Safe at Home Row 2

Safe at Home row two got finished last week. Much bigger Flying Geese units this time around.

Here's how the second row looks hanging up next to the first row. I haven't sewn them together yet as I haven't read ahead on the row by row pattern. I like how it looks so far, and I think I might need more of that grey fabric to finish this. My initial plan was to use different grays like I did in the first row, but I may not, we'll see, depending on how the next row goes.

All the left over tags from sewing together the "waste" triangles.

Sister Artists Quilt Auction

Beginning tomorrow, June 15th, the 40 quilts made for the Advocacy Project Quilt for Change Sister Artists project will be auctioned off.

This includes mine, Our Sisters' Huts

You can register here to be able to participate in the auction, which will run for a week, ending on Sunday June 29th.

You can also go check out high quality photos of the quilts here.

There has been a catalogue of the quilts produced that you can also purchase.

All proceeds from the auction and catalogue will be invested in an embroidery project for the artists and other survivors of gender-based violence in Mali.

Birds Birds Birds

I've been spending a lot of time working out on my deck so I've been able to take some cool videos of some of the bigger birds we have in our neighborhood. This year we have a pair of red-tailed hawks that have been hanging around and at least one raven, there may be two of them but I'm not sure as I've only ever seen one at a time. 

So one day all the little birds went crazy, all of their alarm calls went up, and sure enough one of the hawks was in prime hunting position on the old oak tree trunk stump. I watched it sit there and preen for a few minutes and was lucky enough to take this video when he (or she?) finally dove downhill. I'm assuming it was to hunt something, but who really knows.

Pretty soon after that, a large black bird flew up the hill and I could see that it was the raven that hangs around here. He (or she?) then took up the same position on the old oak tree trunk. Maybe it was an attempt to see if there were going to be any scraps left from the hawk's hunting? Pretty exciting stuff for our quiet neighborhood. The two pairs of bluejays went into action soon afterwards, a lot of frantic noises because they're in nesting mode.

My son has been doing the vegetable gardening so he noticed one of our two pairs of bluejays were reusing the same nesting spot as last year. Four little babies! It's under our deck, so when we're out there, our dog is very very interested in this exact spot above the nest. You can hear little noises and Meg can obviously smell them. They really look like mini dinosaurs in this state. The parents made a huge mess on our patio bringing down branches from our apple trees that had moss on them. It was like a building materials staging area which they then picked The Best twigs to use in making the nest. Or maybe it was like a decoy nest? I don't know bird behavior at all so I'm just guessing here.

Here's how they look as of yesterday, already blue and barely all fitting in the nest. Photo credit to Alex on both of these pictures.

Flower Friday the Fifth

 Happy Flower Friday, the summer heat is here, and everything is blooming. The oleander is blooming big time this year.

 One of our old rose bushes from above. Four distinctly different colors of roses ?!?! If I remember right, this one is a Peace which is usually mostly yellow with some pink or peach coloration. It could be the root stock taking over.

 Yarrow-definitely a winner, I need to have more of these in my garden.

 This wild sweet pea is a menace, but it's still beautiful even if it does over grow all over the place.

Don't smell this one unless you like the scent of garlic, Society Garlic, such a funny name.

ICAD 2020 - Week 1

 

It's that time of year again...ICAD has begun.

Index Card A Day, make a small piece of art on an index card, from 6/1/20 to 7/31/20.

Low investment of materials, not something precious.

Can make mistakes and try new techniques.

It's fun to do a project every single day for 61 days.

Turns out that it's cumulative, like a whole lot of other things.

"May you fall asleep in a dream and a wake with a purpose."

It's not too late, just start, and post your pics on instagram with the hashtag #dyicad2020

Wandering Wednesday - Walls in Stirling Castle

Time for another Shelter In Place Wandering Wednesday, this time from our trip to Scotland. These are pictures of some of the many walls of Stirling Castle. It started out as a lovely day. And then the clouds moved in, that's pretty much Scotland for you, that's how it's so very very green.

An interior wall.

This shows the clever use of a sheer cliff as a wall. They really built right to the very edge.

I loved the wildflowers growing in all the crevices of the walls. Sort of softens it a bit.

A rather mysterious circle in a wall. Formerly a window or lookout?

The variation in the stones is so interesting here. 

 I really love seeing how the regular stacking of the rocks has to shift to form an archway..

Ravens or crows? Not sure, but I do remember they were quite loud.

So many walls.

Up on the very top of the outer wall, I set my camera down to capture the stone as the foreground of a  sort of compound landscape. I like the drops of water on the blades of grass.

And then I noticed this guy, blending in so well I'd almost put my hand right on him. 

The Slugs of Sterling Castle.

Safe at Home - Row 1 Done

Here's the completed first row of the Safe at Home quilt.

 I like how different each block is from the next.

 So far I am still enjoying working with these colors. The fabrics are a mixture of older prints, batiks, solids and more modern prints, put it all together and it works (for me.)

 They're very happy and vibrant.

 And I like how they look against the greys.

Wow those photos got so wonky, I was trying to avoid a shadow.

Prints & Coordinates

I did some fabric washing last week, all the fabric I've bought in the last few months. This is it, the result of months of shelter in place.

It's the first two Modern Quilter's Boxes worth of fat quarters. Look how nicely they all play together. I don't know if it was intentional or a happy accident.

If I throw in some coordinating solids, I think this might be a good initial pull of fabrics to use with one of the patterns that was included in the box. It's a good mix of colors and print sizes.

Fourth Flower Friday

 Welcome to the fourth Flower Friday. I'm glad I started doing this, it's making sure that I get pictures of all the flowers every week. So it's finally Day Lily time, woohoo! We had some very strange weather and it rained, so these beauties didn't last very long 😖.

 I planted these special day lilies a couple years ago, and now they're starting to be regular bloomers.

 I'm glad the gophers didn't get to them.

I think of this one as a "common" day lily, but just like the "common" purple bearded iris, the deep color is just gorgeous out in the garden.

 The acanthus are very happy so far this year.

 Yay! The clematis survived, it's climbing up the fence along with the volunteer California native honeysuckle (that's the  smaller flower peeking over the purple petal of the clematis.

 The variegated sage gets these delicate little flowers that don't stick around too long.

 The Watsonia is continuing to bloom more and more along the flower stalks.

 Another flowering sage.

One of the old roses that came with our house, old reliable Mr. Lincoln.

Blackout Tuesday

It needs to be said, because it is not a given: Black Lives Matter.

Along with a lot of other white people, I am muting my voice today and instead sharing some links to content from Black creators. Time to listen.

A few things to read:

99 Years After the Tulsa Race Massacre, an Artist Reflects
The American Nightmare
The 1619 Project
We Know What it is to Bury a Child

Read and/or follow these folks on twitter:
Sherrilyn Ifill
Yamiche Alcindor
Eva DuVernay
Nikole Hannah Jones
Maya Wiley
Elie Mystal

If you have extra $$:
Donate to bail funds

Watch this great Mary Frances Berry interview:

Safe at Home One Done

Time to start sewing these blocks together. First the Flying Geese, twelve per block.

Almost together, hope it all fits.

First block all sewn together. I really like it! The varied greys really works the way I wanted it to. Now to assemble the last four and get onto working on row #2.