Sewing - Full Moon 06-23-21

A busy day!   I drove down to Anaheim with some books for the 2nd hand book shop - Bookman on Katella.  I already had five small boxes of books in the car and I added two more.  There are many more left in various rooms.  He only gave me credit for about half of them and said he could keep the others for his "dollar shelves", so I said "sure", because I didn't want to take them home and don't know if the library volunteer book shop is taking books now.  Trouble is, I already miss all those books I have already read, some of them twice.

Quite near the Bookman is the one remaining quilt shop in Orange County, that I know of anyway, - Orange Quilting Bee.  So, I stopped there for some batting.  I am about to quilt the little houses quilt I made last spring/summer and thought I had all the dimensions worked out.  WRONG!  The yardage for the backing is 42" and the quilt top is 45"!  I hadn't thought that I would need to add to the back, which is a directional pattern.  The best thing to do would be to construct some more house blocks and put them in a vertical row on the back.  Do I want to spend the time doing that?  Don't know.  

Also the Quilter's Dream batting I had set aside is neither long enough or wide enough!  Hence the stop at OQBee today.  They don't carry Quilter's Dream but JoAnn's does.  However, I want to support the quilt shop so I will use Warm and Natural. 

I was pleasantly surprised that the clerk put in a piece of the label - thoughtful. 

On our walk this evening about 8pm the almost full moon was so bright I had to take a picture.  It doesn't look bright here, however.  Can you even see it on the right side about a third of the way from the top?   Tomorrow night is the full moon, maybe I will try for a better image. 

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More Flowers - TCQC

I do love Monkey Paw plants and the red ones are especially nice, although they come in a number of different colors - yellow, white, rusty brown, and more. 

The flowers before they open do look a little like a monkey's paw. 

The base of the plant is spikey leaves with the flowers stalks growing sometimes to 4 or 5 feet tall.  

At the top right is a side view of the opened blossom. 

And here is one fully open - rather star like, but only about half inch in diameter. 

My friend Liz came today and helped me roll, cover, and store some of the TCQC quilts.  They have been spread out on the guest room bed because my hands are not strong enough to roll a stack of four or five together.  Because of health problems in her family she has not been free to come for some months.  We had a little visit over Starbuck's lattes and then spend a couple hours sorting, rolling, covering, tagging, and storing the quilts.  They are in several places in the house.

On the shelf in the guest room closet.

On the top shelf of my fabric storage racks. 

Each roll has a tag showing what quilts are inside, but there is no order to the storage.  We put them where they fit.  At one time we tried keeping a log of where everything is, but when the quilts are moved around a lot that is a very time consuming job.  What needs to be done is clean out a spare bedroom and put racks up to hold all 370+ quilts.  Right now I don't have the energy and I would need someone to "scribe" for me.  Doing an inventory at the same time would be practical, but very time consuming.  I recently discovered a quilt that I added to the Collection about four years ago that somehow did not get into the Excel document.  Fortunately I am an old fashioned person and also keep paper files on every quilt.  Guess I don't completely trust computers, and probably never will! 

 

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Gift from a bird 06-21-21

An unknown bird lost its nest in the middle of my scruffy lawn.  No trees nearby that would accommodate a nest and I don't know what kind of bird it might be.  Too big for a hummingbird, too small for a mockingbird, not a dove-like nest.   Anyway, I picked it up and took a few pictures and put it on a pot on the front porch thinking i might share it with some child in the neighborhood.  But then the mow-and-blow guy came and blew off the porch and he must have blown off the nest also, because it disappeared.  Nice nest. 

The inside is about 3 1/2" diameter. The white on the back side is probably cat/dog hair.  

But it is only about 1 3/4" deep. 

Bottom of nest  - look at all the feather she saved. 

Bottom of nest. 

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Quilt from TCQC 06-20-21

There are over a hundred 12"X12" quilts in the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection, about a third of the total.  Most of them are from SAQA online auctions.  I like to support the organization and also support the quiltmakers, who have donated their work.  This piece is from 2010 and was made by Deborah Boschert, who is currently president of SAQA. It is very typical of her work then and now. 

"Possibilities"  Deborah Boschert 2009  12" X 12"

Hand dyed and commercial cottons, sequins, beads, embroidery thread. 

Raw edge machine applique, embroidery, beading, machine quilting.

In addition to the label on the back, Deborah pinned her business card.  

Each square sequin is fastened with a tiny crystal seed bead. 

Notice the embroidery thread worked over the binding. 

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