Judy's Stars

 Since I'm still not up to a lot of work in the studio, I was captivated today by Electric Quilt declaring it Judy Martin day with a sale on her add-ons to EQ8. All to celebrate her upcoming inclusion in the Quilter's Hall of Fame. Woohoo, Judy, congratulations!! 

And guess what, when you're still just lying around recovering, it's quite fun to fool around on EQ8 and design quilts using Judy's excellent and interesting stars. I splurged and got Distinctive, Exquisite and Spiky stars. Using some of my favorite blocks from each group, I designed this quilt which I'm titling Judy's Stars. I took the coloring inspiration from one of the initial block colorings and I think I really like it a whole lot. Not a final design of course. These are super fun blocks!  Very versatile with endless combinations.

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.

Wandering Wednesday - Oregon Coast

 On my second drive down the Oregon Coast with my DH, we stopped at some different places and enjoyed the variation in the fog levels. On our first day, after Yachats, we pulled off 101 to check out Thor's Well, which was super sunny and very windy. It looked like a fun place to hang out go tide pooling, there was a big trail that went around. The waves were hypnotic and booming in the "sinkholes"

The next day we were in Coos Bay and drove all the way out to the very end of Cape Arago to the state park there.

 It was very foggy and I was thrilled to actually be cold after our hot days in Portland. We could tell that the fog was just about to lift.From the point we could hear the sounds of sea lions echoing in the bay.

It started getting a little more sunny.

And then it was fogged in again. I just loved it.

This state park was very long and I was glad that part of it was a super easily accessible flat beach, there were a lot of kayakers coming in and out of the small bay.

Further south we stopped at a pullout with an enormous rock and a very wide sunny beach.

There's my DH way  out on that beach near Hunter's Creek in Gold Beach.

This is the famous Kissing Rock I guess?

A bit further south we stopped at one of the many opportunities in the Samuel Boardman Scenic Corridor. This was the lovely paved trail down to Lone Ranch Beach.

I could have spent all day here, it was just so beautiful. 

There were so many interesting rock formations to walk around.

This one looked like spiderwebs to me, but it's different types of rock, some worn away by the waves, some left behind (I think probably granite.)

Almost every time I go to a beach I take some version of this picture. I think it'd be a beautiful quilt design.

Barnacles ahoy! 

And anemones ahoy!

That was really fun seeing the Oregon coast two times in a month. I feel really lucky and pretty much filled up with ocean views for a while now.

Wandering Wednesday - Portland Japanese Garden

 I made another visit to Portland last week, this time with my DH, and after enjoying showing him around the recently visited beautiful Rose Garden, we went across the street and visited the Japanese Garden.

It's a completely different experience of course, and it is a whole lot shadier thankfully as it got pretty warm. After you walk up a fairly steep hill on a well done shady trail you cross a glass bridge over to the garden proper.

The paper lantern display in the central courtyard was beautiful. There was a great exhibit of embroidered works Painting With Thread - The Art & Culture of Fukusa. Tremendously detailed textiles that are draped over gifts but then end up being precious gifts in and of themselves.

I was excited to see some great examples of bonsai in a courtyard off the main building. Some of them were hundreds of years old! I'm trying to get DH to take this up as a hobby for retirement.

The view of Mt. Hood was pretty clear.

The shoji pavilion was gorgeous, and I loved the peaceful raked gravel garden off of the deck. There was a sale of Japanese goods inside which were fun to briefly peruse, but it was very crowded.

There were a lot of great details like this metal top of a wooden bridge entrance post.

The reflection in this pond was quite striking.

I was enchanted by this arrangement of stone and cement pieces in this walkway. I think a wall hanging with this design would be really effective.

There were a whole lot of koi in one of the larger ponds, they are always so fun to watch.

Another similar pathway arrangement. I like those edging tile with the slight curve.

And here's another interesting one, with those same tiles stacked together on edge. This would be a cool quilt design.

And so would the shapes and colors of the bark of this tree.

I was really taken by the separateness of the leaves of the Japanese Maples when seen against the sun. Each leaf has so much space.

Look Up Into Willow

Willow trees have always been one of my favorite trees. They have such a beautiful form and are particularly lovely when you’re under one and you look up.

So next time you’re able to, my advice is to take a second and look up.

 This one wasn’t even enormous like some of them end up, DH shown for scale.

Some day I’ll make a willow quilt.

Perfectly Accidental

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 Sometimes you end taking an accidental picture that’s not going to get deleted like all the blurry ones of your feet. You know when you’re done taking your “actual “ intended picture but don’t click off the phone quite fast enough. That’s what this is. And it’s one of the best pictures that I’ve taken in a long while. I never would have come up with this perfect composition. Or the texture variety, rough wood, machine marked wood, smooth wood, blurry grass, pressed concrete. Or the golden late sunset dramatic warm lighting creating the glare reflections and the shadows.

I thought it would make an interesting quilt design or a carved stamp. I played around with it In SnapSeed and quite like the black and white version.

Watercolor Holiday

The lovely afternoon view out of our balcony window.

I wanted to do a watercolor but I knew I had a small rectangle to work on.

I sketched it out with colored pencils and then watercolored it in on top. I didn't work directly from the photo but instead from the actual view which was changing. I lowered my head so that the top of the farther away bluff didn't show below the top railing as it does in the photo. I might do another watercolor to match the photo as I really like that extra stripe of yellow sky right below the railing. This would also make a nice abstract composition for a quilt.

Here's a colored pencil + watercolors piece that I made while listening to *Political Bit* the reporting preview of the upcoming Supreme Court mifepristone case. I guess those shapes are the pills that are now providing 60% of the abortions in the US which are possibly getting banned nationwide. So it's a rather moody piece...grrr.

That piece above was made in a bigger space in a new Moleskine watercolor journal that I bought last year at Dick Blick.  You can see the size comparison 5x 8.25" versus the 4x6" watercolor postcards I literally just opened the journal up this week to use for the first time. So I obviously don't need to make another trip back to Dick Blick as I didn't even use the thing for an entire year. When I'm at home, I just don't sit and do a lot of watercolor work.  

I guess I like working in this bigger space in the journal compared to the size of the watercolor postcards. 

*Political bit* This was done while listening to the reporting about the arguments made in the Supreme Court and the various expected outcomes for the fate of accessible abortion health care in our country. Seems like even if it's a "good" decision in this particular case, what comes next if the Comstock Act of 1873 is all of a sudden enforced again. Amazing that an anti-obscenity/chastity law from that long ago, which was never really repealed could come back into enforcement because we are no longer living in a country under the Roe decision. Guess I'll keep on calling my representatives and writing postcards.

 

Work From Away Episode 2

 Got a lot more stitching done on Snake in the Garden, just like last year. 

This was how it looked just a year ago, look how much more stitching I've got on there now. It is fun to see the comparison year over year. I took my advice and nailed down the edges of the glue-sticked pieces. Good to see that I'm truly making progress. Hard to remember when I'm going so slow on this.

An askew view off the balcony down to the yacht harbor. It was fun stitching as the seagulls flew past along with all the military helicopters. I showed this picture to my DH and he said he thought that it would be a cool abstract quilt design, and I think he's right. I'll fool around with the photo and abstract it and report back.

I didn't really plan this, but I'm really liking the shapes I'm making in the purple zone.

I actually ran out of green thread, so I'll have to refill my bag with the right color embroidery thread when I get back home.