Ramos House again 03-05-15

I recently blogged about lunch at Ramos House in San Juan Capistrano.  And previously at:  http://www.delquilts.blogspot.com/2007/11/san-juan-capistrano-ca-11-10-07.html
Coincidentally the magazine from the Automobile Club of Southern California, called Westways, published an article about the area "Los Rios Historic District" in their March/April 2015 issue.  It is an interesting area just a block and a half from the old Mission.
They have renovated the small parking lot into a sort of plaza with landscaping and benches, so best to park in the multi-storied parking lot on the east side of the tracks and walk across.  There are a number of coffee places and small restaurants if Ramos House isn't to your liking, it is the only place I have eaten there.

There is a nursery where one can browse among the plants and flowers.  Something that grows wild and is currently blooming along the roads and walkways is oxalis.  The bottom picture is of my back slope covered in blossoms.  The park is in the upper left corner. 
 

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday 03-04-25 snort

Food - again 03-02-15

An art quilt group I belong to had a meeting on Saturday which included a delicious lunch.  The hostess made her mother's special lentil soup, someone brought "ancient grains bread", someone else made a great salad, and I'm not sure who brought an amazing hors d'oeuvre   We had Chef Don's choice for dessert.

 

"Mom" doesn't mash her lentils when they are cooked, nor do I. 

This yellow cake with chocolate chips was gorgeous naked.   Chef Don removed it from the pan whole, no little missing pieces dared stay in the pan.

And then it was dressed with sliced strawberries in a balsamic/black pepper reduction.

Almost too gorgeous to cut into.  But we did! 

 

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Ruth McDowell quilt added to Collection 03-01-15

Yes, I'm still buying Ruth McDowell quilts.  Each one is so special I just can't resist.  Every one has fascinating details from her very creative mind and the piecing is so amazing.  She does piece everything, even the tiniest eye or beak or toe.  And she does it "the old fashioned way: right sides together, machine stitch, open the seam and press."  Add another million pieces and you have a quilt.  It is like a jigsaw puzzle with seam allowances. 

"He Caught Her Eye" Ruth B. McDowell 2014  30"W x 34.5"L

Such a jazzy, glorious couple they are.

 

 

Such sexy chickens - no wonder he caught her eye.  The beaks are carefully selected fabrics that form top and bottom beaks with a quilted line delineating the divide. The eyes have a white paint dot.

I always love Ruth's choice of foot fabric; his are yellow with blue dots and hers are gold with pink dots.  The background fabric here is a traditional cotton print. 

The long sweeping tail feathers are backed by a black/gold print that shows through the feather tips.

For the border on the right side she used a vintage Marimekko bird fabric - we don't need to see the entire bird to know that it is a bird.   I love it.  The fabric in the lower left with the tiny pinkish-gold nine-patches is from a fabric line Ruth created for South Seas several decades ago.  It is at the top of the next image.

On this quilt Ruth has signed her name on the front....

...in addition to the label on the back.  Name, artist, date and contact is a minimum on a label.

And  here is the elegant back with a  vintage Marimekko print.  This is a quilt I will sometimes hang backward to admire the print and the quilting.

Here is a detail of the quilting from the back.  Ruth has a knack for inventing new quilting lines to enhance her quilts and add interest in different features.

 

Ruth's Comments: "It’s much harder to make high-contrast, boldly patterned, multi-colored fabrics work together as in this quilt. I was VERY careful which part of which fabric I cut for each piece and had to make multiple changes as the pieces were cut and pinned in place [on the design board]. There’s a very bold antique Marimekko fabric remnant for the back that has been on my shelves for decades. Cool!"

www.ruthbmcdowell.com



Wordless Wednesday 02-25-15

I don't know why, but Blogger won't post any pictures.  I'll try again in the morning.  Del

The Surfside Quilters Guild newsletter has been posted:
http://www.surfsidequiltersguild.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=JgFrizwELjw%3d&tabid=152&mid=668

Monday Browsing 02-23-15

Lizards at work:  http://features.aol.com/video/photographer-henry-lizardlover-really-lives-his-name?icid=aol|carousel|dl2

Amazing jewelry:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/ImpastArte?ref=shopsection_shophome_leftnav

Alex Anderson has started a new business with Floriani, developers of products for quilters:
http://quiltersselect.com/index.php

 Glue  gun stencils:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbLcxJ0RYQQ

There are quite a few different tutorials about this technique – just search for “glue gun stencils”.

Pinterest.com is a treasure box of ideas for quilts.  You can put the name of a block in the search box and find hundreds of ideas using that block.  Such as:

https://www.pinterest.com/colbut/double-wedding-ring-quilts/
https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=bourgoyne%20surrounded
Or, if you are interested in what a teacher has to offer, put her name in the search box:
https://www.pinterest.com/chantily17/mary-lou-weidman-quilts/
https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=NANCY%20LEE%20CHONG

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Karen Rips quilt in TCQC 02-22-15

I became friends with Karen Rips soon after the International 12X12 group started.  It has been a pleasure to watch her style develop and I am a great admirer of her very elegant, subtle quilts.  The only trouble with this quilt is my inability to photograph it to show it at its best. The light color is a soft sage green, surrounding the dark sage green center rectangle  and the outer edges are a deep purple, as is the faced back.  Karen has used her unique technique of sewing the front, batting, backing together with channel quilting and then doing a sort of felting process using hot water to make everything shrink up. 

 

"Gravida"  Karen Rips - Thousand Oaks, CA  2013  35"W x 46"L

Hand-dyed cotton, wool batting, hand embroidery, paint, silk, machine pieced and quilted.

[Gravida (noun)  a woman's status regarding pregnancy; usually followed by a roman numeral designating the number of times the woman has been pregnant.]

There are many areas of embroidery stitches. The black lines are paint.

 

Karen has also used some strips of frayed silk fabric to embellish the quilt.

More of the silk strips and black paint along with hand embroidery.

Here are multiple rows of straight hand stitches done in variegated purple/pink thread.

If you enlarge this image you might see the bearding of the wool batting.  I like it as it gives even more texture to this very textured quilt which is very soft and pliable - more like a hand quilted work.

I faded out this image so you can see the facing with the curved inner edges.

This is the third of the pieces of silk couched down with embroidery stitches.

An  adequate label which gives two ways of contacting the artist, her name, the date and even the size of the quilt in the lower right hand corner.