Super Moon

 All of a sudden May is over! I swear I feel like I live near a time vortex or something. I get sucked in, pop back out and month has gone past.  So, back to the here and now, and looking backwards through the pictures I took last month to share here...  So how about two pictures from the Super Moon earlier this month?

It really was super, and worth staying up late to take a picture of it.

Beets For Dinner, Why Not?

 I recently made up a new salad that was so delicious and looked so good I decided to take some pictures and share it with you here.  Let's say it's related to my blog subject because, yes, it's probably has "High Fiber Content".  So, not turning into a food blog or anything, don't worry about that, this was just too yummy not to share.
First of all don't you love the color combination here?  Makes me want to get my dye stuff out and try and make a fabric that has these colors.

Here's how to make it:
Roasted Beet/Pear/Feta Salad
3 or 4 large beets, peeled and cut into less than 1" thick cubes or slices
1 firm Bartlett pear sliced
1 package crumbled Feta cheese, maybe 8 or 10 ounces
1 big red onion sliced
olive oil
salt
pepper
thyme

Pre-heat oven to 425F.
Peel and cube the beets, lay out on a roasting pan , drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and dried thyme.  Roast for about 30 minutes, or until tender.
While the beets are cooking, cook the sliced red onion in the olive oil until slightly caramelized
Slice the pear into thin wedges
When the beets are cooked, place in a heat-proof serving dish, toss in the onion and pear as well as the Feta cheese.  Mix and toss well.  Serve when still slightly warm.  The pears will cook just a little bit absorbing the heat from the beets and the Feta will melt just a bit as well.
The only hard part of making this is making sure you clean up after yourself after cutting up the beets, the bright pink juice tends to get everywhere and it can stain so be careful.

This is so rich and tasty and filling and sweet and savory and just plain yum.  I made it when my teenager and his friend were agitating for dinner and they both scarfed it up and had seconds.  It's based on something I had recently at a very fancy restaurant and thought the combination of flavors was too good not to try and recreate.  I am not someone who has always loved beets, but I'm now happy to call myself a beet-lover.  Maybe you will be too if you try this.  Let me know if you like it!

Vacation Kaleidoscope

 Kaleidoscopic views of the Oregon Coast from our recent road trip...

Rainy Flowers

 More post-rain, momentarily-sunny spring-is-finally-sprung pictures.

 That one big drop of water turning the colors because of the reflection really caught my eye.

 Irises can hold a surprising amount of rain.

All the raindrops and their shadows just sitting on top of a tulip leaf.

 The red of the tulip caught in the raindrops surprised me when I saw this photo.  It wasn't something I saw when I was taking the picture.

Bending The Calendar

More work-in-progress, which is currently titled "Bending The Calendar".  This one features the calendar portions of a vintage linen calendar towel.  The image part of the towel was already used to make a sweatshirt jacket for my mom.  It featured strawberries and was by Vera.  Which for the longest time I remember thinking it was Usna.  That's what the signature looked like to me before I could read hand-writing.  Anyways the things I continue to find in my scrapbox remain inspiring to me. Sometimes I start to question myself on keeping ALL those scraps, but if I keep finding inspiration in them and keep using them, I guess it is worthwhile.
You can see some of the machine embroidery stitches I'm using in variegated thread along the edges of the calendar.

Hole-y Jellybeans

 More work-in-progress pictures.  Maybe it is due to eating jelly beans recently, but these colors and that particular shape is saying jelly beans to me.  We'll see if that makes it into the title by the time this is finished.

Holey fabric, mistakes happen sometimes, like leaving fabric for months soaking in soda ash solution.  Whoops!  It really does weaken the fibers, the books aren't kidding.  See I did the experiment for you, now you don't have to do it yourself...
By using this fabric I am taking a risk that it will continue to deteriorate further, not a good start for quilt conservation.  But I can't resist how cool and organic that hole looks, so there it is, right in the middle of everything..

All Along The Coast

 A recent spontaneous trip up the Northern California to Oregon coast to deliver our son Zach back to college after spring break led to us finally getting to drive through a redwood tree.  After all these years living in a redwood forest, I can finally say I've driven through one. I had to drive for about 6 hours to get there to do it as this is the Chandelier Tree in Leggett, California.  Good thing we had the smaller car, I don't think my SUV would have fit!

We drove through many times, got our money's worth oh yes we did.  Even if it was pouring rain, still was worth the $5 admission.  Skipped the gift shop, we've got all the burl items we can use thankyouverymuch.

 It was really interesting to stand in the tunnel and feel the weight of the enormous tree around and overhead.

 Such a rainy day for a drive, but it was really beautiful too.

 The beaches are rockier and darker than the ones near us.  Oh and a lot colder and windier too:



 The next day we drove over the border into Oregon and the sun broke through just as we got to the Dunes park! Woohoo! Luckily there is a part set aside for non-motorized visitors, otherwise we would have been dodging all the ATV's and motorcycles.

Steep steep steep, but fun to roll down once you get to the top.

I was just happy to be out of the car and walking around soaking up some sun.

I  think this might be one of my favorite pictures of Marc and the boys.

The reflection of the trees in the slowly moving water was mesmerizing.  I really liked this one a lot.

I Am The Lorax

Have you ever read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss?  It's one of our family's all-time favorite Seuss books.  We also had the animated movie as well which is as good as The Grinch in my opinion.  Anyways, I was really excited to see this panel in my local quilt shop, Sue Dee's.  I bought it with the thought of making a pillowcase for my son Zach since he's leaning towards environmental studies in college.  The Lorax speaks for the trees (and the environment in general).
Mostly I was just glad to see this book highlighted in fabric like this.  No doubt because of the recent big-screen movie adaptation (haven't seen it).  But I was really glad that the original illustrations were used.  There's something about them, the clean lines, not overly detailed, and surreal as all get out.  I've always got a weak-spot for surrealism...  And the use of text and font and word placement to help communicate the story.
So, no I haven't made the pillowcase quite yet.  I may combine it with the squids will be squids fabric since it's the same brown/orange/blue color scheme.  Hmmm, I wonder if any of my nieces like the Lorax, I'd better find that out...

Farewell Rexie

Sorry to report, another sad day, our sweetest cat ever, Rexie passed away last night.  He was in his favorite spot, on my son Alex's lap, snuggled up as Alex was writing an English paper on his laptop.  It all happened so fast, and now he's just gone.  He really was the sweetest, most gentle cat we've ever had the pleasure to live with.
When he was a kitten he used to stand up on his hind legs and battle with his front paws, and my dinosaur crazed at the time son named him T. Rexie.   He had the most mellow personality of any cat I've ever seen, until he got pushed too far and then watch out, he was fierce.  One of his favorite places out in our yard was perched high up in one of the redwood trees so we'll be burying him under one of those.
We'll miss you forever Rexie.

Totally Tulips

 A I'm-Happy-It's-Spring post!  Here have a whole bunch of sunny day after rain tulips.

Printing Chickens

 I recently found this chicken wood-block at a local store and just couldn't resist, because, chickens!  I got out the Dr. p.h. Martin's ink and dry ink stamping pad that I like to use for stamping and some nice tight pima cotton and tried it.  Didn't work too well, as you can see below on the left.
The stamp isn't very even on the stamping surface, so I put a layer of quilt batting underneath to give more to press into and make all of the stamp surface come into contact with the fabric.  I also used my trusty brayer to get the ink onto the stamp because the stamp pad didn't work too well either.

 It did much better printing with the quilt batting underneath.

 And the third print?

Hmmm, still pretty spotty.  The ink was gathering in these deep cut out parts in the design.  I think I'll either thicken the ink, or use fabric paint next time in hopes that it will just stick on the stamping surface.
Not giving up, I need more chickens...

Finishing Just In Time For Spring

Finally, finally, finally! The largest quilt I've ever made is getting done.  I posted about this monster way back in 2009, I was ready to try quilting this king-size+ quilt that I'd made for our bed and was struggling with figuring out my Flynn Frame.  I did finally figure out the frame, but decided against quilting this giant quilt as my first try, so it got put away and I'd feel guilty about it every March (I wanted to give it to my husband as an anniversary present!).  But recently I was meeting my friend Jaye for lunch and she was taking a quilt in to be quilted by someone from BAMQG.  I said "hey maybe I oughta just give up on ever quilting this thing myself and have her do it."  And Jaye being the practical, encouraging, get-it-done sort of friend that she is said "Yes, bring it!"  So I did and here it is all quilted, voila'.  

I didn't know what to expect or if the quilter would take a look at this crazy, wonky, raw-edge quilt top and say "uh, no thanks."  But Marci at Lily Street Quilts was up for the challenge of quilting over all those raw edges and it turned out great.   Absolutely worth the cost!  (Thanks Marci!)
Just the binding and label need to be sewn on, and they're already made, I'm sewing them on today, just watch me.  And then I'll have my anniversary present ready in time (pshew!).   When the binding is finished I'll try pinning it up on my design wall and take an official picture which I'll post.

 The green background bullseye blocks in the middle came from a swap that I did waaaay back when with Quilting Arts Forum. The other bullseyes on the pink backgrounds I made myself.   All the rest is sashing and setting and random blocks that I came up with to make the quilt into something big enough for our bed.

There are two corners with a hand-dyed green background with the circles left over from trimming out the bullseye blocks.  Bullseyes are stacks of three circles and you cut out the centers so that the blocks aren't quadruple thick layered.  Lots of leftover circles, and I had to use them for something...
Also, you can see the swoopy, spirally pattern that I chose in this picture here pretty well.  It's quilted allover in this pattern in green thread.  I thought it suited the whole quilt pretty well.

On the whole this quilt is very chaotic and haphazard looking because it was made over the course of many years. Not as planned out or designed as I'd have chosen.  But you know, I like how it turned out, it has a lot of spring, happy energy and it's going to look great on our bed.
Finally a quilt big enough for our bed! This is a bigger deal than you'd imagine.