August Cornucopia

Well, that was August, and it was no doubt warm and wonderful and full of fun. Hopefully this August cornucopia will be a bit more full than last month's was. What's a cornucopia post? Well, I like to gather the links to various media and online stuff that I've enjoyed or consumed over the previous month which may or may not be quilting or sewing related, to share with you (and to help myself find them again!).

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This podcast, Sew and So is funded by Bernina but is useful to all "sewists" (I really never gelled with that term even though it is preferable to sewers) and quilters.  That's where I heard about a new movie, Sew Torn which sounds like it would be very worth watching.

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I love this idea of distributing used and new sewing machines to all sorts of people who apply to the Sewing Machine Project. This includes refugees that come to our country. To have something familiar to do, that uses your hands and mind and is useful as well as a way to support your family is a great supportive combination.

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The photo illustration alone made me want to make this recipe, and it was very very good. Pea and artichoke dip with pickled onions.

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Maybe I knew and had forgotten, but EQ8 has a page of very useful instructions videos on how to various different actions in the program. Quite helpful! They are hosted on their YouTube channel.One is intriguingly titled as "Draw Wacky Log Cabins" and I'm very curious about what that even means...

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Some great free-motion quilting demonstration videos from Christa Watson that demonstrate motifs from her very useful book, 99 Machine Quilting Designs. It really helps to see the quilting done on video.

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A really beautiful and moving exhibit of Palestinian embroidery--tatreez.

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I haven't watched it yet, but on Roku Streaming, you can watch the Great British Sewing Bee, (without a Roku device on your computer.) If it's anything like the Great British Baking Show, I'm really looking forward to it. Usually I don't care for reality competition-show tv programs, but the GBBS model works for me.

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This is very entertaining, a woman growing a dress in her yard. In a series of Instagram video posts, Eve Ogden Schaub is going step by step growing flax and learning to harvest and spin and weave it into useable fabric.

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The Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast has a great two part story on the history of Paper Patterns. And then there's one about the Sewing Basket.

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8th Palooza

 I guess this is an all Patchwork Palooza blog now, whoops, sorry. So here's the latest and greatest, the 8th block. I'm pretty happy with my fabric choices on this one.

And of course there were a lot of teeny tiny HST's™ to be made out of the cut off corners.

On Background

 

I made up six of the background blocks, so that  I could see how my Patchwork Palooza blocks would be looking. Hmmm, I'm really not so sure of the look of this.

But now that I was actually looking at this layout, I began to realize there was another piece missing, there is supposed to be sashing with cornerstones left to add in to the mix here. I think that will help the look of this piece. 

Unfortunately, I don't have the measurements for the sashing yet, so instead I used the 2.5" strips that would make up the rest of the background blocks that I'd already cut out. This is just for test purposes. With this extra sashing it looks a whole lot better to me. Just being set off a bit more from each other works for the blocks. 

"Making visual decisions visually" is proven to work once again. 

I then cut out 2.5" square cornerstones out of solids or looks like solids. They look a bit oversized here, but I think that's because they're not sewn in yet, it's all just pinned up on the design wall. That seam allowance really adds up. But, I'm sold on these setting blocks, I think they will work out.

Not Exactly Navy

 

I got out the bolt of not exactly navy solid that I had bought a while ago, and pre-washed. It's been in an un-ironed, but washed and re-rolled onto the cardboard bolt state for some time now. So it took some ironing before I could get to cutting strips. Then I found two other solids that I thought looked good together. Hey, maybe that's a good title for this quilt, "Not Exactly Navy", I'll keep that one on the back burner for a while.

The first block I made looks pretty good to me. Now to make a few more and try them out up on the design wall with the weekly blocks and see if they work together. The not exactly navy looks so different to my eye than it does to the camera, I wonder what's up with that?

I'm going for the look of the version on the right hand side by using the not exactly navy. 

Andover Fabrics, the sponsor/host of this "block at a time" sew along, has a huge free resource of free quilt patterns. More than a 1,000! I was just randomly paging through and looking at some of them and I really like this one, which would be super interesting as an all scrappy quilt. Putting this in my "maybe someday quilt designs" tag.

Crossed-X's

 

Yesterday, I made one more of the weekly Patchwork Palooza blocks, so I'm all caught up now. Except for the blocks that we're supposed to make to go in-between the weekly ones to make a big quilt top. I will admit that I didn't do so well on my color choices on this one. Unfortunately, the small bright yellow rectangles just aren't contrasting enough with the green-yellow polka-dot background. I had an almost neon yellow that I'd considered using, and that would have been much better. But I do really like the look of this block quite a lot. I'm thinking that it would be good in an X's and O's quilt.

I think I'll try making a couple of the in-between blocks using the solid navy that I have as the "background" and continue using scrappy pieces for the colored squares.

Hotz Blox

 

I recovered from my successful trip to Spokane and actually made another Patchwork Palooza block.

The block instructions were Flip-n-Sew, so here are of course, some teeny-tiny-HSTs™ to add to my collection envelope.

Okay that's six blocks done now! And they don't exactly go together, but they mostly do, which will work as I add even more scrappiness.

And I'm terribly proud of myself for turning on the iron when it was a record setting hot day today. I'm used to it getting hot in August, but 106F is really quite a lot.

Wandering Wednesday - Spokane

 

I'm traveling back home today from an overnight trip to Spokane, Washington today. (A new medical trial that I hopefully got into! Cross your fingers for me). I got to leave Very Early, so there was a sunny view towards the South Bay Area.

Here's just some of what I saw yesterday.

Such an interesting landscape as the plane got closer to Spokane.

Some very nice decorative lions.

Always a sucker for ghost advertising on the sides of old buildings.

This building really stood out, I quite like the sign on top.

This old advert is layered over by a newer mural.

Palooza Blocks

 

While I had the Old Town main central part of the quilt top down off the design wall yesterday, I was able to put the blocks up from Patchwork Palooza that I've finished so far. They are looking pretty good and playing well together. They at least look like they belong in the same quilt. I think the next few blocks that I make will still incorporate the orange/blue/green color scheme but I will keep branching off into other colors and also go lighter too. 

Still deciding on whether or not to do the setting blocks to make the quilt as presented.

Completed Central Old Town

 

I'm feeling like this blog has turned into all Old Town all the time, but that's just how it goes on a project like this. 

The studio assistant is wondering when it's ever going to be over!

It's a lot of time to sew something like this together. I know, duh, of course we already know that. 

Even though I'm steadily getting closer and closer to finishing this project, I think I'm feeling the pull to pull focus and work on one of my remaining UFO 2025 challenge projects.  

Especially when I get interrupted by messages like this from my sewing machine. Thankfully that was just a turn the machine on and off again kind of message.

But that concentrated effort has led to this! The central part of the quilt is now put together. 💪👍👏🙌🎉🎊 Now moving on to getting the three borders attached for a truly completed quilt top.

Last Two Columns

I spent a little time sewing the pieced sashings onto the remaining blocks to get the last two columns of the Old Town mystery quilt closer to final assembly. It's looking a little chunkier, right? Now for a whole lot of pressing before I put sew all of these columns and chunks together. I'm looking forward to the central part of this quilt being done. The end is coming into view! 

I'm even starting to consider what the backing should be. I think I might go with a wide-back fabric instead of doing a pieced one as the quilt top has So Many Seams. And then the binding fabric? Should I do all one fabric, all one colors, or piece together a bunch of the fabrics used in the top. I think a blue color might work out pretty well.

 

Three Columns

My attention turns back to Old Town and getting it all into one piece. It turned out that I hadn't sewn the blocks and sashing together in such a way as to make it easy to do the chunking, so it was time for some column making instead. 

The blocks with sashing went together very easily. Mostly worked out well for all the attention I paid to pressing seams in the correct directions.

Three columns out of five are now sewn together. (But not yet to each other)

A More Challenging One

 

Block number five for Patchwork Palooza was a little bit harder. I had to label the fabrics to follow the pattern instructions.

I used a lot of spray starch as advised, and it really helped.

To this point, all was well. But then I realized that I had to trim all of these down by Quite A Lot. sigh.

After messing up the first one I trimmed down, I stopped myself and thought about it. You've got two diagonals that have to end up dead on in the corners. And the trim down to size 3 and 1/8ths! Which adds up to not exactly an 8.5" block. I don't need any help ending up with a slightly small block thankyouverymuch. sigh again.

I re-did the one piece I messed up and chopped the rest down to size. It went together pretty well after that.

So, yeah, not my favorite block so far, but it's done, it's almost 8.5" and I'm caught up for now. Or until I check my email for this week's block. Also, I continued on with the orange, blue, green color scheme, but introduced purple and yellow to be able to branch off.

Orange, Blue, Green

Another block cut out for Patchwork Palooza, this time with 4 colors, and I had enough of each to not have to mix and match.

The Bloc_Loc 2.5" HST ruler is getting a real workout.

I had to work at getting this one laid out correctly and to keep it in order as I sewed it all together.

Success! I like having this darker teal color as the background, I think it works. 

All of the blocks so far are looking like they are intended to actually go with each other. There are quite a few more coming (21 blocks total) so I'll have time to "branch out" into other color combos. But so far, I am really enjoying the orange/blue/green thing I have going on so far.

Oh, I forgot to add the above graphic, because, d'oh, I'm In!

Wandering Wednesday - Fort Mason

 

A couple weeks ago, we went to San Francisco, to pick up the runner's bib for my DH to participate in the 5K segment of the SF Marathon. Fort Mason is always so interesting, a lot of creative re-use of a military supply base happening.

I really love this color of the bay in this picture.

This is looking out over Gashouse Cove and one of the yacht marinas towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

I like this view towards to the bay between two of the buildings. We visited FLAX arts and one of the many small museums.

We had lunch at a restaurant I'd always wanted to try out, Greens. It's a vegetarian place with amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay. I had the Summer Squash Pupusas, that came with pickled beets and avocado. So beautiful, and very very tasty.

I tried to get a photo that included the bridge but the windowpanes defeated me almost exactly. Oh well, it wasn't that great of a shot because of the sort of gloomy afternoon.

We talked ourselves into getting dessert, which was amazing, and not to be missed. This was a blueberry, lavender mousse, with a shortbread-y type of crust.

DH was very happy to get his swag bag for participating in the SF Marathon.