Possible Gifts Being Considered

I was supposedly just looking for the new Quilting Arts Gift magazine, which was there and for sale at my local quilting store. There are some great ideas in this issue and if you're looking for ideas on what to make for people this year for holiday gifts I'd recommend finding yourself a copy.

But...I found myself a new thimble, see that red thing there in the center? Finally thimbles in sizes SML, and the L fits my gigantor digits. It is flexible and thin enough that I can still feel the needle, but thick enough so the needle doesn't go through, and it looks like a Jujube so I think I'm going to like this one. One of the things that makes me dislike hand sewing so much is not having found a thimble that works for me, so I get very sore fingers which are poked full of holes. No wonder I put off hand sewing, eh?

Two fat quarters that having nothing to do with each other or anything else pictured here, I just liked the white/blue woven ikat-ish look of one and the green one reminded me of maps with estimated data.

And a set of cord brakes to fix a pair of drawstring waist pants that I have. The cord stopper has never worked right and it bugs me, so I found these to replace them, hopefully it will fix the problem and I won't have to worry about my pants falling off unexpectedly.

Not exactly a glamorous wild-haired shopping spree, but still more than one magazine.

This Is How It Happens

My worktable was getting unusable again. Too many scraps piling up and overflowing and making it hard to get anything of any size done. In this picture it looks as if Cerridwen is stirring up the scrap pile, making something out of nothing.... All of my scrap boxes are completely packed and I just don't have room for yet another one, so I wanted to use up this pile of goodies. My first instinct was to do another Spiral Recycle but the pieces of fabric were too big to work well with that technique.

So I started laying the pieces out and placing them together with the intention of making a "background" to do a spirally thing on top of. But this turned out too interesting to cover up with a big spiral plopped on top.

Next I did some stitching first one direction in mostly parallel lines.

And then back again. Ho hum, kinda boring when you're doing the stitching and trying to avoid all the pins.

But I like how it looks afterwards, I think the stitching adds a lot to the whole look of the piece. So is this piece finished? No, not yet. Do I know what it needs yet? Nope. Does it have a title? Not at the moment. But at least I don't have to find a place for it in my scrap box. At least yet.

Remembering 8 Years Ago

Considering the memories of this day eight long years ago and still sad that so much and so little has changed after such a horrific attack on our country.

Here is the quilt that I made for the America From the Heart exhibit, Goddess of the USA and the accompanying artist statement.

I still believe what I wrote back then in October of 2001, and if anything I believe it more strongly. I do wonder about a lot of things though.

What happened to us since then, have we learned anything, or are we pretending that nothing has changed?

Have we only learned to fear, or have we learned to prepare and better defend ourselves?

Is there more or less safety for all in the world?

Has our country made the right decisions, gone down the right paths since 9-11?

Are there any other choices left for us to make, or have they all passed us by?

My heart is with all those still grieving the loss of family and friends lost eight years ago today.

All Things Wild

"...in Wildness is the preservation of the World." ~ Henry David Thoreau

I was just reading the September Paste Magazine this morning and they had a great article on one of my favorite children's books ever "Where the Wild Things Are" and the upcoming movie based on it. It is really worth reading this essay, and once Paste has the September issue up online, I hope it will be available.

I remember reading this book to my little brother (over and over again) and making him laugh and be scared of my scary wild things monster voices. And then of course, reading it to my boys and getting the same reactions. And more recently seeing my older son read it to his little brother and doing the same voices. Such a classic, such a story, so simple (10 sentences, 338 words), but with such deep meaning.

From that article I found out that there is an amazing, must-see collection of Wild Thing inspired artwork on Terrible Yellow Eyes curated by Cory Godbey. Very inspiring, makes me want to go make a Wild Thing piece...

Including a totally excellent make-it-yourself-paper-Max by Marshall Alexander.

I can't wait to see the movie version, it comes out on October 16th. Over on the movie's website you can watch two trailers and a featurette that has an interview with Maurice Sendak about seeing his book turn into a movie. By the way, the song in the featurette is "Wake Up"from a great indie rock band from Montreal called Arcade Fire which my older teenager is really into, they have a lot of people, and play interesting non-traditional-for-a-rock-band instruments. I recommend them if you like offbeat, complex and intense music (ie this isn't e-z listening...)

There will be a novelization of the movie by Dave Eggers, and the special edition features a furry cover. See that makes this post kinda-sorta Fiber Related (hooray!)

And if you haven't read the book in a while, you can watch and hear President Obama read it to you here:

Matchy Matchy Is Ok After All

Just noticed how matchy matchy my design wall looks right now! :-)

Not usually my thing, but I kinda like it!

An IBOL On Its Way

I made it just under the wire to send an IBOL as today was the deadline. What's an IBOL you ask? It stands for Iraqi Bundle Of Love and was organized by Major Art La Flamme, who also is the son of, and husband of a quilter (Kristin La Flamme) , who knew that one thing quilters have in common is that we usually have a large stash of stuff we're honestly never going to use. His idea was to get a bunch of bundles of sewing supplies over into the area of Iraq he's currently stationed in, to be able to distribute during Ramadan.

I just kept forgetting to do it for some reason, but once I got started, it went together very quickly. I got together lots of solid colors of fabrics that I don't use, along with a bunch of kid prints that are really bright and cheery. I also put in some sewing supplies like thread, needles ribbons, embroidery floss and a good pair of scissors.

The instructions were pretty clear and it was easy to find stuff that would be useful and hopefully appreciated too.

So far he's collected 500 bundles to distribute, which is pretty darn cool!

Flora & Fauna, But Mostly Flora

I was just looking through my San Diego Zoo pictures, and there are quite a few bad shots of cool animals, a few of my family being very silly, and some great pictures of the plants. I guess the plants were holding still as opposed to the animals and the family members resulting in better pictures! Anyways, this zoo is amazing for more than the animals, the landscaped environment is unlike any other and worth going to see even if you're not all that interested in the animals.

This first one was near the new elephant exhibit and was about 10 feet high, I have no idea what it is, but I was really intrigued by the unusual structure.

This swirled cactus reminded me of fractals, or the whorls on fingertips or on human brains.
This was a particularly big and beautiful cactus flower.

The obligatory panda bear shot. Since it is the San Diego zoo and all. They were unbearably cute but fierce at the same time.
So many cycads everywhere, they even had a special garden with several varieties I'd only ever seen in books or magazines. These ancient plants are really spectacular.

This peely bark tree was impressive. That deep rich color and all that lovely texture.

It is hard to get a good koala picture as they are all asleep and turned away from the visitors in their eucalyptus trees. This guy was in an enclosure we could walk around so I could finally capture that way-too-cute face.

And is there any better graphically designed animal than a zebra?

Yellow

I woke up this morning after having very color-filled dreams, so today here is a post filled with just one color!
A yellow section in a colorful quilt.

A glass lemon soaking up the sun.

The same glass lemon on some fake fur that is also yellow.

Yellow-stripe, yellow and green-stripe HoKukMukSul belts and the yellow buttons on a videogame controller.

Quilting Action Shot

Trying to take an action shot of myself while I'm actually sewing was much harder than I thought it would be. First I had to do my nails, natch. With some yellow nail polish that I finally talked myself into on the advice of one of my commenters (thanks Lesthook). This shot was with a flash and me pausing and pretending to be sewing while waiting for the self-timer to go off.

This one, which I like a lot better was with no flash, and the room lights turned on (and a light bulb replaced which made a big difference). But I didn't pause and stop while quilting, but I think it shows my hands in a more true light because they're moving. I guess I just wanted to capture and see the motion, and I was curious to see what my hands look like when I'm working. I'm not sure why, curiousity killed the cat and all that...

I guess it was because I was reading about carpal tunnel and setting up your workspace to avoid injury and wanted to confirm that yes, I'm doing it "right". So far anyways! As long as I sit up straight, no slouching and stand up and stretch after every bobbin...

The Quilter's Eye

I've shared all three of these pictures at some point or other. But they're all here in one post because I've just entered them in a photography content called The Quilter's Eye.

The photos are supposed to be illustrative of how we as quilters are using photography for inspiration or just photos that we've taken that we somehow find inspiring in our approach to quiltmaking.

The photos chosen for the exhibit will be printed out in a fairly large size and displayed at the International Quilt Festival in Houston (about 50,000 people attend). This is the first time I've ever entered a photography contest, so please wish me luck!

Late Summer Garden

Out in the garden in this late, hot summer, there are many many blossoms on the pumpkins and gourds that I planted. And a whole lot of bees. Like 5, in one blossom?!

Only have one pumpkin growing (that I've spotted) so far, and I think this is from the giant variety that we planted. Hard to tell exactly as all the pumkin vines are kaboobled up.

One of the birdhouse gourds is growing, it is even changing color which is pretty.

And I see lots of artichokes on the horizon. The first ones I've gotten in years. Guess that regular watering really does work (duh!). We are eating these tonight.

Just The Details

Just the details.

Of the Journal Quilts I made last week.

For the annual Quilt Art exhibit.

Which is only an online show this year.

I have to choose which three of these to submit....

Decisions, decisions.

Thrifty & Not

I was at one of the local thrift stores last week and found only two things that needed to come home with me. One was this Singer Sewing Skills book from 1959. I like how it has an "OLD" label on it. I'm always looking for more resources to improve my sewing skills, especially some of the dressmaking/clothing constructions ones I kind of ignored in Home Ec. back in high school (oops). Back then I was just thrilled to have completed a simple wrap skirt. And honestly I've progressed a bit from that, but not really all that much. I would definitely tell my high school self to pay attention and ask more questions..

Another thing was this gizmo called a mirror hanger. It is a satin cord with a thread-medallion/tassle and I actually have a mirror to hang with it, so I hope it works! If not look for it on a quilt or something...

The not so thrifty part of this post is this comparatively meager (compared to how I used to spend spend spend on fabric) order from Hancock's of Paducah. I like to buy my Hobbs 80/20 batting from them, because I can't find it locally, but especially when they have a free shipping promotion.

I bought this snarky fabric called "Housework Whenever! Rebelling Housewives" (by In The Beginning) because it just cracked me up! I only could find it at equilter in a different color . I don't know what I'll make with it, but it has done its little ol' job and made me laugh. "When I learned how to sew, I forgot how to cook!" or "If I sit here long enough maybe they will fix their own dinner!" or "A Clean House Is the Sign of a Broken Sewing Machine". I now have quite the collection of snarky fabric, maybe I need to make a Quilt O' Snark...

And of course I needed needles and rotary blades to add to the precious hoarded stash of supplies and to push the total over the amount needed to get to FREE shipping. Yes, it works out a bit cheaper, one must pay attention to that!

Monkey Shirt Made

I did finally get around to working on the shirt that I got screen-printed at the Maker Faire. First, I did some machine embroidery stitching around the pocket in black rayon thread. The rest is all the stretchy,elasticy, black cording that I snagged at the Maker Faire. I just couched it down around the sleeves and on the front and back of the shirt.

I may still change the buttons to black ones.

I didn't mark anything, just thought about the design I wanted to end up with.

It was pretty easy to do, but in retrospect I wish I'd used something else instead of this elastic-y stuff. It kind of screws up the shirt from ever lying flat (or is that laying?!...), especially along the button placket in the front. I ironed it and starched the hell out of it and that helped a bit. I'm tempted to take it all off and try something else, but I know I probably won't.

But, the first day that I wore it I got several comments from people asking me where I'd gotten my shirt, and how they wanted one just like it. So, I'm on the right track, just need to work on the execution and materials choices a bit more.

St. James Hotel

We stayed at a vintage hotel in downtown San Diego, the Hotel St. James, in the Gaslamp area which was really fun to walk around in at night, very lively.
One of the cool things is that you can actually go up on the roof! This is a picture of the rooftop sign, but I flipped it around so you can read it.
.Here is a view from the roof at night, that very bright glow was the San Diego Padres stadium (Petco Park). The boys found the game on tv and then were looking out the window, for some reason that was highly amusing.
Here's that strange city at night glow, where no stars are visible and it never really gets dark. A country person (like me) notices and misses that after a while.
This is the Wyatt Earp building which was around the corner. I thought it was really unusual.

I guess he had a saloon or some such here.
Wouldn't it be cool to go up in those small rooms at the very top? They all windows.

It just really stood out and I had to stop and do the touristy thing and take some pictures. Look at all that great detail!

I liked the lobby of our hotel, we had to use the car valet (since parking is pricey there in the city, it actually worked out cheaper), which involved a bit of waiting so I took advantage and took some pictures.

Like the cool pressed ceiling and chandelier.

The long view of the lobby.

A stained glass picture over the elevators.

Speaking of the elevators, they were very unique, the cage door kind, that you had to, get this, open yourself! Along with a super heavy door at each floor to open too. It was really neat, they were slow though, but a little plate in the elevator told about how they were the fastest on the West Coast at one point and were quite a tourist attraction. Funny huh? In the reviews I read on hotels.com, some of the guests complained about the elevators being slow or the doors being manually operated, which I found really sad. The whole point of staying in a historic hotel is stuff like this, sheesh!

My favorite thing in the room didn't even get used, the radiator! Too bad they had to have that ugly red plastic sign behind it warning you that it would get hot. I suppose not everyone knows that these days...

I'm glad that we chose to stay here rather than in one of the more updated places, seems worthwhile to seek out something old and unique.