Friday Feet 06-10-16

I love this ad for Tiek shoes.  I've seen it on Facebook a couple times so maybe you have also. 

#   #   #

Another Del Quilt 06-09-16

Here is a quilt I made just because I wanted to!  No challenge or assignment.  Afterward I submitted it to an exhibit and it appeared in several different venues.   I thought I might do a series, but only created two.  The other one sold.  This one is around the house somewhere.  It has a torn edge binding, a technique I came up with sometime in the late 1990's.  It works well for wall quilts because it reduces the bulk, but it wouldn't survive on a bed quilt. 

"Heartstrings I"  Del Thomas 2005  11"W x 14"L

Commercial cottons, hand-dyed cotton, cotton batting, cotton thread.

Raw edge machine applique, machine quilted.

#   #   #

 

Wordless Wednesday 06-08-16

#   #   #

Shipping quilts 06-07-16

From JUNE 24th to 26th Ruth McDowell will be showing 62 of her wonderful quilts at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  I won't be able to go, but am sending quilts from TCQC to hang with others that she has gathered from her family and collectors.   I've shipped quilts before and know that one of the most difficult things is finding appropriate boxes that are the right size.  I have some, but will need a few more, so tomorrow I will be looking for boxes.  They need to be large enough to avoid having too many folds in the quilts, but small enough for me to carry from house to car to FedEx.  Liz will be here on Thursday to give me a hand.  What a friend she is!  Thank You, Liz. 

 

Here is one of the quilts that will appear in Vermont. 

 

"Fort Morrison Jerseys" Ruth B. McDowell  2003   65.5"W x 46"L

Cotton fabric, cotton thread.  Machine pieced and quilted.

 

#   #   #

A Book Group Event 06-06-16

For almost forty years the Book Group I belong to has been sharing bookmarks when the members have traveled.  We search for and bring back these little jewels from all over the USA and the wider world.  Two of members decided to sort through and categorize all of their bookmarks and arrange to have displays in two places: Placentia City Library and California State University  - Fullerton.   Today we all went to see both displays and have lunch together.

At the Placentia Library the display cases are tucked back in a corner - not easily found. 

This section is bookmarks from around the world.  As our members have retired they have picked up their suitcases and traveled the globe.

More of the World travel section.

I've never heard bookmarks called Book Jewelry, but it makes sense and is a common description in the literature about books and bookmarks.  The four across the bottom are metal.

 

 

I am so impressed at the ingenuity they used in the displays.  This showing of flower bookmarks uses the plastic sticks that come with flower arrangements - with the little fork at the end.  And they are anchored in a potted plant. 

 

 

 At Cal State Fullerton the displays are in two flat cases and a large cube.   The overhead lights make photos almost impossible.   

There is an explanation of the display and a list of books read in the early years of the group.

In the large cube the bookmarks are on a display stand that is made of long clear filaments with clips at the ends.  The filaments are from a center source that drape like a fountain. [this is really hard to describe].  The ladies needed to choose things that weighed down the filaments so they wouldn't touch the inside of the cube.

 Here is one of the metal bookmarks clipped to the filament clip.

 

 

This selection is about the out-of-doors, many National Parks represented.

 

We will continue to meet and bring back bookmarks from our travels.  We read a wide variety of books.  This month the book is "Havana Heat" by Darryl Brock.  It is fiction about a deaf baseball player in the early 1900s.  Interesting, but heavy on baseball jargon.

 

#   #   #

A 12X12 quilt from the Pixeladies 06-05-16

This is a "rerun" of a quilt that became part of TCQC in 2009, the early years of the SAQA online auction.   It is a collaboration of the Pixeladies (Deb Cashatt and Kris Sazaki) who continue to create together today.   I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of the jeans belt loops and the large circular "mend" with a rivet in the middle.  I didn't see the back until the quilt came in the mail.  It is extra special to have the story and the picture as back art. 

 

"Levi Strauss"  Pixeladies (Deb Cashatt & Kris Sazaki)  2009  12"x12"

Jeans fabric, cotton fabric, cotton thread, cotton batting, copper rivet.

Machine pieced and quilted.  Computer printed on fabric for label.

It is really about the rivet - see the label on the back.

 With the jeans fabric and the dense quilting this is a heavy quilt that lays flat on the wall.

 



And even a family connection.

 

See the original posting of this quilt at:

http://delquilts.blogspot.com/2011/04/tcqc-quilt-by-pixe-ladies-04-17-11.html

 

#   #   #

Saturday Stories - Waitressing 06-04-16

Diane could never be a waitress.  She is too much “hands-off”.  When she lived in a rented room in San Francisco, way back in the dark ages, she was desperate for a job.  She could get on as an LD operator with the phone company, but they wouldn’t transfer her seniority from where she lived and worked before, so she refused to work there.  She is much too stubborn for that.  Interestingly if she’d been a guy looking for work on the wires he would have kept his seniority and pay grade.   It was a time of recession all over the country and she was getting desperate – figuring she could keep the room and not eat or eat and live on the streets.  NOT something young women did at the time.  So, she went to work in a bar that served food, after all she had eaten in restaurants and knew what a waitress did.  Since she wasn’t of age to hold such a job they would pay her in cash at a cut rate.  She didn’t realize how exhausting it would be.  For a week she went back to her room after work and fell into bed to sleep as many hours as she could.   About the end of the second week she was getting into her stride and thinking all would be well.  Then one night a customer gave her a “feel” and she told him off.  The manager told her if she couldn’t take the heat she was out of a job.  She was out of a job that night.  What to do?   Her grandfather had recently died and her grandmother was having a hard time being alone.  After all, she had never lived alone in all her 60+ years – it was scary.   Grandmother called granddaughter and invited her to move down to Southern California and live with her for a while.  Diane did it because she knew she would move back to San Francisco some day in the future.  She lived with her grandmother for almost two years and then went off on her own again.  She had a job, a car, a boyfriend and was going to night school.  It seemed like a lot to give up to start all over again in San Francisco.  There weren’t a lot of good memories from her first stay and she never moved back, living in the Los Angeles area all the rest of her years.  And she never attempted waitressing again. 

#   #   #