I finished work on Friday and spent the weekend on some cleanup projects, one of which was the Pantone blocks.
I finally finished all the blocks for the Pantone Project. I am excited that I can start playing with the layout, especially after I saw what Friend Julie was doing on her design wall!
These have been hanging around my workroom for a few weeks now. Last weekend was really the first time in a few weeks I had uninterrupted time to sew. DH was out and the house was quiet so I could concentrate. Fortunately, except for one fabric, I had picked out all the fabrics previously so all I had to do was cut and sew. I did choose some of the easier blocks, but I tried to choose blocks I thought I could use in the overall quilt design. Now to just get these to Julie at some point soon.
SueG’s entries were amazing! I didn’t know she entered so many projects into the Fair.
Breakage by SueG
This is Breakage by one of my friends (and student). It is her own design and I am so proud of her. She won a ribbon at the Fair as you can see.
She said that she was able to make this quilt, because of what I taught her in the quilt class. That made me feel SOO good.
I have been wanting to write about her quilt, Breakage, for awhile and seeing it at the Fair meant that I could take a photo and then would be able to write about it.
One of the things I teach is that knowing all the techniques allows you to have the skills to not only design your quilts, but actually put them together. Sue knew how to sew and how to make quilts when she joined my class, but she has much more confidence now and is really making some amazing works. Breakage is just one of them.
I spent some time last week finding fabrics for my last group of Pantone blocks.
I don’t have any greens as dark as Deep Forest, so in the end, I just chose a black.
Most of the others I selected from older fabrics that I haven’t even looked at in awhile. I have one more fabric to select, but I have already cut the 4.5 inch squares. I have also started to make the blocks and will show those soon.
My work spends a week every year giving back to the community. We raise money, work on projects and do a walk around campus to help those in the community. The company has provided over 180,000 volunteer hours in the last ten years. I was excited to be able to participate in three events this year.
Hygiene Kits
One thing I did was put together hygiene kits. You get a bag and you fill it with soap, shampoo, hand sanitizer, toothbrushes, etc. That is the easy part. The hard part is what to write in a card that will sound supportive and non-judgemental. I spent most of that hour working on the two cards. Filling the two bags took me about 5 minutes.
I used some construction paper to make the card and then I traced a stencil of the star as a start to the card. I added some additional decorations to try and make it look nicer.
Fleece for ‘No Sew Blankets’
Fleece for ‘No Sew Blankets’
Tying ‘No Sew Blankets’
The other project was ‘No Sew Blankets’. I really wanted to sew them, but I was a good girl and followed the directions. We had fun. I wasn’t with a group for this project so I was assigned to help another department and we worked together really well. We were able to finish two 96 in x 55 in blankets that will be donated to Bay Area Cancer Connections. BACC helps women with breast and ovarian cancer. I know how to make these blankets now so I can see making a few on my own, perhaps in a smaller size.
All of the activities were coordinated by Hands On Bay Area, an organization that connects organizations that need help with companies and organizations that want to help.
Children’s Walk
For the first time I walked with everyone on the Children’s Walk. It was kind of slow because there were so many people, but I was with a group so we just chatted while we sauntered.
It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, so a good day for walking. I was glad to be able to help.
Along with garment sewing and a new bracelet, I also got some more Pantone blocks from Julie at Sew Day.
I have a stack of postcards to match and plan to do that this weekend. I owe her several and hope to bring them to the Retreat.
Pantone ideas – evolving
We are almost done making the blocks, then it will be time to put the quilt together. Perhaps I will use this design – or something like it – sooner than I think.
I received a few more blocks in the mail from Friend Julie the other day. I need to get back to making some more. I have four cards from which to make blocks.
I think now that I have some small bags out of my system, I’ll be able to get back to this project.
I would not be writing this post or showing you the art, if it weren’t for my friend Cyndi. She told me about this exhibition, she dropped off my quilt and also did some work for the hanging mechanism. I am not sure what I would do without her.
The Women’s View exhibit is installed in the County Center & Courthouse to celebrate Women’s History Month. This is the 18th year. I have never been before, but everything lined up really well. I took the day off work for an extra Sew Day and Cyndi and I left early to go to the artists reception.
Mike Callagi, County Executive
We arrived and only had a short chance to look around before there were presentations.
Mike Callagy, the County Executive gave the opening remarks. He was very complimentary about the quality of the art that was entered. He was also down to earth and funny.
Aimee Shapiro, Arts Commission
Aimee Shapiro followed him. She is brand new. She has had her job on the Arts Commission for 3 weeks! She thanked a lot of people who helped and also announced the winners, of which I was one! Yes, I won one of the Honorable Mention awards.
Nancy Riffle, Silent Grandeur
I think Women’s Work 1 fit into the theme, but I was super pleased that my QUILT (women’s work) got honorable mention up against paintings. I was further pleased that Nancy won honorable mention as well. Her piece was a scene from her trip to the Yukon and beautifully done. It was not only stitched, but she painted some of the motifs and embroidered bits as well. It is lovely.
Rebecca Archer, Mother to Son: don’t let them steal your sunshine
Some of the other pieces were wonderful. I saw Rebecca Archer’s piece soon after I arrived and I really like it. It is multimedia as well. She used fabric and paper along with paint.
The inside of the house is mostly strips of paper while the leaves on the tree are fabric. I don’t know how she decided, but the overall design is very cohesive. The imagery doesn’t look like she just added motifs or used materials just to do it. Rebecca won first place. I took this photo before we heard the results.
Dana Dillworth, Emerging from Repose: Eve of Eves
Andrea Kosmo, the Old Stem
Savitha Viswanathan, From Lucie, NY
Linda Maki, Red and White Chairs
Echo Lake Wodarczyk, Madness
Some other interesting images are above. I like Dana’s piece because of the washi tape she used. The Old Stem is interesting because it is a still life all in one color – or mostly one color with its compliment. I am a sucker for cake and dessert imagery, so Savitha’s piece is very appealing, especially since she added flowers. Linda’s chair remind me of wanting an Adirondack chair when the YM was a baby so I could sit with him in the backyard. I admire Echo’s technique and the way she used watercolor. Also, she won Third place and I wanted to get all the winners, but missed second place and the other two honorable mentions.
It was exciting, but I was exhausted by the end of the day and almost didn’t cook dinner.
We were talking, at Sew Day, about all the work that military wives do when their husbands get new assignments and I might have inspiration for the next quilt in the Women’s Work series. I have never been in that life, so the idea might be too presumptuous for me to make. We’ll see.
The San Mateo County Women’s View exhibit has a Gallery Guide that includes all of the artist statements. I am so pleased that I am a part of this exhibit and am thinking I will enter Who Am I? in next year’s exhibit.
I spent most of the Sunday of MLK weekend working on the latest batch of Pantone blocks. I dug into some old fabric to find good matches.
Pantone: Storm Corner
Pantone: Flying Geese
Pantone: Trickies or QST
Pantone: 4 Patch
Pantone: Rectangles
Pantone: One Peaky Right
Pantone: Center Diamond
Pantone: Corner Gone
Pantone has a lot of browns and I am digging deep to find anything that looks close to the colors on the postcards. I found some brown fabrics I had forgotten I had. The exercise is making me think about shades and tones that are missing from my fabric palette.
Today is the day where we give the officers their gifts.
Carrie, Sue and I spent last Saturday at The Granary, a local quilt store that has a great restaurant nearby.
We bought gift cards for the officers and spent time, in between eating, looking at quilt supplies and wrapping the gifts. It was another fun time with Carrie and Sue.
We planned to make the Enigma Bag (Sew Sweetness, Minikins Season 4) together back in November, but life happened, so we didn’t get to it until last week.
I have to admit that the Enigma Bag might be my new Hackney Bag – that is a bag I make for gifts for various people. I like it a lot. I especially like the diagonal zipper and how it opens flat. I haven’t given them to enough people to have feedback.
Sewing with Cyndi
I didn’t feel like lugging my machine along, so Cyndi kindly let me use her machine. She has a Janome Skyline and I have to say that it was really nice to use for sewing. The bobbin loading was amazing. I might need to look into getting a new machine. That’s a story for another day.
As you can see, I moved in quite completely. My pattern and pieces are on the right and my go bag is on the left.
Sewing with Cyndi – spread to the right
I had done all the cutting and prep for my bag, so I worked on cutting out the Goldenrod book cover, which I decided to make at the last minute, while Cyndi finished her prep. I started a bit before and was able to get to the point in the pattern where I installed the main zipper. I wasn’t happy with it, though and stopped, because I needed to contemplate the zipper in the overall scheme of making the bag.
It was a great day and I enjoyed sewing with someone else very much.
This quilt was returned to the guild’s community quilts project at last month’s meeting by Lee Ann. She named it ‘Leftovers’ after I told her the story of the three food quilts and how I make the Ends quilts.
I am really pleased that a number of my quilt tops have been finished recently.
