May Cornucopia

May was no doubt filled with all sorts of flowers and at least several lovely days spent entirely outside. Then there was the time spent inside, online reading, learning and enjoying. That's what this list is, hope you find something useful or interesting here too.

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If you're looking for a 100 Day project, this free 100 Day Stitch Book project looks like a good one to try out. I love the super clever assembly of the stitched pages into a book.

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The great annual event, Index Card A Day, starts tomorrow. This is Daisy Yellow's 16th year running this challenge.

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The movie, Dust Bunny is one of the most original ideas I've seen onscreen in a long time. It truly made me wonder how it ever got green-lit, but it is as if Roald Dahl and Tim Burton got to make their own version of The Professional. Truly beautiful set design and costumes as well.

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This link to an accessible database of all 5,000 episodes of Sir Richard Attenborough's nature tv show episodes is really something. What an amazing collection and resource.

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I've been going to PT lately for my right wrist, so I was really happy to see a self hand massage video from quilter Heidi Parkes. It's great information, and wow, does this massage really feel nice.

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Two of my favorite comedians have HBO specials (a big deal in the comedy world), and I'm unreasonably pleased for both of them. Josh Johnson, and Chris Fleming. Really worth a watch, especially if you need a good laugh.

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Great books read this month included, the audio book version of Hamnet read by the now Oscar winning actress, Jessie Buckley who played the main character of Agnes in the movie version, it literally made me cry while I was driving.  Also the story of Cinderella retold from the "evil stepmother's" POV, Lady Tremaine was very very good. And in non-fiction, We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore is terribly interesting and so easy to read for a non-lawyer, I'm almost done reading it and I feel like I've learned so much.

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I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I've been enjoying Conspiracy, She Wrote. It's an excellent breakdown of current conspiracies that involve or feature women. Sci Fi writer and essayist, Ursula K. LeGuin's blog has been turned into a podcast, In Your Spare Time, All of the various posts are read by all sorts of people. 

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6x6 Diagonal

 

Time for more quilting to get done on the 6x6 quilt. The back shows the square grid that I've done following the blocks of the front of the quilt.

I'm going diagonal in one direction over the whole quilt. Using the Hera Marker and ruler to keep my quilting line straight.

The next quilting is going well, but my machine is acting up. Sometimes the walking foot isn't engaging, and the feed dog don't seem to work correctly so the stitches get way too small. I think I might switch it out for my old one to get it finished.

Here's how it looks with the diagonals quilted in just one direction. I think I might do the reverse diagonal to finish the quilting off.

Flower Friday for May

 Well, as it's still May, it is definitely time for a 🏵🌹🌻💐Flower Friday!🏵🌹🌻💐

I'm glad I got this picture of this lovely shade of Gerbera Daisy as the deer ate it that very night.

I saw this plant in a FFA (Future Farmers of America) garden next door to my mom's place. It looks like snapdragons or maybe fuchsia but it is Autumn Sage "Salvia  'Shell Dancer'"

 

My Lenten Rose (Hellebore) which has been changing colors, the outer "petals" are sepals which are leaves, so they do tend to get green.

The Columbines that self-sow every year are a pretty color combination this time.

The Globemaster alliums bloomed again, but they were not even close to advertised 1.5 - 3' high stems.

The Jerusalem sage is really taking over, I promised to divide and dig it up so it's not blocking the path once the blooms are done.

The Watsonia blooms are lovely this year, but this time it is pink instead of white?

This color combination on the Kangaroo Paws really gets me.

Gerbera Daisy, another one I got a picture of before the deer discovered them.

A Lion's Ear blooming outside a restaurant in Redwood City, memo to me, try growing this one.

A Minaret flower, related to the one above, such an interesting structure.

The Pomegranate tree was pruned a whole lot earlier this year so there are A LOT of blooms.

A Lacecap Hydrangea blooming outside a restaurant in San Jose that caught my eye. I wish I could grow these in my garden but they take too much water.

The poison tree (Angel's Trumpet) has been cut back so many times this year, but it Keeps Growing Back. The flowers smell so good after it rains.

And lastly, a new plant that I'm growing, a Silver Sage 'Salvia Argentea'. 

That's definitely enough flowers for now!

6x6 Anchor Quilting

 

Time to get this quilt sandwich set up on the sewing machine. I've got the right thread colors in the top (orange) and bottom (lime green), the walking foot is on, a new needle is installed, the surrounding surfaces are cleared off and flat.

Starting with the center vertical line going mostly along the block edges. Not quite in-the-ditch, but close to that.

In some cases, the vertical line doesn't carry on continuously, so time for some Hera marking to get from point A to point B.

I marked as I went down each line, using my wonderful American Vantage point turner/Hera marker that friend Jaye gave me. It makes a really good visible line in both prints and solids. Very easy to follow while quilting.

Here's how it's looking after quilting both vertical and horizontal 4" spaced out lines. I think I might go on the diagonal now to add interest. Or maybe just split up the squares into 2" spacing vertically and horizontally.

In-between Sizes

 The 6x6 quilt top was just a little too big for the smaller batt size, so Queen Size it is. The hard part about using this fusible is peeling it apart from the tight roll it comes in. You don't want to yank it apart too much because that distorts the batting.

Cutting it down to size is the next step, it's a bit too unweildy with all the excess.

Had to cut along the bottom on the floor as the quilt is draped on the ironing board.

Now for the actual hardest part, all the steamy ironing required to activate the fusible part of the batting. Glad it isn't too hot today.

Six by Six Back

I used the "leftovers" from making the Six by Six quilt top to piece the column that's floating in all that green. Not a great picture, I didn't smooth it all out and pin it up correctly. The green is not the same exact solid green as I used in making the quilt top but it's close enough on the back. The strip of print along the top of this backing is going to mostly not make it into the back. But it's the same print as the one used in the quilt top with the blue background, Quite a different look to the fabric with that red-purple instead of the blue. I was considering using it for the quilt binding, but no decisions on that.

Now for the hard part...layering and pin basting. Or maybe I'll do the fusible spray method. I have to see which quilt batts I have to chose from.
 

Free Wheeling Fabric

 

At the recent BAMQ meeting, there were some super interesting printed canvas pieces of fabric available on the Free Table. I resisted at first, but then they were kind of left behind, sitting there all alone. So I felt sorry for them. Not really, but kinda, and it helped make my mind up to take them home.The bird one just cracks me up and I love purple and red together. It's only a FQ plus a bit, so it might work as a good feature pocket on a bag? The other print was so beautiful, by one of my fave designers, with a grellow/yellow background so it will go with some of my other canvas pieces that I have. Hey, it's Anna Maria Horner, I didn't know she was doing canvas designs. 

Updating my 2026 fabric tracker with these additions and also subtracting for recent finishes:

 Net Total Fabric for 2026 so far this year is: -12.85 yards 

Six by Six Top Complete

 

The last parts of the assembly of Six by Six went pretty quickly.

I love the little orange triangle in the seam line.

And there it is! Now to get the backing ready, sandwich it and start the quilting.

6x6 is Mostly 4x4

Got a lot more of the Six by Six piece together, now most of the pairs of blocks are sewn together in four block chunks. It will be very tempting to play around with these four block chunks and move things around like they're the original smaller quilt blocks. Or maybe I should just go with this arrangement and carry on trying to get this done by Sew Day.

I'm starting to consider how I will quilt this. I have a great big spool of orange thread that would work well. I don't think I'll do free-motion quilting and just do a walking foot grid sort of stitching. The question is, do I use something cool and/or boring on the backing?

 Every time I walk in my work room, I have a Woah!sort of reaction.This quilt is A Lot.

Now Six by Six

 

I've now moved onto working on my BAMQ UFO Challenge for the month, my #6 which is the 5x5 class quilt. I started this in a BAMQ online class with Carole Lyles Shaw in 2022. Right on schedule. 

I made three more blocks to fill in the left side column. This quilt was initially titled 5x5, and it is now 6x6. This is how it looks in black and white.

I think this is the final form. I've started sewing together two blocks at a time. Will I be able to get this quilted and finished by Sew Day? We shall see...

Ocean Effect Finish

 

As promised, here is a finally really finished just-in-time picture of my latest quilt finish, Ocean Effect. It is now all turned in and ready to display in the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibition: Modern Art to Modern Quilt at the San Mateo County Fair - June 5-14th.

Quilted Books at the Library

Bay Area Modern Quilting is having an exhibition at the main downtown branch of the Redwood City Library of small quilts made representing children's books. It will be shown in the top floor exhibit space starting in June. Here are the majority of them informally laid out during our meeting today when we turned them in to the exhibit organizers. We all got to choose our favorite books to illustrate, as you can see there is quite a range all the way from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to The Secret Garden. Such a great variety of techniques and range of books represented. I love our group's creativity!

Here's the quilt that I made, it is 12" square and I'm using several of the fabrics that were released based on the original book illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, along with some other prints and one of my hand-dyes (the green at the top). I used many of my machine embroidery stitches, and I particularly like the one that I chose for the "yellow brick road."

And here is Erin getting the very best photo to use for our group's social media postings.

Ocean Facings

Time for facings on Ocean Efect.

for the top facing I used a strip of my green hand-dye that matches the top green color strip.

This is how it looks with the facings pinned, I'll post a final picture when I get the hand sewing done and iron the edges.
 I'll be turning this in tomorrow at the BAMQ exhibit.

Community Giving Blocks

I'm getting ready for Saturday's Bay Area Modern Quilting (BAMQ) meeting, and that means stitching up the Community Giving quilt blocks that I took the supply kits for. One of the kits was  short by two 2.5" squares, so I cut some from the fabrics I used for my mosaic table runner. They were on the top of the pile so they were easy to grab. 

It's a really easy block to put together, and here are all four. And this time I pressed all the seams open after the experience at the March Sew Day when we were all making these blocks without any seam pressing guidance. It makes a difference when you're putting a quilt together.
 

The Bottom of the Ocean

 

I'm doing the facings a little differently for Ocean Effect, the bottom one is going to be a "self"facing, I'm using the excess of the whole cloth front of the quilt that extends below the green upholstery fabric and blue sheer and pulling it around to the back and hand-stitching it down. But first, I decided to take the time to stitch out a quilt label using the digitized alphabet options on my machine.

I had to test drive it for the tension, and I forgot which way the letters stitch out! It's been a while since I'd used the alphabet feature, so I made a little sample and wrote myself notes. Then I had to pin it on and make sure the words of the label would be right-side up as they're at the bottom of the quilt. This will be a handy thing to have for next time, so I'm storing it with my iron-on embroidery stabilizer.

Closer to Ocean Effect

 

All the hand-dyed fabric strips have been applied, and I've trimmed two out of the four sides.

This picture has the two un-trimmed sides pinned to the wrong side, just so I could look at how it looks at this size and "crop".

I'm pleased with how this top section turned out. It matches up pretty well with my original sketch, and looks "painterly" enough for me.