February Cornucopia

 

February is always disorienting to me, after the busy start to a new year, winter is still here on some days, but on others not so much. And still the Magnolias bloom. Here's the February Cornucopia post, a collection of links to things online that I've noticed, enjoyed, found useful or entertaining.

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Spineless Feathers is a great free motion quilting design demonstrated in another well-done ChristaQuilts video. Definitely going to try this one!

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This image really cracked me up, the longest sock monkey in the world. Fifty feet!

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In case you need an excuse to hang out on Pinterest, I thought some of the things on the official Janome Pinterest boards were interesting.

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It's Oscars season, so that means trying to watch many of the movies nominated before the awards are given. I want to recommend a watch of these two short films that are nominated, A Friend of Dorothy, available here on YouTube, and The Singers which is available on Netflix, here's a preview of it on Youtube. Both are just so human, very moving and just plain lovely.

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I listened to several audiobooks this month, all thanks to the app, Libby and my local libraries. I'll recommend two of them here:

The Family Roe - a deeply reported book about the woman who was the Roe plaintiff in the famous Supreme Court decision, a surprisingly moving family portrait. 

The Winter Goddess - a great new version of the story of Cailleach, the goddess of winter in Irish mythology.

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In one of my college email newsletters I learned about a UC Santa Cruz alumnus who made a documentary film about a surfboard created out of 10,000+ cigarettes picked up on the local beaches.

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Pink Lupine Geese

 

So much pink all of a sudden!

Because I was cutting out all of the pink base triangles (the geese?) of the Flying Geese units I'm going to make for Clue #2 of the Lupine Mystery quilt.

Here they are, all ready to go with their white side triangles. Now to get sewing on these,

Lupine Flying Geese

Back to working on the Lupine Mystery quilt, and that means trimming the Flying Geese from Clue 2 that I sewed at the January Bamq Sew Day.

There's all 72 Flying Geese units together, and now to do the other 72 Flying Geese that will be white wings and pink geese. 

City Sampler Final Photo

Tah-dah, here it is, my now-completed City Sampler. It was much too big for my design wall and my work room as you can see. Get ready for a whole lot of pictures so you can see some of the details.

I made the 100 blocks in Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book way back in 2016 out of Tula Pink fabrics and my own hand-dyed cotton fabrics. 

I designed the outer border and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

It took a lot of figuring, and sketching, but it was worth it to make the quilt big enough for our bed.

The rest is all gray(s) but of course not just one because of...reasons. 

Turns out keeping track of solids is Very Hard because there's no printed selvedge. 

We live--we learn, right? 

And here's what the back looks like. I love love love that snake.

The blocks sat around finished for quite a while, and then I went to a CQFA retreat in January 2020  (four years!) where I sewed the grey sashing to one side of a lot of the blocks but not all of them. 

Then they sat around a little longer (four years!) before I went to a BAMQ retreat in 2024 and I sewed the rest of the sashing onto the blocks, and then sewed most of the blocks into rows. 

The rest of the assembly and then the making of the backing took a while too. The backing got started in  July 2025. 

Then later that month, I finished the backing, the binding and eventually I turned it over for the fabulous quilting is by the wonderful long-armer Colleen Granger. 

Then this week, I finally sewed down the binding and today was the pinning up and photographing. What a long, drawn-out process this was! In the end, this might be the quilt I'm most pleased with that I've ever made. Don't tell my DH, but it's going to be the anniversary gift this year. And as I said yesterday, a project to take off of my 2026 UFO Finishes Challenge list.

City Sampler Done

 

Back at the machine for binding sewing on the last three sides of City Sampler.

I pinned and then sewed pretty slowly and it turned out very well. For bed quilts, I like to do a machine stitched binding for extra security. I guess I just don't trust my hand-sewing skills to stick around through many machine washes.

Approaching the final corner! Woohoo! I am so excited to have this quilt done after so many years. I made the blocks back in 2016, so I suppose this is "right on schedule," ten years later. As City Sampler is the Biggest Quilt that I've ever made, I am definitely not giving myself a hard time about how long this took me to complete. 

And even better, this is another one of my UFO Finishing Challenge projects that I get to cross off this month.

Now to take a final picture, which will be quite an undertaking, as this quilt is almost exactly the size of my Entire Design Wall. Not today though, which is the day after Arm-Day at the gym. If you know, you know, it's better to put it off a day.

City Sampler Binding 1/4

 

Had to clear the decks for the enormous City Sampler quilt. I'm stitching down the binding.

This is a big quilt!

Down to the last of the first side.

And done with one out of four sides!

Oxbow Tote Finished

I'm focusing in on getting this Oxbow Tote finished today (Friday). Playing and re-playing the pattern assembly video.

The reinforced bottom was a little tricky, but the experienced bag makers at the Oxbow Work Day advised to cut the reinforcement to be the size of the interior rectangle so that it doesn't end up in the side seams. That worked out perfectly.

 Checking that I've gotten everything sewn down correctly. Birthing Time...

That took a bit of fiddling, but it worked out, phew!

After some top-stitching, it is All Done!

The top and the fancy zipper that I did not screw up!

The inside of the bag.

The bottom of the bag and a corner. Very boxy!

I'm so excited to use this.

It turned out even better than I'd pictured it and I'm very glad that I decided to join in and make one. I feel like I learned a whole lot.

Now I have Even More Appreciation for the bag makers and all of their technical expertise. 

And voila__another finish for the 🌀🌐BAMQ 2026 UFO Challenge🌀🌐! 

Hooray, the deadline worked on me again!

Oxbow Bottom to Top

 

Next up on the Oxbow tote, sewing on the bottom. I was glad I'd done the sew line marking back when I added the fusible stabilizer. I had to make sure there was enough space for this to go through on the back of the sewing machine as it isn't as flexible as a quilt.

Hey, it's looking good together. I may regret having the lighter rose pink owls on the bottom (as far as dirt goes). But the whole thing will be washable.

Both sides sewn to the bottom.

And then onto the zipper installation. I put my zipper foot on and took a deep breath, and watched the video several times. It's so much more helpful than the rather scant instructions and illustrations in the pattern. I really love the look of the lining fabric with the exterior fabrics. 

Next up, sewing on the other side of the bag's zipper and lining. So far so good, step by step. Trying to get this done before the next Sew Day to get a second finish checked off on my BAMQ UFO challenge list.

Oxbow Strapped

 

After a whole lot of video watching and re-measuring, I had to do some un-sewing on the straps I'd made for the Oxbow Tote. I think that the instructions which usually have two measurements for the two sizes of the pattern didn't have that for the strap-making part so it was off by many inches for me. I was really sure I wasn't supposed to try and sew over the doubled up part of the strap! I didn't even try that. 

But it all fit well eventually.

I like the look of the colors and patterns that I chose, now that I see it getting assembled.

The straps really do look nice.

Now onto the side tabs next.

Wandering Wednesday - Uvas Canyon County Park

 

We're still trying to get out there and go hiking somewhere every weekend, and this past weekend in-between rainstorms on Valentine's Day (we made parking reservations in January) we hiked with my SIL and BIL at Uvas Canyon County Park. They had been hiking there before and had always recommended it, so they were very kind to function as our tour guides.

I had never been in this part of Morgan Hill before, it's really lovely. Just a couple mountain ranges over from us, but still an hour and half drive.

SIL and DH taking pictures of BIL walking up the trail along the first waterfall.

There he is, almost blending in.

Then DH had to hike up and join him of course.

It was very mossy and wet around all the waterfalls of course, and the air has that wonderful extra oxygen feeling.

I wasn't about to try and scramble up those mossy wet rocks, I was very glad there was a trail even though it was quite steep.

Probably Turkey Tail, aren't they lovely?

Either Witch's Butter or Orange Jelly Spot, jelly fungus which grows on dead trees. Such a brilliant bright color on a dark cloudy day. Especially with the contrast of the bright green moss.

Lots of downed trees throughout the hike, but this gully was really a mess.

I always love when I notice an "eye" on a tree trunk. That was a 3.5 mile hike with a lot of elevation gain, so we were both a little sore the next day. But very glad that we 

• Got out of the house 
• Saw our family 
• Went on a hike in a new place. 

The bonus was finding a rather awesome ramen place in Morgan Hill to get an early dinner.