Block Unit Beginnings

Well, I'm actually starting in on the first clue for the Lupines & Laughter mystery quilt. Matching sets of four hourglass blocks of pink, blue and white.

I'm trying a couple of different methods to see which is most accurate for me. So far, so good.
 

Wandering Wednesday - Big Basin Redwoods State Park

 For the first time since the CZU fire in 2020, DH and I actually went for a hike in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We drove through it last year, but didn't stop. You have to reserve a parking spot (some of the parking lots are inaccessible), there are no facilities (they all burned down), there's no running water and only chemical toilets (the pipes and facilities burned) . It's so different there now, you can see the remains of all the campgrounds and picnic areas. All the fences and bridges are brand new looking wood.

After getting over the shock of how the infrastructure looks now, we found the trail we were looking for. 

And across the brand-new bridge.

So many mushrooms and fungus were getting to work processing all the downed trees. Here's Rosy Brown Waxy Cap (according to the iNaturalist and Seek apps)

Hairy Curtain Crust!

Fairy Fingers!

False Puffball!

Witch's Butter

The red of the redwood underneath the brown/black outside bark is such a surprising color.

I'm glad that they haven't "cleaned-up the whole forest around the trail. It's good to be able to interact with the remnants of the burned trees that aren't ever going to regrow.

But then a little further on...this made me cry. A completely burned stump, the tree trunk fallen and burned. But there's several 6" high sprouts right off of the stump.

Some of the big trees didn't make it. 

California Quail are back out in force.

Really glad we went for a hike, I feel inspired by this forest that I live in. It's carrying on, keeping going, even growing, despite the setbacks and near destruction.

December To-Do

Here's how my design wall looks on the first day of December. It's quite different than many of the preceding months of this year. The finished Old Town Mystery quilt top is now carefully folded up and off of the wall. Also no longer on the wall is the Jane Sassaman class project, Sour Grace, which is now boxed up and awaiting the next step. 

In the foreground as usual is the scrap box I've been working from to make the weekly Patchwork Palooza blocks. Next to the box is the bag with the in-process Oxbow Tote. on top of the box is the Stamp Quilt, Temperature Quilt, in the brown tote is the BAMQ BOM fabric pull and completed blocks. 

All of the completed blocks for Patchwork Palooza are arranged over on the left of the wall. Still pinned up on the right is my not as recently returned from being shown quilt, “Our Mistake.” All the other projects are recently recovered from a smashed pile that I pinned up just to look at. Some are from the 2024 Project Quilting or other classes.

On to the final To-Do list of 2025.  I'm continuing on with using the not-so-very-new configuration of my to-do list below, as it more closely follows the database categories that I use to keep track of all my work-in-progress. I'm keeping the Design and Finished section going forward. Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2025 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year.

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on a overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making units as mystery clues are revealed.

BAMQ BOM - make monthly blocks of varying sizes.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - add sashing/cornerstones and assemble top

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023 Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife -  Sandwich this and start quilting it

                                      

Quilting

leaving this category right here so I don't forget to use it next time

Final Steps 

🥏👽City Sampler- the long-armer is still working on it!

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Oxbow Tote - Continue the assembly. 

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching

Kawandii - Finish hand stitching/assembly

Hey! This Is All Finished!

I'm still leaving this category here so I don't forget to use it next time I finish something

Again, no actual finishing happened during this past month. But, I worked on nine out of eighteen to-do projects. It's good to keep progressing on many fronts. Keeping on keeping on....

Determined December

So, December arrives upon us once again. Do you feel ready for it? I, frankly do not at all feel ready for a big holiday production this year of any sort. But I will try my best to come up with something reasonable that we can all enjoy doing and to also get some me-time/sewing-time in there also at some point during the month that lies ahead. 

The monthly marker was made by the apps KaleidaCam and SnapSeed from this original picture of the really excellent Routed West exhibit at BAMPFA as seen from the second floor. It's a very cool looking building with unexpected shapes inside and out. DH said it looked like a bit like a 50's era toaster from the outside, which I somewhat agreed with. In college, our sorority house was next door to the old BAMPFA building which was very fun to look out the window at as it also was built in a super interesting way. That way was unfortunately unable to be updated for the more rigorous earthquake building standards, thus the new, improved BAMPFA building.

The 30 second video of my One Second Every Day of November is above.

 Monthly I-Did List for November

1. I worked on the big paper pieced quilt I'm making with the MQG Challenge fabrics.
2. I made more Stamp Quilt blocks, eleven new ones in all. 
3. I added more monthly columns to the Temperature Quilt.
4. I cut out, quilted and began assembly of the Oxbow Tote.
5. I cut out eleven more Stamp Quilt blocks.
6. I cut out three more Patchwork Palooza blocks and sewed each of them up: Safe Harbour, Starlight Path, Guiding Star.
7. I chose fabric and made HST blocks and Checkerboard blocks for the BAMQG BOM.
8. I stitched on the Snake in the Garden piece.
9. I made the last three Patchwork Palooza blocks, Market Day, Crosswalk, and Homeward Bound.
10. I made four table napkins out of the toweling I recently bought in Portland.
11. I pulled fabric for the Lupine & Laughter mystery quilt.   

November was partially a month of travel, most of the first week in Portland or on the way home, up and back to Spokane once again for the medical study. Then there was the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, survived without a working refrigerator/freezer. Thankfully we have a working little one that we're limping along with until the big one gets fixed. The amount of work I got done was pretty good, considering the traveling and home chaos. I participated in a sew day of sorts to work on the Oxbow Tote. I was still very active on social media, posted on BlueSky 31 times, on Flashes 9 times, on Instagram 3 times. I doubt December will be any calmer, but hopefully there'll be sewing time in there.

November Cornucopia

 

The end of November has arrived, and so it's time for a cornucopia post. Here's a gathering of all the stuff I enjoyed reading, watching, seeing or listening to online this past month.

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A new zipper has been invented! Not for home use yet unfortunately, as it requires a special sewing machine (made by YKK and Juki) but it's super cool and inventive. 

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Probably too late for making for this year, but I thought this new twist on an advent calendar was pretty cool.

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Putting Pieowa: A Piece of America, on my to-watch list, as it sounds like a great documentary blend of quilt making and pie making.

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An Ecology of Quilts at the Folk Art Museum in NYC looks like a good exhibit to go see in person, but all the quilts you can see online are definitely worth a look.

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A great table runner design made out of big HSTs, and it's free to boot.

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A free quilt design from Art Gallery Fabrics, given as a Thanksgiving thank you, that is really quite striking, I'm putting it on my to-do list.

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I've just become a subscriber to The Flytrap, a worker-owned feminist media group. I'm enjoying the very good reporting and writing. Independent media is really so important these days.

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I think I've posted about comedian Josh Johnson before, but this interview with former Daily Show host, Trevor Noah is really worth watching. The two of them together in conversation is both hilarious and so thought-provoking. 

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I enjoyed listening to the most recent Rivers of London book (Stone & Sky) as well the most recent Thursday Murder Club (The Impossible Fortune). Both books were great, but the two narrators continue to be excellent. They're at-the-top-of-their-craft good, such a great variety of voices for the characters which really helps tell the stories. I love love love the Libby app, it works so well for me.

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Sew Share is a new sewing forum that I'm trying out, thanks to a heads up from Folkwear Patterns. You can find and friend me here.  

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I loved reading about the new discoveries found through the world-wide use of a super fun to use UC Berkeley-made app, iNaturalist. One of the world's largest biodiversity datasets is no small achievement.

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Due to the release of the second Wicked movie, here's a great post from The Internet Archive blog about The Wonderful Public Domain of Oz.

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Homeward Bound

 

Last block for Patchwork Palooza! It's an easy Log Cabin, renamed "Homeward Bound" for this quilt.

I put purple in the center, because that's our house with the purple trim. Finally I got to use the matchstick fabric, it's really a challenging print.

Here's a view of the whole group of blocks as called out in the quilt design. I will be moving them around I think.  But now on to making the sashing and cornerstones and get to assembling.

Come One, Come All

 

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's hoping that you're happy, well-fed, warm, and well today. Here's an illustration of how I'm getting to my family's celebration. And if you need some reading today, Atlas Obscura has seven Thanksgiving stories that are pretty entertaining.

I always love looking at historical illustrations of the various holidays we celebrate, this one from famous political cartoonist, Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly in 1869. It shows what would be a very lively Thanksgiving dinner table. The words "Come One, Come All" and "Free and Equal" are written in the corners. And right in the center of the table is "Universal Suffrage" And "Self Governance". Sounds like a darned good feast to me.