Spoonflower is a company that prints fabric for individuals. You select the fabric type and weight, supply them with images you want on the fabric and they send you freshly printed fabric of your own design. I know quite a few quilters who use this service. I have only done it once and was not pleased with the result, but it was probably the quality of the photos that went astray. They were not my photos. I'll try again one day. But here are some tutorials they have produced that seem helpful. You might want to check them out.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Friday, June 22, 2018
Friday Food 06-22-18
Seems like a lot of birthdays going on this month. Here are some cakes from celebrations in the past.
Birthday Cake for a Quilter Feb 2007
A delicious mini cake from Ralph's. June 2018
La Jolla Groves (Utah) Lemon Cake - Moist Lemon Bundt Cake Served with our Handmade Crème Anglaise Under a Caramel Dome with Berries and Mint.
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Angel's Trumpet 06-21-18
I love to drive around looking for Angel's Trumpet vines when they are in bloom. Officially known as Brugmansia this is a plant found in many older neighborhoods across Orange County. It comes in different colors, but the creamy yellow and golden tones are the most common. Some cultivars have a fragrance, but I have not encounter one of those. These pictures are from 2008.
An Angel's Trumpet tree in old San Juan Capistrano 2007
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Wednesday, June 20, 2018
A heavenly view 06-19-18
Visiting my friends in Mt Vernon, WA, has an additional thrill, other then the primary one of seeing them and have some time to visit. Their house is surrounded by huge trees. Mostly Western Cedar, I think. I doubt if I would ever get any work done because I would be gazing out the windows all the time. They do have visits from deer, squirrels, rabbits, and birds. But just looking at the trees is a huge treat for someone from suburban Orange County, California. I'm sure that some of you have enormous trees on your property, or nearby, but there aren't any where I live. Although I may post a picture one of these days of the pine trees in my neighborhood. Not many left from when we moved in thirty years ago because new people move in and the first thing they do is cut down the trees. Don't understand why.
From the living room.
The same view taken outdoors. Notice the clothesline on the left, this is the only place that gets afternoon sun.
And a closeup of this GREAT tree.
There are also trees between the street and the house.
I put this picture in so you can see the size of the trees in front of the house.
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Monday, June 18, 2018
Playing with paper 06-18-18
A small group of arty ladies meets every month or so to share ideas, show and tell, learn new techniques, and enjoy lunch together. Last week we played with cutting paper without any pre-planning. Just select a palette of colored papers and start cutting. We all came up with something completely different - uniquely our own. The organizer for this project supplied us each with Titanium scissors that came six to a box from Amazon and claim to never need sharpening. They cut paper very well and I think I will keep them for that. She also provided many packages of origami papers in solids and black/white geometric prints. So, we cut out our shapes and with a glue stick affixed them to a background. Mine is the most traditional, which is as to be expected. They did not give me permission to share their work, so I am showing only my two pieces done at the meeting.
Lesson everyone needs to learn, don't take pictures pointing the camera at a window.
The flowers on the left are made of wood, the orchid is real.
One member decided she needed to take a picture of my arthritic hands and the papers. The face on the right is on the front of another member's blouse.
The piece on the bottom is my main project. The top one is an experiment using the cutting scraps - a la Sue Benner. Oddly, both are pasted onto the same piece of black card stock and photographed on a dark grey sofa. Why one looks lighter and the sofa looks black is beyond me.
It seems like any small group would enjoy doing this design experiment. One could translate the design into fabric.
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Sunday, June 17, 2018
Re-visiting a quilt by Joan Colvin 06-17-18
Getting quilts out of storage for a presentation is always exciting, because I can only hang about six quilts in my house - depending on their size. I did a program for the San Luis Obispo Quilters last week, so my friend Liz came over and helped me get the quilts out and package them for the drive north. Now we have rolled them up again and put them on the shelves for storage. But I have pulled out some to replace those that have been hanging for about five months. A whole new "gallery" to enjoy for a few months. Usually I try to switch them out every three or four months, but sometimes it is for a shorter or longer time, but never more than six months. They need to rest.
"Copper Tree" a quilt by Joan Colvin will be up in my hallway in September. But you can enjoy it now in this re-posting from September 2009.
"Copper Tree" Joan Colvin 2003 26"W x 65"L
This quilt is on page 38 in Joan's book "Joan Colvin: Nature's Studio". For quite a few years I had been asking her to sell me one of her quilts, but it never seemed to work out. Then in 2005 we were both at Asilomar and she had this quilt to show the students - the perfect quilt for me - I wrote the check and brought it home.
Great fabric selection, some are her own hand dyed (or discharged) fabrics - the little twigs in the background are a commercial batik fabric with a pattern of sea coral - and she included silk ribbon and copper wire ribbon twisted to make some of the branches. With a studio light on it the copper sparkles as I walk past the quilt. It has a ethereal beauty common in Joan's work.
Joan died just a year ago, Sep 9th, 2007, a great loss to the art quilt community.
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