Wandering Wednesday - San Diego

 Last month we spent a week in San Diego, DH had a work conference. The view out our window was of PetCo park, which was lovely at the golden hour.

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was fun, and kind of hilarious too for a professional, tech conference. There was so much booze in the room, like full-size bottles, not just the mini-bar size. And you could check out electric guitars and amps at the front desk?!? No I didn't do that, but I could have.

But I did notice the bed linens, look at that nice subtle guitar design.

The hotel is right at the beginning of the gaslamp district.

I spent a lot of time hanging out on the rooftop bar area in the mornings sketching and listening to podcasts, it was very nice out there. And quiet since the bar wasn't open. Note to self, track down this plant for my garden, such a cool color and shape.

There was a Very Shiny Tesla parked on the street. All chromed, can you imagine being behind this  vehicle on a sunny day?

There was a lot of construction, but most of it unfortunately new buildings of condos, this was a rehab of a historic building, you could peek in and see the way older buildings were constructed. So different than all the concrete and rebar of today.

 One of the signs in the Hard Rock, these were the names of the meeting rooms, hah! Which one would you choose?

 I got a nice haircut while I was there so I was pretty pleased with myself.

Good Advice

Some very good advice from my niece's birthday party t-shirt painting craft activity.

Tree-Texture and Form

 This texture was hard to resist.

 Yes, I did hug this one. I couldn't resist, I tried.

 There's something about trees in early spring, you can see their shape so much easier.

Spring Flowers

Happy to report that alllllll that rain has brought a lot of spring flowers to my garden.

Finish-a-Long Q2

Well, there are another three months on the calendar, and here's my plan to fill them with some quilty finishes for the Q2 Finish-a-Long. I'm choosing a variety of things, some have very little left to do on them, some a whole lot more. Hopefully some of them (ie more than just one) will be finishes.Who knows, maybe seven is my lucky number...

1. Triangle Study - Finish piecing, quilt, bind, sleeve, label.

2. May You Ever Return - Finish piecing, quilt, bind, sleeve, label.

 3. False Flag Sorbet - Sleeve and label.

4.  Slurpee Stitched - Binding or facing, sleeve, label.

5. Celestial Round Robin - Quilt, Bind, label.

6. Technology's Spine - Finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

7. Body Double - Finish quilting, bind, sleeve, label.

New Sketching Tool

 I was practicing using a new drawing tool on my iPad on a recent trip to San Diego.

These are a couple pictures of the hotel rooftop that I was kind of sketching with an apple pencil in the app, Sketches Pro. The app was very cheap for this many functions, $5.99, but is only for iOs.

This is a combination of many layers, I sketched the lights on one layer, the blue umbrella on another and then the background. It's very rough, and I'm very new at all the options and tools in this app, but it is a fun learning curve to be starting on. The apple pencil is a great tool, it didn't take too long to get used to how hard to handle it so that it does what I want it to.

Shadows

I'm thinking of starting a new series of quilts based on the pictures of shadows I've been taking lately.

What I'm envisioning is using monochrome colors. So like this one could be shades of green.

And this one, I'd edit into a black and white picture to get the color out of it.

 Something like this.

This one could be done in shades of brown.

Filing this post under Quilt Series Ideas

Wandering Wednesday - Grand Canyon

 Every single time I've been lucky enough to see the Grand Canyon, it hits me that the scale of it is so enormous, it's too much for my human eye to adequately process in real time.

 Even taking in small bits like this, it's still so hard to see the depth that's really there.

 So you have to give up and just enjoy it.

 Gasp-worthy beauty at every turn of the rim trail.

 Really, if you ever have the chance, it is worth the drive, it's a little out of the way, but you will not regret seeing this with your own eyes.

 The scale of it is so hard to get until you see it in person, so here's some people in the shot.

 This one shows the depth and layers pretty well.

I kept getting surprised by the snow.

Finish-a-Long Q1

Well out of 8 proposed finishes for the first quarter of this year's Finish-a-Long, I got 1 completely done.

 This is it, all done! Made for entering in the Cherrywood Challenge (didn't get in 😞) but it was fun to try it, and to sew with their really lovely fabrics. I entitled this: Listening To The Details.

As you can see, I had fun using a lot of colors of blues in the stitching.

I didn't have too much more quilting to do on this one, but I did need to do a little bit. Then there was the sewing down of the facing, adding a sleeve and a label. Done done and done. I will admit that it isn't hanging up yet though, but I'm still calling it a finish.

I worked on several others on the list and started and finished other projects (like one does, hah!)
I'm tempted to say so much for FOCUS as my word of the year, but I'm not giving up, it's been a challenging few months motivation wise. And thus I'll be posting a list for Q2 soon.

Last Time at Judy's

 One last run through Judy's Sewing in Santa Cruz, cleaned out most of their remaining American Made solids. I got to talk to Judy and she let me know that she'd found a buyer for the shop, and they're reopening this month.

I don't know why I love taking these pictures of the threads I cut from the edges of newly washed fabrics, something about the tangle of color and texture probably.