Weekend/Auditions

Finally some sewing time came my way this weekend, in between visiting with our guests, playing with an adorable blue-eyed blonde 5 year old with an equally adorable Russian accent, who calls our dog "Yussell" instead of Russell. She was thrilled to play with our girls' old dollhouse, and happily ride Nick's skateboard while holding onto my hands.  Today they are away at a family BBQ so I devoted some more time to the pile of unfinished work in my sewing area.

The center of the Pinwheel Garden quilt is sewn...auditioning borders now.  Meh for the burgundy print.

The green dot is okay but I don't have enough of it.  A big no to the yellowish print.  I have no other light prints in the stash--no light blue, pink, green, or purple.

This creamy white looks better than I expected.

I believe there are enough lights in the pinwheels to make this the right choice.  With the addition of more green from the vines and leaves to be appliqued, I think it will look great.    There is only a yard of it so I'll have to do MATH to see if there is enough.  If not, I'll find another at the fabric store that will work.

While I had the camera out,  I took pics of the lovely gifts our guests brought: a picture postcard tour of their city, Nizhny Novgorod, a thimble and t-shirt with the city's name, and an adorable set of matryoshka.

The tallest one is only about four inches, and the little bean of a baby about 3/4".  I love these! 

Tonight I hope to complete all the crosshatching on the Caramel Blues quilt.  This needs to be completed by Friday if I want to enter it into the County Fair and there is still stippling, borders, and binding to be done.

Blog Doldrums

Spending all day every day this week packing patient files has left me completely exhausted and therefore no sewing is happening in my world.  My mom has been volunteering at the office, thankfully listing all the chart contents and hefting boxes (even when I tell her not to!).  An out of state worker was even imported one morning--my niece Hannah is here from AZ visiting a friend and was at loose ends while the friend was volunteering at the hospital, so she came and assembled boxes.  Then we went out to lunch at a popular local seafood joint and had a celebrity siting:  Sam Elliott and a familiar looking lady were there eating with family, he of Mask, Tombstone, and Big Lebowski fame.  My mom was making fun of Sam's skinny legs, but gave him proper respect once Hannah googled him.  The familiar looking lady turned out to be his wife, actress Katharine Ross, who was Elaine in The Graduate, and also starred in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  They apparently have a place in Montecito, just up the coast near Santa Barbara, a popular celebrity enclave (Oprah Winfrey has a house there as well).   Sorry, no photos of the famous couple--I thought they'd rather just enjoy their lunch.

It has been rather overcast, alternately blustery, and very muggy, but not hot here by the ocean.  Many days, the ocean view looks like this for half the day:

Not much definition between sea and sky, though those tiny specks who are surfers don't care, and you'd never know there were four islands 10 miles or so off this coast either.  However, I don't think our guests who are due to arrive tomorrow will mind--they have been baking in Arizona temps over 100 degrees.  Our guests are an old friend who is bringing his second wife and daughter, whom we have never met; the wife and daughter are Russian, and the family spent 30 hours traveling from their home near Moscow to visit our friend's family in the states.  So we have rushed to finish painting the upstairs and get our makeshift guest room ready for them.  I hope to have some quilty content to post at some point in the near future.  But in the meantime, Dr. P has asked me to continue working until everything is ready to go...so my summer vacation will be put off at least another week.  Back soon!

Hijacked

You know how it is, you see something and have to drop everything when inspiration hijacks you.  A family friend's son is finally getting married in October--we have both known Drew since he was born.  It was through this mutual friend that Grant and I met and Drew was the ring bearer at our wedding, so it's a special event and of course I want to make the happy couple a quilt.

The couple lives in San Francisco and I thought this modern quilt was a perfect choice (AP&Q June August 2012).  Except it was bigger than I wanted to make--each shoo fly is nearly 3 feet square and I don't have a lot of 3/4 to 1 yard pieces in my stash--so I redrafted the pattern to a size that works with what I have on hand.  A flurry of fabric washing and ironing and cutting began...

Kaffe Fausset olive dot, vintage stash Kona teal blue ginkgo leaves, and an Asian inspired red from a "scraps by the pound" quilt store find, along with a couple of neutrals to start.

The red was extremely leaky, the above sinkful was the third rinse, and the fabric required an overnight soaking for a total of five baths before the water was clear.

I cut my squares at 9 inches for the HSTs and 8 5/8 for the plain ones.

This Shoo Fly is over 24 inches square.  Isn't it fun?  Like the pattern, there will be six giant blocks altogether but I couldn't wait for all the fabrics to be gathered.  Can't wait to see how they all turn out.  Also while doodling on the shoo fly I played with an alternate idea of using tri-recs for part of the block.  Some MATH is required and maybe a paper pattern before I cut into any fabric, but I'm excited about working it out.  Stay tuned...

Design Wall Monday--July 9, 2012

Design Wall Monday again--that sure came around quick!   No sewing happened at all this past week for various reasons, including indecision, lack of motivation, and just plain funk, until today.  Some piecing seemed the right thing to do.

Your eyes do not deceive you, this is the same layout as last week, except the blocks are sewn into their rows.  It is almost a top.

The inspiration for this pinwheel quilt came from a free pattern I got in the mail with a subscription request.

I lacked the number of pinwheel blocks for this setting and that's where the half-square triangle idea popped up, followed by wanting to create stripes.  I like this quilt pattern with the appliqued leaves and vines and the sawtooth outer border, but will have to do a mock up.  I fear the strong colors of the stripes on mine may be too jarring with a white/cream border, even with the vines added.  What do you think? 

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

The Chief

Dr. P gave me permission to post pics of him with the Jollas de la Mar quilt I made him.

Here's "The Chief" pose.

And his more usual state, "Smiling Doctor". 

We are packing up and preparing for our final goodbyes to the beachside office.  We made it through our final luncheon with only tears of laughter, thankfully!  It is hard to think that a journey I started in 1991 with this practice is over; Dr. P joined the practice in 1997 but I didn't work for him until 2007, and was appointed as a manager in 2008.  The last four years have been very full of ups and downs but through it all we have kept our sense of humor and as a staff have enjoyed working together with only a minimum of drama.  I doubt I will ever encounter a group of smart and funny ladies such as these again in my working career, nor a boss as generous and fun.  Thanks for the memories!

Design Wall Monday--July 2, 2012

July is here and it really feels like summer now.  We've been enjoying some unusually sunny weather for SoCalif and there has been no complaining about it. Some years the layer of coastal fog hangs around forever and there are never any good beach days.  Not that I go to the beach, I am too busy sewing :)

On my design surface today are the scrappy pinwheel blocks and large half-square triangle setting squares.  I sewed those HSTs today, ironed and sliver trimmed them.  Next time I will give myself a little more wiggle room for trimming down--I think I had less than 1/8th inch to work with.

I started with the setting squares to keep my stripes straight.

Then filled in with all the pinwheels and played Switcheroo a bit. 

These pinwheels were made of "waste triangles" from the Rick Rack Road quilt.   Borders of some sort will be added since these odd-sized blocks of 7" finished will need some fleshing out to be a usable sized quilt.  I may even get brave and add some appliqued vines and leaves in the border.  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Taken out to the Ballgame

We headed to L.A. yesterday afternoon for Grant's Father's Day gift ballgame.  Grant figured this was the first Dodger game he had been to in several decades, but recalled as a kid going with his mom, dad, and brother to many games with a cooler packed with sandwiches and drinks, sitting in the bleachers.

Despite leaving 20 minutes after the kids, we arrived slightly before they did, as they came a different route that turned out to have more traffic troubles. 

The game had already started by the time we got there.  We are looking across the field at our seats on the first base side at field level.

It was pretty toasty in the full sun but we managed to enjoy ourselves, catching a breeze now and then, eating, drinking, and cheering.  A foul ball was hit our way and went right over our heads, bounced off the hand of the guy sitting behind Grant and was knocked into the seat of the lady in front of me, a diehard fan who said it was the first time she ever had a ball hit towards her.  Several kids behind me asked me to "tap the lady" so they could borrow and examine the ball.  Later they asked again, and when handing it back, wanted to know how much she would sell it for.  "Aw, don't say that!", she said.

Grant, son Nick, son-in-law Chris, and daughter Elaine (now sporting red hair) wearing necessary eye protection! We only caught a bit of shade from the stadium lights blocking the setting sun for a few minutes.

Lee DeWyze, 2010 American Idol winner, sang at the 7th inning stretch.  Elaine said he was a favorite of hers and Chris'.  He did a good job of America the Beautiful and received nice applause.

Don't you love this creative use of a cardboard food tray by this young fan?  Lots of other folks simply held up the tray to block the sun.  Though the Dodgers lost (again), it was some good family time and a nice way to spend a lovely summer afternoon.  We were home before full dark and surprisingly not even sunburned.  Thanks for the gift, kids!