"Purple Passion" for November Fest 09-24-11

 

Last year for Surfside Quilt Guild November Fest, I organized a Simply Red basket for the basket raffle.  This picture was taken when I delivered it to Nancy Ota's house in San Clemente - it was so heavy I could hardly carry it.  This year I am doing a "Purple Passion" basket for the same fund raiser.  The guild doesn't have a quilt show so this is our only fund raiser to help cover the cost of quality teachers and lecturers.

  I have discovered that purple is decidedly "out", so it has been a struggle to find purple "stuff" for the basket.  I have a "That Purple Thang" and (all in purple/violet/lavender) a magnetic pincushion, a tape measure, a clasp pouch/purse, iron-on thread, perle cotton #5 & #8, eyelash yarn (43 yds), silicone muffin pan (for beads.. or muffins), net ribbon (6"wide on a spool), three individual yards of hand dyed Shibori ribbon, 200 3/8" sequins, and a hand stitched Mola fish lavender-sachet from the San Blas Islands, Panama.

Also, not in purple, a patriotic tin box with clear glass-headed pins in red, white, blue and yellow. 

So far there are about six yards of fabric in fat quarters, 1/2 yards and yards, plus some vintage calicoes from the 1980s.

I know that many of you live far, far away and I'm not asking you to ship stuff to me.  But for the readers in Southern California, especially those who belong to Surfside Quilters Guild, it would be a great help if you could fetch that purple/violet/lavender "stuff" to the October meeting to donate to this basket.

OR send me an e-mail or give me a call (I'm in the directory and on the website) and I will try to pick things up from your house.     

 

Friday Feet 09-23-11

On day last week I stopped at my favorite Starbuck's and had settled down with my latte and my book when this young woman sat down at the next table with her laptop.  After a few minutes I couldn't stand it and asked her if I could photograph her shoes for my Blog.  She thought I was really funny, but agreed.  

[The table legs have little round gliders that lift the table off the floor - you can just see on behind her toes.] 

 

Love these shoes!   And the polish works well with them. 

Not keeping up

Several months ago my friend Verna suggested I join her in participating in a Calico House challenge - "Ugly Fabric".   As usual, I thought I would have lots of time to finish the challenge, but, as it turned out, I didn't.  I took the project with me to Washington State and may have finished in time, but my sewing machine refused to cooperate.  I called Calico House to apologize and told them my project would not be completed. 

These are the "ugly" fabrics, which I don't think are ugly!  We could add fabrics, but had to use some all of the original five - a yard of the focus fabric and four coordinated fat quarters.  When I spread the fabrics on my work table there were fabrics nearby and one of them jumped out of the pile and screamed "Use me!"  So, I decided on the design, added the screaming fabric and solid black, cut a paper tree shape and fused the tree to the background.

 

As I have done for years I started quilting the background before doing the fused applique.  But that is when my machine decided to break the top thread.  I tried everything - changed needles, changed threads, cleaned/oiled the machine, kicked the cat and rode my broom around the room.  Nothing worked.  Too much stress - I packed everything away and it stayed in the car until I arrived home.

I'm hoping that I will be able to finish the quilt soon.  My friend Verna turned her quilt in long before the deadline and so did a bunch of other quilters.  You can see the quilts displayed at Calico House in Placentia until the end of September.  

Calico House, 1243 E. Imperial Hwy, Placentia, CA 92870  714-993-3091 www.calicohousequilting.com

 

Wordless Wednesday 09-21-11

2009

2004

2007

What's on the Road... 09-20-11

When I am traveling I am always interested in what the trucks are carrying.  I've always been this way, but now that I have a digital camera I can keep a record and sometimes satisfy my curiosity by doing some Googling!  I have an entire file of just truck pictures- I'm weird that way!

The logs on this truck are fairly good sizes, larger than what I usually see these days.  I've talked before about my childhood memories of logs so huge that only one would fit on a truck.  That wasn't unusual sixty years ago.  This load was near Chehalis, WA, on I-5.

On this recent Road Trip I saw several loads like this.  Can't imagine what it could be.  Is it covered to protect the object?  Or to keep it secret?  Or....?  This one was just as I was going north into Seattle where they have these lighted speed limit signs with different speeds for each lane.  The signs are controlled electronically from a central "command post" so that traffic will flow more smoothly.  Bet they wouldn't work in LA, nobody would stay in the slower lanes!

There are always trucks hauling produce in the San Joaquin Valley.  These tomatoes are traveling I-5 to a processing plant that will turn them into sauce or ketchup.  They are all about the same size, get ripe all at the same time and have no flavor.  The flavor is added in the canning process.

 

Whenever I go on a Road Trip I take a picture of my vehicle - a hangover from the 50's,  I imagine, when almost everyone took photos of their cars/trucks.

What's on the Road 09-2-11

Monday Browsing 09-19-11

Not really much browsing this this past week as I have been busy with pictures for the Surfside Quilters Guild, both the newsletter and the member directory. 

Here is a very funny Blog post that I came across on the Quilt Art list:
http://www.tanyabrown.org/blog/?p=889
I go for the socks in a silver bowl, but what would my granny say?

Only employees are allowed to pump gas in Oregon (and New Jersey, I understand).  So, each time I visit there I pull into a station, turn to open my door and find a man standing right outside.  It always startles me.  When I was growing up women couldn't pump gas in Oregon, but I don't know if there are now female station attendants or not.  When I stopped for gas in Ashland, OR, I saw something I haven't seen for years - one of those rubber "cords" across the pavement that rings a bell inside the station when someone drives up. Boy, that takes me back.  Here is a photo essay about gas stations of yesteryear:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2082591_2292421,00.html?artId=2082591_2292421?contType=gallery?chn=photoessays

I don't watch TV much (except for Tom Selleck on "Blue Bloods") - it seems such a waste of time.  So, I was happy to find this Heidi Klum workout for commercial breaks.  Might be worth a try, only I'll have to leave the sound on so I will know that the commercials are over! 
http://heidiklum.aol.com/category/fitness-and-nutrition/commercial-breaks/

Remember the SAQA online auction - the 2nd week started today and there are some very nice quilts offered.  http://www.saqa.com/saqa-u.php?ID=1791

It is a good organization that does a lot for quilters everywhere.

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Monkey paw flowers - love those purple stems!

Ruth B. McDowell quilt in TCQC 09-18-11

Some of you will recognize this quilt from the cover of Ruth McDowell's best selling 2000 book "Pieced Flowers" published by C&T.  I couldn't get my check written fast enough when this one came up for sale.   

 

"Day Lilies"  Ruth B. McDowell - Colrain, MA.  1999  31.5" square

Cotton fabric, cotton batt, cotton thread.  Machine pieced and quilted.

All four of these thirteen inch blocks are made with inset corner seams which require an accomplished piecer to do them justice.  As in all of her piecing the seams are pressed to the flowers causing them to appear slightly raised from the background. The fabrics used for the background vary, as what is in the background in a natural view would vary.  The background is mostly quilted with "Ruth's Fan", a machine version of "Methodist Fan" (also known as, "Baptist Fan"  or "Presbyterian Fan" or whatever religion you chose!).

Ruth has the very best eye for fabric selection.  Sometimes it is very subtle as in this flower.

Below it she has machine sewn "Inset Corners" to indicate that is the technique used for the piecing in this quilt.  She carried the small sample quilts for this book around the country for the classes she taught. .

For this flower Ruth has chosen a variety of prints that most of us wouldn't even consider, but they work.

Her hand lettered labels are always so precise.  This one is written on the same fabric she used for the sleeve - a Marimekko scrap.

 

An interesting country toile used for the backing

http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/

NOTE: There is quite a good article about Ruth in the Aug/Sep 2011 issue of QNM.

Loving that Corky dog! 09-17-11

Corky, the Poodle Prince, is staying at Camp Del until September 27th while his parents are on vacation and business up north.  He rarely stays with me for such a long stretch, but I will take him for as long as I can have him.  He is such a dear little guy.

In his neighborhood or mine, he loves to sit on my lap, hang his head out the window and check out everything in sight.  I only drive 10mph when we are doing this "touring" - it is about the only time he doesn't complain that we aren't going fast enough!

 

At Camp Del he likes to snooze on a chair next to me while I am sewing or computing. 

Alert or.....

at ease, he has my heart!

At Indian Creek Lodge near Weaverville he is one pampered puppy.

 

I made him a little peaked cap when we were at Indian Creek Lodge.  It stayed on long enough to take a picture.