Snake in the Hand

 

Sitting in the hospital for days, I finally worked on one of the hand projects that I brought along with me, Snake in the Garden.

We were in a room with a nice big window, so there was good light to work with for most of the day.

I think I'll always remember stitching on this piece as I kept watch over my dad.

A Hard Week

 

It's been a hard, hard week. My dad passed away on Friday the 14th, on his fifth day in the hospital. He unfortunately had some falls at home and hit his head causing a brain bleed. It all went downhill very fast from there and he died peacefully after receiving two and half days of "comfort care." My mother and I were there all day every day, most of the time together which was a sort of comfort care for us, to get to witness his last transition together. My DH and DD were able to come, and then my brother joined us for the last three days. It was a great blessing that my mom, brother and I all happened to be there together in the room when he took his final breath. We found it to be a true relief that he wouldn't have to continue to suffer unnecessarily. 

Now for getting all of us through all of the aftermath.

The picture above was the pavement in the hospital parking garage after one of the rainstorms last week. It kind of sums up the whole week for me. I'll write more about my dad at some point, and hopefully I'll be able to get back to some creative work soon.

Granny Squares?

 

I saw this great idea for making a crocheted granny square for each book that one reads during the year based on the colors in each book cover. This would take a whole lot more colors of yarn than I will ever have on hand (and I'm Not Buying Yarn) and a whole lot more crocheting skill than I currently have. But the idea of it got me thinking, wouldn't it be fun to do a quilt block for each book you read per year?  There's got to be a whole lot of crossover between quilters and readers, right? Or maybe it's just the quilters that I happen to know? Anyways—I am a quilter who really likes reading, so I'm going to work on this project and see if I can get it going for this year. I've already read 12 books so I'm already behind.

This got me thinking, are there any quilt blocks that look like granny squares? I found this one, and this free one. but they don't really come off visually as a granny square to me. They're lacking the laciness of the patterns I think, too block-y (hah!).  This one is much more of a crocheted look, but doesn't appeal to me at all as a block making experience. And certainly not for the number of blocks I'd be making.

This sort of variation of color placements and arrangements from block to block works a bit better when you have them all together in a quilt. After checking out that one version of a quilt block based on granny squares, I realized I had just one version of granny squares stuck in my mind. That meant looking into what exactly are crocheted granny squares? Turns out that they are not just several rounds of color around a central square, there are a whole lot of variations out there. (hey just like quilt blocks!) Interpreting that wide variation in quilt blocks would make for an even more interesting quilt imo.

I got a digital magazine out of the library and started sketching on my iPad inspired by the pictures. I didn't spend time trying to interpret the look of the crocheted squares into quilt blocks that would be able to be pieced (piece-able?). Just getting the idea of the blocks down. I think it could work as an overall project if you used the same fabric as the negative space or openings in the crochet.

Then I went into EQ8 to see if there were any blocks available that would substitute. As you can see I got just a little carried away with my choices. I was going for variety here. Most of these blocks are way beyond my piecing capabilities, this is just for fun. The one block at the bottom that I repeated and filled in with seemed like a really good crochet looking block, when several were put together. I think a combination of circular, diamond, and square/mosaic types of blocks could work out really well to get that Granny Square Sampler look. Or I could just do a bullseye block, and vary the number, size, and shape of the rounds. hmmmm so many options—more thinking on this is required.

Color of the Year and More

 

Here's a catch-up post on new stuff I've bought this year so far. I was shopping at Hartland Quilt shop on Etsy buying supplies for the Jane Sassaman class I'm taking this month, Golden Threads quilting paper and I also bought a half yard of 

this really interesting butterfly fabric by Faye Guaniper from Dear Stella. For the class I also had to get a pretty big quantity of Pellon interfacing, so I bought it from Amazon along with another fusible Hobbs 80/20 batting. Not worth a picture on those two items. I'll let you know about using this quilting paper stuff after the class, it looks pretty interesting.

My pre-order of the Kona color of the year, Nocturne arrived from Keepsake Quilting. I got three yards of it and I love love love this purple. It's a really beautiful, rich color.

Mx. Domestic has an online shop and they announced a great sale so I snapped up this assortment of fat quarters from the fairly new fabric line, Scrawl by Giucy Juice. 

I love all the print and fonts as well as the colors which will play well with the Alison Glass fabrics I have left over from the Trinket quilt.

To support this great and very inclusive store in Washington, Wyldwood Creative, I did a little browsing on their website. This looks like such a fun local quilt (and more) shop. I'd seen this Art Gallery Fabrics binding fabric in a couple of other fabric shops but hadn't bought any, but this color way was interesting to me. I think it might be usable as is, I really like the dashed cutting line and scissors. They also had this really pretty checkered ribbon, it has a lovely hand, very soft. And their sticker selection was pretty awesome, yes that's a banana slug sticker. The two shiny holographic stickers do not photograph well, but they look cool in person.

I saw this embroidery project when friend Jaye and I visited Cheryl in Oregon, she'd finished all these ladies and it was so wonderful. I want to try it, so I bought the little kit and book that Brooklyn Haberdashery sells. Just a note, I want to make the ladies that I embroider of more diverse body types. This cellulose PFD fabric looked very interesting and it is very very smooth, I can't wait to try and dye it to see how it works out.

And lastly, I bought myself the Victoria Findley Wolfe book, The Quilting Experience. It's really beautiful, I haven't read it all yet, but the pictures are great.

Yikes, that was a whole lot of shopping, hopefully that's out of my system for now. Inspired by friend Jaye, my newly created Fabric Usage Tracker worksheet is getting a real workout. With my two quilt finishes, I'm currently in "the red" by 5.25 yards. As in, I've bought more fabric than I've used. Not a surprise given all this shopping! Okay, back to working on using some more of said fabric up.

Red Geese

Now for something different. At Sew Day last weekend I was able to sew the red Flying Geese units I had previously cutout last month for one of the clues for the Old Town Mystery. Wow, these are so fun all in one place! I think the variety in background fabrics works, and I got some good variation in the red tones.

If I had to choose, these are my two favorites combinations.

The snippings left over from trimming all of these.
 

Our Mistake

I had a lot of help from one of my studio assistants getting the facings, sleeve and label hand-sewn onto the Our Mistake I was finishing for Stretching Art & Tradition. 

Korben was really on alert and we had a little fight about who got to use the needle (eek!)

 Here's the final look at the whole quilt with the facings stitched down.

I like the look of this view of the bottom part of the quilt, it looks like a scenic postcard to me.

And a close up of the boat being dissolved in the acid lake.

The word window picture frame worked out as I was hoping. The title and the words in the window come from an essay written after the November election by Rebecca Solnit.

All four of the corners cooperated for once.

As per usual I looked up the ever so helpful Jeri Riggs facing method page for assistance.

And now it's off in the mail winging its way across the country in time  to be in the 25th Stretching Art & Tradition exhibit at the Mancuso show - Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Virginia. 

Sky Structure

Oops, I meant to post about this yesterday, but in some good news, I finished "Sky Structure" for the Sister Artists exhibit. 

We got 5" of rain and the power went out not once but twice, but I was hunkered down inside doing my hand sewing so it was just fine. I was glad I didn't need to be ironing.

I think I'm going to miss these lovely embroideries.

They're so cheery and lively.

I hope that this quilt and all the others in The Advocacy Project exhibit raises money and awareness for this very worthy project.

On the label, I credited the names of my sister artists who did the lovely embroideries, Judith Adong and Stella Grace Awor from Uganda. 

And then I moved on to sewing down the facings on the quilt for Stretching Art & Tradition. Almost there. I'll be mailing them out today.
 

Approaching Finishing

 Just a bit left to do on the "Our Mistake" quilt for Stretching Art and Tradition.

The newly-added lake waves are all done, so now it was time to break up the boat into dissolving-in-the acid lake pieces.

Very happy with how this turned out.

And there it is, now all that's left is to just add facings, a sleeve and a label.

And the Sister Artists quilt, "Structured Sky" has been trimmed down to size. This one will be getting binding, a sleeve and a label.

February To-Do

Here's how my design wall is looking at the beginning of February. Pretty different from the beginning of January which shows the bit of progress I made last month. The new configuration of the to-do list is below, it more closely follows the database categories that I use to keep track of all my work-in-progress. The number of projects in total on that list is truly out of hand, but more on that later, I have some ideas to deal with that issue.

QUILTS

Continue Assembly

Finish the quilt for the Sister Artists 3 embroideries  Photograph and send as it's - Due in the first week of February. 

Finish the quilt for the Stretching Art & Tradition exhibit. Photograph and send as it's also due in the first week of February.

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

That gives me plenty to work on this month, and lots of variety to choose from.