Creating a Quilt (3rd try on blog) 09-03-13

I promised a Monthly Mini for Surfside QGuild for October. I started working on it a month or so ago, but have been putting it aside to work on things with closer deadlines! But now I am under-the-gun, because the meeting is next Tuesday and it isn't finished. I have taken some in progress pictures with the intent of showing what I am doing along the way. But that also has taken a back seat. Here are a few beginnings and some closer to finished.

I narrowed my fabric choices down to two backgrounds and five pumpkins.

 

I have to shift the fabrics around to see what will work best for my eye.

 

And then try the pumpkin fabric on the backgrounds. When I placed it here the bat to the right of the moon popped out and was an ah-ha moment.

 



 

Other fabric choices needed to be made and finally ended like this. However the tree is right across the wonderful bat. Nothing is attached to the background so I could try some different layouts.

 On Thursday I will show you the changes I made and the final image that developed.

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Monday Browsing 09-02-13

Some bright ideas – some dumb ideas.  But they will make you think:

http://www.mandatory.com/2013/07/19/amazing-life-hacks-to-make-your-life-easier-vol-3/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D363936
 

Some awesome images for inspiration – even if you don’t care about the weather.

http://weather.aol.com/2012/12/07/50-must-see-weather-photos-from-2012/

I’m always interested in the weather - just one of my quirks! 


This is my favorite source of weather news and I also enjoy the picture files. http://www.wunderground.com/

The world's highest temperature for September 2, 2013, was 118 degrees and occurred at Nasiriya, Iraq
 

Very unusual maps:       (Carol – Check 28.  Who drinks the most coffee?)

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/
 

Liberated quiltmaking:

http://liberatedroundrobin.blogspot.com/

http://libellenquilts.blogspot.com/

http://unrulyquilting.blogspot.com/

FMQ Idea?

Bucolic America 09-01-13

 When on Road Trips I have wondered if one of the reasons I enjoy them is that I see more of the USA that I knew in my younger years.  Living in SCalifornia with tens of millions of other people, and the expanding suburbs, doesn't give much chance to see open fields and farm animals and vistas of mountains and valleys.  I usually keep a list of the birds I see along the way and sometimes stop in a likely place to walk around with my binoculars and maybe add a new bird to my list.  It is a way of life that I lived such a long time ago.
I'm feeling REALLY nostalgic tonight - I image it is because today I turned 75.  Yes, it is true, although to be honest, I don't really believe it.   Inside I am still 24.  



I was looking at Road Trip pictures today - this one was taken in Illinois on the trip this past May.  I didn't stop, but I did slow down on this "blue highway" as there was not another car in sight.  The curious cows all looked to see what I was doing. 
 
And seeing this image reminded me that Ruth McDowell has a new quilt on her website.  Now that she is retired,and doing all sorts of things she has put off during her working years, she isn't making as many quilts as she has in the past.  Check out "Summer Visitors" at:
 http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/clients/rbm/catalog.cfm

Sorry I have missed a few days of blogging.  Sometimes life just overwhelms me.
Hope you have a pleasant Labor Day.
 

Seagulls 08-29-13

I've taken many photos of birds, gulls among them, but have yet to make a seagull quilt.  I've done a few drawings, but nothing has "sparked" my "muse". 

 
Such a handsome bird against an unbelievable blue sky.  He/she is gathering material for the cursory nests that gulls build.
 

This immature gull on the beach at Monterey Bay almost blends into the background - keeps predators at bay.
 

Herring gull in a parking lot along Hwy 101 in Long Beach.  He looks a bit pigeon-toed!
 

There are always gulls gathered at the Oceanside Civic Center pool - nice water texture in this photo.
 

And here is a quilt that I admire whose maker heard her muse.  Label below.
 

Grandmother's Flower Garden?  Who would have thunk it?

Wordy Wednesday 08-28-13

Cycas revoluta - also called sago palm, king sago, sago cycad, Japanese sago palm.

But it is not the true sago palm, source of the starch used as a thickener in puddings, gravy, etc.  That one is Metroxylon sagu, grown commercially in Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycas_revoluta

This plant is Cycas revoluta and is not a palm at all but is in the family cadaceae, usually referred to the most ancient category of plants. In Southern California it is grown as a landscape plant and large specimens are quite expensive. There was a time thirty years ago that during the night someone stole all the sago palms from the front of the Fullerton Police Department. It was a major crime because each plant was worth a thousand dollars or more. .

This one grows in my neighbor's yard and is more than thirty years old.  The longer fronds are about 32 inches, so the diameter of the plant is in excess of six feet.
   

 
This is the female of the species and here is the flower. The males have a cone that also grows out of the middle of the plant.  The "petals" don't open, but the flower becomes puffier and puffier until it shreds into millions of short, sticky fibers.
 

Here is a close up of the flower "petals" which to me look like long-fingered hands or, maybe, frog's feet
 

This little guy is our resident bunny, part of a colony that lived in a clump of bushes down the street.  New neighbors moved in and cut down all the trees and bushes (why?) so the rabbits scattered to other locations.  This one seems to live in the neighbor's large hedge on the other side of the drive from the Sago.   He also appears in the top picture in the upper right corner - watching me very closely.

 

Busy weekend in San Diego 08-27-13

I was in San Diego Friday night through Sunday evening, mainly to help where I could at the Veranda Sale that Visions Art Museum held to take advantage of the Art Walk across the street.  It is the first time they have held Art Walk there, so everything was unknown.  The idea for the museum was to sell the extraneous items in the storerooms and cabinets along with some donated treasures.  They had quilts, books, fabric, old textiles, gift items, jewelry, baskets....well, a little bit of everything I can think of.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we were so busy that nobody took any photos until Sunday after lunch when the pickings were getting slim and the crowds thinned out.. 


I liked the home made signs that attracted people to come across the street and up the steps to our veranda where there was a gentle breeze to cool us off an extra warm day (for San Diego).  Of course, the planes continued to takeoff, the flight path is directly over Liberty Station, so we exercised the Point Loma Pause as needed.


A visitor is browsing the last of the 12" x 12" quilts we had for sale at bargain prices.  I am standing next to Glenna Evans, another volunteer working as "crew" for the day.  

 

Lots of hats, lots of long slinky skirts (must be the IN thing this summer), many couples both young and old.  And good sales for the benefit of the museum.

 

Since I was going to be there for the weekend, some of my friends arranged to meet for dinner at the nearby Solare restaurant to celebrate my 75th birthday a bit early.  The BIG day is September 1st. 

Here is the group that dined together on Saturday evening:  Beth Smith, Judy Warren-Tippets, Ellen Spellman, Lisa Yoder and Andrea Bacal.  The empty chair at the far end is mine.   

 

Instead of a cake, the restaurant produced Tiramisu in a 6" flower pot!   When the waiter first put in down I thought it was dirt - doesn't it look like dirt to you?  But it is a topping of chocolate flakes with a sprig of mint and a candle.  We passed it around  the table and everyone helped themselves.  Delicious.

 

Here I am - the silly birthday "girl".  Ellen Spellman made these flashy, funky dice to hang on the rear view mirror in the Lexus.  Sort of a memory trip back to the 50s and the fuzzy dice that hung in the "cool guys" cars.   I thought they might work as earrings, but perhaps not.   I'm wearing a wonderful new scarf from the dye pots of Meredith Strauss of Los Angeles (she sells at the VAM gift shop).  It was a fun evening - just the beginning of this year's special birthday celebration.  75?  It is hard for me to believe!

 

Monday Browsing and Portal 08-26-13

Shopping in the future:  http://on.aol.com/show/hardwired-517741276/episode/517869645?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl30%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D356880

Facial recognition for dogs? http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/20/pip-uses-facial-recognition-to-reunite-lost-pets-with-their-owners/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl27%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D360977

Love from a baby sea lion:  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLL-Sq-rCtXaqAsLkqEf6ag/videos

Quilt Canada  2013  http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/sets/72157633865983372/

Birmingham, UK QShow    http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/sets/72157635169672384/

Also videos at:  http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/videos.html

“Kimono” challenge by FiberartNE, a group of fiber artists from New York and Connecticut:     http://janedavila.blogspot.com/2013/08/kimono-inspirations.html

http://www.artquiltgallerynyc.com/The_ArtQuilt_Gallery_NYC/Current_Show.html



 The Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel, located 60 miles West of Denver on I-70 is the highest vehicular tunnel in the world, located at an elevation of 11, 013 ft at the East Portal and 11,158 ft at the West Portal (shown).