Last Sunday I wrote about the inspiration that could be found in the indoor pool at Hearst Castle. OMG! I love the colors in that indoor pool! Although, I have to admit, it should come as no surprise to you.
There is a lot of other tile around the estate. As I have said about 100,000,000,000 times, I love tiles and mosaics. Some of these were some of the most inspirational I have ever seen., including being inspired for quiltmaking designs.
The photo to the left would be an interesting baby quilt. The circles could incorporate fusible or machine applique’. The center could be redesigned a little bit to be more geometric and pieced.
Cottage tile at roofline
Each of the cottages had tile at the roofline. Those tiles were different colors and had different motifs. I could only see the tiles in the photo (left) by taking the photo with the zoom at ‘extreme’
The bonus was the plasterwork (not sure of the technique) on this particular cottage. I love the ceiling decoration, but I also like the gargoyles. They are more funny than scary. All of them were just a bit different, but equally hilarious.
Cottage Bas Relief
I like the idea of the roof tiles. I think it adds a bit of interest to the rooflines. I think it would add something to those cookie cutter townhomes and apartments most large cities are putting up around public transport.
Anyway, the Hearst estate is a wonderful source of fabulous inspiration. If you have an opportunity to visit, don’t hesitate.
I had the class and so much stuff to catch up on over the weekend that I didn’t have a lot of time to sew. I decided that I wanted to make progress on something. Not just a few blocks, but some real progress.
Food Quilt.
I knew I could make progress on it because I was pretty close to having the top done after the retreat.
Food Quilt #2 Top – June 2015
I got on it and the top is together with borders, though it took me a few hours on Monday to get the whole top done, but next stop: Food Quilt back.
The holdup at the retreat was that I forgot black to use for borders. I had plenty of black at home, so I waited until this week to do it.
After putting on the black inner border and the piano key food border, I decided I wanted a black border on the outside to contain all that food. I am pleased with the way it came out.
Food Quilt Holders
I caught a quick glimpse of the boys as they prepared to be quilt holders for me. This is what it looks like when they are acting as my quilt holders. I have learned just to wait for them to play around. It is fun to watch. I mean, you have to have fun in normal life, right?
You might remember that made a Food Quilt for the Young Man. This is a graduation gift for the Young Man’s friend. I kind of like the idea of them having similar quilts. It is like there will be a connection through these quilts. Sentimental, I know. It won’t be finished for his graduation, but I can send it to him at college and he can see the top.
BAMQG will be selling Opportunity quilt tickets at the San Mateo County Fair June 6-7 from 11-8 both days. Come and get a ticket and buy some for your friends. We use the money for charity and guild activities. Oh, you can see me as well, if you come on Saturday.
Take a look at my Cafe Press Shop. There might be something that you need for summer!
Websites Articles & Information
This blog post neatly recaps a great article is about the beneficial effects of crafting. I love the list, because I have thought it a zillion times and I love the neat way in which it outlines my thoughts. The result? Go craft something!
Guy’s guide to hanging out in fabric stores and shopping for fabric with your wife/girlfriend/S.O.
Have you seen that Gretchen has a companion Facebook page to her website? I didn’t know either. Go like it and show Gretchen some love.
I made the Fair Vendor Paper.li paper, because I retweeted a Daily Deal from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. It is kind of sad for that to be my claim to fame after all the other writing I have done here.
From the inspiration department, check out Eleanor’s Walks. Eleanor is a client of mine and she has started a blog on walking San Francisco city streets. She has about 5 posts so far, including an About Me post and is going great guns. Her posts are illustrated by digital images at the moment, but she is a watercolorist and draws, so some of her drawings will color the blog as well. I think it s a great project and glad to be helping out. Go take a look and leave a comment.
Fabric, Tools, Shops, Supplies & Embellishments
I was fascinated by this blog post about how a fabric order gets processed and delivered. the comments are interesting as well.
Color theory class review by your fave and mine, Carol Wool!
Exhibits, Tutorials & Events
Have you seen Linda Gass’ work? She does aerial views of the San Francisco Bay Area using quiltmaking as a medium. Take a look at her work from a recent exhibit.
The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles has acquired part of Penny Nii’s collection including pieces from Libby Lehman, Michael James and Jonathan Shannon. Take a look at the press release.
Sew Sweetness is have a Dress Up Party as well. People are reviewing different patterns on her blog. There are a lot of dresses, but other patterns as well. Check it out.
Receiving Blankets in Use
Remember the receiving blankets I talked about making last month? Here they are in use, cute baby not included. I am very pleased that the new mom likes them and they are in use.
Have you joined the Dresden Plate QAL? SherriD is putting it on and Frances, of The Off Kilter Quilt fame, is joining in as well. Check out Sherri’s ‘Have a Plate of Goodness’ post for directions. In a recent post she talks about inspiration. Check out the Quilt Index and search for Dresden Plate under the pattern option in the Advanced Search screen. I am not doing the QAL, but it was fun to look at the DPs in their collection. If you don’t know how to make a Dresden Plate, check out my tutorial.
Other Artists
If you haven’t taken a look at Daisy W’s Escape Velocity piece, you must go RIGHT NOW and do so. I love stitching and embroidery and this one is very appealing. I love the color and the spiral design as well the way the ends trail off into, what looks like, a fun tangle. If this piece doesn’t make you wish you had joined the Valdani drop on Massdrop, I don’t know what will. 😉
Diana Leone died recently of cancer. She was a quintessential quilt artist and owned the Quilting Bee in downtown Mountain View for years. She had the same birthday as me (a few years older, though) and founded CQFA. She also wrote the book used in the Sampler class I took to learn to quilt. I still use it, mostly because of the annotations made over the years, to make binding. Her obituary is available in the Mercury News.
Yesterday was a BAMQG Improv class at Always Quilting with Tina Michalik. I really liked it and it wasn’t long enough, mostly because I was on a roll sewing and wanted to keep it up. Mostly I took it as a reward for smiling and being the perfect soon-to-be First Lady.
I wouldn’t really start an Improv quilt on my own in my workroom. It isn’t that I don’t like the technique, the issue is that I have other things to work on and the technique never comes to mind.
The last Improv quilt I made was the Women’s Work quilt I started in the Gwen Marston workshop. I like that quilt and remember the freedom I felt making the blocks. There was a similar feeling in the class yesterday. I think because of the constraints on my time lately I really liked that feeling of freedom.
I switched around the background and foreground so the red is actually the foreground according to Tina’s pattern. I wanted the interplay of the prints as the background. I may have been wrong in that choice as I am not liking what I have made so far. I like the interplay of fabric motifs and the black, white, greys with the red, but the center is too cross like. The center is sewn together, but I am considering unsewing and resewing in the way that Tina suggested. I am a little angry at myself because I did not even turn the blocks in Tina’s direction to consider laying them out with the red as the negative space.
Kelly’s ‘A’ Blocks
Kelly used some Alison Glass and Anna Maria Horner prints and I love the way hers looks.
Regardless, I want the prints area to be fatter, so I think taking the four blocks apart is in my future.
There was so much inspiration at Hearst Castle that one post wouldn’t do. The previous post was mostly about the outside of the castle. One of the most beautiful parts of the estate was the indoor pool. It didn’t have the feel of indoors or outdoors.
The bottom of the pool is gorgeous. The colors are rich and strong even through the water. Yes, turquoise is a favorite color, but that blue is hard not to like. Coupled with the green, it is a very special color combination It is definitely worth trying to replicate in a quilt. A very different two color quilt?
Wall tile in indoor pool
While the bottom of the pool is awesome, the walls are fantastic, too. In fact the entire inside of the building is covered in mosaic tile.
Wouldn’t the rectangular design to the right make a fantastic quilt with no additional designing? Start saving your 1″ squares!
The outer borders, however, would also make fantastic borders. See the squares spaced at regular intervals? I think tile artisans have the same problem we do with spacing and the math around borders. The squares on the sides as well as the L shaped corners look great, but also help deal with the math. I am sure the tile people Mr. Hearst employed were perfect and this was the design, but for mere mortals like me and my quilts, the ideas would be really helpful.
The colors are really great, too. Blue and green, of course, since it is an indoor pool, but the yellow doesn’t overpower the rest. Perhaps it is more gold?? I also see a few different colors of yellow tiles. That probably helps, too. Scrap tiling/quilting?
Floor tile designs – indoor pool
My favorite part of the indoor pool area was right when I walked in. The photo (right) is flooring! Yes, I walked on it. Look at that gold! Look at those circles! Amazing.
I think what caught my attention first was the blue and gold. They are the colors of my alma mater, so they always grab me. On second look, I saw the design and was even more enchanted. Don’t the figures look like animals?
I also see some pinwheels and nine patches. I just love tile.
Organized by 500 Startups, Geeks on a Plane (#GOAP) is an invite-only tour for startups, investors, and executives to learn about high-growth technology …
Wonder Woman’s invisible plane
jet plane
Leavin’ on a Jet Plane
Plane & Pilot magazine
graph points on a coordinate plane
US Air Force Space Plane
The 17 plane symmetry groups
Cargo plane
plane crash
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and get familiar with your blog or website.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.
We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP
In between other projects, I started another pink journal cover.
Yes, pink. Are you surprised?
I have a lot of pink scraps. 😉
And, due to a lot of complicated reasons, I needed a quick leaders and enders project. Since I will need a new journal cover in the next month or so, it seemed logical.
I considered the size of the pieces when I made the Orange Crush journal cover. I am using that cover and I really like it. I really like the size of the pieces, the flatness, everything. I want this journal and the others I make in the future to be just as good. I am concerned that I am making the pieces too small and going back to being frustrated by the lumpiness of the final product. I have about 10″ of mosaic piecing left to make the journal cover. We’ll see.
Last week was Grand Parlor, which took place in San Luis Obispo. Wednesday of the week was ‘Playday’. I signed up for a tour of Hearst Castle and DH went off to nap, play Pidro and whatever.
Hearst Castle
I had been to Hearst Castle before, twice, I think, but it had been many years. I remembered a lot, but I am more into details now.
The place is full of inspiration. Unbelievable art in all forms wherever you look and cannot be escaped. A lot of it is not really my style, but *I* don’t have to live there. 😉 Regardless, it is amazing collection of art, which is probably the understatement of the century.
Mary with infant Jesus
I always thought that William Randolph Hearst went to Europe and just bought up everything in sight. This time, the tour guide said that he bought everything out of art catalogs that were sent to him from New York. Who knows what is true?
One of the oldest pieces at the estate is a statue of Mary and an infant Jesus. It is outside the main front door. There is something about it that I really liked. The Baroque or Gothic look to the overall section is a bit much for me. Still without the trimmings, I like the Mary and Infant Jesus statue.
Balustrade
One of the things I like about architecture is the inspiration it provides to quiltmaking. The balustrade (a railing supported by balusters, especially an ornamental parapet on a balcony, bridge, or terrace) has a complex design, but it can also be used as inspiration for a quilting design. Imagine this – or a version of this – as a quilting design in a large open space.
Cottage Bas Relief
I really like the detail of the area below the roofline of the cottage. I know that this is a multi-millionaire’s guest accommodations, but why can’t modern housing and infrastructure type buildings have any detail like this? I think it would make the surroundings in cities much more interesting and easier to live in.
It was a great trip and there is so much more to show you. Better though, would be for you to go and visit the Castle yourself.
This is like a bonus week. I keep thinking that it should be June already, but Memorial Day weekend was so early and the week preceding Memorial Day was so crazy that normal life barely registered. So BONUS!
American Patchwork & Quilting magazine
I saw this quilt on a magazine I bought (**Disclaimer: yes, I bought this willingly and with my own money, it is not a review copy). It is called 30 Something (Thirty Something???) I LOVE this quilt on the front and have to put it in my queue to make. I like the different shapes and the way the pieces are set and then make the blocks.
I wouldn’t make in those soft 1930s fabrics, but I would make it scrappy. I am still thrilled with the bright scraps and dots I used for Scrapitude. I think I would use my bright scraps again.
It is so odd when a quilt grabs my attention like this one did. I can look at 100 quilts, yawn and move on, but then one grabs me and I can’t get it out of my head. It isn’t even the fabrics that I like. How can I look at this quilt and imagine it in brights and dots? I look at other quilt projects on magazines and can’t imagine them made any other way–with any other fabric. This quilt is different.
I decided to make the peacock One Block Wonder project. I was really on the fence, as you may have gathered from my previous posts, about making it. I talked about some of my concerns in the last post and had decided not to make it. Things change.
There were a couple of things that made me decide to do it. 1) I was able to find the Timeless Treasure panel on a website. 2) I saw Maureen’s blocks and 3) I really like the colors in this panel.
I was easily able to buy the panel from Miller’s Dry Goods, which I found unexpectedly after doing a simple Google search. The line is fairly new so I wasn’t expecting that it would be available yet. I am still interested in the group of solids shown with the panel, but they are not as important. I think they might make a good addition to the quilt, but I don’t know what the final quilt will look like, which means I don’t know how they would fit in so we’ll have to see.
Maureen read one of my previous posts and brought her One Block Wonder blocks, as well as a piece of the original fabric to show me at the retreat. I didn’t even know she had worked on a One Block Wonder and was very pleased to see what she had done. Pam’s class using a panel seems very different from using fabric, but there are quite a few similarities as well. I was pleased to see how different Maureen’s blocks looked from each other and she confirmed that it is fairly easy to avoid ending up with the same blocks, which adds to the variety of the quilt. We encouraged her to work on her OBW quilt, but she worked on other projects. I would love to see what she does with those blocks.
I do like the colors of the panel. There is no cream, as there was in the other yardage I considered, which is a bonus. I am annoyed at cream backgrounds lately. They look dirty to me.
Maureen assured me, as did looking at her blocks, that the black would not overwhelm the piece. There is plenty of blue, especially turquoise (!!!), in the panel as well.
This is a limited collection for Timeless Treasures and I only bought the panel. If it doesn’t work out, the effort will make a great donation quilt.
The Field Day Zipper takes on a new view once it is on the design wall. So does my workroom. I need to get this piece sewn together and OFF the wall as it really sucks the light out of an, otherwise, fairly bright room.
This is such a weird concept to me and I spent some timing thinking about it. No, it is not directly related to the making of this piece, but it affects my work in general.
First, sadly, my workroom is still life sucking beige. (Why is a question for a long evening and a bottle of your favorite libation.) The ugly and light sucking nature of the color, if you can call life sucking beige a color, means that all the other colors I work with in that room look different. Also the light has to work a lot harder and I have to be careful to move bits of the projects to other parts of the house. It isn’t a perfect system, but it is working to a certain extent.
Anyway, I still have not put up my new design wall, but I did put FDZ up on the smaller design wall (~4.5′ x 7′). It doesn’t all fit as you saw in Design Wall Monday, but it will fit better once I sew some more of the parts together.
The other thing, unrelated to color, about this project is that seam allowance is affecting the size more than I anticipated. When I laid the piece out, the strips of Sangria were roughly equivalent to the ‘coin’ segments. As I began sewing the coins together into vertical strips, I lost many inches. I added a couple of coins to the first couple of rows to see what would happen and how many coins I would need. I could just cut off the solid strips, but I want the piece to be the length of the Sangria strips. I am going to sew more of the vertical strips together and then see what I need to do.
I am desperate to get back to this project — or really any project. I haven’t been able to sew at all in the past week and am feeling the effects.
Before I revamped my design wall, I reorganized the Flying Geese from my exchange with TFQ and took a good picture of them.
Yes, the mistakes are still in there, but they won’t be on the front of the finished piece.
It is kind of fun to see how bright and cheerful they are. Even the grey does not make the group look depressing.
Looking at them this way makes me see all the red and pinky-red I, especially, have used. I think I need to work with some cool colors for awhile.
Looking at them also made me want to sew them together instantly. I don’t have enough to make anything (and I had no time), so I refrained. Still, I think the end product will be one I enjoy when I do sew them together, whenever that is.
Definition: “A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).
The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species such as cultivars of the sweet cherry, Prunus avium. The name ‘cherry’ also refers to the cherry tree, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in “ornamental cherry”, “cherry blossom“, etc. Wild Cherry may refer to any of the cherry species growing outside of cultivation, although Prunus avium is often referred to specifically by the name “wild cherry” in the British Isles.” (Wikipedia)
Definition: “The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species such as cultivars of the sweet cherry, Prunus avium. The name ‘cherry’ also refers to the cherry tree, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in “ornamental cherry”, “cherry blossom”, etc. Wild Cherry may refer to any of the cherry species growing outside of cultivation, although Prunus avium is often referred to specifically by the name “wild cherry” in the British Isles.” (Wikipedia)
Manufacturer of keyboards and computer mice incorporating fingerprint recognition, barcode, magstripe and smartcard technology.
Cherry – 2010 movie
cherry blossoms
Manufacturer of keyboards and computer mice incorporating fingerprint recognition, barcode, magstripe and smartcard technology.
cherry tree
Cherry switches, sensors and controls are synonymous with quality, precision and reliability, and can be found in a broad range of applications.
Cherry Bomb
Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown
Neneh Cherry
Cherry Republic features gourmet cherry products and gifts made from both tart and sweet cherries.
A gentle slope overlooking the Lake with views to the Ramble, Cherry Hill offers a contemplative space perfect for picnicking, reading, and sunbathing.
cherry picking
cherry pie
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and get familiar with your blog or website.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.
We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP
Another thing I did a the retreat was work on the nine patch blocks for the O9P quilt.
Before I got to the Box Full of Letters blocks, I worked on these. I wanted to finish all of the parts and then cut more when I got home – I need about 55 more 9 patches to fill in the rest of the O9P quilt. As I finished the squares, I realized that they were getting to look too much alike and I decided to switch to the Box Full of Letters blocks.
Good decision as I got two sets of blocks done and major dents in both projects.
No, it isn’t about getting things done and finished, but it is about making progress and both of these projects felt stalled before I left. Now I feel like I am back on the road.
