Lappteknik

Trip Progress

2012-01-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

I did some quilting on the frame Saturday, but I also twisted my knee at some point, walking the dog through snow, ice and slush. The combination made it difficult to walk or stand on Sunday, but sitting to sew was fine. So I made a few more blocks for this scrappy Trips.

I added 1 purple, 1 blue, 1 green and 2 blue-green blocks. Haven't decided on the final layout, or what the remaining 5 blocks should be. I'm pretty sure I don't want the red/rust in the middle, but I don't know if I want it completely in one corner, or just off-center.

REALLY Winter

2012-01-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

Unlike the wimpy 1 or 2 inches we got over the weekend, today we got 3 or 4 more on top of what's remained Sunday through Tuesday. I mostly stayed in, working from home, and only went out a couple of times to walk Nikki and try to clear off the car. It's now switching to freezing rain, so it won't be easy getting out tomorrow either.

I also did a little quilting when I took a break, and took a picture in daylight. Not exactly bright daylight...

Winter Weather

2012-01-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

Snowed off and on over the weekend, and continuing this week. I got my errands out of the way on Saturday, and Sunday just enjoyed the prettiness without having to go anywhere.

I rearranged blocks on my design wall, but didn’t make any real progress. I had 26 blocks made, and decided I need 36 to finish. That will make a decent throw-sized quilt. Once I get a tentative layout I like, I can make the other blocks to fill in the gaps.

I did spend time on quilting though. I prepped the front and back of the Batik Tracks quilt, and loaded it on the frame. It’s been such a long time since I’ve done that, that I reviewed some videos on method just to refresh my memory. It went on pretty smoothly, although the back and batting are a little skimpy for the width of the quilt. I will have to take extra care to keep things lined up and square. I quilted one pass across in swirly curls. It’s a little difficult to see where I’m going and where I’ve been as the teal thread really does blend into most of the fabrics.

Design Wall 1/9

2012-01-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

I finished the batik top over New Year's weekend, and now am getting ready to quilt it. I wasn't quite ready to start something brand new, so I thought I'd get out an old project. These scrappy trip blocks (from Bonnie Hunter's site) were started a long time ago. I color-coordinated each block, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but then I got stumped when I couldn't see how to put them together, without a lot more blocks in colors that I don't have. Maybe staring at it for awhile on the wall will help.

See what others are working on at Judy's Patchwork Times.

New Year's Thoughts

2012-01-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

No resolutions this year, but I do have a feeling 2012 will be a good year. I signed up for Pinterest this weekend, and started a few boards. At first, I wanted to pin everything I'd liked seeing this past year, but quickly gave up trying to find it all. It can be quite a time-suck, just looking for things to pin. I think once you get up and running though, and just pin things as you come across them, it will become more manageable.

I pinned one picture that I had never seen online, but remembered clipping it out of the newspaper when it ran. I googled 'flamingo zoo bathroom' and found it! I like flamingoes anyway, and the contrast between their graceful shapes and soft pink color and the stark black/white of the bathroom made an impression on me. (The flamingoes at the Miami Zoo were put in there for safety during Hurricane Andrew.)

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T19:03:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Christmas! I went over to Mazama and got back late last night. I was mentally preparing myself to drive alone, but then Boo said that Brent would be driving over on Friday, and I could get a ride back with Jeremy. It was quite a relief not to have to drive all that way by myself.

Brent's latest project at the cabin is building a sauna. He found a guy on Craigslist selling cedar boards, so we made a side trip to Enumclaw to pick up a load of wood, which filled up most of the inside of the van in addition to quite a bit tied to the roof racks. It certainly smelled good!

Little Sauna in the Big Woods

The cedar is to panel the inside and make benches. I think the outside of the box might get some finishing siding as well.

Christmas posting is not complete without a picture of the tree, even though it's mostly blocked by Brent, wearing the Santa hat to hand out presents. Evan and Jeremy on the couch.

Half the Rows

2011-12-19T06:38:00.000-08:00

I sewed blocks together for 8 rows. Only 7 left, but I got sidetracked into starting a Christmas project. After several hours on that, and an aching back from all the cutting and pressing, I decided it wouldn't get done this year. I don't know why I sometimes think I can just squeeze these in, but hope springs eternal I guess. I do like how this batik quilt is looking. It's interesting how much better it looks once the blocks are sewn into rows.

Blocks Done

2011-12-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

I finished making the blocks yesterday, but didn't take a picture until tonight. That's one-third of them on the wall, as I've put up 2 from each strip set (which made 6). I can't fit all of them on this make-do design wall anyway.
I'm trying to decide if I want to have a random placement, or put all the darker blocks on the outside edges, as I've started to do here. Since it's a bed quilt, any deliberate placement will probably be lost.
See what others are working on at Judy's blog.

Missed it!

2011-12-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

I missed seeing the lunar eclipse. In spite of it being Saturday, I woke up around 6 as usual. I peeked outside and saw a few stars, so I threw on some clothes and went out. But didn't see anything. I've seen eclipses before, so I knew that you should still be able to see the outline of the moon. My next door neighbor was standing in his driveway, and I asked him if he had seen anything. He said he'd been up watching, and saw when the eclipse started around 5 am. But now the marine layer was starting to come in from the west and the cloud cover had become thick enough to completely obscure the sight. Hey, at least I tried. Now I think it's time for a nap.

Design Wall

2011-12-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

I've made two more groups of 6, so I now have ~~144~~ 108 blocks (I knew something in my math was off!)although I'm only showing 36. I should mention that this is inspired by the Crossroads quilt in the book Colorful Quilts for Fabric Lovers, but since I didn't feel like making 3 different types of blocks (changing where the middle strip falls), I'm actually following the pattern for City Tracks in the book City Quilts.

I'm going to link this with Patchwork Times' Design Wall Monday again. I think doing that gave me a lot of incentive to keep at this.

Design Wall

2011-11-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

I've enjoyed following Judy's adventures at Patchwork Times for some time now. And I like seeing what others are working on, shown in links on Design Wall Monday. This is the first time I've actually had something on my design wall in ages, and the first time I've tried putting a link to it.

I cut and sewed 6 strip sets for this yesterday, which made 36 blocks. I've got fabric selected for 6 more sets, and fabric pulled and stacked for double that. I'm hoping the different blues and blue-greens will blend better once there are more of them.

Finally Finished

2011-11-20T12:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, this was quilted back in July, but I finally got the binding done. One more to check off for the year! I'd have to quilt full-time the rest of the year to meet my original goal, but maybe I can get one or two more done... maybe!

Thingvellir

2011-09-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

The final stop on our tour was Thingvellir National Park.

How it's spelled in Icelandic - the first letter looks like a P with the half-circle in the middle. A Thing or Ting or Ping is a democratically-elected governing body or parliament, and Iceland is quite proud of having had the first one in the world. At some point though, they had enough problems governing themselves that they turned themselves over to Norway, which later came back under Danish control, and so Iceland was under Danish rule until 1963 when it again became an sovereign nation. Anyway, this first Thing was in this valley, and it is still the site of major ceremonial events. Although not the beheadings and drownings that were the outcome of their early judicial system. The actual Thing was moved to Reykjavik after a major earthquake dropped the land here a couple of meters.

The valley it is located in is at the meeting place of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, so it's subject to lots of earthquakes. This is the largest natural lake in Iceland, and it fills in some of the gap created by earthquakes.

These fissures or rifts as our guide called them are especially prominent on the west side of the valley. Some looked to be 20 feet or more deep, and some were wide enough to have walking paths at the bottom.

There were a few more pictures I would have taken here, but my camera battery died. At least it was the last stop on my last full day of the trip.

Geysir

2011-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

The next stop was Geysir national park. This is home to the big Geysir, after which geysers worldwide were named. It hasn't erupted for over 10 years, since a big earthquake in the area disrupted the underground channels. It's still bubbling slightly, so it may erupt again some day. There are a lot of smaller geysers near by, and one of them, Strokkur, erupts every 10 to 15 minutes so you don't have to wait long for an eruption.

The original Geysir, with only a little steam visible.

Strokkur erupts.

Strokkur's eruption fading away.

The clear water of this geyser pool lets you see into the depths where an eruption would come from.

A field of baby geysers.

Little Geysir. It just bubbles away, like a pot on full boil.

Gulfoss

2011-09-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

Our second stop was at Gulfoss, or Golden Waterfall. I'm not sure if it is the largest waterfall in Iceland, or the most scenic, or just the most well-known.

This river is glacier-fed, specifically from the Längjökull Glacier, seen in the map above.

The edges of the Längjökull Glacier in the distance. I don't know how much their glaciers are shrinking, but our guide did tell us that they are now able to grow some crops that haven't been grown there since before the Little Ice Age. And she pointed out some ski areas near Reykjavik that have had to close because they don't get enough snow in the winter any more.

Gulfoss.

Skalholt

2011-09-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

I took what's known as the Golden Circle tour, offered by several tour companies and comprising 3 main geographical/historical sites. Our first stop however wasn't listed on the itinerary. It was Skalholt, site of the first bishopric after Iceland adopted Christianity in the year 1000. It has been the site of 10 churches in the 1000+ years since, and at one time was one of the larger towns in Iceland, including one of the first schools and a monastery. There is still a small study/conference center there, alongside a modern church finished in 1963.

This old cellar entrance was just to the right of the church.

There had been some excavations of structures from the early villages.

This stone foundation was mostly intact, although overgrown.

The interior of the church was mostly plain white and modern, except for beautiful stained glass windows and this fantastic altar piece. It seemed to be made of glass beads, because it glistened in the sunshine.

Iceland

2011-09-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

After a couple more days in the Stockholm area, I flew to Iceland. When I started planning this trip, I quickly realized that, since SAS doesn't fly out of Seattle any more and all the increased fees and fuel charges for flying, it was going to be a better deal to fly on Icelandair. All their flights connect through Iceland, and there's no charge for stopovers, so I decided to take a couple days to see a little bit of a new country. I stayed in Keflavik, which is very close to the airport, but unless I was just going to drive around the southwest peninsula, I probably wouldn't do that again. It was nice and quiet, but not much going on. And the tour I took started in Reykjavik, so I had to go by bus for almost an hour just to start the tour.

A park by Keflavik Harbor my first night in Iceland.

As we were driving into the countryside, the tour guide pointed this out as a dormant volcano. I thought, how dormant can it be if it's steaming like that?

But then you start to notice that there are steam vents all over the place. Some small and isolated...

Some larger, with generating plants built up around them. Iceland has become a leader in utilizing geothermal energy, even exporting it in the form of smelted aluminum. (It takes so much energy to smelt aluminum that it is shipped to Iceland in its raw form, smelted, and then shipped back.)

They also use the geothermal to heat greenhouses (and presumably light them in winter), which enables them to grow about 25% of their vegetables.

A view of a southern fjord, with the rolling ridges left from different lava flows. The geology here is very new, with the land built up from volcanos in relatively recent times.

Göta Canal

2011-09-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

On our way to and from Öland, we crossed over the Göta Canal at Söderköping. Although built to aid shipping between Göteborg on the west coast and the Baltic Sea, it is primarily used these days for pleasure cruises. On our way back from Öland, we stopped in Söderköping for some ice cream near the locks and to look around a bit.

I was surprised that most of the boats were large sailboats - you can't sail in a canal! but Ann pointed out that the canal runs through the two largest lakes in Sweden, Vännern and Vättern, which are great for sailing. A number of the yachts carried French and German flags.

Beyond the guest harbor, the canal seems sleepy and peaceful.

Turning back towards the town, I was surprised to see this sign for a rabbit crossing.

Across the canal, a bunny makes a brave racing dive.

While on the other side, his pals help pull him out.

Öland Sights

2011-09-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

In and around the main event of the wedding, I had a few glimpses of Öland. There wasn't time to do major sightseeing, but still saw lots of windmills, etc.

This style of windmill is typical of Öland, and there are lots still scattered around the island. Most are in disrepair, but some are in various stages of restoration. There were also areas with the huge modern wind generators - a windswept place.

It's a long skinny island, with sand beaches facing the Baltic.

On the channel side, facing Kalmar and the coast north of it, are mostly stone beaches. This old stone cottage or hut, with thatched roof, was next to the stone beach where we had a grill fest the night before the wedding.

This is a long view of that stone beach. I liked how some of cliffs had collapsed onto the beach.

The pasture behind the community hall where the reception was held could be accessed using this stile. At one break in the festivities, the photographer had all the women climb over this so he could take a group picture in the pasture. I'm still not sure why. I did manage to climb over the stile.

A pasture beyond Sandby pensionat, where cows were grazing next to the sea.

Behind the church was this old stone barn, perhaps for the minister's animals, perhaps for the parishioners' horses during the long services.

I used the long zoom to see the plaque above the door so we could determine the date. It says 1850.

Outside the Church

2011-08-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

See what a beautiful day it was? When the wedding ceremony was over, everyone filed out of the church and waited in the churchyard for the bride and groom to come out.

Mom with Annie, Bob and Jill behind them.

BIL Bob with Mom.

Emily and Sebastian, newly married, emerge from the church. Emily's dress was made by my mom for her own wedding in 1950. Ann wore it for her wedding to Ketil in 1985, and now a third generation shows its timelessness.

And kiss. Birdseed and bubble-blowers were provided as we went out.

Emily with her cousin Annie.

Emily with her mormor.

Wedding!

2011-08-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Finally it was Saturday, August 6th, and the day of the wedding. And it was a beautiful day. Ann's family got dressed in their wedding finery early to go take pictures with the wedding party.

This was outside the bed & breakfast where they were staying.

Sebbe and Emily come into the church, followed by David and Lina, best man and maid of honor.

I didn't take any pictures during the actual wedding ceremony. When it was done, and time to walk down the aisle in the recessional, Emily was surprised to see more musicians come out, led by Sebbe's friend David Lindvall.

Then Sebbe serenaded Emily with the song Flowers in the Window. His younger siblings and cousins provided backup. There's a video here.

W-Day -1

2011-08-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

The day before the wedding, a lot of people were supposed to come to the site of the wedding reception and help set things up. Unfortunately, when we got there at 9, no one had the key - the people who had had a party the day before hadn't turned it in. Anneli made a number of phone calls and finally located someone who had a spare. So we got into the place around 10. But many hands make light work and things started coming together. My main task was splitting 16 yards of sage green burlap (hand-carried from Iowa by Bob) into thirds lengthwise, and then stay-stitching the edges to prevent ravelling.

The tables were set into 5 long rows plus the head table. White tablecloths, sage burlap runners, plum napkins. Christmas tree lights were hung between the regular lights, and origami birds were suspended from those, as well as from the curtain rods on the side windows.

Candles, glassware, and table decorations started to make it look festive.

Ann made the concrete hearts used for place cards (130 of them!). She also made the centerpieces, concrete oval bowls planted with sedums and decorative stones.

The hearts were tied with raffia, and the place-cards (hand-lettered by Jill) were tied to them.

W-Day - 2

2011-08-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

In other words, Wedding Day minus 2. On Thursday, some of us went over to the Thylanders to get acquainted and to help with some wedding preparations. A most pressing issue was the seating chart for the dinner/reception following the wedding.

Sebbe and Emily discuss the seating arrangements.

Felix looks on as discussions continue.

The mothers have their lists out. From left: Lina Andersson (maid of honor), Samuel Thylander (brother of the groom), Anneli Thylander (mother of the groom), Linda Persson (girlfriend of the best man), Ann Turner (mother of the bride).

Enjoying the shade: Ketil, Mom, Jan Thylander (father of the groom).

Felicia, sister of the groom, was in the kitchen working on the wedding cake. She made a marvelous multi-tiered cake with fillings and marzipan topping.

That night, relatives on both sides went out to dinner at Lammet och Grisen (literally, The Lamb and The Pig). This well-known local restaurant features all-you-can-eat carveries, with abundant side dishes. The evening winds down with a classic Swedish sing-along, and the bridal couple was honored with a song and a solo dance.

Kalmar

2011-08-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

We headed down to Öland on Wednesday. It was a scenic drive, but slow due to road construction and traffic. When we got to Kalmar, the gateway to Öland, we drove around the center of town a bit before taking the bridge.

The old castle, heavily fortified at a time when they thought the Poles might attack across the Baltic.

Stone work on an old church.

A water tower? Not quite sure what this was, but looked impressive.

The bridge.

Vätö

2011-08-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

My trip started with a long flight from Seattle to Iceland, then a switch to a different plane (which was delayed) to fly to Stockholm. Ann met me at the gate, we made our way to the baggage claim and collected my luggage, then to her car and drove straight out to Vätö. Mom, Jill and Bob were already there. We had a couple of days to relax and enjoy the Swedish summer weather.

Ann and Ketil"s summer house

Ann"s cement works

Small harbor on Vätö

Old building with stone foundation

Leaving - on a jet plane

2011-07-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

That song's running through my head. I'm headed for the airport soon, and flying to Sweden for my niece's wedding. Yay for vacation! Yay for weddings!

Hydrangeas

2011-07-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowering shrubs, even though they're not fragrant. I love the deep blue or bluish purple the best, but the only one I have is a lighter blue. It was supposed to be a short one. I'm not sue of the name, but it might be 'Blue Danube'.

Next Borders

2011-07-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

I've finished quilting this, and here are some pictures of the border sections.

It's a little tricky quilting round robins or medallions like this. Not only do you need to come up with different quilting patterns, but also try to keep them consistent and similar on all 4 sides.

Still need to tie off a few threads, trim and straighten the edges, and then put on binding.

Brent and Evan are coming over in a little while to drop off Peco, so they can go on an overnight sea kayak trip. It's kind of gloomy day, with rain earlier, and a power outage because of someone hitting a pole. But maybe it will get better for the rest of the weekend.

More Quilting

2011-07-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

The next quilt I've been working on was a round robin from the old group at Safeco. We met almost monthly for I don't know how many years, and churned out a lot of mystery quilts and round robins. I think this may have been the last one I did with that group (although we still see each other at Carol's quilting days).

I'm going to show this from the center out, as it developed during the rounds of piecing. During quilting on the frame, however, you start at the top border and work your way down.

I made the center from a book on paper-piecing stars. It's very intricate, like a lot of paper-piecing patterns, and the kind of block where making one is enough. Can't even imagine doing enough of these for a large quilt. I did some curved stitching in the star points, it's pretty wobbly but doesn't show much. And then there is flame stitching in the background, which does show. I'm not sure who made this first small border, but I quilted it with spirals.

Jungle Wonder

2011-06-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

This is a little lap quilt I started some years ago, using the technique in the book One-Block Wonders. It's sort of like a Stack and Whack, but instead of putting each kaleidoscope grouping separately, you arrange them next to each other, grouping by color or pattern. I wasn't all that happy with how it turned out; it seems to me that the fabric needed to have some calmer spaces and it was too busy overall. It could have been improved by a different fabric, or by using some solid black as spacers between the hexagons, but I really didn't feel like ripping it all apart. So I just put some plain black borders on it and some simple quilting. And it's not bad.

I quilted wavy lines along the seam lines, and into the border. And once in a while, a wavy spiral in a hexagon for some added interest. King Tut Malachite thread on the top.

The back is a marbled dark green, with a strip of flowery fabric that matched color-wise if not the jungle theme. So Fine Forest thread matched pretty well.

Rail Fence

2011-06-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

I'd about given up on getting good pictures of this quilt, so I'm just going to post some so-so ones. In addition to not having a good space to hang quilts for photography, I think my camera gets confused with all the prints and doesn't know what to focus on.

Close up of the quilting. I did all-over hooked feathers. King Tut Autumn Days thread was used on the top, and it blended with a lot of the fabrics.

The back. I used one strip of a busy feather print, and the rest is an olive green Dimples print. Thread was So Fine Olive, batting was Quilter's Dream Blend.

Side-lit close up of the back shows more quilting detail.

I haven't moved

2011-06-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

but my address is changing. Effective yesterday, I now reside in Kirkland. My house has been in a pocket of unincorporated county land, with a patchwork of services: address was in Bothell, which isn't really close, phone prefix was Kirkland, some utilities were from Kenmore, some (like police) were practically non-existent since the county's forces were mainly far away. I wouldn't have minded being in a limbo like that, if it was really out in the country, but a suburban area sandwiched between towns was just awkward.

Not everything is changing all at once, but the new town name and zip code are supposed to be in effect by July 1.

I'm Still Here

2011-05-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Just haven't felt like I had much to say. The northwest has had a particularly cool and rainy spring. Last Friday was our first official 70 degree day, the first in 6 months, and on Saturday it dropped into the 50s again. We're also about 2 inches up on the average year to date rain. At least the trees are finally leafing out.

I've been doing some quilting off and on. I finished the quilt in the previous entry, but have yet to get a good picture of it. I also quilted another, and am half-way through a third. So there may be more pictures at some point - probably when there is good light on a weekend.

Added a link to the Family section: my nephew David is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail this summer. I also tried to update the picture in my blog header, but at some point I customized it and I don't know how to reset it without losing whatever else I did. I'll figure it out sometime.

Weekend Quilting

2011-04-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

I started this simple rail fence a month or so ago, just for a diversion and to have something to practice on. At the show a couple of weeks ago, I bought some orange batik for the outer border and got the top done. But even with the stash I have, I couldn't find anything for the back that I liked, and was large enough. So last weekend, I went looking for something simple and found an olive green 'Dimples' fabric that seemed perfect. I washed and pieced it during the week, and was ready to load the quilt Saturday morning. The Red Snappers loading system make that process so much easier and quicker. Well worth the cost in my opinion, as pinning the quilt to the leaders really made my back ache.

I'm trying out an all-over design based on Sally Terry's book, Hooked On Feathers. It makes it look sort of like feathers, without having to back track or make individual feathers that don't overlap. I am having some problems seeing where I'm going though. The variegated thread blends too well with many of the fabrics. It shows up best on the light yellow and on the peach.

More Inspiration

2011-03-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

A few more quilts from the QA show.

Lavender Fields on Whidbey Island, by Dorothy LeBoeuf. Started in a Jean Wells workshop.

Red Fish, by Nancy Schlosser.

Green Fish, by Nancy Schlosser. I was intersted in these because of my own Red Fish quilt.

Getting Inspiration

2011-03-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

Books, magazines, blog pictures only go so far. Sometimes it's really nice to get out of the house and see some real quilts. This past weekend I went to the Quilters Anonymous annual show in Monroe. Here's a few that caught my eye. These all seem to have a circle theme.

A Colorful Galaxy, by Virginia Anderson, pattern by Jacqueline de Jonge.

Exotica by Kathi De Jong

Orange Explosion by Sue Lopez, quilted by Karin Rainier

Close-up of the quilting on Orange Explosion

Latte quilt

2011-03-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

I finished quilting Melissa's Latte quilt this week. I used Superior's Lava thread on the top in #246, Krakatoa (Orange-green-black-gold variegated). This was a mini-cone that came with my Avante. I don't know how many yards were on this sample cone, but I used almost all of it. I had never tried it out before this quilt, and Superior's new top tension gauge and suggested tensions were very helpful. On my first test, I showed a tension above their recommended range, and the thread broke within two inches. I adjusted the tension to be within the range, and it worked beautifully. Only had 1 thread break during the whole quilt.

I used Superior So Fine in #425 Brown Sugar in the bobbin as it worked well with the top thread and was a pretty close match to the back fabric. You can see some of the designs and texture here.

Family Dinner

2011-03-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I went over to Brent and Boo's house for dinner. Evan had just gotten back from the Junior Olympics that afternoon, and David had come back from Oregon as well. It was nice to see them all.

David was first to the table. He got a haircut and shaved his beard before coming out for his grad school interviews. He looked really good.

Brent and Boo.

Evan and Boo. Probably should have found a close-up or portrait mode for my camera.

March 6

2011-03-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Mom!

We've had some wild weather the past few weeks. Winds (one night leading to a 3 hour power outage), snow, hail, black ice, frost... finally this weekend feels like spring might be on the way. It's not all that warm, but there have been sun breaks, there's no wind, and the birds are singing.

Last weekend I loaded Melissa's round robin quilt on the frame and started quilting it. I had only said I would do all over quilting, but with all those borders, I just couldn't. So I compromised with a single variegated thread for the whole quilt, but been trying to come up with different designs for each border. It's still freehand, no stitch in the ditch or ruler work.

Design Wall

2011-02-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just have to start something new, even with all the existing project piled up around me. I saw some pictures of some simple rail fence quilts, and thought that would be a good way to work with a set of peach and green fabrics. I've got at least some of all the fabrics up here, but there are still more strips to cut and sew.

As Promised

2011-01-23T11:23:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pictures of the most recently finished quilt, City Harbor. I posted about it earlier, it's a pattern from Cherri House's book, City Quilts. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

For the quilting, I attempted the Dwirling pattern from Dawn Ramirez' DVD, Pajama Quilter Reloaded. It was fun and easy to do. I did get stuck echoing the waves too much of the time so that in places it looks a bit like mattress pad quilting. But other places I got more swirls and changes in direction in so that looks better. And it was really the first time where I felt I could move while I was quilting, instead of having my feet planted, quilting as far as I could reach (and lean), and then stopping to step sideways.

Setting Intentions

2011-01-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

I didn't really come up with any New Year's resolutions, other than trying to be healthier and happier. That won't happen by itself, of course, so I am thinking about some concrete steps I can take in that direction. As for quilting, I've set a goal of finishing 12 quilts this year, with at least half coming from my UFO list (i.e, started prior to 2010). That's a pretty big jump from last year, and a huge increase over 2009, but might as well aim high. Actually, I've already finished one. It barely counts because I quilted it last fall, but I didn't get the binding finished until last week. It's the City Harbor quilt, and I'll try to get a picture of it in daylight this weekend.

Reflecting on 2010

2010-12-31T18:50:00.000-08:00

As I get older, the years go by faster and faster and tend to blur together. Sometimes it seems nothing much changes, but New Year's Eve gives an opportunity to look back and try to put some meaning to it all. There were a couple of major events this year, each of which had a rippling effect. The cruise to Alaska was one. I spent a fair amount of time planning that, and the trip itself was wonderful. Mom and I both enjoyed the adventure of being on the ship, and the places we visited: Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. Recently, I put together a photo book using Blurb.com to commemorate our trip in printed form. This was a bit of an adventure in itself, and I really like the way it turned out. The downside was that I came back with Disembarkment Syndrome, a really rare condition in which you continue to feel like you're bouncing around on the waves. It's not life-threatening, but it is tiring, and it affects how much other activity you can do, both because of the fatigue and because it throws off your balance. It usually goes away eventually, but no one knows how or why or when. (six 1/2 months and counting for me)

The other major event was getting a mid-arm quilting machine and frame. It was just about a year ago that it clicked with me that I really wanted one, and that not having to baste my quilts and wrestle them through the sewing machine would inspire me to get more done. I started doing research, and when I tried the HQ Avante, and realized that the 8 foot option for the frame would fit in my living room, that was it. I got mine in March, and embarked on a wonderful learning experience. I still have a long way to go, but with each quilt I improve. The unanticipated benefit was that in doing all the research on the machine and techniques, I got re-inspired to make more quilts, and explored different styles. As of tonight, I completed 5 quilts this year (last year was only 2 small wallhangings), 2 fleece throws, plus quilted one for a friend. There's also 1 quilt and 1 throw that are almost done, but I'm just not going to make it. They will have to be early finishes for 2011.

The end of the year is also time to reflect on those we've lost and to remind ourselves to live life to the fullest while we can. Procrastination on writing a paper or doing housework is one thing, but don't put off doing the things you really want to do. That's actually why my two major events came about: I didn't want to put them off for some future time. Will there be anything like that in 2011? Who knows?

Boxing Day

2010-12-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

Even without the kid (Evan) around, Christmas is a busy day of presents and phone calls. It was memorable this year for skyping with Sweden and Iowa. We got a screen shot of Evan, Ann and Martin. Too bad we didn't capture Ketil in his tomte outfit. We later called Iowa and saw Mom, Jill, David and Annie.

Another topic of pressing interest was the impressive, growing snow overhang, and when it would drop. It finally did about 3:30, without hitting the windows at all.

Boo gives Brent a Christmas hug.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve and nothing is stirring. Brent and Boo are off to Winthrop for a tree and last minute shopping. The dogs are pooped and finally crashed on different sides of the cabin. The electrically-heated concrete floors are malfunctioning and my feet haven't been so warm since summer. Meanwhile the snowpack on the roof is slowly curving under, preparing to slide. Aren't those icicles wicked looking?

More Quilting

2010-12-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

I did finish quilting the previous quilt, but I haven't gotten around to putting the binding on. I'll have to get on that soon, so it can count towards my finished quilts for 2010. But I offered to quilt this boy's quilt for my friend Carol's grandson. It's very dynamic with bright primary colors and black and white. It also has a really cool alien print as the outermost border. I quilted some continuous curves, some zig zags, some spirals and a flame border.

Here the finished quilt is draped across the frame. This photo was taken tonight after I got it off the frame, so it's kind of dark.

The back is this really fun robot flannel.

Snowy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today is supposed to be the end of our cold spell, but I looked outside this morning and it was snowing heavily. Nikki and I walked, and there was an inch or two of fresh snow on top of the old. Or on top of the packed snow and ice on the streets. Could be very slippery if we get rain on top of that.

This picture was Tuesday morning, when we had a brilliantly sunny cold day. The snowy trees, early morning sun and fading, just past full moon was an interesting combination.

Snow Day

2010-11-22T17:17:00.000-08:00

It started snowing around 7 this morning. I didn't think it was much of anything, but when I left for work at 7:30, I soon found out that it was very slippery. I saw several cars skid to the side of the road, then my brakes gave me problems. So I turned around and went back home. Fortunately, the power stayed on and I could work from home.

It could be worse tomorrow as it's supposed to get down in the low 20s over night. An early start to winter, and not even Thanksgiving yet.

Next Up

2010-11-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

The next quilt on my frame is called City Harbor. It's a pattern in the book City Quilts, by Cherri House. The book became my favorite this summer, and still hasn't left my bedside, where I look at it frequently and dream about which quilts I want to make. Usually I adapt patterns rather than follow them exactly (much like I can't follow a recipe exactly when cooking but have to improvise), but on this one, I came pretty close. The only changes I made were to substitute one color from those listed, and to make a lot of the strips a little longer so it would be a longer quilt.

I finished loading it Saturday morning and quilted off and on over the weekend.

Spring Braid

2010-10-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo, another finished quilt! This is a lap-sized French Braid quilt, adapted from the Baby Braid pattern in the French Braid book. I'm calling it Spring Braid, because the colors seem spring-like, although it's inspired by the hydrangea fabric used in the centers and outer borders, and hydrangeas are really summer flowers. It's the second French Braid quilt I've pieced, but the first to be quilted. I'm trying to work up the nerve to tackle the larger one.

Here's a close-up of some of the quilting. I did wavy lines along each braid strip, with a loop in the little square, and then back down along the same color strip. I did connected spirals in the inner border and sashing. Both were done in King Tut Hieroglyphs.

In the outer border, I used King Tut Lapis Lazuli to stitch this spiral with petals. It hardly shows on the front side, due to the busy print, so I took a picture of it on the back. The bobbin thread was So Fine Brooke, a nice medium blue.

Fall Color

2010-10-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

This Japanese maple at the side of my house provides wonderful color every fall. With the background of greens and purple, it really stands out.

If the sun is just right, it almost seems to glow. Unfortunately, what little sun we've had recently has been while I've been at work. This morning it was clear and a little frosty, but soon after I took these pictures, it started to cloud over. And it's been raining most of the day.

Ditch Quilting

2010-10-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

The next quilt on the frame is this French Braid that I started piecing at the spring quilt day. I decided to try stabilizing around the inside borders and sashing before free-motioning the braids and outer borders. Stabilizing, in longarm quilting lingo, means stitching in the ditch to hold everything in place. It's harder than it looks, and definitely harder than the same technique on a regular sewing machine. I guess that's because the machine is faster and you're further away from the very precise line you want to follow. You can use special rulers to help keep the hopping foot in line. The one I'm using here is a Versa Tool, and it has a straight edge for ditch stitching on one side, and the other sides have curves and angles that can be used for guiding other kinds of designs. It takes practice, and slowing down!

Nine Patch Done!

2010-10-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

So finally I got the binding on this done, and threw it in the washer and dryer last week. By the time it was done, it was too dark in the house to get a good picture. But it crinkled up nicely. This is based on the Nine Patch Lattice pattern on the Oh Fransson! blog. I wanted it a little bigger than the pattern, to be more of a true lap size, but I didn't want to make the patches bigger or add another row of blocks. So I made the outside blocks 12-patch rectangles instead of 9-patch squares, and then enlarged the plain blocks accordingly. I think it worked out well, and I'm pleased with it.

Here's the back, with extra blocks. This was also in the pattern, I just had to make sure the back was big enough for the beefed-up front. The solid fabric is the same as on the top, and photographed in the same location, so I'm not sure why the color looks so different. It really is a medium dark gray blue, so somewhere in between these two pictures, at least on my monitor.

And a close-up of a plain block, showing some of the prints, some of the quilting, and how it crinkled up after being washed.

Something Finished

2010-09-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Signposts quilt. The quilting was finished in May or June, but the binding wasn't complete until the end of August. And it took until now to get some pictures. This is twin size, so it doesn't hang over very much on a double bed. (I couldn't find a good place to hang it up for pictures.) The background is Kona Moss, the posts are Kona Cocoa, the rest is from my stash of solids. The quilting was done with King Tut English Ivy for the leaves surrounding the posts, So Fine Olive for the watery filler, and several shades of rusty reds (from different makers) on the signposts themselves.

The back is a large, modified log cabin:

Back on Track

2010-09-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

I called HandiQuillter the next morning and spoke to a technician. He had never heard of a switch falling off, but said he would send a new power pod. It's good that some parts are modularized and can be replaced without the whole machine having to go in for servicing, but not so good that this is the second part that's needed to be replaced in a little over 6 months. The part came on Friday, and on Saturday morning I took off the old piece. But I couldn't figure how to change out a wire, plus there were differences in the circuit boards. I took some pictures and then called them back this morning. The circuit board differences were just updates and I needed a 3mm allen wrench for the screw holding some wires together. I put it back together tonight, and tried it out: it works! I quilted part of the inner border to prove it.

Can you spot the differences?

I spent some time this weekend trying to decide on fabrics and design for a baby quilt for someone at work. I finally decided on something, but didn't get it started. Then this morning we found out she had the baby early, on Sunday. And I heard that she and her husband had requested no gifts that weren't organic and flame retardant. (I don't think fabrics can be both organic and flame retardant; they're mutually exclusive.) So I won't be making that quilt.

Bummed

2010-09-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

Since the weekend I've been quilting another small practice quilt, a French Braid design. It's been a little challenging because I have to bend over it to see where I'm stitching and that makes my back ache. So I've only done 1 pass on the frame at a time. Tonight I did one braid after I got home from work. When I turned off the machine to take Nikki out, I thought the on/off switch felt rather soft, and it didn't click. It did seem to turn off the machine, but I turned it on and off again a couple of times to make sure. The second time, there was a little hiss and sparking, and the switch FELL OFF. I just got new back handlebars a few weeks ago because they died, and now this. I'll have to call my dealer tomorrow and see what to do, but I'm guessing the machine will have to be sent back to HandiQuilter. Not too happy about this turn of events.

Getting up to Speed

2010-09-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

After completing my first two quilts on the Avante, I realized that I need considerably more practice before quilting some of my waiting tops. There are a few that I can tackle soon, I hope, but I decided to make some simple tops to practice various techniques on. The first one is a pattern I found on the blog Oh Fransson!. I made a few changes to it, which I'll explain when I show the whole quilt. The simplest quilting is free-motion overall or edge to edge designs. This can be as simple as meandering over the whole quilt, meandering with loops, or designs with increasing levels of difficulty. I didn't think that meandering or loops would be much of a challenge, although they can be useful. This is a simple leaf and tendril design. These photos are both of the back, as there are a few nine patch blocks pieced into the backing. I'd say the blue is somewhere in between the two shades the photos show.

I was a little nervous to start this, but it was relatively easy, forgiving of mistakes, and fast.

More Inspiring Quilting

2010-08-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the quilty stuff, just a parenthetical note to say that I set my link gadgets so that the most recently updated sites appear at the top of the list. I recently discovered though that Picasa galleries use the most recently updated gallery's date - which can be set by the owner to any date at all. Current example is David's Photos, which says it was updated two months ago, but he added pictures of India and Nepal this week. It's just that he dated the new galleries by the date of his trip, not the upload date.

So, two more quilts. The first is Thistlepods, by Mary Calderon and longarm quilted by Sharon Szekley. The colors and the movement were great, and all those pointy bits!

I loved the swirling quilting around the stars.

This one is Step by Step, pieced and longarm quilted by Linda Tellesbo. I am always drawn to her quilts, as they seem to always have the combination of pattern, colors and gorgeous quilting. She had several in this show, but I just picked this one to show.

The wavy lines in the sharp points were repeated across the whole quilt (there really wasn't open space for other designs), and then feathers in the borders.

Longarm Inspiration

2010-08-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

Quite a few people advise learning what you like and don't like in quilting designs by taking pictures at shows whenever you can in addition to the more readily available books and magazines. Not only can you more easily jog your memory as to how a design flowed, but you can analyze why something worked (or not). So when I went to the show last weekend, I wanted to keep that in mind and take some closeups of the actual quilting. All the quilts in this show were labeled as to whether they were hand quilted, machine quilted or longarm quilted, in addition to whatever other category they were in, and that was helpful for my purposes.

This first quilt was called Morgan's Graduation Quilt, and it was pieced and longarm quilted by Adrienne Reynolds. Although I liked the bright colors on black, the bottom third of the quilt, with it's lighter colors and lighter background, seemed like it was just tacked on to make the quilt bigger.

I liked the swirling vines coming from the center of the stars; it made a nice-looking overall texture while still relating to the pieced design.

This one is Amazon Star, pieced by Mary Calderon and longarm quilted by Krista Moser. Although the overall look is lighter and more pastel than I usually like, this is a really effective use of color and value. And all those points!

Many of the rows of same-colored diamonds were quilted in a continuous line-dancing fashion.

Busy Bees

2010-08-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

I was feeling the need for some quilting inspiration last week, and remembered that the Busy Bee guild usually holds its annual show in late July or early August. I looked it up online, and it was this past weekend at the Monroe High School. So I drove out there on Saturday. It's a relatively small show, but there were some nice things. This first one caught my eye because it seemed like a typical northwest quilt, or one from Alaska. It's called A Walk in the Woods, made by Grace Hampton.

This one is called Forklorico (sic?), made by Judy Irish. Aside from the blue strips pieced in, I think it's all done with thread painting and quilting.

This one was called Sanctuary, and made by Cindy Glancy. It comes from the book Bella Bella Quilts, which I have. Maybe someday I'll make one similar to this! When I have lots of time and patience for all that paper-piecing.

Hawaiian Punch

2010-07-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

I actually finished this quilt in May, in time for Evan's graduation, but didn't want to post it until after I gave it to him. And then of course the cruise and blogging the cruise took up June. This quilt had to be Evan's because he helped me start it. Ten or more years ago, he spent a weekend with me while his parents were both away. He was interested in the colors of my fabric and intriqued by the sewing machine. He helped choose these fabrics from my stash, and then I showed him how to cut strips with the rotary cutter and ruler. He cut several himself before learning how to sew the strips into sets. He was going to get bored with it before sewing all the sets, so after a couple, we cross-cut those and he sewed some of the nine patches.

It all got put away in a box until last year when I unearthed it. I hadn't put in any diagrams or notes, so I had to figure out how many more blocks I could make, what layout would work, and how much was available for borders. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and it's the first quilt completely quilted on my Avante.

Alaska Cruise - Winding Up

2010-07-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

When we left Ketchikan Friday afternoon, the wind was brisk and it soon started to rain. I guess we were lucky that it didn't rain during any of our stops. The weather continued to worsen, the waves got bigger, and they closed the outside decks. That evening was a special Chef's Dinner in the main dining room where the waiters all dressed up as chefs and provided entertainment while serving. The food was excellent as usual.

It got rougher overnight, and I had trouble sleeping. We were rolling side to side, up and down, and occasionally there was a shudder as we hit a wave wrong. It wasn't scary, but it was uncomfortable. I peeked out very early Saturday morning and saw what I think was part of the Queen Charlotte Islands.

The very rough seas and headwind delayed us quite a bit. We were 2 hours late docking in Victoria and so all the shore excursions were cancelled. Mom and I hadn't booked any, anyway, but I had thought I might go over to the downtown part of Victoria and walk around. But where we docked was quite a distance aways, so since there wasn't as much time, I stayed on board.

Really, the whole trip was wonderful. The ship was beautiful, with art everywhere. Even these metal elevator doors, which could be a great quilt design.

The food was really good and there was always something new and different on offer.

The crew was friendly and helpful, and left little surprises for us in the evenings. :)

Mom says hello to her new pet.

This one really startled me when we came back to the room.\

We saw lots of real wildlife as well, although I didn't always get pictures. Whales and puffins headed to Glacier Bay, eagles in every town (including at least 20 in a single tree in Sitka). For other more exotic species, you really need to take water excursions out of the towns. Maybe next time.

Alaska Cruise - Ketchikan

2010-07-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

Our third port was Ketchikan. We pulled in early the morning of June 11th, I believe we were supposed to be docked by 7 am. Like all Alaska 'cities', it's pretty small, but spread out along the channel as it gets too steep to build very quickly away from the water. Floatplanes are also much in evidence, and we passed several floatplane bases like this one.

Parts of the town also have a distinctly semi-industrial feel, as fish-packing is still a big industry. It was cloudy and windy.

We took a tour out to Totem Bight State Park. During the Depression, the Forest Service used CCC money to hire Native carvers to reproduce many old totem poles from abandoned Native villages. This helped preserve the culture, and helped train younger carvers.

They also built a replica clan house, using the same materials and methods.

More Ketchikan photos here.

Alaska Cruise - Sitka

2010-06-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Sitka the morning of June 10th. Sitka doesn't have large piers for cruise ships, so the few that do visit have to anchor further out, and passengers have to take a tender ashore. This is one of the tender/lifeboats. It looks small, but they fit a lot of people inside. While eating lunch aboard in Juneau, we watched a small crew practice maneuvers in one of these. One person would throw a life ring out, and then with one person in the bow giving directions to the person 'driving', a third crew member would try to fish out the life ring with a long pole. It sometimes took several attempts.

Anyway, Mom and I went ashore, and boarded an old school bus for our tour. There were some loops around the town to show us typical houses (and use up time, I think), and we had 3 main stops. The first was St. Michael's Cathedral. This Russian Orthodox church was originally built by Sitka's Russian settlers. It burned down, but was rebuilt from the original blueprints. I don't think there are many, if any, Russians still in town except for the priest here, but they capitalize on the Russian heritage as that makes them stand out from the other southeast Alaskan towns.

The icons and other ornamental work inside the church are mostly original and were saved from the fire by the townspeople.

We also visited the Sheldon Jackson Museum. He was a missionary who also collected a lot of native artifacts during his time in Alaska. This was a fairly small museum, one large room, but packed with interesting objects, including several kayaks (umiaks/canoes).

There was also a performance by the New Archangel Dancers, a Russian folk dance troupe. Although none of the women members are Russian, they focus on Russian dance to honor the heritage of their town. They normally perform in a community hall, but the day we were there, there was some kind of fishing conference going on and so the performance was in a local gym instead.

More of my Sitka pictures are here.

Alaska Cruise - Juneau

2010-06-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

After leaving Glacier Bay, we sailed through the night and woke up in Juneau. The first thing we did there was to take a tour out to the Mendenhall Glacier. This is carving out a freshwater lake as it retreats, Mendenhall Lake. Contributing to the decay of the glacier is a river running under it and breaking through at the bottom right hand corner. There are other tributaries to the lake as well. This picture is from a photo lookout point a short distance from the visitor center.

A close up of the glacier face, showing the characteristic blue colors and the waterfalls.

Our next stop was Glacier Gardens, site of a large mudslide in the 80s. The mud covered the highway below, and when crews pushed it all back up the hill, it must have been quite a mess until a local landscaper bought the property to expand his nursery business. Along with that, he restored and shored up the habitat along a stream, and eventually built trails up the hill to the edge of the Tongass National Forest and a walkway/lookout. The tour here starts with lush gardens very similar to the Pacific Northwest, then a description of these 'flower towers' - some of the trees uprooted by the mudslide were repurposed by planting them upside down in the muck, and using the roots to support moss in the manner of hanging baskets. They were profusely planted with petunias, and served as great nesting sites for small birds as well. We were also taken up the trail in golf carts, heard about the native flora of the Tongass, and got great views from the top.

The last thing we did in Juneau was to take the Mt. Roberts Tramway to the top, for more great views and a short movie about the local Tlingit tribes. This photo is looking up from the top of the tram. We were told to look for their bear - do you see him in the rock? He appears to be chasing a bird, or maybe it's the paraglider soaring over the bird rock formation.

More of my Juneau pictures are here.

Alaska Cruise - Glacier Bay

2010-06-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, June 8th, we spent the day cruising in Glacier Bay.This map, if you click on it to get a bigger version (and if it's clear enough), shows the main features of the Bay. As we went by the park headquarters at Bartlett Cove, we picked up some rangers and guides who gave talks and live commentary.

The lower part of the bay was a home to Tlingit Indians up until the late 1600s. But sometime between then and 1750, the main glacer rapidly advanced all the way to Icy Strait, pushing them out. By the end of the 1700s it had retreated about 5 miles, but had gouged out the bay so it was uninhabitable. The main glacier has now retreated a total of about 65 miles. We had a long way to go before we saw any glaciers, but there were plenty of rugged, snow-capped mountains to look at, and it was a partly sunny but hazy day.

Finally, a glacier! I believe this one is the Reid Glacier as it was a little ways down an inlet, and we didn't get too close.

This is the Marjerie Glacier, the biggest one we saw and perhaps the most active, as it was calving. It was also possible to get quite close to it, and we spent almost an hour slow cruising with it on the port side, then turned around and spent more time with it on the starboard side.

I put many more pictures of Glacier Bay in a Picasa album here.

Alaska Cruise - Leaving Seattle

2010-06-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, my mom and I took a cruise to Alaska. Neither of us had ever cruised before, and I had never been to Alaska, while Mom had been to Anchorage and Denali years ago, but never to southeast Alaska. It was a great trip! We left Seattle on Sunday evening on the ms Oosterdam. It was too cloudy to see much, and the next day was much the same - plus we were out of sight of land anyway. I got a new camera just before the trip. The pictures seem good, but between the clouds, facing into the sun when it was out, and not knowing how to use anything but the automatic setting, many seem a bit over-exposed. So I will be doing a little bit of adjusting before I post them.

We had a verandah cabin, which gave us good views without contending for a seat in crowded public areas. It was worth the little bit extra for the upgrade. We went to Glacier Bay, Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. I found quilt shops close by in each port, and bought fabric in each, so later I should be able to make a memory quilt.

Pass Adventures

2010-06-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

I drove over to the Methow via the North Cascades Highway on Friday. It was raining most of the way, and even some snow mixed in at the very top of the passes. Still, it was a pretty uneventful drive, just couldn't see much of the scenery. Today was a bit different. It was sunny and beautiful, but we were just getting into the rhythm of the trip when we saw a police car with flashing lights and several cars ahead. As I got closer and slowed, we saw that this boulder was the reason. Fortunately, no one had been hit by it. The officer was simply directing traffic, as it blocked the entire eastbound lane. I wanted to take a picture as we approached, but he waved me through. So I pulled into the next turnout, and took this picture looking back at it.

A close up view of the boulder dwarfing the police car. You wouldn't want to even be grazed by that!
This was about 1 mile east of Washington pass.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. We stopped to stretch our legs and take a few pictures at the Diablo Lake lookout.

And there were beautiful lupines lining the road between Newhalem and Marblemount.

Evan's a Graduate!

2010-06-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

Here he is, with proud parents Brent and Boo. The ceremony was nice; with a small community and a graduating class of 40, it seemed very homey.

And posing with Grandma:

Cash for graduating? Evan shows off a $100 bill - never having seen one before.

The class motto was a quote from Sean McCabe: "It's a good day to be alive. If you're not happy to be alive, then you might as well go home, because we're just gonna bum you out."

Iris Time

2010-05-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Most of my irises are only producing foliage these days, but right on schedule (i.e, same time as last year), this one is still showing off. There are two full flowers here, and at least one bud still coming. I love the bluish-purple and white combo!

Another One

2010-05-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

I also finished the quilting on this one over the weekend. The quilting is deliberately a little wonky, partly because I knew I wasn't yet able to make it perfectly smooth, and partly because the fabrics are so bright, the quilting doesn't show up much anyway. I was improving as I went along, so I'm eager to tackle the next one. However, this and the previous one really need to get bindings on them before I load a new quilt.

Close up of some of the quilting.

Catching Up

2010-05-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

So it's been a busy few weeks, with changes and stresses at work keeping most of my attention even evenings and weekends. However, I have been doing some quilt-related things here and there. I finished the quilting on the Signposts quilt. The wavy water design helped control some of the fullness left between and outside the leaves previously quilted.

Here's part of the back. It's a large-scale modified log cabin, with a painted and batik print plus various solids that were also used in the front. I'll try to get pictures of the whole front and back once I have the binding on.

I did start quilting the next quilt (next post), but in between, we had our semi-annual quilting day at Carol's. I was stumped on what to work on, but a couple of days before I pulled out fabrics for another French Braid quilt. This one is smaller, and spring colors instead of autumn. I didn't even start cutting the fabrics until that morning, so it took me until this week to finish the braids. I'll have to make some decisions on sashing and borders before I can finish the top.

Trying to Finish

2010-04-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

I loaded William's quilt on the frame yesterday, and did some quilting today. I actually started quilting this one almost a year ago (and blogged about that here) but I ran into several problems. It was frustrating, and I finally put it away for some time. So it was already at least half quilted and has some waviness in the borders as a result of how the first quilting was done. I'm hoping that the water design I'm quilting in the background will tame that, and I can get it finished. The leaves were done before, on my regular sewing machine.

Practice

2010-04-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

On the previous weekend, Carol came over in the afternoon, and we loaded a new, larger practice piece on the frame. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour, but some of that time is trying to remember what goes where since it was only about my third time and the other two times were with instructors right there. I threaded the machine with a bright variegated thread, and then we took turns practicing. The first photo shows some quilting done by both Carol and myself.

The second one shows some quilting I did at the end of the practice quilt. I think it shows some improvement, and I think I'm ready to tackle a real quilt - one that only requires some simple quilting, though.
I'll see if I can start doing the setup this week in the evenings.

Setting Up 3

2010-03-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, Pam from the Quilt Barn and her husband Greg came up to finish the set up of my Avante and give me some training. The first hour or more was spent in raising the frame to the proper height and getting it level, plus putting the leaders on. Leaders are canvas panels that are attached to the poles that you then pin the parts of the quilt to.

I had pressed and cut some tan and light brown solid fabric to use as a practice piece. I think I've had that fabric for about 20 years, so about time it saw some use! This is using whatever thread was already in the bobbin - a white thin polyester, and the top thread is a red variegated King Tut that was included as a sample. We spent a lot of time getting the tension adjusted.

Some more practice quilting. The stitch regulator helps the stitches be the same length no matter what speed I move the machine at, but a lot of my curves look pretty jerky and squared off. It uses different motor skills than quilting on a table, so it's going to take a lot of practice. But I knew that.

Setting Up 2

2010-03-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

I've been working on it, slowly. I got the base table put together last week, which wasn't too bad except for getting it flipped upright by myself. Nikki was happy once that happened, so she could go back to sleeping on that rug. Here I'm trying to figure out how the tracks are attached and the poles are put together and waiting.

Then came the side brackets that hold the poles. One of the trickiest parts is having to read the directions for each step several times to figure out what they're talking about. Socket button head cap screws? Ratchet stop bushing? (there is a parts list with drawings, but it's not as easy as most IKEA furniture) When BT came over Wednesday, he put the Avante up on the frame for me. It still needs the handlebars attached to it, and various other connections hooked up. Tomorrow the rep is coming to help finalize the frame setup and give me some training. So maybe I will finally be able to start practicing quilting on it.

Setting Up 1

2010-03-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I unpacked the first 2 frame boxes and compared all the parts and hardware to the parts list. From what I can tell so far, everything in the 3rd box must be for the 3rd frame section, if you're setting it up for 12 feet. But although I would love to have 12 feet, I only have room for an 8 foot frame - and that's actually one of the reasons I liked this machine and frame system. It's big enough to handle most of the quilts I like to do, without being so huge that I'd have to remodel my house or garage to fit it in.

I've done steps 1-3 so far. The side leg frames are put together and leaning against the wall. The two table sections are bolted together and the middle leg is fastened. After this, it gets a little trickier to do by myself, but I can do things like put the poles together until the weekend when I can get a helper.

It's Here!

2010-03-13T19:52:00.000-08:00

My new Handi Quilter quilt/frame system, that is. And the boxes are taking up virtually the whole living room. There was a bit of miscommunication - I thought they were going to ship it on Friday, and it would arrive the middle of next week. But instead it arrived on Friday. I came home from work, noticed that my garbage cans were moved around strangely, and then saw the pile of boxes hidden behind the cans. I carried in 2 small boxes, then went next door and asked for help from their teenage sons to bring in the rest. My original plan was to spend this weekend moving furniture around and cleaning up so that the space would be ready next week. Since it came early, the next plan was to do that work today and then see if I could start putting it together tomorrow. But I hardly got any sleep last night, so I was dragging all day. I have periodic bouts of insomnia, and I think I was a bit hyper about all this. However, that was aggravated by someone knocking on my door shortly after 3 am, the dog barking, etc. I didn't want to answer the door, but got up to check it out. There was some vandalism of our mailboxes across the street, and my neighbor had called the sheriff's office. I think the deputy knocked on my door by mistake, thinking I had called it in. I'd hate to think they wake people up at that hour just to tell them their mailbox has been knocked down!

Signs of Spring

2010-03-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Look at that blue, blue sky! And cherry blossoms! It's a bit strange, as most of the other trees are completely bare still. It must be the difference between plants being triggered by warm weather vs. day length. Back to rain for the work week...

Sunflower Quilt

2010-02-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

Finally, a finished quilt! The first completely finished in over a year. I'm figuring out what to do about that.
This is a lap quilt for my aunt Doris, for her 90th birthday. The picture was taken on a bit of an angle, which makes it look more crooked than it actually is.

A close-up of some blocks. I quilted it in an all-over curvy design, and washed and dried it when it was done. I used Quilter's Dream Select batting, which said it could give an 'antique, crinkly' look. And after the wash and dry, it really did crinkle up.

Tote Tuesday

2010-02-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I found out about this thing called Tote Tuesday. Virginia Spiegel, a fiber artist from Midwest, has been raising money for the American Cancer Society for several years by holding auctions for donated fiber artworks. This year she decided to do something a little different. On the 4 Tuesdays in February, there is bidding for a few artworks but mainly for totes filled with various themed goodies. I won the bidding for the tote below, donated by the publisher of Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine. It included the orange batik quilted tote, some back issues of the magazine plus a subscription, a DVD by Kim Brunner, some rulers, some thread, scissors, chalk, and some hand-dyed fabric by Diane Rusin Doran. Quite a nice package!

The final week features some really exceptional items. Bidding is only open for a few hours on Tuesday.

Blocks

2010-02-08T21:46:00.000-08:00

It turned out that the dial had slipped off the Auto setting and onto a manual mode that was compensating for the low light by making the exposure time long. I set it back to Auto, and presto, pictures are (relatively) sharp again.

Blocks Done

2010-02-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

I finished up the pieced blocks for the new quilt while keeping half an eye on the Super Bowl. I took several pictures of 4 blocks up on my design wall, but every one of them turned out blurry. I don't know if I'm getting shaky, if it's because the camera's battery is running low, or if I need a new camera. Or a new memory card? I'll try batteries first, but I've been starting to feel the urge for a new camera. Anyway, the blocks are fairly simple, squares of the sunflower print surrounded by borders of random pieces of the various solids. They will alternate with larger squares of the sunflower fabric.

A New Start

2010-01-31T17:13:00.001-08:00

Starting a new quilt for a relative's birthday. I picked a pattern from the Modern Quilt Workshop book that is fairly simple but effective. It uses mostly tone-on-tone prints or solids, but I was also inspired by a quilt in the book Simple Starts, Stunning Quilts. So I chose a large scale sunflower print and coordinating solids. So far I've cut strips from the solids.

Painting on Silk

2010-01-27T16:52:00.001-08:00

Last time I said I hadn't painted on silk before doing those scarves. Well, that wasn't completely true. I had forgotten about it (it was sooo long ago!), but I took a class in painting on silk from Yvonne Porcella when I still lived in Illinois. I don't remember much about the actual painting part, but I looked in her book Colors Changing Hue and she uses Setacolor and Jacquard paints. The nice thing about paints instead of dyes on silk is that you don't have to do a lengthy steaming process, you can just heat set with an iron for a minute or so. That, plus the paints are not as toxic.

I do remember that to make this vest (from Yvonne's pattern), strips were torn from the silk, re-arranged, and sewn and flipped onto a lightweight flannel inner layer. The hand-painted silk ribbon (painted at the same time as the fabric) was hand sewn on top. The whole thing is lined with a piece of silk brought back from China by a former roommate, Piera.

Scarves

2010-01-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

In December, I spent a couple of weekends painting silk scarves as presents for my Mom, sisters and nieces. It was very experimental; I have painted on cotton before but not silk. Plus all my previous fabric painting was outdoors in the summer, so it was a bit challenging to rig painting surfaces. I ended up using two long pieces of plywood covered with a plastic table cloth and spanning two chairs in the dining area. Not the most convenient set up, but it worked. These are close-ups of sections of two of them. On the first one, I stenciled some words with metallic paint after the other paints had dried.

On the next one, there more color blending with the analagous colors, plus I put salt on to add some extra patterning as the paint dried. I may try again some day...

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T10:37:00.001-08:00

It was very cold while I was in Mazama, in the single digits every night. I enjoyed the sight of the sun shining on this frosted tree one morning.

Driving over there, a rock hit my windshield, and once I got back to warmer temps, it started to crack. Yesterday I had a mobile service come to work and replace it. The problem was that the guy didn't get the mirror seated right and when I tried to adjust it, it fell off. After some confusing back and forth phone calls, I ended up driving to their place in Bellevue to get it fixed. And Nikki cut her paw again, so I had to take her to the vet and get some prescriptions. Hopefully, everything's now taken care of for the start of a new year.

Christmas Glimpses

2009-12-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

An obligatory view of the tree, before all the presents made their appearance:

Evan in Santa hat and Christmas tie-dye, enjoying a cinnamon Twisp (cinnamon rolls from the Twisp bakery), before handing out stockings and presents. Unfortunately, a couple of brunch guests arrived an hour early, after only two rounds of presents, and the rest of the unwrappings were postponed until Christmas evening.

Brent and Evan determined that the ice on the river was thick enough to skate on, despite whitewater a hundred yards upstream, so Boo and Evan tried it out Christmas afternoon. Boo tried to recall moves from her figure-skating youth, while Evan was more cautious. He hadn't been on skates since cutting up his face 5 or 6 years ago.

Getting There

2009-12-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

I drove over to Mazama yesterday, and it was a pretty easy drive. Not much traffic most places, and the roads were bare and dry. Snow is pretty sparse over both the passes, and also in the Methow. I saw this view in my rear-view mirror as I was in the final stretch, headed out of Winthrop towards Mazama. The low sun shining on the mountain was striking, so I pulled over in a driveway to take the picture.

It's Beginning to Feel Like

2009-12-22T20:38:00.001-08:00

Christmas.
I made a limited edition of hand-made cards, for my team at work and a few friends and relatives. Last year, I made these fabric postcards, but too many people thought they were miniature pot holders or coasters or something. So this year I made some simply quilted trees from hand-painted fabric, glued them onto cardstock and added some stamping inside. The idea came from Pokey Bolton's blog.

I mailed packages on Saturday, finished some shopping and wrapped more presents today. Tonight I'm slowly getting organized for driving over to Mazama. The roads look good, but it's getting colder.

Party

2009-12-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

Mother and daughter

This weekend, my friend Sudha had a party for her daughter. Charu just graduated from college. Unfortunately, while putting up Christmas decorations the night before the party, Charu fell off a ladder and broke her wrist. But she was in good spirits anyway. The food and company were both excellent.

Lucia Day

2009-12-13T18:15:00.001-08:00

I made a quick trip to Ikea a couple of weeks ago to pick up some things before the holiday rush. They did already have their Christmas decorations up, and I took a few pictures as inspiration. They don't seem to have as many of the little rooms decorated for the holidays as they used to. That may be because they've expanded so much and have many more rooms.

Anyway, it's Lucia Dagen, and the third Sunday in Advent, so time for a tree. I've been enjoying the evening walks without rain, looking at all the sparkly lights outside, and Christmas trees inside living room windows.

Mmm-mmm, frosty!

2009-12-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

We finally started coming out of the prolonged rainy spell last weekend. This week was mostly clear, sunny, and frosty at night. The full moon mid-week was so bright you could practically read by it. (That's a real rarity here.) And various neighbors are putting up Christmas lights, which makes it cheerier when walking in the dark, both morning and night.

2009-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

2009-11-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

I live in a suburban neighborhood, a mix of older homes with newer developments squeezing in on previously vacant areas. But there is also a pretty big, wooded state park only a few blocks away, a county park a few blocks in a different direction, and some steep, unbuildable ravines. So it's understandable that we get the occasional wild animal passing through or poking around the back yard; usually possums or raccoons. A couple of weeks ago, Nikki and I surprised a raccoon snuffling around in some leaves and sent it up a tree. This morning, we were walking our usual route in the pre-dawn, slightly foggy, when what appeared to be a large cat ran across the street in front of us. Nikki went into her alert stance, and then started barking as it ran across some lawns and passed us. As it was going by, I thought, boy, that's a really big cat. When it was a couple of houses past us, it came back into the street and looked back at us. It looked then more like a medium sized dog than a cat. A man coming out for his paper called to me and asked, was that a coyote that just ran by? And I said, you know, I think it was.

I saw a pair of coyotes down in the park early one morning, but that was years ago. I didn't think they were still in the area, let alone right in the neighborhood.

Braid Update

2009-11-15T19:40:00.000-08:00

After straining my back doing yard work yesterday, I took it a little easier today in the sewing room. It was back to rain anyway. I got the braid top sewn together. This picture cuts off parts of the sides because I couldn't get back far enough from it in the hallway. But you can see more than in previous pictures. Next comes the borders. I'm pretty sure I'm going with one of the oranges for the inner border, either the dark leaf print in the small squares or the lighter one in the separator strips. But I don't know what I'm going to use for the outer border. I'm not sure I have anything in my stash that will work. Given the vast amount of fabric in my sewing room, that's hard to believe, but I don't buy pieces 2 yards or larger very often.

2009-11-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

In real life, this casts a shadow like a blue circle, but the photo doesn't show that. Because of the flash?

I watched a QA Workshop on Machine Needle Felting last night. It was very interesting and gave me some ideas for arty projects. I have a needle felting attachment for my Brother 1500, but I've never taken it out of the box. I don't want to switch it over until I finish my current quilting project, but maybe at some point around Christmas/New Year's, I can schedule some play time.

Progress?

2009-11-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

I pressed the rest of the braids last night, but didn't add the ending triangles or trim them. Then I read in the book that you're not supposed to trim the edges until after you sew the separator strips on, to prevent the edges from stretching. Oops! At least I've only trimmed 1/2 of 1 braid. I can sew the triangles on 7 ends tonight, but then I have to clear some space to cut the strips and measure each braid. That may end up being a weekend project.

Fall

2009-11-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

A beautiful fall day, sunny and crisp. I saw two pileated woodpeckers while walking this morning, the first I'd seen in quite awhile. I went back a little later with my camera, but there was no sign of them. You usually hear them, pecking away at a tree or sometimes the side of a house, and then have to look around to spot them. Later I raked leaves and chopped blackberry vines before doing a little more sewing.

I finished the last strips on all the braids. It's a little strange sewing them to just two sides; only one end matches and the other is left hanging loose. But they get trimmed later. I've only done the following steps on one end of one braid so far. First adding the end triangles:

And then trimming the edges to make a straight row.

The time change meant it got dark really early, and it already feels late. How long until spring?

Quilt Day Oct 09

2009-10-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday was our semi-annual quilting day at Carol's house. Although my UFO list hasn't been getting any smaller, I knew I needed something to work on that was pretty simple and wouldn't require decision-making during the day. After looking through a number of books, I decided to try a French Braid quilt, from the book by Jane Hardy Miller. I started rummaging through fabrics the previous weekend, and by Sunday night had a pretty good idea of my general scheme. Then each night, I tinkered with it some more until I had the color run below.

During the actual day, along with talking with Carol, Melissa, Jan, Jani and Cindy (and snacking), I cut all the braid strips and sewed 8 out of the 1o colors on 2 ends of 4 rows. I had hopes of finishing up the rows on Sunday, but I was on-call, and got called 3 times between 2:30 and 6, so no go.