Sour Grass Stems

 I've been working on my Sour Grass flower a little at a time. "Sour Grass Grace" is taking shape and changing a little as each shape is decided on. 

I worked on adding in 10 orange pistils in the flower center.

This is how it looked up on the design wall and seeing it from far away, I think the center color change is too small in proportion to the size of the petals.

 I  re-cut the center of the flower shapes to make them larger and hopefully more proportionally accurate. I also transferred the stem designs into stabilized fabric and re-positioned them.

That's better for the center of the flower, but now I'm thinking the pistils are a bit too small.

Here's how the fabric stems look when they're pinned up. I used one of the acid greens that I dyed last year when I was trying to match a green for the Temperature Quilt. I think it works because it's very subtly variegated.

Almost to the Center

 

Sew Day for BAMQ was on Saturday and it was as usual a very fun time. I invited my mom to come along and she had a good time seeing all the creativity, showing off the sweatshirt jacket that I made for her ages ago and chatting with people. She was also very glad to offload a big bag of oranges from her still excellent after all these years orange tree. I was glad to be able to include her in a social outing with friendly welcoming people.

Instead of bringing along my sewing machine I worked on the Kawandii quilt that I've been hand-stitching and assembling since 2021 when I took a great online class with Sujata Shah. The above picture was taken at the start of the day before I began stitching.

And this is the after picture, pinned up on the design wall at home. It looks so different flat (or as flat as this can be.)  A lot of progress was made, I can see that I stitched around the whole thing six times, but it's still not done. The rounds are getting shorter as I get closer to the end. As I've made my way almost in to the center I have to find the instructions on how to end everything.  I think I'm remembering that there was something specific I was supposed to do, so wish me luck in finding my class notes from four years ago.

I also took this picture of a super clever 3-D printed magnetic needle cup that one of our new members had. It's from Purple Hobbies, they have a lot of other handy quilting/sewing accessories.  This is a great idea for a portable pin cushion that works well as a pin container and secures your pins in transport, which is always a problem. 

I was showing off the latest and greatest new container that has come off of my DH's 3-D printer, a Knurled Screw-on lidded container. It has a great threaded cap that works perfectly and makes a very tight seal. Possibly water-tight although I haven't tested it. Now we're in search for a good magnet and some foam to put in the bottom of it so I can have a safer traveling pincushion.

March To-Do

 

It's a to-doooo post for March. The above picture is how my design wall is looking at the very beginning of March. A whole lot has happened during the last month, so it looks only somewhat different today. I'm going to be doing some traveling this month, so hopefully I'll be able to get at least something done. 

 I'm continuing to use the new configuration of my to-do list below, as it more closely follows the database categories that I use to keep track of all my work-in-progress. Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's nearly classified as a UFO at this point by age so work on it!

QUILTS

Continue Assembly

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - keep working on the rest of the clues.

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the cut-out stamp block borders and centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

🥏👽 Trim to size and then sew the 12 columns of the 2023 Temperature Quilt together.

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife -finish assembling the quilt back, sandwich and make the binding

Pantone Project - work on a overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

🥏👽City Sampler- put together a backing, make binding, take to a long-armer to be quilted.

Quilting

🥏👽 Trinket

🥏👽 Metro Twist - sandwich and quilt.

🥏👽 Slopes - quilt and finish.

Final Steps

 Running Out of Raincloud -  add facing, sleeve and label.

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Oxbow Tote - cut out and begin the assembly.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed.

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching

Kawandii - Finish hand stitching/assembly

FINISHES!!

Finished Sky Structure, the quilt for the Sister Artists 3 embroideries  Photographed and sent it in on time. 

Finished Our Mistake, the quilt for the Stretching Art & Tradition exhibit. Photographed and sent it in on time. 

Hooray for last month's finishes! Now I'm inspired to keep working on any and all of the projects above. Hopefully, I'll get to add something else to this category at the end of March. Feeling quite lucky to have so many good choices to make.

Onwards March

 Welcome, welcome in, March. So many blooms are blooming, and we are once again hoping for some more rain this month before the spring/summer heat arrives in full. The monthly marker picture above is made in the apps Kaleida-cam and Snapseed.

I manipulated this photo of a beautiful bloom on my magnolia tree in Kaleida-cam and then added the title in Snapseed.

The 28 second long video of One Second Every Day is here.

Usually I find that I am pretty productive in winter and on into spring, but this year has been a bit different due to the situation with my dad. So, I'm being kind to myself here and honestly a bit amazed that I got anything at all accomplished in February.

Monthly I-Did List for February

1. I took a class from Jane Sassaman on Abstracting From Nature, and sketched and actually cut into fabric too.
2. I did a lot of hand stitching on Snake in the Garden.
3. I started designing a possible granny square/book cover quilt.
4. I finished the 64 red and white/cream Flying Geese for the Old Town Mystery Quilt.
5. I finished, photographed and mailed off for the exhibit, Our Mistake.
6. I finished, photographed and mailed off for the exhibit, Sky Structure.

Hey, there are two actual quilt finishes, which I barely even remember at this point, so that's something to be very happy to be reminded about.