Fifth Week of ICAD

The fifth week of ICAD, first one includes a Good Earth tea-bag quote. I have a little stash of these that I choose from. They're the perfect size for the size of the 4x6" index card.

Closeup of the words" "All I can do is be me, whoever that is." ~ Bob Dylan

I really love the glowing intensity of color I got to happen on this one. Lots of layers and color combining.

This reminded me of buttons at first but then I realized it's typewriter keys. Specifically this one: #

I think this one might make a nice spoon flower printed fabric if I could work out the repeat.

Done on the Fourth of July, natch. I forget where I got that sticker, but it's been hanging around my worktable for a while on the piece of clear plastic wrapping I cut it from.

Drive-Through Wandering Wednesday

We just don't go anywhere anymore. 

So when we actually are out and about doing errands, I take pictures if I'm passenging (that's my word for being a passenger). Coming back from Capitola, my DH wanted to see how crowded the beaches were on the pre-4th of July Friday, so we took "the long way home" along the beach. This is the view as we came around the corner to first see the ocean. It was a nice day with the fog bank far offshore.

Schwan Lagoon that is right across the road from the ocean. One of the twin lakes that are called lagoons, the other one turns into Santa Cruz Harbor.

At least there were social distancing banners up at the beach. Santa Cruz was the only Bay Area beach system that was open over the holiday weekend.

It was pretty sparse out there, so that was good to see. I think going to the beach is probably pretty safe, as long as you wear a mask when you go into the communal spaces like bathrooms and snack shacks and showers, etc.

The tips of the masts in Santa Cruz Harbor.

All those weeds on the train tracks, even though these tracks are still in use.

The peeling bark of Eucalyptuss trees, always so beautiful and interesting.

And then closer to home, I thought this was very cool. In Scotts Valley all along Scotts Valley Drive, there are banners for each of the high school graduation class of 2020, with their grad picture and first name. Nice, huh?

Halfway Through

Way back at the start of this year, I found this great calendar over at nerd-bucket. I don't remember who pointed me towards it, but I've been using it to track daily exercise. Every day that I exercise in some way, I get to color in the daily section. According to my own set of rules, I get to do this whether it's a full-on gym workout (only in January & February unfortunately since the gym has been closed down) or walking the dog or anything in between. As an aside, our gym has recently re-opened just this month, and I miss going to it so very much, but I just can't risk it. Also I can't imagine trying to workout while wearing a mask.

I've been feeling stronger and better physically lately, and I can look at this single piece of paper and instantly see why. Somehow it is more motivating than all the info on my FitBit. It's easy to get quite down on myself about the day to day, month to month variations of how much energy I do or do not have. But now that I can see in a concrete visual format that I have indeed been more consistent with getting some exercise nearly daily--and I do feel better, it encourages me to keep moving. And that was the point all along, hurray for something actually working! 

This feels huge for some reason, which is why I'm writing it down here. I look at those few days not colored in over the last three months and feel proud that they are so few and am motivated to have even fewer in this month. 

Celestial Round Robin Complete

Here's a finish for the quarter two list, the Celestial Round Robin. I finished the quilting and made the binding.

This was started back in 2005 as a CQFA round robin project. I sewed the blocks together in 2008 at a CQFA retreat. Last year at the CQFA retreat at Asilomar, I sewed the borders on and pieced the back together. And finally, fifteen years later, here it is.

My star piecing skills have definitely improved over the years, a lot of those points are not so very pointy.

I love the block Dolores Miller did for this, she printed out galaxies and nebulas for the centers and then pieced these awesome stars.

We'll see how the stars hold up when it gets washed for the first time. They are stitched on, not glued, so I'm hopeful. But if they come off, I'll replace them somehow.

And it has been claimed already by DH. It's a lighter weight than the other couch quilts which put him instantly to sleep because they're heavy and cozy. 

Safe at Home 3rd Row

After quite a lot of half-square triangle and flying geese piecing, row three of the Safe At Home quilt is done.

Here's how it looks with the other two rows. Now on to row #4.

Fourth week of ICAD

The fourth week of ICAD came and went. Back in the rhythm of it.

Blue/Orange again. This one is my favorite of this week's worth of work.

This is what happens when your go-to collage source is National Geographic, there always always skulls.

This is such a strange conglomeration of images, a gorilla and baby, red-breasted bird, strawberries, slime mold, a magnifying glass, a South African cheerleader orange fur helmet, and a photo of Henry J. Heinz.

Torn up and turned-over images.

Flower Friday Fandango

Our pomegranate tree is very happy this year. We pruned it a lot so I guess all the blossoms are due to that.

A bunch of the pomegranate blossoms fell off and they were pretty not to arrange on the grass with some Santa Barbara daisies.

The flowers on this Sage are so restrained, but I love the structure of them.

Good ol' Dusty Miller.

I know I've posted about the Angel's Trumpet many times now, but it's one of the plants I'm the happiest about lately. It just smells so good. I can smell it up on the second floor and at night it's heavenly.

It's fun to stand underneath and look up into all the yellow.

I need to add this one to my shadows tag.

Calendula is a lot like a mini-sun.

The first daylily I planted, kind of a gnarly color, but I still enjoy it.

One of my nemesis, the St. Johns Wort, it's taken over a hillside and is creeping into my flowerbed. It's very hard to dig up, the runners are deep and strung. 

Another nemesis, the wild Sweet Pea. It reseeds and is so prolific. Right now it's battling the St. John's Wort and I can't decide who to root for.

And not a flower, but the result of a flower, our plum tree. It's so old and lichen-filled, we don't know how much longer it will be productive. It's at least 30 years old by now, and the plums are still very sweet.

Third Week of ICAD

The third week of ICAD work went pretty well.

A good mixture of collage and other media.

I like the depth of this one.

I still am drawn to the Blue/Orange contrast.

Made with scraps from the Father's Day card I made on my Circuit for my dad.

The white bar at the top is a water test strip. FYI we have soft water.