Beacon Hill in Boston will be hosting garden tours this weekend. This wonderfully inspiring photo was part of the article in the Boston Globe.
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Tag: Inspiration
Decorating Ideas
There is a restaurant in the City called the Slanted Door. I like to eat there because there are many, many offerings sans wheat. It is very hard to get a reservation as well as a bit pricey for regular visits, so usually I get take out and enjoy it at my desk. In the winter they have a particularly wonderful chicken noodle soup with NO wheat.
One day, when it was pouring rain, and I wasn’t downtown so I stopped at a restaurant near my house looking for a lunch of Mexican food. I got a variety of sensory delights.
First, they had fantastic decorations hanging all over the walls and ceilings. Many of these items were hand crafted from items you can buy at IKEA. There is a green lamp in the lower right hand corner of the photo above. It is garbage can that has been embellished and had a hole cut in it.
There were many, many parrots in cages.
They also had a variety of mosaics.
There was NO dust either. The waitress told me that they spend two hours in the morning dusting. She also said that they take stuff down that is broken or too gross.
Finally, they had the most unbelievable chicken soup. Not chicken noodle soup, but it was GREAT.
Sea Landscape
We often think of landscapes as including mountains and trees. This weekend I was reminded that beautiful landscapes can be underwater as well when I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I love the subtle colors in this little scene.
Transparency Inspires
I am doing lots of inspiration photos lately, because I have had no time to sew. I thought these windows at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the trees behind were fabulous.
Mosaics Downtown
There is an old building downtown that I visit periodically for an appointment. I finally figured out how to get the photos off of my computer. Here they are, corners and all.
Note the two different corner blocks?
Inspiration: More Mosaics
These are some titles from a restroom floor. I know it is weird to take photos in the restroom, but some of the old floors are so great that I just can’t help myself. These are in block form, but the block is made up of smaller pieces. If you look at the bottom picture carefully you can find the larger block (towards the right side). I fyou were to use this design to make a quilt block, you might notice that you can’t put the entire block together without partial seaming. The partial seaming makes the block interesting.
Flowering Snowball Inspiration
Clevelandgirlie asked me about the Cross Block/Flowering Snowball and I looked through the blog to see if I could point her to the original quilt that inspired this project. The original post was on October 20, 2006. I guess that is the official project start date?
Definitely different coloration than mine. Definitely different. I don’t remember where I saw this quilt, so I don’t remember anything about it (hand pieced vs. machine pieced, hand quilted vs. machine quilted), but I still like it and am thrilled with the inspiration as well as the interest that people are taking in the project.
Leaves
The Gabrielle Swain Workshop I am taking in May is about leaves. I, amazingly, looked at the supply list tonight (rather than the night before the workshop) and found that out. Now I have leaves on the mind! I think this is a great piece and I think the hanging rod and the dangling bits work for this piece. I don’t like cutesy hanging rods, or dangling things if they aren’t part of the design. I think they work with the overall design of this piece.
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Weekend Inspiration + Updates
I have been driving around and seeing all the cherry trees blooming and never have my camera with me. This is a photo by my friend, JeanneN (aka TFQ!). I though I would put it up to keep up the tradition of welcoming spring and celebrating these beautiful cherry trees.
This photo, also by TFQ, is the historic dome in the San Francisco Center. It used to be above the restaurant in Emporium Capwell’s. You can see some information about the raising of this dome when the SF Center was remodeled.
We stopped by Black Cat Quilts to look at their fabric.
This is a quilt we saw there. Apparently you can find the pattern in Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. TFQ commented that the above color choices were better than the one on the cover of the book.
I also finished this bag. It is a gift, but I am making a similar one for myself.
This is the inside of the bag. I love the stripes! In being with TFQ this weekend, we realized that a pocket for a glasses case would be really useful. I may try and add one to the next bag.
Tree in Blue Sky
Unexpected Dots
Circles
I admire circle quilts. This one is nice. I like the way the circles aren’t exactly in the center, though I think I would like a quilt with circles exactly in the center.
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Random Flowers
I happened upon these flowers on a blog and found them beautiful. Someday I want to make some kind of flower quilt – applique’, I think – so I keep looking for beautiful shapes in flowers. I found these and thought they would be perfect for a quilt.
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1000 Journals Project
I just finished reading Jennifer New’s book, _Drawing from Life: the journal as art). Thank you, Pam Rubert! I love this book. It has lots of great inspiration and knowing about why people create visual journals provides the background that my brain needs to do it myself.
In DFL, New talks to Brian Singer, the creator of the 1000 Journals project, which can be found at the website below. The 1000 Journals project is project where Mr. Singer sent 1000 journals out into the world to inspire average people to rediscover their creative selves.
Unfortunately, Mr. Singer has only received one journal back and he says that the odds of getting one to work on is like winning the lottery. As a result, he has created a new project, the 1001 Journals project and one of the subprojects is possible.
I would like to create a journal, which people who read this blog work on. I would like to fill it up with your art and send something to Mr. Singer that reflects the tone of this blog and its wonderful readers. If you are interested in participating, make a comment on this post and leave some way for me to contact you (not your snailmail address-I’ll get that from you later). If there is enough interest, I will work something up.
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Have Fun!!!
I have been collecting flower shapes for awhile. This photo is from Pat Sloan’s website (below). The spiraly circles as flowers caught my eye, but then I read the quilt and was reminded to have fun. So, I am reminding you to go out and have fun.
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