All of a sudden, I find that I'm in a new stage of life now. One where I'm accompanying my folks to doctor appointments to take notes and make sure questions get answered. As well as to hang out and provide company during hours long infusion time. Good thing I have some stitching to bring along with me. Cancer still sucks though ðŸ˜
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Wandering Wednesday: San Juan Bautista
Last weekend was time for the Bay Area Modern Quilting retreat held in San Juan Bautista. I love taking pictures of interesting doors that I see, and I got to take this one of an old adobe building with a painted pattern around the doorway. That blue and white pattern would make a great border pattern on a quilt.
We got together for pre-retreat lunch at Jardines de San Juan after first shopping at Family Threads Quilt Shop. It's a great little shop, well displayed fabric, really good selection and a great tool/notions wall. I love the succulent planter letters that the restaurant has up on the adobe wall.
Then it was set up time at the St. Francis Retreat Center. This was the very lovely view out of my window.
I greatly enjoyed the mostly native plant gardens near the workroom and the guest quarters. This is a Yellow or Butter Lupine.
The Redbuds were really in bloom. These are so striking, and the bees love them.
Leaving the workroom at night to return to our room, I noticed the moon shining through the grape pergola. The frogs were really really loud at night, it sounded like a million of them out in the pond.
I had to go check out the pond the next day, and saw no frogs, "only" lizards, ducks, herons and red wing blackbirds.
This tree stump had very interesting shapes, I wished I could have taken a print off of it.
The little creek was completely full of water clover. It looked solid enough to walk on. From far away I thought it was astroturf! It was that intense of a green.
This is a plant I have at home, Pride of Madeira, but this one is much better taken care of, mine needs to be severely pruned back.
What a gorgeous place for a quilt retreat, I really loved getting to come back there, and I'm looking forward to coming again next year.
Labels:
doors,
flowers,
Wandering Wednesday
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Return of City Sampler
I was really glad that I'd used these straight pins that have the numbers to keep track of the rows as I went along. It's a lot of blocks!
The whole time I was working on these I kept saying to myself, "Oh wow! This one is so great! I dyed that fabric? It's beautiful!" I was really happy to jump back into this colorful project.
And then all 100 blocks were sewn into 10 rows of 10 blocks. The next step was applying long pieces of the same fabric to the bottom of each row. And then to sew those together and press each and every long seam towards the sashing. I didn't take pictures of this step as it was rather involved and I was getting very tired. But then unfortunately, I ran out of sashing fabric. As I'd cut the sashing pieces out years ago, I can't remember if I knew that or just cut a bunch and figured I'd cut more later. Anyway, now I have to find the Exact Gray Solid to continue. Wish me luck on that one. I don't have a picture of the 7 rows that got sewn together but I'll put it up on my design wall and post it later.
Labels:
City Sampler,
hand-dye,
quilt blocks,
quilt tops
Monday, April 22, 2024
More YES
On the last day of retreat I worked on making more Y.E.S. Paper pieced blocks for my YES coat. These are printed out from EQ8 on newsprint. I couldn’t do the fold and flip paper piecing method because my glue stick was no longer glue-y.
Give a Y, give me an E!
Just what I wanted, easy to not really see the YES in the blocks but it still is distinct enough if you really look.👀
Give a Y, give me an E!
Just what I wanted, easy to not really see the YES in the blocks but it still is distinct enough if you really look.👀
What an awesome retreat, really enjoyed it and getting a chance to know more of the bamq people. I tried my best, but I overdid it and my knee is very unhappy with me. A good reminder of why I’m having surgery.
Labels:
bamq,
paper piecing,
retreat,
Yes Coat
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Yarned Up
I bought this really nice variegated sock weight yarn and a smallish crochet hook with a larger grip. This crochet hook fits my hand very well and is nicely balance. Will I ever crochet an actual sock? Or perhaps something else? I unfortunately realized a bit too late that the yarn was much too fine to try and crochet with in the car as I'm not that practiced. So now it's in my yarn basket in my workroom. Maybe I'll try crocheting while I watch SF Giants baseball games this season.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
63 Out of 100 Days
Here are seven more days worth of the 100 Days Project. I'm away at the BAMQ retreat and have scheduled this post and sewn ahead of myself a couple days. Hopefully I remembered to post all 7 pictures of the new 9" segments.
My plan is to bring this giant roll of sewn Scrap Tape along with me to keep up on the days while I'm there. I'm planning to use the scraps that I generate as I'm working on the projects that I bring to the retreat, so there will be a distinct look to those segments.That white on white checkerboard fabric is so odd, but so cool. I thought it looked good around some fabrics that had bits of white.
A checkerboard of mis-cut cornerstones for the 4 I's quilt makes an appearance.
More bits from the making of Bohemian Wife blocks appear.
This combination on the left is a great palette for a quilt, the grey orange, purple, yellow on purple/pink, then a chartreuse, woohoo!
One last segment for the week. Can't believe I'm up to 63!
Labels:
100 Days Project,
bamq,
color palette,
fabric scraps,
retreat,
Scrap Tape
Friday, April 19, 2024
April's Showers=Flower Friday
Indoors, two refugees from a bouquet, surviving and floating for a little bit longer.
These Columbines, always such a surprise, I forget they might show up.
And I don't always know what color combinations that they'll be. These flowers are a little like a secret between me and the bees as they don't really turn their faces up to the sun.
There are several pots that the Columbines come up, and they seem to stick to a few color combinations with variation year to year.
Climbing roses to be blooming very soon.
This scented geranium bush is enormous and I need to divide it and replant some elsewhere, but for now I'm enjoying the cute little flowers and the lovely scent.
Speaking of scent, the lilacs are going gangbusters this year probably from all the rain.
The center of these yellow-orange on orange Calendulas are so mesmerizing, and apparently attractive to bugs too.
A couple new plants that my family planted for me, as I'm off garden chores until I'm rehabbed from an imminent knee surgery. This is a Hybrid Pacific Coast Iris in New Yellow. I love the maroon ribbing. This is planted in the filtered light of the Fig tree so hopefully it'll be happy.
Another new plant my family planted for me is this Abutilon Pictum Thompsonil, the variegated leaves and the sort of variegated flowers are really pretty. I hope this one works out and makes it through the summer.
The Poison Tree, that's what my family calls it (it is very poisonous, Angel's Trumpet) is enormous and heavy with blossoms. It takes a lot of trimming to keep it in bounds.
Pink and more pink!
Some of the variations might have to do with the amount of sun these different pots get. I enjoy them all and I'm always happy to see them bloom.
Climbing roses to be blooming very soon.
This scented geranium bush is enormous and I need to divide it and replant some elsewhere, but for now I'm enjoying the cute little flowers and the lovely scent.
Speaking of scent, the lilacs are going gangbusters this year probably from all the rain.
The center of these yellow-orange on orange Calendulas are so mesmerizing, and apparently attractive to bugs too.
A couple new plants that my family planted for me, as I'm off garden chores until I'm rehabbed from an imminent knee surgery. This is a Hybrid Pacific Coast Iris in New Yellow. I love the maroon ribbing. This is planted in the filtered light of the Fig tree so hopefully it'll be happy.
Another new plant my family planted for me is this Abutilon Pictum Thompsonil, the variegated leaves and the sort of variegated flowers are really pretty. I hope this one works out and makes it through the summer.
The Poison Tree, that's what my family calls it (it is very poisonous, Angel's Trumpet) is enormous and heavy with blossoms. It takes a lot of trimming to keep it in bounds.
That's all for now, I can't walk around the whole yard unfortunately as I have stay on stable surfaces. Making this garden over the years has been one of my favorite things I've done in life.
Labels:
Flower Friday,
flowers
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