that the blue is finished, so is the quilting on this one. Now for the trimming and all the rest.

And here's how the other quilt is looking now that the green acid lake has been re-pinned.

Mostly Blue

 
I carried on with stitching more blue in the Sister Artists quilt. 

But I lost at thread chicken! Instead of bobbin chicken for once.

Trying to give some sense of butterflies flying through the air with the quilting motifs.

Stitching around the embroidered butterflies I'm going slower not wanting to catch any of the embroidery threads. So far so good. I've got some more blue stitching left to do on this one.

I also finished off all the blue thread quilting on the Stretching Art & Tradition quilt. Yes the green section has been unpinned. It's getting a bit redesigned.

I like how the blue turned out on this one.

The clouds are floating by...

Sky Blue Wind Clouds

As I change thread colors, I'm bouncing between the two quilts that I'm simultaneously working on finishing up. Turns out that the piece of fabric I made in the Text on Sheers class in November was pretty easy to free motion quilt stitch through. I stitched a little slower than I usually do, I had no issues at all which was nice as it was rather glue-y.

This is the quilt I'm making for the Stretching Art and Tradition exhibit.

Here's how the window looks with the panes/writing stitched with the black/white twist thread, and the frame done in red.

And this is a close-up of how the free-motion "cloud/wind"quilting around the window looks.

That's maybe about 1/3rd of the quilting done on this one. The green section will take longer. So...back to doing the light blues on the other quilt.

Green FMQ

 

After all that piecing and regular sewing, it was time to switch over for FMQ (free motion quilting). I even swapped out the foot from the closed- ring to the clear plastic. Trying that out for the first time on this machine. It's a lot like the Big Foot that I like to use on my older Janome machine. I also realized that my newer machine has yet to have had a servicing and I got it in December 2020. Sooo....after these two quilts get done, I'm taking her in.

I took this picture so that I would remember that I swapped the foot on the convertible FMQ shank and which one it is in my machine feet case. There's one that's very similar and I remembered I'd need a photo assist to get the right one.

It took a bit to get going but I got the green part all finished off. Now onto the rest of the quilt which will be all blue.

Our Mistake Sandwiched

 

Started in on the green acid lake part of the "Our Mistake" quilt top. This is a picture of getting one of the curves pieced in.

It turned out pretty well and I like how it looks.

A close up on the word window.

Oooh no, that's the wrong size now, that bottom blue part is just too wide.

Reconfigured it and now it's the right size.

Decided to do the stitching of the green part right on the quilt sandwich, so it will likely change. The boat will also be added back on in that way.

The two quilts are now sandwiched with backing and batting and ready to be quilted.

Top Majority

The majority of the quilt top for the Stretching Art & Tradition 25 exhibit went together pretty easily.

This is the design that I did in my sketchbook. I'm trying to scale up from this sketched version to the quilt on the wall. I did the math and multiplying all dimensions by four is working. The title of the piece is "Our Mistake", which is taken from Rebecca Solnit's post-election essay which is what the writing in the window is. 

Specifically this line: "Our mistake was to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it."

The green pieces are just pinned up there for now to get an idea of how the acid lake looks..

Trying out colors and shapes for the sinking boat.

Wandering Wednesday - Quail Hollow Ranch

 Back to the ranch we went on MLK Jr. day, DH had the day off and DS joined us for a hike at Quail Hollow Ranch.

A lot of the trees are struggling for various reasons (drought, diseases, or old age), and are festooned with various opportunistic mosses and lichens. 

This tree was striking to me for the amazing amount of pinecones right on the branches. A lot of trees (and other plants) at the end of their life will throw out a huge last group of pinecones in the hopes of producing offspring. A good strategy that usually works.

We were quite impressed by the enormous Eucalyptus tree that had fallen over. What a sound this monster must have made when it hit the ground.

My two hikers next to the enormous root ball. I told them to pretend like they'd just pushed the tree over.

It really was impressive to walk around the destruction zone. 

I think this tree must have fallen after the last rains because the rootball seems to still hold all the dirt. Usually it gets washed out by the heavy rains we get.

A really really big mushroom had been placed on one of the fence posts. DS was pretty sure it was edible, but we decided not to risk it.

The pond was nice and full of water, several geese were bugging the people off to the right eating lunch so we weren't bothered. We got to sit and watch the pairs of ducks hunting in the pond which was a nice way to finish up the hike.

Word Window

 Whether to be legible or not is still the question. Further complicating the original look of this text on sheers piece that I made last November is cutting it up into four pieces and then reassembling them after rotating their positions.

I used my new fabric glue stick thing- Odif 505 temporary adhesive which goes on blue and then disappears.

Arranged the glue-y sheer pieces on some grey fabric and then cut to size.

I chose to use the black and white Wonderfil D-twist thread for some zig-zagging between the pieces. This is Weird thread, it is very wound up, more so than usual thread. So be prepared when you first unwind it. It sews up just fine though.

I think it looks pretty good. I wanted it to be visible and just a little bit more interesting than a solid color.

First try at which fabrics to use for the sky part of the quilt.

Adding in the acid green of the sea, and the red-framed window of words. Just getting started.