Quilting

Have been working on a quilt for our friends Hugh and Consuelo's new grandson, Colby.  I call it "Doggy Love".  It is made up of 6 inch squares of alternating doggy fabric and a nature pattern with die-cut hearts machine appliqued on each square.  I have the quilt sandwich made and am in the process of machine quilting it.  I am actually enjoying the machine quilting!  I already did the top and am now working on the borders.  The sides are leaves and I will possibly put a long tree trunk behind the leaves.  The top is going to be clouds and the bottom border will be waves and possibly fishes.  I have lots of leftover binding from my previous two food quilts and plan on using that to bind it.  I am in no hurry so there is  no stress to get it done.  Perhaps that is why I am enjoying doing the machine quilting!

On another front have I mentioned all the concerts (3) we have been to this year?  Most recently we went to the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley to hear Woody Hanks and Deborah Robin.  They sing old time folk music a la Woody Guthrie.  The new Freight is a lovely venue.  There is parking right next door and they serve COFFEE!  And you can drink it in the auditorium. 

Well, unfortunately my time at the library computer is up so I have to close.

Miscellany

Well, I finally got my ten year old laptop back from the repair person and it came home with a different problem!  The hard drive comes on, I get the first screen then the hard drive stops!  Bummer.  I have decided not to spend any more money on it but that leaves me without a computer.  Saw one at Office Max that I just love but can't afford so have been shopping for a cheaper one.  In the meantime, I am using the computers at the library. 

The downside of the library computers is I cannot download pict ures (which really doesn't matter as all my picutres were on my stolen and broken computers anyway.

I have been quilting!  Had a top that was finished and am machine quilting it.  Halfway done and my sewing machine foot pedal bit the dust!  My very handy man husband tried to fix it but it is caput and unfixable.  So, I have pulled out my little feahterweight and will finish it on that machine.  Good thing I have more than one sewing machine!

As I may have mentioned I visit my grandson every week.  We had been visiting on Thursdays but when he joined tennis club and stayed at school til five on Thursdays we changed to Tuesdays.  Now he is preparing for a tennis tournament and stays at school til five every day.  So we saw each other for about five minutes yesterday.  So we will see how next week goes and then re-evaluate my 164 mile weekly drive.  I love watching him grow up but don't love watching him grow away.  A natural thing, though.

On a brighter note, The Big Guy and I have been going to concerts!  The first one we went to in January was The Sons of the San Joaquin.  They sing western songs, most of which they wrote.  Very mellow and upbeat.  We went out to Angels Camp to the Bret Harte theater for that.  It was lovely.  Afterwards we had dinner in Copperopolis at an Italian restaurant whose name escapes me.  But they had gluten free menu items which were delicious!

February first we heard Judy Collins at the Gallo Theater in Modesto.  We were in the nosebleed seats, third balcony, second row from the back! But the sound system there is wonderful and they have an elevator.  If possible, Judy Collins, at 72, has a better voice than she did in the sixties and seventies!  The warm-up act was Amy Speece, a new artist from Nashville.  Her voice was gorgeous and her patter was hilarious!

Tomorrow night we are going to the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley with friends, Dave and Sandy.  Can't decide if we will drive or take BART.  Am afraid The Big Guy will not be able to walk the two or three blocks to the venue.  We will see how he feels tomorrow.

Thursday will be a late night.  I have a Birding field trip to go on Friday morning at eight a.m.  I really want to go but will give myself some slack if I am not up to it.

So you are now caught up with my life to date! I hope to soon get my own computer so that I can blog regularly again.

She's Baaaaack!

Yes, I am indeed back.  My blogging ability is quite curtailed, however.  My mini computer was stolen and our internet provider went belly-up so I am using my daughter's ancient desktop once a week when I visit.  I sent my antique laptop to be repaired and should have it back in a few days.  Then will have to find a reasonably priced internet service provider,  I looked at ads for Clear 4.  Has anyone heard of that company?  It seems to be reasonably priced and have the service I want.  There is also an office for them in the next town over so it is pretty convenient.  Am going to check it out when my computer comes home.

No pictures for this blog as they were on my computer.  Also, my yahoo password seems to have been changed because I can't get in with any of the passwords I use.  Probably the skinny bums who stole it.  I say they are skinny because they got into the truck (where I had stupidly left my computer) through the shell window which is only about ten or twelve inches wide.

We had really nice holidays.  Spent Christmas with our NoCal family and New Years with our SoCal family.  Everyone is well and seems happy.  A nice thing this year is that gifts were not excessive. I was glad to see moderation abound!

Our puppy has a  hot spot so The Big Guy got a cone for her so she wouldn't lick it.  She hates it.  Refuses to walk around.  When I left to pick up the grandson today I realized I had forgotten something and went back home.  The Big Guy gave in and took her cone off. :(

The grandson gave me a sketchbook for Christmas.  It is my favorite kind - black hardbound with acid free paper.  I painted the front cover and spine and have started applying gesso to the pages.  I plan on painting in it and the gesso will keep the paper from falling apart.  It feels like painting.  Anybody remember the artist who paints everything white?  His name is not on the tip of my tongue but I remember seeing his work at SFMOMA years ago.

Well, it is late and I have to make the 82 mile trek back to the Central Valley so I will sign off.  Will try to blog again soon and will hopefully have sketchbook pictures to show you (not all white!:})

Little Red Dog - my new granddog!

As posted a few months ago, my favorite (plug your ears Roxy, Bob and Cloe) dog in the whole world, Red Dog, moved on to that great dog park in the sky.  I know he is chasing pregnant angel mini-horses to his heart's content with Truman at his side!

So, my daughter, who now only had two dogs, and VERY old dogs at that, adopted a little pit puppy.  After much debate on face book she decided to change Thelma's name to Jayne.  Jayne came home from the SPCA in San Francisco with aspiration pneumonia as the SPCA insisted on spaying her (at 6 weeks!!!!) before she could be brought home.  

 She was an instant hit with the boy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cloe decided she was the mother! And the real mother made sure Jayne had plenty of toys!

The big old dogs taught her how to escape and then come back in and redecorate the kitchen with a kitschy faux dog print theme!  I wonder what the carpeting looks like? :(

I am looking forward to meeting Jayne, hopefully before she reaches her weight limit!

This 'n That

Have been wanting to post a blog for several days but have just now found the time to sit down and do it.  Today I had planned on, with the help of my talented, handsome and strong grandson, moving some furniture out of storage. But, alas and hurrah, it is raining so that odious activity has been cancelled.  This leaves me at my daughters, in a quiet and peaceful atmosphere conducive to writing.

I have been home almost a week from a two week trip to SoCal where I visited my darling mom. We generally and thoroughly wore ourselves out doing important stuff and fun stuff! All that activity left me no time to write.

So now I have been home almost a week.  My bags are unpacked, but the laundry isn't done because it has been so cold the clothes don't get dry.  I have been hanging one load every day and a half in the house.  So the accumulation of the Big Guy's dirties and the few I brought home isn't going down very fast! Oh well, it isn't going anywhere, either!

Tuesday the Big Guy woke up in the early morning hours with a swollen knee. We spent the afternoon at the VA getting that looked at - pure torture for him as the Rheumatologist did a needle biopsy without anesthesia.  He held really still but bellowed like an R rated, gored bull.  I watched without passing out.  Diagnosis is pseudo-gout.  His second bout, the first one was four years ago and through misdiagnosis and lackadaisical care landed him in the hospital for nine weeks with MERSA.  So, we didn't wait this time.  Hopefully the outcome will be better.  He researched gout in his extensive medical book collection and is convinced cherries will cure him.  A trip to Trader Joe's for dried cherries is in order on the way home.  At least they won't hurt him!

I finally finished the top of William's food quilt and sent it off to my friend Judy to be quilted.  I'm hoping I get it back in time for his birthday the end of the month.  In the meantime I took out a repair I've had for several years and plan on finishing that.  It is an old quilt which belongs to our friend Hugh.  Hugh and his wife, Consuelo, live in Brentwood.  We are going to that area next month for the second of the Big Guy's Santa gigs and I would like to deliver the quilt then.  But in the meantime I also have to make a Santa jacket for the Big Guy.

On a final, and exciting (for me) note, one day last week I was poster child for the Munsell Color facebook page!  They saw my Sept. 19 blog post "Color Obsession Using Color Theory" and anointed me poster child.  Woo Hoo!

Machine Quilting

I finished the top for Food Quilt #2 and got it basted.  I am going to quilt it myself as my favorite long-arm quilter is not available right now.  And if she can't do it I may as well be unhappy with my work as pay someone to do a job I will be unhappy with.  Colleen at Sew Little Time Quilting is the absolute BEST long-arm quilter ever.  She does awesome work. Understands what I like and will even free-hand drawings that I give her.

But, anyway, she can't quilt right now so I am going to do it myself.  Setting up the Flynn Frame was a bust as I don't have room so I will do it on my Featherweight. 

Checking the stitch length

Artquiltmaker.com, as I recently mentioned, gave me a gift certificate for New Pieces, a great quilt shop in Berkeley.  One of the goodies I got was "Machine Quilting Made Easy" by Maurine Nobel.  SewCalGal had recommended it on her blog just the day before I went to New Pieces.  Anyway......in e-mailing SewCalGal back and forth we discussed actually doing the exercises in the book in order to improve our free motion quilting.  So, today, in between working on the food quilt, reading and eating (no chocolate tho :(  ) I did the first exercise in the book.  In addition to checking the stitch length and practicing tying off and stitching I did some stars.  I even labeled the practice patch so that in five years when I pull this out I won't have to rack my brain to figure out what it is!  I can see the benefit of this practice.  I am confident now that I will be able to quilt this using straight line quilting.  Will post the results when I finish the quilt.

Surprise!

Today was a really busy day.  I picked up and dropped off quilts for artquiltmaker and one of my stops, New Pieces at 4th and Gilman in Berkeley, I was handed a birthday card from artquiltmaker (my daughter)! It had a generous gift certificate in it which I proceeded to totally use up! The picture above shows the goodies I selected.

I found some 120" wide fabric for the back of my grandson's food quilt.  I got two quilt hanger thingies (I've misplaced one already!) and the Machine Quilting book by Maurine Noble.  This book was recommended to me by SewCalGal and is timely because I am endeavoring to set up the Flynn Frame I purchased recently.

When I got to artquiltmaker's house I gathered the food I had asked her to get and made two pots of soup and a pan of lasagna for her larder.

I make a really easy and delicious soup. Take a boneless chuck roast and cut it in large chunks.  Cut up vegetables, including an onion, of your choice, also in large chunks.  When I make a chicken soup I cut up a whole chicken, use the back, neck and wings for the soup and save the meaty portions (breast, drumsticks and thighs) for another meal of baked or fried chicken.  Put enough oil in the bottom of a cast iron dutch oven and heat it.  Dump in the meat and vegetables.  When they start to sizzle (about five minutes) put them into a 350 degree preheated oven and bake for thirty minutes.  After thirty minutes remove the dutch oven from the oven and place on the stove.  Add broth, water or fruit juice to cover the meat and veggies.  Bring to a boil and simmer for thirty minutes.  You can add a bay leaf when you add the liquid but add any other spices about 25 minutes into the simmering so they don't loose their flavor.  With chicken soup, after the simmer, I remove the chicken pieces, let them cool, then remove the skin and bones and put the meat back in the soup.  Some poultry seasoning is nice in the chicken soup.

In a beef soup some small new potatoes are nice.  Or in either beef or chicken soup you can put rice in your individual serving bowl and then add the soup.  I don't put rice in my soup when cooking because it soaks up all the liquid.

So I hope you enjoy this easy soup recipe as much as I am going to enjoy my birthday presents!

A visit to Columbia State Park

 

Our 20th wedding anniversary was the tenth of August and we decided to go see Columbia State Park and have lunch there.  While Strolling around the town we came to the Native Sons Museum and hall.  Our Son-in-law is a member of this worthy organization.  

We were quite surprised and proud to see the campaign button he used when he last ran for an office in the museum! (The blue button, top center)  What a small world

These are the two lead horses of the four-horse stagecoach team.  Rides were offered with discounts for senior citizens.  We enjoyed looking at the horses and the stagecoach.  We have, however both taken rides on stagecoaches and do not wish to repeat the experience!  Did you know a stage coach can go twenty miles a day? It is about 60 miles to Yosemite from Columbia which means it took three days to travel by stage from Columbia (which is near Sonora) to Yosemite Park when that was the common way to travel?  Hard to believe!

The Wells Fargo office desk

The other thing that amazed me is there was a charge by Wells Fargo (the mail carrier) when a letter was posted and another charge, depending on weight and how much the recipient appeared to want the letter, when it was picked up at its destination.

We had a good day, it was quite fun.  We ended it at the ice cream parlor/theater with some delicious dessert!

Vacation post cards

I started blogging again yesterday.  This morning I decided to edit my blogs and found some drafts I had never finished.  So, today I am finishing them and posting.

While on vacation in Oregon I did the send everyone I know postcard thing.  The difference is I drew on USPS postcards instead of buying the premade kind.  Here are two of the ones I remembered to photograph.

 

It is always fun for me to draw postcards.  It would be even more fun to remember to photograph all of them.  I wonder if the loved ones I send them to save them?

Flynn Frame

A few months ago I bought a used Flynn Frame from Amazon.  I had been thinking about getting one for quite some time and finally bit the bullet and ordered it.

When the device arrived I opened it up, read the directions, put it back in the box and stashed it under my drafting board.

On my regular Thursday visit to artquiltmaker we talked about quilting (as usual) and bemoaned the fact that our favorite long-arm quilter, Colleen Granger of So Little Time Quilting is currently unavailable.  Which, of course led to my stashed Flynn Frame.  We talked about practicing, what kind of fabric to use and ways to embellish the practice quilt.

So, yesterday I spent the better  part of the day putting the thing together.  I had to go to OSH to buy round tubes to roll on.  They didn't have the exact size I need so jerry-rigged the height with four drawing boards!

I got the thing all set up and started rolling it around without the machine running to get the feel of it.  I found it to be quite awkward and also found that I do not have enough room, even for a twenty inch quilt!  So I'm looking to expand into the spare bedroom.

The other thing I found out by this dry run was that I need, at least at first, to have lines to follow on the blank quilt sandwich.  Also, the throat on the machine I planned to use only gives me five inches of quilting space.

Well, after all that the mounted Flynn frame, when taken off the sewing machine, fits perfectly behind the door of my studio.

Guess I'll get back to the food quilt.  More on that later.

Color Obsession using color theory

 The other day I posted "Color Obsession and Movies" commenting that I used every color I had.  Then I challenged myself to do a second "Color Obsession" using some kind of color theory.  The above drawing is the result.  Once again I used the Munsell System, with red and aqua as complements (the closest I had to blue-green) and orange and violet as discords.  I also used a 'color trail' with the discords.  Color trails lead the eye of the viewer from the center of interest through the drawing and back to the center of interest.

In looking at the completed drawing here I can see that I need to add a little violet in the top aqua.  Which, because the drawing is done with markers, will be very easy to do!

 With the addition of some violet on the top of this drawing the viewer's eye is led around the center of interest which is the 'box-like' structure in the top third of the drawing.  In looking once again at the drawing on the screen I'm going to make one more change.

A totally different look to it!  This view is quite dramatic - I don't know, yet, which way will be right side up.

 

I've included here the original drawing.  I loved it when I finished it but now find it flat and dull.  The latest iteration I find bright and lively.

Comments, anyone?

Color obsession and movies

I've been receiving the Illustration Friday notices since May.  The above drawing is only the fifth one I've completed and I thought I would share it here because I really need to blog about something!  The word for that day was Obsession and the quote, from Claude Monet, is "Color is my day-long obsession, joy, and torment."

The color in this piece follows no theory.  I just drew away with the pens I have.  Often when I draw spontaneously I use every color I own.  For a first draft that is fine.  It would be a good exercise for me to re-do this using some color sense.  Use all the same shapes but with organised color choices.  Stay tuned! That actually sounds exciting.


I was in So Cal for three weeks, staying with my nephew and visiting my mother.  I drove 2500 miles in those three weeks - you're welcome, BP!



Made it home last Monday night and spent a good part of Tuesday asleep!  That must have been what I needed because by Wednesday I was myself again.

The bad news is somehow my washing machine died while I was gone! How can something that was not used, break?  It is a fancy, front loading Whirlpool that I just love.  It is one of my favorite possessions!  How sick is that? LOL The control button - one of many on the thing - says 'control locked'.  So, Monday, I have to call a washer repair guy.  I guess worse things could happen!

Last night the Big Guy and I went out to dinner and a movie.  We ate at a new (for us) place called Rooster Juice.  BG had prepared to order with no slat fajitas and I had a fajita salad bowl in a corn tortilla bowl!  First time I have ever seen a corn bowl.  They are usually flour, which I cannot eat.  So that is on our list of places to go back to.

The movie we saw was that last Harry Potter one.  I really enjoyed it.  BG found it confusing.  It has been a long time since part one and BG didn't read the books so I can see how it would be confusing.  I wondered if they filmed the sequence with Dumbledore at the very beginning?  Or did they use some movie magic to recreate him?

My favorite thing to do is watch movies and this past week was a bonus.  We also went on Wednesday, during the day because we were so hot and the theater has AC.  We saw "Cowboys and Aliens".  It was quite entertaining, too.  Well worth the $3 ticket!

Well, my poor old truck needs some attention so I am taking it for an oil change.  Will try the new mechanic first but if he can't see me today, then SpeeDee will get my business.

Creative Prompt #116 - Breakfast

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL - 

ONE COFFEE

TWO EGGS

THREE RASPBERRIES 

Thank you, thank you, thank you Toni for the book "Where Women Create" and to Artquiltmaker for Creative Prompt # 116 and to SB daughter for her beautiful and prolific art.

I'm doing art!  Yeah! Happy me.

creativity : (

...or lack thereof.
                         ..
                           ...
                              .........................

As you probably have noticed I have not blogged in a while.  Have hit a creative wall.  Maybe a life wall?  I have neither sewn, made art nor done a lick of housework since I got home from vacation.  In theory, vacation should have left me rested and refreshed.  But I came home exhausted, sore and grumpy.  Bummer!  I'm not taking me on vacation again!

Tonight I had dinner with my girls and the boys (grandson and son-in-law).  SB daughter brought over the paintings she has done.  They are so creative!  She is an inspiration.  When she left to go back to her hotel I went up to artquiltmaker's studio and we talked about sewing and shopping and life.  It was a good evening.  Even the 82 mile drive home didn't bother me and seemed to be over in a flash (perhaps it was the fries I picked up at McPoison's on the way home?).

So, when I did finally get home and unload the truck I actually did a little artsy thing.  Months ago the girls treated me to an evening at A Work of Heart in San Jose.  We made some cool winged hearts wearing crowns.

I really like mine but felt it was missing something - like an eye.  I have been thinking about putting an eye on the heart for some time but didn't follow through.

Yesterday I received a copy of the magazine "Where Women Create" from a friend I hadn't seen in over a year.  It was such a thoughtful gesture!  And it came with a card that made me feel like I really do have friends even if they are 'in absentia' currently.  The envelope the card came in was pretty close to the same color I had painted the canvas to which the heart was mounted.  So last night I drew an eye on the envelope, kind of practicing for the 'real' one I was going to paint on the heart.  When I got settled here tonight I cut out the eye and was going to glue it on but decided I would just use tape so I could decide if I liked it or not.

I'm glad I did.  My first reaction is to not like it.  Maybe I like it a little now.  But maybe also it would look better drawn directly on the heart.  Or on a different color paper and glued on.  Or maybe I should paint it on paper and glue it on.  I think it needs to be darker.  And the paper it is on looks jaundiced!  Kind of like my current outlook on life?

So what do (all two of my readers) you think? 

Vacation!

The Big Guy and I are on vacation in central Oregon, east of the city of Eugene.  This is a lovely farm on the road in to the resort where we are staying.  As you can see from the view of the sky, the weather is typical for Oregon.  We have been here a week.  The first two days were sunny and warm - perfect.  Friday afternoon I picked our 'dinner and dominoes every Tuesday' friends up at the airport.  It began to rain in the middle of the night Friday.  Of course, all the rain keeps the area green and beautiful.

On Tuesday we went to a yoga class - my first in eight years!  I was surprised at how flexible I still am!  I also really enjoyed the class and will go again tonight.  And maybe I will even go to yoga when I get home!

Yesterday the weather was cloudy in the morning but beautiful in the afternoon.  The grounds here are beautiful and the Big Guy and Roxy are enjoying all the trails.  This area is also rich in fallen branches which he uses for his new hobby, making walking sticks.  He has made about eight since we arrived and they are beautiful!  Some of the wood has blue streaks in it which are highlighted by his wood butter (last years hobby).

The other spa class available is water aerobics.  I went both yesterday and today.  Yesterday it wiped me out but today I did much better.  What a fun way to get in shape!  Maybe I'll move our pool repair higher up on the looooong list of stuff left to do on the house!  Or it might be easier to find a class somewhere!

The resort we are at has beautiful gardens but the foxglove in the above pictures grow wild all around!  They are droopy because of the rain.

It would be nice for the sun to come out so I could lay by the pool but even if it doesn' it is really good to get away, meet new people and relax!