City Quilts

 The theme for FiberWorks annual show at the library this year is Cityscapes. I wasn't thrilled with the idea at first because I had made so many city quilts over the years and did not want to make another.  Even though they were very successful; some sold and some were juried into shows. I will show some of them here.

HOUSTON REFLECTIONS

This is the quilt that started them all. I had taken photos of buildings in Houston, TX while there for the big International Quilt Festival. The mirrored surfaces gave a distorted view of their neighboring buildings. I printed some of the photos on fabric and did wonky piecing to replicate the feeling.

It was juried into the show the following year where it won a second place in its category.  

I went on to make several of the "City" quilts, minus the photos, using my hand dyed fabrics. Emerald City was purchased by Yale New Haven Hospital for one of their doctor's waiting rooms.

Sunrise City was purchaed  at a library show as part of a Fiber Revolution show.

City Lights

This was a small quilt made for a FiberWorks show with a theme of Gray Plus One.

It won a Best of Show in a Woman's Club competition.

And there are more, but I can't find all the pictures. But maybe you can see why I didn't want to do another.  

Several years ago I took a trip with my sister to Greece. It was a wonderful adventure and I was smitten with the island city of Santorini with its white washed buldings and brilliant blue roofs. I knew I wanted to capture the feeling in a quilt, but never got around to it. This was the perfect opportunity. 

It is all fused appplique and was a challenge to make. I am usually a piecer. I haven't decided how to quilt it. I was thinking of doing corduroy quilting, which is rows of straight line quilting all over the quilt a quarter inch apart. I showed it to my quilt group and everyone said NO!. so now I have to figure out what to do.

All suggestions are welcome.

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Echinacea and Scaevola

Better know as Purple Cone Flower and Fan Flower. Two of my favorite garden flowers. Let's do Echinacea first. They are perennial, which means they come up every year. They are very hardy and are even deer resistant. What's not to love?

This is a big clump that was planted probably 25 years ago. There where some white ones in there, but they seem to have turned pink. They are about four feet tall. There are some Rudbeckia (Blackeyed Susan) mixed in, but they aren't blooming yet. I like it when they are blooming together, maybe next week.

This is a new variety I planted last year in my front garden, where I wanted something short. This variety is called Delicious Candy. big centers and short fuchsia pink petals. I was so pleased that they survived the winter. Lots of buds not yet opened. Now that they're established, they will spread and make an even bigger mound.  

Now onto Scaevola, an annual that has been a favorite for many years. Originally they were a brilliant blue and I would buy two or three hanging basket to take out of the basket and plant in a decorative pots. Passer-byes would often ask, "What are those gorgeous blue flowers?" It is a great plant because it blooms all summer, and is self cleaning. The only requirement is water. They do not like to dry out and in hot dry weather I water them every day.

When shopping this year I found this light blue variety and bought three baskets. The nursery didn't have the bright blue ones. While I do like this variety, I would have liked one of the bright blues. Next year!

When I went back a couple weeks later they had a whole table of 4 inch pots with many different colors. Be still my heart....bright pink, light pink, dark pink, purple, and white. so I bought one of each and planted them in small blue pots.

I think this is my favorite. There are two different varieties. The shorter ones are a brilliant bright pink and the spiky ones are a lighter pink. I cut the spiky ones back becasue they were getting leggy.

 

Gardening has been a challenge this year. First with my surgery and now with my achilles tendon. I only have to wear my "boot" now if walking for awhile. Otherwise I can just wear a sneaker with heel lifts. I go to PT three times a week. The goal is to get me off the boot entirely, then just  shoes with a heel lift and them Nothing! Doing anything with the boot on is difficult so I will be gald to see it go. 

Happy gardening if you garden and happy looking if you don't As for me, I have to have my flowers.

Under the Sea

 I finished this cute little star fish this week. This is part of the monthly challenge for my FiberWorks group and I am ahead of myself.  I have to get to work on my big piece for the show in October. You'll see it when it's finished.

We usually see the bleached skeletons of starfish and they are white. So I went online to see what color they are when alive. They come in brilliant colors, including orange and that's I elected to do. The embroidery was done on orange felt with yellow embroidery, then used a buttonhole stitch to attach him to the linen page.

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go check it out.

One more fish

 This fish had its own challenges. I sewed the flat (as apposed to cupped) sequins in two different sizes to a felt cut-out fish. The fins and tail were fused on lame, which I have in a lot of colors. I machine stitched the accent lines on the head, tail and fins. Then I fused the whole thing onto the page. I had to use a pressing cloth to keep from melting the lame and sequins. I painted the backround with watercolors before I fused down the fish.

It was very hard to photograph. I toook a lot of pictures. In some the sequins were just a shiny blur. This shot shows the sequins, but not the shimmer.

My hernia surgery is well behind me and I feel great. BUT, I have been dealing with tendonitis of my Achilles tendon since January. Very painful! It used to hurt only when I walked but now it hurts all the time and much worse when walking. I went to a doctor in Florida and PT, another doctor in CT and more PT. Noothing was helping. 

So back to the doc yeaterday and as I suspected he put me in a boot. Up to the knee. Very awkward and uncomfortable, but hopefully it will get me better.  You cannot get a cortisone shot in the tendon because it may shred it. There are blood platelet shots, but they are controversial, are very painful, don't always work, are very expensive and not covered by insurance. So for now the boot is my best solution.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Another fish

 I was hoping to get this fish done by last Friday, but life got in the way. I painted the body and fins with acrylic paint thinned with fabric medium. It made it a little harder to stitch thru, but I like the look. I think he's pretty cute. 

I have my next fish halfway done. I hope to get him up soon.

Monthly Challenge

 Here's one more fish. This was also done on one of my fish fabtics. The fish was nestled in a clump of coral. I have sooooo many sequins left from my big sequin ball project a couple of years ago and I thught this was the perfect place for some of them.

Unfortunately the little fish gets a bit hidden by the sequins. You really have to look for him but he's there.

I thought I would get a lot of hand sewing done this past week while recovering from my hernia surgery. I even made up a couple of packets with all the necessary floss and/or beads. but  just didn't feel like sewing. I did do a lot of reading. I started and finished Fredrik Backman's My Friends and loved it. It was sometimes sad, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and always quirky. He is the author of The Man Callled Ove, which I loved, book and movie.  I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all.

My recovery was much better than I expected. One week later I am almost back to my old self. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

I'm still here

Once again I am prompted or shamed into doing a blog by my high school girlfriend, Judy. As I told her, it's so easy to get out of the habit  and discipline of blogging. WhenI first started many years ago, I would blog two of three times a week, then once a week, and now once in an eon. I will try to do better.

My weekly fiber group has a monthly chalenge going on. The theme this year is Life Forms, giving us a lot of leeway. I chose to do Under the Sea. I am making a little linen book with the pages being about 6 inches square. I'm trying to do a different technique each month. Here's what I have so far.

 

I saw this cute octopus on a mug in a catalog. I altered it a bit to fit my page. With all the ruffles and dots, I think she is a female. I did French knots, chain stitch, stem stitch and lazy daisies.

'

Several years ago I thought Iwanted to make a fish quilt and bought a bunch of different fish printed fabrics. This being one of them. I just fussy cut the fish and embroidered over some of it. I never did make the quilt, but I have used those fabtics for other things.

These sea horses were done with just a few stitches, lazy daisy, outline stitch and chain. Seahorses do come in many colors, including the ones shown here.

The turtle was made with anther one of my fish fabrics. This one also had turtles. I used buttonhole stitch, French knots, outline and running stitch.

I am having hernia surgery tomorrow and will be out of commission for a week or two, so I made a couple of kits to do while I am recuperating. Two more fish, using different tecniques. 

Please come back and see what I've accomplished. I'll aim for next Friday.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday

Thanksgiving

 A lovely day at my neice's, again.  Everything was delicious, but I think my favorite this year were the mashed sweet potatoes with candied pecans. Yum! I am going to make them for my party. That's not to say that I didn't love the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, and pies (pumpkin and pecan).

She always has a signature drink and this year it was a chocolate martini with this cute ginger bread man perched on the rim. She got them at Trader Joe's and they had a big notch on the bottom, meant to sit on hot chocolate mugs, but equally good on a martini glass. I am going to borrow this idea, too. I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home.

Her daughter always make a charcuterie platter. So attractive and full of delicious goodies. I ate too much, as usual.

Lovely tablescape, different every year.

She found these large pinecone candles at Aldi's. Faux light, of course, but they even glowed inside, making them look so very real.

Another perfect Thanksgiving and now the rush to Christmas! I started my decorating today. So much still left to do. It's a lot of work,  but I do love the results. I hope to finish this week.

Toward 2025

 I am participating in a project, Toward 2050.  There will be a massive labyrinth at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. You can read all about it here. We are making banners similar to prayer flags. I made two of them a couple of months ago and Ann Morton, the designer, sent out a call that they are still 900 short of completing this huge job. The deadline has been moved to Dec. 31. If you are interested you can sign up on the website.

They are to be environmentally themed banners. The last two that I made  a while ago were flowers and cacti. This time I chose fish, mainly becasue I had a huge stash of fish fabric. The flags are two sided so I had to make 10 panels for my five flags. 

I chose to fuse the fish down and then button hole stitch around each one with variegated threads. I also printed out SAVE OUR OCEANS on some of them. On some of them I used an ombre blue fabric from my stash  and others my hand dyed shibori fabic in aqua. 

These last two were part of Round Robin a few years ago. I made the shibori fabric and the next person handpainted the fish. I had to piece the other side of the panel.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Please pop over and see what everyone's doing.

The Zoo Quilt

I started this baby quilt abut 20 years ago. I made all of the blocks and cut out all the sashing and then I never finished it. It was rather complicated piecing and I thought it would only be for future grandchildren. No grandchildren, so they were put away. Every once in awhile I would see them on the shelf and think how cute they were. My sister was over one day and I showed them to her and she convinced me to finish it.

The quilt was from Margaret Rolfe's book, Patchwork Quilts for Children. You made a grid, then drew the pattern on the grid, cut them apart and drew them on your fabric. The piecing directions were very good and I follwed them carefully. I am pleased with the results and now I am putting it together.

I am now in the process of free motion  quilting it. The quilt will measure about 46 x 68, a little big to FM quilt on my standard machine. So I picked out the stitching down the middle length of the quilt top, making two long narrow panels that are relatively easy to quilt. I will then sew the two quilted panels together. I have done this before many times with great success. 

I will show you the whole thing when it is finished. Now here are the cute zoo animals and the alternating pieced block.

Alternate block. I like the yellow for its cheerfulness and also making it gender neutral.

I have decided to donate it next year to the Festival of Trees, where all profits go to Ann's Place, which gives care and comfort to cancer patients and their families.

Please hop over to Off the Wall Friday and see what other talented people are doing.