Safe at Home - Row 1 Done

Here's the completed first row of the Safe at Home quilt.

 I like how different each block is from the next.

 So far I am still enjoying working with these colors. The fabrics are a mixture of older prints, batiks, solids and more modern prints, put it all together and it works (for me.)

 They're very happy and vibrant.

 And I like how they look against the greys.

Wow those photos got so wonky, I was trying to avoid a shadow.

Prints & Coordinates

I did some fabric washing last week, all the fabric I've bought in the last few months. This is it, the result of months of shelter in place.

It's the first two Modern Quilter's Boxes worth of fat quarters. Look how nicely they all play together. I don't know if it was intentional or a happy accident.

If I throw in some coordinating solids, I think this might be a good initial pull of fabrics to use with one of the patterns that was included in the box. It's a good mix of colors and print sizes.

Fourth Flower Friday

 Welcome to the fourth Flower Friday. I'm glad I started doing this, it's making sure that I get pictures of all the flowers every week. So it's finally Day Lily time, woohoo! We had some very strange weather and it rained, so these beauties didn't last very long 😖.

 I planted these special day lilies a couple years ago, and now they're starting to be regular bloomers.

 I'm glad the gophers didn't get to them.

I think of this one as a "common" day lily, but just like the "common" purple bearded iris, the deep color is just gorgeous out in the garden.

 The acanthus are very happy so far this year.

 Yay! The clematis survived, it's climbing up the fence along with the volunteer California native honeysuckle (that's the  smaller flower peeking over the purple petal of the clematis.

 The variegated sage gets these delicate little flowers that don't stick around too long.

 The Watsonia is continuing to bloom more and more along the flower stalks.

 Another flowering sage.

One of the old roses that came with our house, old reliable Mr. Lincoln.

Blackout Tuesday

It needs to be said, because it is not a given: Black Lives Matter.

Along with a lot of other white people, I am muting my voice today and instead sharing some links to content from Black creators. Time to listen.

A few things to read:

99 Years After the Tulsa Race Massacre, an Artist Reflects
The American Nightmare
The 1619 Project
We Know What it is to Bury a Child

Read and/or follow these folks on twitter:
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yamiche Alcindor
Eva DuVernay
Nikole Hannah Jones
Maya Wiley
Elie Mystal

If you have extra $$:
Donate to bail funds

Watch this great Mary Frances Berry interview:

Safe at Home One Done

Time to start sewing these blocks together. First the Flying Geese, twelve per block.

Almost together, hope it all fits.

First block all sewn together. I really like it! The varied greys really works the way I wanted it to. Now to assemble the last four and get onto working on row #2.

Modern Mail Box

Very very excited with the most recent Modern Quilter's Box from my LQS,  Modern Handmade.
The fabrics are luscious colors from the Hindsight collection from Anna Maria Horner. I really love the Echinacea Glow fabrics in three colorways.
Several patterns included, two for quilts that are good for big prints like these fabrics, and one bag pattern that looks rather handy.
The tool this month is a very substantial pair of tweezers, good for picking out paper bits from paper piecing, I love the glowing green.
A roll of mints and a Stash tea flavor I haven't tried before, Jasmine.
Last but not least, the cutest sticker reminding us to "Look on the bright side"
Indeed.
What a great box full!

Safe at Home Choose Your Center Adventure

As I've been working on this first row of blocks for the Safe At Home quilt, my keeps getting stuck on that very very light grey center square. It was too much contrast and to my eye detracts from the overall form of the block.

Now that I'm closer to final assembly on these blocks, it was finally time 

"to make visual decisions visually"!

 This is almost right, but too much texture.

 As much as I love this fabric, it's all wrong for these centers, too strong of a pattern design, and the shade is much too dark.

 I almost went with this one, but decided the print was too much texture.

I wanted it to be this one because I love this print so much, but it was still too pale.

Yes! This almost-a-solid was the perfect combination of very slight texture and the right subtle shades of grey.

 Here's how it looks in all the blocks so far. On the right is a column of the grey squares I tried out in this exercise. Maybe I'll be able to use them in the rest of the rows of this quilt, who knows? I haven't looked at the rest of the rows yet!

Flower Friday the Third

 Flower Friday for the third time, why not? There are plenty of flowers around this time of year. First up is the California native tree, California Buckeye. These flowers are lightly sweet smelling and look vaguely tropical to me.

 I planted this one because it looks so much like rosemary, but it's not, and now I've lost the tag for it. So don't ask me the name!

Here's the real Rosemary. The bees love this plant so much.

 Rabbit Ear Lavender (Spanish Lavender), the bees also love this one.

 Our Rangpur Lime is doing very well this year, and I love the scent of the blossoms. The limes are perfect in a good G&T when it is cocktail hour.

Creative Cornucopia

Time for a  Creative Cornucopia post I think!

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Time to get ready for this year's ICAD, Index Card A Day for June & July. That's 61 chances to fill up an index card with whatever art you feel like doing that day. Here's the video I made last year of all of my cards:

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If you want some creative prompts to utilize during this time, you might like this "creative care package" from Carla Sonheim.

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Visions Art Museum has been sending out a Stir Crazy creative prompt every week, and some of them are pretty inspiring.

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Linda Gass has posted two great behind the scenes videos describing her research and creative process for a current exhibit entitled "Someday There May Be No More Snow" about the change in the water content of the California snow pack. So fascinating to see both the thinking and creating processes for this beautiful piece.

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Go put your headphones on and test your tone deafness. I had always guessed that I have close to perfect pitch, and what do you know I do.

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The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles has a youtube channel with some really cool videos, especially this Textile Talk by Melissa Leventon entitled Fashion and Anti-Fashion: Reflections on Artwear.

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This is a little old, but Go take this test, to discover your Creative Type.
Apparently I am "The Visionary"

Creative Strengths: Full of big ideas, ability to see potential and possibility everywhere
Untapped Potential: Using your visions to fuel consistent daily action
My Ideal Collaborator is: The Thinker

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A new to me Radiohead song, "Ill Wind" was released early last year, the lyrics of which happen to be very prophetic for the current times we're living through:

Keep your distance 

Then no harm will come 

No ill wind will blow

Will blow

Wandering Wednesday - Remembering Hong Kong

I've been thinking about Hong Kong a whole lot lately, because of the recent events taking place there.

China just decided to change the rules on keeping Hong Kong a separate thing. The whole One Country Two Systems thing that was implemented when the UK gave up their control in 1997 is suddenly over.

The Chinese had promised Hong Kong that they would be autonomous until 2047. And now suddenly they're just...not.

And the people are back in the streets protesting again (with their masks on) and who knows what will happen.

I'm worried for all of them and I have almost no hope that they will prevail.

It seems as there is no entity that can really tell China to cut it out.

 I wish they could all sit down and have a cup of milk tea and work it out.

 But that's not realistic of course.

 There's so much money at stake, it's almost hard to conceive of how much.

 As well as not wanting to be seen as losing, or being soft, China cannot give in now.

 This huge population is suddenly living in such uncertainty.

 I truly hope that something can stop this from proceeding.

I have a feeling that I'm now going to look back on these pictures of street scenes in Hong Kong as The Before.