Thursday, June 30, 2016

Really Random Thursday, 6/30/16

It's hot.

Did I mention HOT?
So I've done nothing but catch up on a couple of bee blocks.


 I stay inside. Because it's hot. Or sometimes because of this...
And when I go to church I adhere to this. Love the comment: "And all God's introverts said amen."
Try to stay cool, my friends.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Really Random Thursday, 6/23/16

Last week, before the valley decided to heat up for summer, I took all four grandkids to the new refurbished Storyland, near our zoo. It had been closed for awhile because of vandalism as well as all the buildings needing some updating. Fundraising efforts and lots of hard work took care of that, and this spring it opened again.
Once you get inside, it's a world of Mother Goose and other fairytale rhymes.
Aargh, matey.

  Even the directions to my house...
Cute bathroom with child-sized doors.
 
We rode on the train. Ella loved it.
Choo-choo...
They are adding lots of dinosaurs. It reminds me of the part of the train ride at Disneyland that goes through prehistoric times.
It was a fun day.

Mark and I went up to Lakeview Cottages at Huntington Lake on Sunday. There is water in the lake this year!
I couldn't resist a little lakeside photography.
 The skies on the way home were breathtaking.

 The other day on my morning walk I was greeted with these beauties along the way.
We received some more  pictures from the Roaring 20s party we attended attended a couple of weeks ago. That's the birthday girl on the left.

Charlotte and Levi are in the Dolphin Swim Club and today was their first meet. I wish I could have jumped in that water...

Now that the temperature has shot up here, I stay inside because I'm hot, but you introverts out there will understand that
Hope your weekend is a good one.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Really Random Thursday, 6/16/16

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of having a trunk show on the central coast of California, Morro Bay, the Gold Coast Quilting Guild.

It was our 43rd wedding anniversary. Mark cut this gorgeous Double Delight rose from our garden, put it in one of those styrofoam soft drink cups and put it in the cupholder in my car. My whole car smelled so lovely.
I didn't take a single picture of the trunk show, but the women were very friendly. I had a great time, and I hope they enjoyed seeing my quilts.

The weather was perfect coastal weather, cool and breezy.
My good friend, Linda, who started me on this trunk show journey in the first place, came over for the afternoon and evening. After the trunk show, we did a little shopping at the local quilt shop, then had dinner and visited for a couple of hours. It was the highlight.
On Saturday, Mark and I had been invited to a 50th birthday party, semi-formal with a roaring 20s theme. I tried a beaded headband (which didn't look good with glasses) and a feather boa (which was itchy, and besides, it was a breezy evening). Finally decided the long pearl necklace and fishnet stockings would be good enough. Mark looked great as a newsboy.
Yes, a whole roasted pig.
Goldfish centerpieces.
It was a fun evening.
So it's been city clean-up in our neighborhood, that once-a-year time when you can put trash and yard trimmings out in front of your house and the city will pick it up. I'm always amazed at what ends up on the street. This year, there were a LOT of appliances. And as I was taking my morning walk, I saw this lonely little tomato pincushion, full of pins, just tossed on the ground with a lot of other junk.
Wonder what the story is, who the pins belong to, and if they decided they just didn't want to sew any longer.
Mark and I had two 6-foot tables, those really heavy ones. We decided this was the year to clear them out of the storage shed, along with two red folding chairs that had seen better days. Mark decided it would be funny to "set the table" so we cut a rose and put it in an empty wine bottle. We weren't even done setting the table when someone pulled up and wanted the tables. I'm sure they thought I was nuts when I told them to wait a few minutes while I took a picture, which turned out really badly. Sorry about that, but you get the idea.
My friend Elizabeth had told me that my Delta Breeze quilt was in the newest edition of Simply Moderne magazine. I had no idea, so I was on the hunt for a copy of my own. It's a pricey magazine and they are usually a little hard to find. But I persevered, and it paid off.
This was in the newspaper the other day.
They just don't listen to me, and keep growing no matter what I say. 
And finally, I saw this beautiful flower in our neighbor's yard. So pretty. Next week the summer heat begins in earnest, and things will start to wilt.

Hope your week has been a good one.

Friday, June 10, 2016

From Start to Finish: Faded Denim Jacket

This is a post that follows the making of a quilt from my initial design inspiration to the finished quilt.

For years, I have been looking up at the ceiling in our church sanctuary. I'm not sure what they are called technically, but they help with the acoustics.
Here is a closer view of just one set.
I knew there was a quilt pattern in there somewhere--with three distinct values of light, medium and dark.

And suddenly the quilt idea popped into my head. I was visualizing a well-worn denim jacket and a soft floral button-down shirt with a white collar and cuffs.

A couple of months ago I had ordered the Robert Kaufman Railroad and Chambray fat quarter bundle from Purl Soho. They are beautiful, with lovely textures. While a few are heavier and more "denim" like, most of them are very soft, with a nice drape.

Robert Kaufman also has a line of lawn prints called London Calling. While I have some lovely authentic Liberty of London scraps, none of them were large enough for the quilt I was envisioning.

I was able to get two charm packs of the latest London Calling line. Having never actually felt this line, I was thrilled to find out that it felt so much like the Liberty of London scraps.

I based the entire quilt on 5" unfinished squares, and added Kona snow for the lightest value. It's basically a seven-by-seven block, done four times for this quilt.

It is really such an easy quilt to make. You lay out the block identically for each of the four blocks, sew each one,  and then just rotate them so that one light corner square is always in the center. I easily sewed it together in one day.

And then Mark and I took it to the coast by Monterey and Carmel for some beauty shots.
I backed it with some soft chambray, and boy do I wish I could remember the manufacturer. For whatever reason, I had six yards of it! Note to self: be consistent in labeling solids and near-solids for future reference.

Then Darby worked her quilting magic on it.

This quilt is wonderfully soft. It is the perfect weight for a summer quilt. Well, a summer quilt for somewhere other than the central valley of California, that is.

And then we stopped for a picnic on 17-Mile-Drive. It was a perfect day.



Quilt: Faded Denim Jacket
Size: 70" x 70"
Designed and Made by: Cindy Wiens
Quilted by Darby Myers

I'm linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Fort Worth Fabric Studio, TGIFF and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Have a lovely weekend.