Getting the Words Down on the Surface

I really wanted to make a quilt to enter in the Century of Women's Progress exhibit, but I couldn't decide on one woman to focus on, so I went wide with the subject...very very wide.

I started out by making a rough sketch on my iPad in SketchesPro.

And since I had my new toy out and all ready to go I decided to try and use it to get words on the quilt surface that I wanted. I loaded up the Cricut with a sheet of Lutradur. 

I used Lutradur instead of fusible backed fabric because I was initially thinking of painting the letters.

 The Lutradur cut very well on the machine and mostly came off the mat easily. There was one font that I chose that made some of the letter sections too small and the Lutradur separated into layers.

Here's all the words before I peeled them off. How do you like all those fonts? The Cricut software has quite a lot to choose from which was a nice thing to discover.

My quilt subject is all about the roles that women can have and how they've changed since we got the vote in this country. 

I used Fabri-Tac glue to stick the letters to tulle netting which worked really well.

 I really loved the shadow in this picture so I enhanced it to post on Instagram. And isn't this font killer?

Here's how one of the words looks on the finished quilt. Once I find out whether the quilt is accepted I'll post more about it (sometime next week).

A New Tool

Hey, so now I have a Cricut Maker, it was a total surprise gift from my DH this Christmas. I know I know you're supposed to say "cricket" but I have a thing about purposely misspelled words so I say "Cry-Cut".  The thing came with a ton of accessories and tools and materials which have been so fun to play with.

 The first project they have you use to figure out the machine and software is this cute card. I guess I didn't take a picture of it with the kite shape replaced with a fabric piece. It's all cut and drawn on the machine. Super easy to use, and I like how well the software works with my iPad.

Here's what the leftovers look like on the sort of sticky mat you use with the machine. It anchors the materials down so that the precise cutting can happen. I have to use a little spatula thingie to scrape them off. It's a whole new thing. I need more paper now....I wonder if that fabric paper I made would work, hmmm.
I've cut some fabric with the teeny tiny rotary cutter already and it works very very well, more on that later.

Wandering Wednesday: Santa Clara

 Last weekend we got to go see one of my nieces competing in a gymnastics tournament. It was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center and I was marveling at how different the room looks filled with young gymnasts and equipment instead of quilts and quilters.

 The light in the parking garage was really striking.

 Maybe these would work for my shadow series.

 I think I like this one best because of the strip of light at the bottom.

 Or maybe this one.

 There are a lot of palm trees in Santa Clara for some reason, not sure why, the really tall ones look like phone polls to me. But the bark of the trees is always so striking. This would make an awesome texture stamp...makes note in file of ideas.

The blossom way up there is pretty though, but it's a second story kind of thing.

Wide Back

I haven't used 108" wide backing fabric before, but I'm going to give it a go on the next two big quilts that I make. The main reason for using this is for convenience and speed, piecing the back for a large quilt takes me quite a long time. I suppose that it'll also make it a bit smoother on the back of the quilt, because it won't have all those seam lines from piecing the back?

MassDrop switched away from carrying quilting stuff and they had these for a good price in their warehouse. I bought two and one of them is a much lighter grey than the other. The fabric feels like its good quality. Studio E has a whole line of 108"wide fabric.

The Simplest Runner

 I forgot to post about this last month. I made the world's simplest table runner by hemming up this holiday striped toweling. I guessed at how much I needed in the store, so I ended up with a napkin-sized piece.

Our tabletop conglomeration of holiday cuties. Yes, they are still out. Our tree got put up a little late this year, and it has to stay up at least one month, those are the rules.

Finish-a-Long 2019

Thanks to Finish-a-long, I finished eleven projects in 2019, eleven, wow!
I might not have gotten a lot of these done if I hadn't:

• thought about them enough to put them on a list 
• made that list public
• printed out the list for myself (gotta have something to check off of course!) 
• committed to working on the projects on the list.

So it worked pretty well for me, and if they're doing it again in 2020, I'll definitely participate.

Quarter 1
Listening to the Details (sold!)

Quarter 2
False Flag Sorbet

Triangle Study

Quarter 3
Weekend Whatever #19

Technology's Spine

Our Sister's Huts

Shenzhen Skies

Slurpee Stitched

Color Collusion

Quarter 4
Body Double

Between Two Cypress

Mega Pinnie

Check this wonderful thing out, it's a Mega Pinnie that friend Jaye made for me for Christmas. It has a Mini Pinnie attached via that awesome giant purple button. The handle on the top is so great for moving it around your workspace or from room to room. 

It's kind of like having a bucket of your most necessary tools, but you don't have to dig around in the bucket to find certain things. Oh and it's a giant pincushion too. The triangular zipper bag that's clipped on holds a big pair of scissors.

The fabulous purple fabrics that she used are so perfect for me. Thanks, Jaye!

Finished: Between Two Cypress

One more finish from 2019, off of my fourth quarter finish-a-long list, "Between Two Cypress".

 This one has a lot of intense free-motion quilting.

Lots of leaves/flame shapes in the quilting.

Wandering Wednesday: Dry Creek

 Our New Year's Day tradition for many years now, is some sort of hiking, usually local. This year we drove over to my sister-in-law's and went for a hike near them in Dry Creek Regional Park. It was super overcast, no blue skies, but no rain thankfully.

According to my fitbit it was 4.18 miles. And the big news is that I made it, and yeah I got sweaty but not too out of breath. All those miles on the exercise bike last year have helped my cardio fitness thankfully. I was sore and tired for a couple days, but it wasn't too bad. And very worth it to spend the time hiking with my family.

Two dogs, both my sister-in-law's, one a puppy, one is three years old went on the hike with us. Their older dog isn't too great with our dog, so we didn't bring her along. Sorry, Meg.

Crunching through the leaves on the trail.

Ahh, this crazy lichen (and maybe some moss too) was such a striking neon. It stood out so cartoonishly in the trees.

Negotiating who exactly is going up the optional hill, and how exactly far it is.

There was an optional extra hill, some of us went up, some of us stayed and caught our breath and took pictures of the ascent.

There they are at the top of the world. The dogs had such a blast running down the hill, they were very invigorated.

This yellow leaved tree really stood out in the gloom. Most of the deciduous trees had already lost their leaves by now, so it was a bit strange.

Almost looks like a bay tree leaf, but it wasn't one.

This is though, a california bay laurel. Smells like the bay leaves you buy in the spice aisle at the grocery store, but this one doesn't work in cooking unfortunately.

Towards the end of the hike, the dogs went crazy all of a sudden. Can you see them there under the trees?

The Lurking Vampire Cattle of the Pioneer Trail. They didn't like being barked at, and we were glad the dogs were on leash.

It was such a grey day (or gray!) but still beautiful because the cloud cover narrowed down the world to what was right in front of us.

Instagram To Start the Year

Over on Instagram, I've gotten into the habit of making month markers using the app SnapSeed. It's just a way to visually separate the months as you scroll back over your year of posts. This is made from a photo I took on our traditional New Year's Day hike. I made it 4.18 miles, woohoo me!

Every time I remember to use the Year of Colour summing up of one's posts on Instagram for the previous year, I'm struck by what colours stand out (*note the U* I love spelling colour that way*)  It always makes sense somehow. And I wonder if I can be conscious about what I post on Instagram to make it look a certain way by the end of the year??  I'm going to try to post more frequently on Instagram this year, so maybe that will work.

I kind of want to print this image out and put it on a t-shirt to wear around for the rest of the year. Wouldn't that be an interesting tee design? Or maybe just cut out different sized circles of these colors and make a quilt?

The Word Of The Year

Happy New Year!

I'm starting off with the word I chose randomly off of an online list.
The Word of the Year for 2020 is:

Worth

What are you worth? My answer truly depends on how I'm feeling about myself in that moment. The range is from less than zero to quite a lot.

What is your time worth? I realistically have what, maybe 25-30 years left? So realizing that there's a limited amount of my time that I can "waste". So my time is worth more to me now that I'm really understanding the truth of those limits. Not that I'm feeling that the "end is in sight" or anything like that, more like a reality check, it all will come to an end at some point. None of us gets out of this alive sort of thing.

What is your artwork worth? This can be a $ thing or an art for art's sake evaluation. Has it brought joy or inspired thought/feelings in others? Then to me, it has inherent worth. Whether that means $$ that's a whole 'nother thing.

What is your creative energy worth? A whole lot. It is one of the main things that sustain me. It's hard to imagine myself without having access to it.

Thinking about: External worth vs. internal worth.
External worth: What someone will pay for your art. What someone will say with their words or reactions that pay you in a non monetary way.
Internal worth: What do you pay yourself in positive self-talk? In finding inspiration in past achievements or innovations.

To me, finding a way to feel true worth in oneself comes down to accepting the earned confidence of achievement as a real thing and not a figment of one's imagination. That's a lot to work on this year. Challenge accepted! What's your Word of the Year?