Wandering Wednesday - Sedona

I know, it's Thursday. Guess I didn't push the publish button yesterday as planned.

Anyways...here's some pictures of our short vacation in Sedona. We've been here many times, my parents have a time-share we were lucky to get to enjoy with them.

 I know I've probably taken these exact pictures several times. But the beauty of this place is irresistible.

 The red rocks look different at all times of the day.

 The spines on this, oh they brought back memories of my husband's bike crash there a few years ago, right into one of these. We were pulling the spines out of him for a week.

We don't know if we'll get back to Sedona again, but we're glad we got to go so many times over the years.

Freeway Stitching

Here's an example of what I call Freeway Stitching. It's hand-stitching I do while we're in freeway traffic, it turns out it's better for the driver if I'm not watching (and overreacting!). This is on a small quilt that has been partway quilted, I thought it needed something extra.

Finished Jacket

 I finished the sweatshirt jacket I began at the CQFA retreat. My aunt requested ocean colors, so I did my best.

 Here's a close-up of the fabrics and the stitching and the messy raw edges.

Here's the back of the jacket. I hope it fits her and she likes the fabric choices.

Wandering Wednesday - Judy's Sewing

I was making my usual round of errands through Santa Cruz, and saw a Going Out Of Business sign on Judy's Sewing in Santa Cruz. This is really sad, they've been in business a long time, I used to go to their store in Scott's Valley. Judy's has been a long-time go-to LQS for me, I will miss having it as one of the local options.

I think it's just very hard to keep up specialty brick and mortar stores these days. They had a big sale going on, so I scooped up some end of bolts and other fabrics, as well as two spools of Bottom Line thread.  I really hope someone buys the business and it doesn't close down.

Holly Hedge

This applies to a lot of life, not just writing, of course. But sometimes, to me, my writing time feels very selfish, since it's only for me. The results of my quilting time is at least shared with other people, by either handing them a completed quilt, providing art for the walls, or something to look at online. My writing is just mine though. So it feels selfish when I spend a lot *or any* time on it.

But I don't sleep well if I don't write every day. Some internal processing mechanism of mine has come to depend upon getting some of the words out of my head so that's it's quiet enough for me to get to sleep.

 As inhospitable as a holly hedge, that's what it feels like sometimes, taking that time out to write.
All prickly keep-out's, should's and you-oughta-be's. Being inhospitable to one's self though is very short-sighted isn't it? You're the one you spend the most time with, and your ongoing, life-long conversation with yourself is pretty important. So really, c'mon,  it isn't selfish to take the time to write, if that's what's required to keep that conversation going. And to get to sleep.

Wandering Wednesday-Local Yokel

 Some local yokel type of pictures from the last week or so. First up, some Scotts Valley movie marquee humor. Say the words out loud to the cadence of Queen's song Bohemian Rhapsody and you'll get it.

 A old rock wall in downtown Boulder Creek.

 Cartoon pink clouds as seen from Costco in Santa Cruz.

 So. Much. Rain. At. Once. It's been a very wet week, almost up to 10" total!

And all of a sudden it turned slushy and hail-y and almost snowy. A few hundred feet higher, and we would have had real sticking-around-snow.

Ribbons and Rulers

 These ribbons are so gorgeous, Renaissance Ribbons doing such a great job of translating quilt/fabric designers work into such a different medium. Not sure what I'll do with these, but they have some great project suggestions on their site.

A trip to my LQS, Modern Handmade last month. I'm going to give this BlocLoc ruler thing a try, starting with the Flying Geese version. More on that later after I've tried it.  I also picked up a quilt pattern that caught my eye, (you can see a peek of it on the top there) which is not a thing I usually do, but it looked like such a great way to highlight great fabric. And then three fabrics on clearance sale, love it.

Making Choices for Good Fortune

Here's the fabrics I picked out of my stash to do the Good Fortune quilt.

 I was trying to make sure I've got the right color assortment according to how much yardage of each color is called for in the pattern, so I stuck a ruler up against the whole stack, and then did the percentages math... I might be short on oranges or reds, but I want to try and do this quilt without buying any more new fabric. I'm going to start sewing and see how it goes...

Here's the fabrics fanned-out a bit, the lighting on the whole thing isn't very even so the greys look much whiter than they are, and the blues look muddy/darker than they are.

 This shows the greys a bit better I think. I hope they're neutral-is enough, I don't have enough cream colored fabrics in my stash to even come close, so I'm trying this with the lighter greys.

 I think this is going to be a fun and colorful quilt to work on!

Color Picking and Good Fortune

Here's an amazing color picking app, Color Supply, it's intended for use in choosing color schemes for digital illustrations, so it gives the hex values for the main colors. But I thought it was a great all-on-one-screen tool for looking at color choices. You can scroll through complementary, analogous, etc... and change the colors in each setup.

I thought it might be a good resource for quilters. There's a little essay/explainer on the site about why to choose warm vs. cool colors for branding a website/product and it made me think about that in terms of "branding" the quilts we're making. If you're looking to make a happy quilt choose this: X, if you're wanting a somber quilt choose this: X instead, etc. Color tells a story, evokes emotions, etc.

Hey, is there a hex value to kona cottons (or other fabric line's solids) chart somewhere?

I used this tool to help me pick fabrics to use in the Good Fortune mystery quilt.

Pics of those choices tomorrow...

Quiltville's Quips & Snips

Wandering Wednesday - Asilomar Outside

 The evening view as the sun starts going down from the main building at Asilomar.

 The trees, cypress I think, formed by the on-shore wind.

 The full moon lighting up the cloud cover took my breath away.

 View of contrails from the beach at sunset.

 Sunset view on Asilomar beach.

 Kind of sort of tide pools on the rocks.

 Rocky beach sunset view.

 It really was worth getting up from our sewing machines and toddling down to the beach to catch the sunset.

 Closeup, love the arrangement of shapes and oh that purple.

 One of the large trees fell right next to the building we stayed in during the big storm the week before we arrived. Luckily it didn't wreck the building!

There is hanging moss on absolutely everything,(see previous picture), even the power lines.

At Home Quilt Show

 I was taking pictures of the stuff in our house the other day for an insurance review and snapped all these pictures of some of my quilts that I have up on the wall for display right now. They've all been up there for a while, so it might be time to switch some around. This first one is Variegated Exit/Entrance, made is made with my dyed and discharged fabrics.

 Gray Street, which is a whole cloth quilt, one piece of potato starch discharge, quilted with the lyrics to the song of the same name.

 Senses of Flowers, collage quilt.

 Seeing Red 3, one of a series of bullseye block swap quilts I did with friends Jaye and Adrienne.

 As Above, So Below,  made of all plaid wovens.

J & J Bullseye, the first in a series of bullseye block swaps I did with friend Jaye, here's the one she made. I really like the setting I came up with this one.

Product Review - Magic Pins

I received these 1 3/4" Taylor-Seville Magic Pins in the mail from MassDrop right before the CQFA retreat so I brought them along to try them out. Turned out I really needed them as my traveling pincushion had hardly any pins in it? (Why? Where? Did? They? Go?) The sweatshirt jacket I was working on requires a ton of pins to get all the squares and rectangles situated and stable enough to work with on the machine.

Well...are they "Magic" or not? I confess, I'm like a lot of consumers, I'll give something a try if there's a magic thrown in the product name. Sad but true, at least I'm conscious of that bias, right?

These are very well-made pins, the "comfort grip handles" are actually quite nice and easy to grab, a little squishy to the touch so they don't hurt your fingers if you pinch too hard. The metal of the pin itself seems just fine to me, not at all rough, and the tips were plenty sharp. The handles are actually heat resistant, but I wouldn't put the iron down on top of them and leave it or anything.

One of the best things was that they didn't leave a hole in the fabric behind as some pins will. I noticed this with the batiks I was working with on the sweatshirt jacket, batiks are very finely woven and tend to hold onto pinholes, but not with these pins, which was nice to see.

I didn't care too much for the case that came with them, but I likely won't be using that as they're now all stuck in my pincushion, It was hard to get open, so that's probably a good thing so they don't spill in your drawer or bag.

I'd recommend these if you're looking for a pin for lightweight sewing, piecing that sort of thing. Not for more heavy clothes-weight fabric or many layers. I had a couple pins bend on me as I used them on the sweatshirt jacket.

Sweatshirt Update

Update on the sweatshirt jacket I'm making for my aunt, the first layer of patches have all been stitched down in one direction. Next is a whole lot of stitching in the opposite direction, and then the second layer of patches.It's a lot of bobbin's worth of thread! But the hardest part of the work is done, and the sharpest part, it's virtually impossible to stitch one of these without getting pin-pricked. Never say I don't bleed for my art....

Goodbye Culcita

 I've enjoyed getting a Culcita box over the last couple years. There was always such a great selection of fabrics, ones that I wouldn't have normally purchased, but that all worked together.

And they were always packaged up so nicely, which doesn't really matter, but still made it a real treat to receive in the mail.  But they're stopping the subscription service and concentrating on the SewTites (which are very cool by the way!)

So now I'm on the lookout for another subscription box or something like it. Any recommendations?

Fourteen Years Later

Fourteen years later, it seemed like the time to work on this round-robin project again. I dug it out and got it ready for the CQFA retreat. While I was there I added the final borders and pieced a back together. I had intended to baste it but the batting I brought was the wrong size.

So now I'm home and I have plenty of batting so no excuses, right?! I'm going to quilt it, it's just at the upper range of the size of quilts that I'm able to do, but I'm going for it.

It was wild going through all the fabrics I had gathered together for this quilt, they're allll "celestials" so they have suns moons stars, etc. You really don't see these much anymore.

I'm basting it today and then it's off to my machine get this baby quilted.