One of the things I enjoy about my city are the unexpected mosaic and tile art I see around. At one point, apparently, mosaics and tiles were used commonly for entry ways and they are little pieces of art hiding in unexpected places.
Castro Entryway Circle
I went to get my hair cut the other day and walked past a doorway I must have walked past 1,000 times only to notice a mosaic design I have never seen before. I feel fortunate to have a camera on my cell phone which I can use to snap pictures of things I see around town. I know this photo isn’t great (someday I will learn Photoshop), but you can get the idea. I don’t remember seeing many circles like this in other entryway mosaics I have seen. The idea could be used for a quilt block, but it wouldn’t be for the faint of heart.
Castro Entryway Corner
Corners are always the hardest part of borders, so I try to take a photo of the corner of the mosaics also. This one isn’t very difficult to piece. I wish I could talk with some of the craftsmen who did these entryways.
Also, last week I went to the State Capital with the Young Man’s class (As an aside, it was exhausting being around 60 teenagers!). It is the last chance I have to go on a field trip with him and I haven’t been to the Capitol in awhile. I went with DH some time ago and it was interesting to see the changes.
When I started this blog, I posted a few photos of the view I look at when I am writing. The other day, a very beautiful sunset caught my attention as I keyboard pounded.
Sunset 2011 #1
Then a minute or so later, a new view:
Sunset 2011 #2
The camera had a hard time with the screen and most of what you can see of my neighborhood is my chimney cap. Still, the color is beautiful.
Here are the books I got for Christmas, etc. DH came through with the two books on the left, American Quilts and Sew Serendipity. The American Quilts book is another book Robert Shaw and some of the quilts are the same as those in his other books, but I love to read books where quilts are woven into history. I have glanced through it and read some things that have attracted my attention, but I haven’t delved deeply into it and I look forward to doing so.
Sew Serendipity is a book that has a great pattern for a coat. It is on page 154 and called Classic Tailored Jacket. I plan to try making it from polar fleece, hopefully the two-sided kind that I found once before. My mom said she would help me, but that is all the farther we have gotten.
I heard about Kiss Ass Creativity on Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski and thought it sounded interesting. He has a lot interesting authors on that show. AJA gave it to me and I can’t wait to read it.
Lil Sissy gave me The Apron Book. I think I will have to make her an apron.
Friend Julie also came through with two books, Sew Serendipity and Collage Lab. I am hoping that Collage Lab will help get over my wet, messy at home avoidance problem. Andrea at a Work of Heart has a Collage Lab book club, but it is too far to go on a weeknight when I work.
Finally, I checked the Artist in the Office out of the Library and then I had to buy my own copy, because I needed to make a note on almost every page and the book was a little over $5 (go buy one, you won’t be sorry). I read it and it really made me feel a lot better about my day job. It isn’t inspirational in a sappy way, but gives practical tips about dealing with a day job, thinking about “obligations” in a new way, making choices and getting the work done.
People are so generous! I am so fortunate. Yes, my thank you notes are written. 😉
I am going to write a review of these books so stay tuned.
Martha Negley & Hoffman
I decided to break down and buy the Martha Negley Grapes in Plum. I tried several places and none of them could confirm the color. One of them said she had no idea what color the fabric was. Huh? That I do not understand.
In the course of my explorations, I emailed Batiks, etc & Sew What Fabrics. They actually emailed me back and weren’t lame! They were able to confirm the color and they answered a question I had about a ruler. I was so impressed with their service. I would definitely shop there again! Customer Service is everything, folks!
As you can see I also bought some Peppermint from Hoffman. It is a batik and I do like those swirls.
Martha Negley Red & Plum
Left are the two grape fabrics that I now have. You can see the difference in the colors. They are destined to become bags. Which bag, I don’t know. Perhaps the Jane Market tote? I am in the mood for another AMH Multi-tasker tote, so perhaps one of those. We’ll see.
I took the young Man and his friends to laser tag for an outing after Thanksgiving. While they were shooting each other with little beams of light, Mom and I wandered around trying to get away from the noise of the place. There was a Starbuck’s nearby, so we headed there on one of our forays. On the way there we saw a bed planted with these cabbages. I thought they were very pretty. I have never seen anything like this except at Disneyland and thought it was very enterprising of the owner or the gardening company or whomever thought to do it. Wouldn’t it be nice if they grew the cabbages and then gave them to a food pantry?
Gifts and Wrapping Department
How many gift bags have you made? I saw a great video on making gift bags. Longtime readers know that I love fabric gift bags because:
they use great fabric
I am terrible wrapper
can be reused
little to no garbage/recycling on the holiday, birthday or anniversary
Deirdre has been sending me Colouricious videos and the most recent one is all about making making a gift bag. This is a really lovely pleated gift bag. You won’t be able to make a bunch of them before Christmas 2010, but this is a heads up for 2011. I think these bags would actually make nicer birthday or Mother’s Day bags. Please show me what you make!
I have had a whopping 4 sales in my Cafe Press shop. I am excited that people I don’t even know like my stuff enough to buy it. Look in the New Year for your thank you note cards!
Fabric
Westminster MN43 Plum
I think I said recently that I was going to try to keep my fabric purchases to a minimum through the end of the year so I could finish cutting all the diamonds for the FOTY 2010. I wanted to show someone some Martha Negley fabric I bought a few weeks ago, so I searched Google and found MY image there (I am ranking in Google. Cool, huh?). In the process, I saw other Martha Negley fabrics. I really like her designs, especially the one above. Perhaps I will just admire it.
I want to make a Quillow and need some nice fleece. The stuff at some local chains is just too pilly (is that a word?). I once bought a whole bunch of fleece for a bathrobe making jag from a place in Massachusetts that had the most wonderful feel. They had a fire and there was a big deal about how they kept paying their workers. I can’t remember the name of the place or if it is still in business. Where do you buy your fleece? Do you have a brand that doesn’t pill too much?
Replay Department
I know that I wrote about this tip before, but I really think it is a good tip. Also, questions about it have come up. I thought I would do a replay, not to bore you, but to encourage you to bite the bullet and set up a feed. ResearchBuzz is an electronic newsletter I read for work. One day, I was pleased to find an article that would allow me to keep a steady stream of quilts coming to my blog reader.
After creating the link above (by changing the tags-everything after the = sign with terms separated by commas- at the end to suit your needs), paste this URL into your Bloglines or Newsgator or Google or whatever reader. The feed will send you back search results showing the gorgeous quilts that have been added to Flickr. I put the above search into my Google Reader and was immediately provided with several fresh looking quilts for my viewing pleasure.
I also wanted to see what was new and exciting in the basket quilt arena so I changed up the URL above to:
I retrieved a number of basket quilts, but also some mishits. They were pretty mishits, so I didn’t mind much. You can also cut and paste the feeds I have created above into your reader.
This TedTalk is about offices, but I am curious to know how it applies to your quilt work? Jason Fried, the speaker, talks, at one point, about creativity and creative people.
Rice Freeman-Zachery is doing a workshop sort of thing in 2011 using her book Creative Time & Space. Take a look at the blog post on Goodreads. She has a worksheet you can download. You may have to sign up for Goodreads to read the post.
Chronicle Books
We didn’t win the big list of books I made. I did get some new visitors and I hope they come back. I never win the blog giveaways. I did win a book once from Quiltin’ Jenny and that was fun. Perhaps I got a taste of that joy and just want more. I have plenty and will be happy with what I have. -)
As my mom moves into her new house, she is unearthing all sorts of interesting things. She brought this handkerchief with her when she came to help me on Saturday. The butterfly is crocheted and we think there is a bit of tatting around the edge. This was made by either my godmother or my great grandmother. We both have significant amounts of similar needlework from both women. I want to find a project where these bits of needlework can be showcased.
I saw this floor while I was at a Fourth of July parade, of course, in July. I haven’t had a chance to post them. I love seeing typical quilt blocks used in tile and mosaics.
San Mateo County Floor detail
The detail shows a possible different way a block could be pieced.
Center Mosaic
This is the center of a different, but related floor. Has anyone made a Grandmother Flower Garden with this arrangement of hexagons?
I had an hour on Monday and, still in cleaning mode, I needed to get that ‘C’ off of my desk. It was the bottom of the Leaning Tower of Paper Pisa and the Leaning Tower was not getting any more stable. It needed to go. I wanted it on the wall, so I just put it up. I didn’t look for a stud or make perfect other letters. I just did it.
Create Supplies
When I arrived home from work, I immediately went down to the computer with the printer and printed letters that I thought might be big enough to see. The font ended up being 700 pt! I did try 800 pt and 900 pt, but they were too big and I didn’t know how to center one letter on the paper.
Create in process
After printing one letter on each page, I cut the letters out and traced them on scrapbook paper.
This started a long time ago with a photo I saw via another member of the Creative Mom Podcast Circle and a photo that she posted. Then I saw more possibilities in Anna Maria Horner’s Handmade Baby book. I talked about it back in June or so. AMH’s are more fiber related. I haven’t done either, except take this first step. Immerhin.
Other ideas:
I may put some paper behind the letters to make them stand out a bit more at night. During the day I can see them well enough. At night, they kind of blend into the life sucking beige.
One could just print out letters on a sheet of paper and put them up on the wall as a stop gap measure.
One could print out letters on fabric and embellish.
I decided not to kill myself taking photos this year, so I browsed and took a few snaps. If you would like to see a few photos from the show, I have posted them on Flickr. I may post more, so you may want to go back to the set and look next week or this weekend.
The quilt posted is by Jim Haws and is one of the best I saw. Keep in mind I didn’t get to look at all the quilts. I saw a lot of autumn colored quilts, a number of quilts with complicated piecing, lots of special exhibits.
A few days ago Kathy posted the quilt below on her blog, Finishing Lines. I love the way she has matched the thread to the piecing. I like to do that as well, so the quilting is a design element, but doesn’t overwhelm the piecing. Check out Kathy’s blog for some really cool inspirational pieces.
This is an uncropped photos of a piece of public art on Mission Street. The circles moved. I don’t have an SD card in my Blackberry so I couldn’t take a video.
The “evacuate the building immediately” alarm went off, so we all evacuated. Of course, it was a false alarm, so I went to lunch instead of going back into the building. It was late and I hadn’t gone anyway.
I headed up to the SFMOMA bookstore. I am on a mission to find out what books on developing a creative habit are out there. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but I was inspired by being there and walking up and back.
It is simple, but effective. I am not sure if the fabrics from the pink and purple bundle will show up well enough in this design, because of the size of the pieces.
The thing I like about the above pattern is the black strip (I would use something different depending on the color scheme), but it anchors all the blocks together. I am not sure the effect would be the same with different fabrics used for the blocks. Part of the effectiveness of this quilt is the solid colors. This is from the City Quilts book, which is making me consider buying it….very soon.
OK. I am back in the saddle after being gone for most of the month of July. Did you notice? I did a combination of pre-writing posts and posting on the road.
First I went to Denver for work. I spent 6 days there at a conference. Denver is a great town. I was able to meet one friend that I haven’t seen in years, but I was so busy at the conference that I really didn’t get to see as many people as I would have liked. I specifically didn’t see any quilt people except for the hour I spent at the Great American Quilt Factory. I was able to spend a lot of time with my librarian colleagues and that was great!
Denver is celebrating the Biennial of the Americas at the restored McNichols Building (Gallery). There is a square or green space in front of the building that is lower than the sidewalk. Over that space they have installed these gorgeous fluttering banners.
