March Cornucopia

 

Here's the March Cornucopia, brimming to overflowing with links to all of the interesting, beautiful, challenging or useful things I consumed online this past month.

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Even though we don't have PIQF happening in Santa Clara next year, I'm still considering entering a quilt for the exhibit, Celebrating Women- A Quilter's Perspective, that will be shown at three of the Mancuso Brother's shows on the East Coast.

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I'm trying out a new word puzzle game called Eight Tile, it's possible I tried this earlier, but I'm at it again. 

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If you sign up by April 6, you might win some Spring goodies from Hey Quilter. There's also free patterns on offer as well.

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Good tips here for taking better pictures of your textile art with your phone camera.

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From Craft Industry Alliance, an article about the shuttering of Jo-Ann's Fabrics and the effect on independent shops.

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A thought-provoking essay on The Real Work of Mid-Life.

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Another interesting fiber related podcast Haptic & Hue - Tales of Textiles, here's an episode on the 5,000 year old use of Pleats.

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On Loving Your Country - Sherilyn Ifill, a powerful and beautiful essay about Selma, Civil Rights and now.

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My current favorite comedian I'm enjoying online is Josh Johnson and this set where he talks about the importance of creating community is a real treasure.

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Retreat Report-Day 2

 

Back to work on day two of the retreat. Hourglass blocks for the Old Town Mystery quilt.

I thought I was finally done with all the hourglass blocks, but I was missing one.

Ahh, that’s better.

So many HSTs for another mystery Quilt clue. But I stuck with it and got them ✅ 

Stacks and stacks of HSTs.

There is a nice big design wall for us to use but it’s not solid, so stuff falls off without pins.

That’s why no official final group picture of all the HST goodness.

Happy view out the window next to me.

View of the design wall and part of the workroom.

 And some of the retreat goodies

First Retreat Day Report

 It was a beautiful drive down to the BAMGG retreat in San Juan Bautista. 

Shopping as a group at Family Threads quilt shop was very fun.

I helped set up and our fabulous organizer, Bonnie handed out detailed very clear lists of steps for each thing we needed to do before everyone arrived. A great innovation that really worked out well!

My first project was trimming the edges of Running Out of Raincloud, and then sewing on the facings. I also made a hanging sleeve, so all done except for the hand sewing.0"”1

Retreat to The Retreat

 I'm off to the BAMQ retreat, with a whole bunch of projects to work on. And some cans of mixed mojitos to share.

Don't worry, LeeLoo, I'll be back pretty soon, you hold down the scrap basket for me.

Another Clue Done

 

I cut out and sewed together the rest of the sets of matching HSTs for the Old Town mystery quilt. Here they are hanging up before I ironed them open and cut the chain stitching. Just thought it looked cool and I wanted to keep them safe from the "helpful" paws of my studio assistants.

They look like little swags of flag pennants. They are actually pretty enticing to the studio assistants when the heater goes on and the air starts blowing them around.

So, I got them down almost immediately

and ironed them open 

and put them back up on the design wall. 

That's one more clue completed!

Un-mixed Up and Done

 After my mixup the other day, I set myself right and "got right back on the horse that threw me" to get the melon/orange

I started off with cutting the triangles for the rest of the Flying Geese I needed.

Done with those little flying geese for that clue now.

And then I got the correct size of the HSTs going, still have more of those to make to be done with that part of the clue.

So that's enough of that for the day.

A Mixup of Clues

 

I tried to get back into doing at least something in my work room today and started back where I'd left off with the Old Town mystery quilt. I had all the melon fabrics out already ironed and began cutting to finish off the two clues that use that color. Unfortunately when I went to get the white/off-white/neutral pieces I realized that I'd gotten mixed up and instead of cutting for HSTs instead I had instead cut for Flying Geese. whoops! Thankfully it worked out to trim them all into the correct size for the smaller required HST triangles.

Definitely a lot of extra cutting, but oh well, it will work out once they're sewn together.

It was a lot of short seams and ironing, but now this clue is finished! Or so I thought...as I started putting up the previously sewn HSTs (on the right there). That was the moment when I realized that the newly completed HSTs were The Wrong Size. sigh. All that cutting and sewing for nothing. I guess I'll have to use them in the backing or make a pillow that matches the quilt somehow. This is what happens when I don't leave myself good notes. A re-do of this clue's requirements and a whole starting over fresh thing will happen today. 

Unpacking Crafts

While on vacation visiting family in Canada, I was missing having a hand project to work on. I didn't want to lose my scissors or needles in the security line. But, I got to do some crafts with my cousin Jenny. She's got a whole lot of crafty stuff on hand so we picked out a few things that we could work on while also visiting with our moms.

We worked on a macramé project for a keychain wristlet using several videos that she'd found on TikTok, this one on YouTube is pretty similar. Hopefully I can work out how to finish this thing because I like the way this is going.

Another day we did some hand felting, it was really fun, but a little too noisy because of the type of foam we were stabbing into (too squeaky) so I didn't get to finish my lying-down cat all the way. Those tools I definitely have on hand but I've never really done a 3-d thing like this. She had some good tips that I used to make the legs. It was fun seeing the cute felted animals that she'd been making, I wish I'd taken a picture of them but they're from a Japanese kit similar to this one on Equilter.

Stained Glass

 

I’m enjoying seeing my Uncle Chris’ stained glass art in their house.

We had a sudden blast of bright sunlight so I quickly snapped some pictures.

Really lovely designs. He gave a tour of his glass studio as well, and it’s a great space to do art. He’s not doing too much with it now and he has a big quantity of older blown-glass sheets. He’s trying to find someone to gift them to. I hope there’s an art program or artist who can use them. 

Wandering Wednesday: Canada

I’m traveling with my mom to Canada to go see her sister, my Aunt Suzi. We left early from San Francisco with this beautiful sunrise.

The view from the plane window was as usual, very exciting.

We got to take a ferry ride over to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island where my aunt and uncle live.

My cousin, My-Linh was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and make sure we made it to Nanaimo.

We were lucky with the weather, it was a little rainy on the journey over but a very smooth ride. My cousin saw a pod of orcas on her way over to get us, but we didn’t spot any on our ride.

We’re staying with my cousin who has a nice view of the bay from her deck. 

The view from my aunt and uncle’s is even better. They’re right up the hill from the other ferry terminal so there’s always something to see. Just so lovely!

Old Town Bin

I was leaving on a trip this week so I packed up all the assembled block units I’ve made so far. There’s a whole lot. I just didn’t want them to get knocked down by cat action.

I’m glad to see this assembled quantity of work completed so far. I’m going to be happier once I get to the actual block assembly point.
 

Go Giants

The 3-d printed container got a new buddy, so we swapped the lids around and now there are two black and orange arrangements. 

That obviously required some San Francisco Giants stickers. I found some perfectly sized ones for sale on eBay and they worked out pretty well.

One is currently empty and the other one has foam with pins stuck in it. Not exactly the right kind of foam as it's rather stiff and unforgiving. And we also put a big circular magnet in the bottom to help hold the pins down. 

More Pieces

 

More sewing on another one of the clues for the mystery quilt, Old Town.

These are fairly small flying geese and I'm liking the look of the coral/melon color choices. Having the corners be scrappy is an interesting look isn't it? Quite a few more of these to go, but now I've got the hang of making them in an assembly line.

So many half square triangles. It's fun putting them up on the design wall like these so I can see how the various fabrics play together.

I've got quite a few more sets to make of these half square triangles, but now that I've learned the tricks for making them it'll get easier.