Still Out

 Power is still out, no internet, chancy cellular. Hopefully this posts. At least the fires are out! 

More on this Mini Maker Case later.

Power's Out--Again

 We had a big wind event last night and into this morning, 68 mph gusts, so of course our power is out. We have almost no cell service, and internet until the Comcast batteries last on their towers. 

We have the generator going, and are hoping that our brand-new refrigerator doesn't mind the power outage too much. We sure don't want to lose yet another fridge worth of food.

Most of the roads are blocked, and there are at least 10 fires started from the downed power lines, some in the areas that already burned last year. For some reason PG&E didn't turn off the power preemptively like they did several times over the summer. So of course stuff is burning, it's been very dry so far this winter, and very warm this past week. Not a good combo, we're hoping the wind lets up asap.

I'm off to try sewing with my machine plugged into an extension cord that leads to the generator, wish me luck. I've got a project to finish!

And I'm checking the Tesla website to see when the heck they're going to install our power wall.

Meanwhile, if you have power and bandwidth go watch this awesome NPR Tiny Desk concert from Tank and the Bangas. Tank was singing one of the songs in a movie we watched last night, One Night in Miami (very awesome) and I loved her voice so much, I looked her up and found this. What a presence, what joy and emotion!:

New Fridge Happy Dance

 After all that effort of cleaning and re-cleaning after the fire evacuation, the Refrigerator of Doom has been replaced. It decided on New Year's Eve to stop being a refrigerator and just be a cabinet. Ahem. After two weeks of buying ice for our coolers and using a dorm fridge, the replacement was delivered last week. Halleleuia! Cue the Snoopy Happy Dance Music:

It was terribly exciting and honestly a little scary to have actual people in our house that aren't us. It's been quite a while because of the lockdown and all. The delivery guys were inside for less than 10 minutes. It's amazing how easy it is to move a refrigerator when you have the right tools and a team that knows what they're doing. Truly the most exciting thing to happen in months and months at our house, which says a lot about this era, doesn't it?

The water is good, and even better, the ice doesn't have that funky aftertaste that never really went away, so I'm really happy. And wow did I ever miss having ice water whenever I felt like it. That's how I drink most of my water during the day, and I think I was mildly dehydrated the last couple of weeks.

I'm not going to get into a big thing on planned obsolescence, but c'mon, that fridge didn't even make it to 5 years!! Having literal bells and whistles, well electronic songs at least, is not what we as consumers want or need. We want the big ticket item things that we buy to last. What a waste of metal and plastic and all the electronics that fridge was. It makes me agree even more with the premise of the Brave Little Toaster. 

We are feeling very lucky that we are in the position to be able to buy another appliance without a big problem, and to refill it with all the food we had to throw away. And that there was one available without a several month wait like there was right after the fire. Taking all this for granted has been a real eye opener for me. Fingers crossed that I'm not revisiting this subject in less than five years!

Now to figure out how to cut off the *(#*&%(#* plastic wrap without ruining the exterior.

Saturday Repast

 

It has been unseasonably warm the past few days, mid-70's in mid-January, is pretty unusual. We took advantage yesterday and ate our lunch outside in the sun. The carrots and tomatoes are fresh from the store, in already-washed packages, I tried to ignore the mild after taste of bleach. The fresh pre-sliced mozzarella was bland and creamy good. No crackers required. There are always bits of trees around on the deck so I put one on the plate for "garnish". We didn't eat that.

I really like the colors in this picture quite a lot which is why I posted it today. It's almost like I get to live in the palette of color choices that I enjoy the most, what a privilege it is to be able to arrange my life like that. Sunday morning thoughts...

According to Palette Builder, this would work out well as a quilt.

Not Yet Farewell

 

I have made the executive decision to not put away Christmas until Inaguration Day. 

Our tree is still very green and fresh, no dropping needles, so it's safe. 

And we did put it up quite late on 12/14. 

And there were several requests to keep everything up as it's quite cheery and boy oh boy do we need cheery these days.

My plan is to watch the festivities on tv and pack it all up. 

I'm looking forward to a fresh start on several counts.

And by the way, this is how the tilted squares table runner that I made looks out on our table.

Lone Round Robin - More Quotes

 

I added two more quotes, ones to either side border for the ninth round for the Lone Round Robin.

Having an almost solid line on the top and the bottom but not on the sides looked a bit odd to my eye. 

Pictured here is the tail end of one of them: Let's Not Screw This Up!!

For posterity's sake, the other two quotes are as follows:

"We long to return to normal, but ++normal led to this++. Ed Yong, 8/3/20

 

and an instagram meme, 

"First time in history, we can save the human race by lying in front of the TV and doing nothing. Let's not screw this up!!"

Now to figure out how and where to add in the orange fabric. I think I'll add some of the white print as well, or maybe the orange/white print. We shall see...

Lone RR - Round 9

 Round 9 for the Lone Round Robin is to write or embroider a quote about 2020. I decided to use my new sewing machine and use the lettering functions to embroider two quotes. I used grey rayon thread on the grey fabric because I didn't want the line of words to be too in-your-face and contrasty.

I'm still deciding if the two side borders need their own quotes or not, and how to get some of that orange into this round as well. Maybe some stars in the corners?

Oh, and of course the two quotes COVID related. Since you can't read them well in this picture, here's what I chose.

First is from Dr. Nancy Messonnier on 2/25/20. She is the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was talking about community spread of COVID on a White House press briefing call and said this: "It's not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen." And then the stock market fell off a cliff the next day, and the White House took over all communications about the pandemic and we are where we are. Telling the truth, warning the public, urging us to prepare for our lives to irrevocably change was not allowed.

 

The second quote is from Dr. Anthony Fauci on 5/2.20: "Now is the time, if there ever was one, for us to care selflessly about one another." Indeed and still.

Wandering Wednesday - Filoli

 

Looking back to last year, there was one fun excursion I took that I didn't share on here. The day after the lightning storm that started the CZU fire, in the midst of a record heat wave, I met friend Jaye and went to Filoli Gardens for the first time. It was the first we'd seen each other in months and at a time in the Bay Area where the COVID restrictions were more relaxed. We wore masks, I carried a giant umbrella for some shade in the 100F+ heat, it was glorious. Within hours I was racing around my house and evacuating because of the fire.

I took a bazillion pictures and will share them over the next few Wednesdays. 

This first picture is of the side entrance gate, I love the reminder sign on it, this estate is right up against the mountains where a whole lot of deer live. 

There are so very many trees at Filoli, but the peeling bark of I think a Crape Myrtle was really striking and eye catching.

I think this pomegranate was a different variety than the one I have, but it gave me some ideas for pruning the rather out of control bush/tree in my garden.

The imperfection of this pruning made me stop in my tracks and  lol😁. In such a tightly controlled and managed place, the one little bit sticking out made me feel ever so much better about my own garden.

The bees were very busy all through the garden, it was the height of summer, so of course.

The gorgeous yew trees and the back of the house. 

There were so many faces in the statuary.

This one was a little bit eerie, vaguely demonic even ?!?

This enormous planter was really striking, what a beautiful design. Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?

Lone Round Robin - Round 8

After a lot of gazing at what was up on the design wall, the round 8 blockade has finally been broken.

 I realized I didn't have quite enough hourglass blocks to make it all the way around. 

So I made a few more, and came up with this layout. With my design wall being white, I got to consider how it would be to use that white print used in some of the hourglass blocks, especially the stretched ones on the top and the bottom. I thought it would be too differently weighted compared to the other rounds being mostly grey backgrounded. Especially with the busyness and action from the hourglass blocks and all the prints.

The addition of one of the other grays used way back in round 2 as a filler. I like how the print looks in addition to the hourglass blocks.  That white print which isn't just white, it really comes through reading as a solid.

Two more rounds to go! 

Year Long Class

I'm taking a year-long class with Carla Sonheim, and so far, my first week's project is pretty fun. It's a little hard switching back and forth from fabric work to mixed-media work in my studio, but it's worth it. She does a great job of explaining what she's doing as she's doing it, so watching her teaching videos are very useful for me. It's going to be fun to use some of the materials I've had sitting around unused and make some good messes.

Sunday Selfie: Portrait of a Reader

 

We can call this one a self portrait of a reader. Excited to finally have a library book come in that I've been waiting months and months for:

I am so glad that I just looked up the book online to see that the cover of it is supposed to look worn out! I was honestly a little worried about the state of this library book as it's fairly new, but now I get it. It's supposed to look like a book that's been carried around and read a lot, kind of like pre-worn in jeans. 

We absolutely devoured the bonkers HBO show based on the book, so I really wanted to read it while I'm waiting on a season 2 to come out. 

Of course, that very same day, the electronic version of it that I'd also requested, arrived online as available. Why oh why? I went with the real deal to give my eyes a break from screen time. 

I've been reading (or listening) to a lot of library books with the great digital resources available they offer these days so this kind of stands out. It requires less trips out of the house, less physical contact with things other folks have handled, etc. The library has a COVID policy of quarantining the books returned before they carefully handle them, so I'm assuming it's okay. 

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Design Wall Saturday

 A look at what’s up on my design wall. The pinned up quilt top of the Safe At Home along with assorted blocks that will end up on the quilt back. A recent finish from Journey2Nebula. My Lone round Robin in progress and a printed piece from Brooklyn Mojo.

Lone Round Robin - Round 8 Progress

 

I've been tussling with the next round on the Lone Round Robin. The prompt for this round is to add an Hourglass block. My first idea was to have a streeeetched out one. Usually they're a square made up of contrasting triangles.

This is the usual way you make an hourglass block. Two fabrics, sew on both sides of a diagonal then cut apart on the two diagonals.

Yeah, that's not gonna do it.

Rip it, rip it.

Okay, try this again, sew the pieces together in a way that'll actually work. Those points look like they might be in the right place...

Yes, much better.

But now what?

Trying out some "regular" hourglasses.

Hmmm, can work with that.

It's going to be hard to get this just right. It's a bit much as far too many colors and prints in this round. Might have to take some of them out or maybe put the greens on one side and the oranges on the other.

I'm going to have to play around with this a little before I sew it together. Maybe some "background" squares in-between?

Lone Round Robin - Rounds 5, 6, 7

 

The fifth round's prompt was to make a black and white striped fabric with 1" strips. I knew I didn't want it to be a continuous round so I broke it up in to sections that I framed in the center's fabric.

This is how it looks at the end of round five.

The sixth round prompt is to use a polka dot fabric. Now unfortunately I did just that in the fifth round, whoops. I almost just counted it as two rounds, but instead I decided to search for a fabric that was polka-dot-ish enough to count that would work. 

I tried out several things, and a lot of them would have worked.

I settled on this black and white batik polka dot, the printing is slightly askew and non-regular so it looks very interesting to me, gives it more movement.

Here are almost all of the fabrics I've used so far. All prints.

The seventh round was to include four half square triangles. I took it mean "at least" four. I used a reads as solid grey print that was used back in the very first round and the central fabric.

Here's how it looks at the end of the seventh round. It's really shaping up, three more rounds left to go.

Wandering Wednesday - Skyline to the Sea Trail

We started our annual New Year's Day hike on The Skyline to the Sea trail from the parking lot of the scenic vista pullout on highway 9.  This is one of my favorite traditions that we've established as a family. It's always different combinations of family members from year to year, but we always go somewhere and hike the first day of the new year, no matter what.

It was a little cloudy but at least there wasn't any rain. This shot is one of my favorite techniques to lower the cellphone to knee height and take a picture just to see how it looks later.

This is looking out towards Monterey in the distance.

It was fairly quiet on the trail even though we were fairly close to the highway.

There were some clean-picked bones on a rock, someone had a good New Year's Eve feast.

This tree was a good balance beam for the kids to try out. We couldn't convince the gymnastics niece to do her routine (smart decision on her part). This was the other side of the highway, it didn't have big views, but was a very cool trail, very different plants like ferns, etc. and no big grassy meadows. It's all about the light in the redwood forest.

The masked up crew, minus the one niece who doesn't like taking photos. It is not fun hiking with a mask on, but I did it.

The sun came out just as we got to the end of the trail. We'd hiked about 3 miles. It was a fairly easy loop trail, not too steep which is unusual up in the mountains.

We snagged the picnic table and hung out eating snacks and laughing at the ridiculous street racers gathering at the pullout.

Little glimpses of the sea glimmering on the horizon.

The beautiful panorama. No idea what the bright blue glimmer is, maybe something on my camera lens?

We hung around just long enough to catch the beginnings of the sunset.