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?

Duvet Doings

 I've been working on the duvet cover I'm making for my daughter's birthday gift (a weighted blanket). I want to be able to give it to her on Thanksgiving next week, so I'm buckling down to get it done. Since it'll likely get washed a lot, I've taken the extra time involved to do French seams. I was very out of practice, but it really is easy and looks so nice when it's finished.

 Here's how the two sides look now that I've gotten them sewn together. The fabric that looks white is a pale pink with white circle-ish absract batik roses. I thought having one side be lighter than the other would be nice so she can have some variation in how her bed looks with the blanket on it.

Now to decide on snap tap, buttons, velcro or??? as the closure.

Wandering Wednesday: My Own Backyard

Our Japanese Maple has finally decided it is indeed Fall. This is seen from my studio window through the Improbable Two Story Tall Palm.

 Rubarb is suddenly going again?! I was shocked, especially since it's barely gotten any water all this long dry summer. But there it is getting all pretty and pink again. Maybe enough to make a strawberry rhubarb pie for my husband's birthday coming up soon?

One of our old old apple trees, still so very productive and this glorious yellow.

More Merriment

 I cut out the pieces from the Merriment panel, and was surprised by how cute the ghostly antlers look on this fox.

There are pairs of the animals facing left and right, and in two sizes also, so I'm playing with a design that will feature that left right thing. In my mind it would look a bit like the animals are talking to one another. But we'll see what I come up with. I'm also considering making the animal the center of a snowflake/star with some contrasting fabrics instead of just sashing them.

So much for sticking to my to-do list, but I'm enjoying with these images so far, I find them peaceful for some reason.

Snagged Thread Print Error

 I was washing my new fabrics and then trimming the thready edges yesterday when I noticed this.  At first I thought it was a misprinted part of the fabric and a thread lying on the top that needed to be trimmed or brushed off.

But then I looked closer and it was a thread coming directly from that spot. 

 This is how the back looks.

You can see that it leads over to the selvedge edge right there like a little almost dotted line.

So either a pulled thread on the existing greige goods when it was going through the printing process, and it essentially acted as a resist. Or maybe a pulled thread from the selvedge somehow pulling out the design? I think it's the first one, because the fabric feels smooth to me, not like there's a thread missing. But then I look at the back and it's clearly something to do with the threads of the fabric themselves.

Who really knows, but it's an oddity, usually the fabrics are pretty darn boring and predictable.

Weird, huh?

Gray vs. Grey

On the hunt for some of the fuchsia polka dot fabric for the back of my Kaffe Blue Squares quilt, I found some other things instead at two LQS. At least several were from the sale table. The green upholstery thread and zippers are for the green couch cushions I'm working on, one of the items on my Finish-a-Long list. I was unable to find any. So now, I get to decide whether to do a little rippit-stitching and replace the fuchsia polka dot fabric with the fabric in the upper left corner, or order some of the dots fabric online or just use something else for the binding.

The fabric on the upper right hand is a strange blue almost grey, it really depends on the lighting to see the color. So that will be fun to try to use.

Maybe with all these greys or almost greys I've been buying I should put them all in one quilt to fight each other. No I'm grey! No I'm grey! No I'm Gray! etc. I will call it "The Battle of The Greys" or maybe "Gray vs. Grey". This will be in honor of a friend from high school, a trombone player and his first name was Gray but Not Grey as he always had to correct people. I always felt badly for him having to constantly fight just to have his name spelled the right way.

When You're A Wildcat

According to the quiz, My dæmon is a wildcat.

"Your decisions have led you here. Your daemon is the wildcat. You are independent, brave and logical. You have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and are extremely diligent. You weigh up your options without acting impulsively, but you never let this get in the way of a good adventure! You take your responsibilities seriously, acting with great care and tact. You are very protective of those you love and have a great desire to do good in this world."

I can't wait to start watching this BBC/HBO series made from one of my favorite book series ever, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. In the stories, everyone has a dæmon which can take many forms of various animal until it settles on being just one animal when you hit puberty. In some sense, a dæmon is like an external manifestation of one's soul. It's one of the most captivating and inventive things I've come across in a lifetime of reading fantasy and science fiction. I really hope that the show is well done, this is such a timely story for the days we currently find ourselves living through.

Body Double Bound

 I made the plunge and squared up a very large wall quilt I've been working on for a very long time. It was quite askew, and it wasn't going to hang well because of that. So cutting it down to an actual rectangle meant giving up some of the image. I actually like it better now, so that's good, phew.

I had already made the binding so it was easy to get it sewn on to the quilt. The dot grunge grey fabric that I chose really did work well with the color variations in this piece.
 These pictures show the texture from both the quilting and from the layers of Setacolor paint.

Here's the fourcorners, I think that they turned out pretty well!

Saturday Night Stitching

Had a Saturday Night Stitching session last night and got the free motion quilting done on one of the smaller projects on my finish a long list. Even though I'm still a little rusty, I'm pleased with how the stitch length is coming out, and how my improvised designs are working out.

Next up on this piece is doing a binding of some sort, maybe a facing, and also putting on some embellishment, perhaps beads. It's been a while since I've done beading on a wall quilt.

More Tula

Bought some older Tula Pink fabrics on big sale from I Love Fabric, they're closing down and selling off the remaining stock. Maybe there will be some fabrics you need on their site.  I'm going to be using all Tula Pink fabrics to make a border for my City Sampler to bring it up to king-size so I can use it on our bed.
There are also two others in here that are non Tula, the bees, and one with irons that's hiding under the bees.

Blue Back Done

 Got the back pieced together for the Kaffe Blue Squares done. Only to find that the binding I made is too short. And I used the last of the polka dot in the upper right hand corner there. Sigh.

I really like how this corner turned out with the stripes and solids.

Pink Really Really Pink

We gave our daughter a weighted blanket for her birthday last weekend, and I offered to make her a duvet cover for it as it's not washable. She asked for pink, so I had her go through my box of pink fat quarters and pick ones she liked. I made a little swatch card and took it to my LQS and found these fabrics. The two fabrics on the right will be on one side and the two on the left will be on the reverse. That's the plan as of now. 

The store I went to is the local Kaffe Fassett place, and so they carry his design wall flannel. I bought a piece to try out. His comments on using a white design wall go something along the lines of "How can you see anything, it's like looking into a snowstorm?" I'm not sure if I'll like the white lines, but I do like the grey. I'm going to pin it up onto my all-white design wall and take some comparison pictures of a project side by side to see if I see a difference.

On To November

Onto the month of November. Already?
Ready for all the family birthdays this month? Almost.
Ready for Thanksgiving? Getting there, bought a gravy boat so there's that.
Ready for some quilting? Yes please.