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Tuesday, February 28, 2017

T is for ..... TITS!!

I'll bet that got your attention!!!  hehehe

I went to the local guild's quilt show this past weekend and they had a challenge that was titled "T is for .... ".  Quilts needed to use a block starting with "T" or have something relating to a T in the subject.  This one cracked me up!!





Here are a couple of others:

Tents, trailers, trees!


I don't remember what the T was for this.  But I like it.



Tea party?  Tea cups?




Very sweet applique and cute setting, I thought.




This is a GREAT quilt.  The description is below:




I think this quilt is fabulous!


I really enjoyed the setting of this one; she utilized light and darks to separate the blocks.  Very cool.









Here's a novel idea:  sell back your fabric to a vendor who will then re-sell it.  They'll give you virtually pennies on the dollar but you'll be rid of your unused fabric.  I think the woman told me that they buy it by the pound and a pound (which will get you maybe $4.00) consists of about 2 1/2 yds.  No thanks.  I'd rather give it away!


Cute blocks and setting.


I really like this setting--notice the star in the center??  I might even have made a quilt with this setting! 


Another really cute setting for blocks of different sizes.




The description said that this was from Sentimental Stitches.  I love it.  maybe I just love the colors.  Isn't it awesome!


That's it for the local guild's show.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures and find something inspiring.

Tomorrow is March 1st (yikes!!) and you know what that means!!  WE start our sew along!  Goose in the Pond!  Oh and I will have a surprise visitor at the cabin for a couple of nights!  Can't wait!!  Who could it be???

Friday, February 24, 2017

Completely out of touch

I went to get my car serviced yesterday and while it was in the shop, I went to the local mall (where I hadn't been in a long long time) and was walking around and happened to see this THING moving down the mall.



It was MOVING!  I was astounded.  It had lights flashing and went back and forth.  I asked someone working at one of those little kiosks and he told me that this is for SECURITY.  It is filming everyone and everything and moving around to make sure it covers everyone.  WEIRD!!  What have I been missing??!!

And then, not to be outdone, I went for a snack and saw THIS, which was stationary, but WEIRD nonetheless.


It was animated and talking!  What has happened to malls??  VBG


I promised I would show you some pictures from Diamond Head, which was an old volcano in Honolulu.  It was also used as an outpost during the war, although the top was very small so it only had a small area for watching for enemies! ;-)
It was a pretty strenuous hike up, involving some VERY steep steps.  I was too winded to take a picture, and I'm sorry I didn't.  But here are some shots.  If provided a beautiful view over the water and the old crater.


This is Diamond Head from the beach.  We hiked up to the tippy top!
Here you can see the outer edge of the crater:



Look at the colors of the water!! Isn't that gorgeous??!!  You can see we were pretty high up!


This is looking in the other direction, towards Waikiki Beach.  Water still beautiful!

I continue to be amazed at how some people seem to think that rules don't apply to them.  There was a big sign telling people to STOP and not go any further.  And the DANGER warning sign was obviously unheeded!


We had a fun girls' weekend in the warmth and sunshine, sans husbands!

it's still good to be back home;  I'm babysitting today for my grandkids and we are having them with us this weekend!  No sewing for me but there is a quilt show put on by my local guild and I'm going on Sunday.  Quilt pictures to follow, I promise.

My friend Claire shared this quilt with me that she was putting in the show.  She is so creative.

She designed a block of the month every month this past year for the guild, using scraps.  I think this was one of the first.  I love how she cut off the boats at the bottom and the top. She also has a longarm and did a great job quilting, I think.

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

The perfect winter weekend getaway and a little culture!

A girlfriend and I just spent a most fabulous weekend luxuriating in the Hawaiian weather in Honolulu!  OMG.  It was wonderful to get away and see some sun and warmth.  Of course, when I returned, the freeways to my house remained closed due to mudslides so I had to drive an extra 90 miles to get home.  But well worth it.  We had a blast.

When we were there,  one of the highlights was our visit to the former home of Doris Duke, called Shangri-La. www.shangrilahawaii.org/  
Of course, I saw quilt patterns everywhere!  


Have you ever seen or heard of a banyan tree?  This is what greeted us before entering the house.  Amazing!~!

I learned that Doris Duke was the richest woman in the world, having inherited her father's wealth when she was 12 yrs old!  She married in her early 20s, used a personal cruise ship to honeymoon around the world  and wound up staying in Hawaii for 4 months and loved it so much, that she bought 5  completely undeveloped acres on the water and built an estate.  She traveled extensively during her life but especially loved Islamic art.  She accumulated quite an eclectic collection of art.

Because she was so very rich, nothing was out of her reach.  And I think she had very good taste, although I wouldn't say that I loved all her art.  She had all her floors made of hand-cut marble and tile.  These were some of the floors!




Some of the pictures are a little blurry--and you can just make out my flip flops and orange toes here! ;-)







This was on a wall!

The amount of tile work throughout the house was just overwhelming and gorgoeus.  


Of course, all the doors were hand carved and contained messages.  This was just one.


Then there was the furniture, with its ivory inlaid construction!  We do these patterns with fabric.  Can you imagine having to cut ivory and put it all together like this??  I couldn't imagine the labor involved!






And the gardens?  You can just imagine how wonderful they were!
I just loved this display in one smaller area.  Weren't her interests so eclectic?



If you look closely at the bottom of the marble steps, you can make out quilt patterns in the marble as well.  This was the side entrance!!

The next day, we hiked up to Diamond Head, a former volcano,  and I'll show you pictures of that tomorrow.  I hope to get some sewing done tonight, having been away from my fabric and machines for the entire time (and more!).  I might even have some blocks to show you.

Don't forget that our sew along starts on March 1st... one week!  I hope you'll join in!

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happy Valentine's Day

Whether you are able to bestow love and kisses on those who matter to you or not, I hope you will enjoy a wonderful day.  The sun is shining in California and I noticed a little flower blooming in our yard.  Spring is on its way, although we still have a huge storm approaching this weekend.

I got a few things done this week.  I got the binding sewn down on my Stars in a Time Warp.  This is the quilt made from the blocks that were posted every week by Barbara Brackman last year.  Each week, we were instructed to follow the fabric designated that week.  The pattern is the same for each block but it's amazing how different they all look with different fabrics.



And I love the fabric I used for the backing:



I also worked on another block for the Triangle Gatherings being offered by Primitive Gatherings.  I am using the whimsical fabrics I was going to use on another project, which hasn't budged!  I'm enjoying playing with fun fabrics.  This umbrella fabric was found at Rosie's in San Diego!  I think it's great to be able to step out of our normal routines and try something new.  I think that's a definite personality trait of mine:  no fear (mostly) to try new things!  Fun, isn't it??


I also worked a little bit more on the log cabins being run by Béa and Céçile.



I'm making these very mini!  And I'm using French General fabrics.  I think there is one more set of 4 blocks for this sew a long.  I haven't figured out how I'm going to set all four together, since they are so very different... maybe put something completely unrelated as sashing.  Again, completely out of my comfort zone!!

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Busy sewing day

I wanted to make a block for someone who is undergoing some serious medical issues as part of a group project and this is what I came up with:


It was supposed to be a 6" heart so it was kind of fun to work on last night!  Don't you love the little bees??  Or are they beetles? No matter!

Then I also caught up on my Triangle Gatherings blocks by making 3 more blocks.  I am having such fun using bright, whimsical fabrics!






The cherries were from my trip to San Diego.  FUN, aren't they???

My daughter texted me that her husband's cousin has a little girl (who was their flower girl at their wedding 10 yrs ago) is having some serious medical issues and she asked if it was possible that I might have an extra quilt to send her.  Possible??? Seriously???  


This was folded up in a pile of quilts waiting for homes.  I made this when I was doing block testing for Quiltmaker a few years ago.  It wasn't fabric I particularly enjoyed sewing with so it was great to be able to send this off to someone who would enjoy it.  A 13yr old girl in the hospital?? Took it right over to the post office and off it went!  Further work on my "word of the year" to DONATE! ;-))

You probably also know that it's been raining like crazy in Northern California.  The main highway to our area has been closed because of a massive mudslide!  One of many!  I took Max for a haircut and stopped to take a picture of the raging river nearby!~


Here's Max and his new crewcut!  His hair got so thick and bushy from the time we spent in Oregon at Christmas and after that he has been shedding clumps of hair everywhere.  I also don't like taking him for a walk when he gets so dirty and wet with all that long hair so off it came!

This is one of his favorite places to perch himself while I'm sewing.

I'm off to pick up the kids for the weekend.