Yo Gabba Gabba! Quilt

Yo Gabba Gabba! Quilt partly assembled, a photo by marie watterlond on Flickr.

Made these blocks a little while ago, and tried to sew them together today. Well, I got this far... you'll have to check my Flickr page to see what derailed my sewing. But I'll bet you can guess...

Soup Day!

 My morning started out fairly early, with a couple of trays of Roma tomatoes going into the oven. Today was Soup Day, a sort of almost-annual tradition where the Daughters and I get together and spend the day cooking.

 Tomatoes roasted while I showered, dressed, and ingested some coffee...

and then mixed up a batch of cranberry-orange muffins. After all, t hey bake at the same temperature the oven had already reached for the  tomatoes--and by the way, don't those tomatoes look yummy?

 Tomatoes, muffins, and I made it over to Youngest Daughter's, where we were shortly joined by Middle Daughter and the boys. The cousins had a great time playing--they really enjoy spending time with each other. Here's G playing with trains, while A1 tries out the double-umbrella maneuver.

 The stove was pretty busy! That's cauliflower in the back, cooking for a cheddar/cauliflower soup; meat for the Taco Soup; those tomatoes have made it into the soup pot.

Aren't they looking tasty? The basil was freshly picked from the herb garden about 2 minutes before it went into the soup pot...

 Split pea soup simmering in the big crock pot--it spent all day in there till the peas disintegrated!

 The other crockpot held the taco-beef soup.

 Courtney, the organizer of this cookstravaganza, making sure the crocks are doing their thing.

 The cauliflower/cheddar soup, pureed and ready to put into containers. That's a second batch of taco-beef soup on the stove.

First soup ready to go... labeled for distribution. Caitlin thought it was very funny to call it "cali" soup since we're in, you guessed it, California.

 Tomato soup, taco soup, and California cauliflower soups, ready to go. And then the chicken-tortilla soup and the beef vegetable soups were done and ready to go out. Luckily, Courtney has an extra fridge in the garage, so this could all get a quick chill while we kept  cooking.

 Here's Caitlin, stirring the Roux That Wouldn't, for the clam chowder. The pot in the back has the potatoes, onions, celery and garlic simmering in clam broth; she's stirring up a roux with cream and half-and-half, which eventually did  thicken up so it could be mixed in with the potatoes. So good!

 Getting things ready for the last soup of the day, a loaded baked potato soup. This one was the hit of the Halloween party last year, so it was a natural to make.

 Here's Meighan stirring another Roux With Attitude--somehow, when it's got 12 cups of milk in it, it seems to take a while to thicken.

At the end of the day, we divvied up the containers--I think we used every available container, including a whole box of freezer baggies. I have soup in my freezer and fridge, as do all three daughters.

The irony of spending the day  making lots of hearty and delicious tummy- and soul-warming soups is that it was really really hot today. Figures! The kids didn't seem to mind playing inside, though, and they got lots of samples of what was cooking. Nate's big question: is it spicy?

Knitting with Marie

IMG_4665, a photo by marie watterlond on Flickr.

... Seattle Marie, down for a visit, modeling her sweater. I like it, and I'd be inclined to knit one like it, if she can remember the name of the pattern.

Visitor from the North

 This week, we've got a visitor from Seattle here to knit and carouse with my knitting -and friends-groups! We had a mini-meetup today with Marie (formerly Azusa Marie, now Seattle Marie, the city designation is to distinguish her from Yours Truly, aka TC Marie), Annette and Mary. This is Marie with Annette's son, Jordan, who is nearly 2.

 A park is a perfect place to let a little boy run, and run he did! There's also a nifty sculpture in this park (Shelton Park in Claremont, FYI) and he paused for a moment...

just to see if he could fit his hands in the handprints. I should have taken more pictures of the sculpture--it has a neat vignette in the front, which I hadn't seen from this angle.

 We had another get-together with a different group of friends on Sunday. Here's Lynn taking a picture--of course I caught her just as her flash went off! Doug though it was very funny that I was taking a picture of his wife taking a picture. It's just what I do!

And one last shot of Marie and I with Mercene. Sort of triple trouble.

If you don't believe I take lots of pictures of people taking pictures--here's Anna, aka Woolie Mammoth, taking a picture of some of us in Santa Clara. We'd met up with some of our "fellow travelers" from the trip to France last month. Such fun to see them again!

Oct 12, 2012, 11:49 AM

Oct 12, 2012, 11:49 AM, a photo by marie watterlond on Flickr.

Just one of the gorgeous quilts ai the Pacific International Quilt Festival! More later but for now you can check my Flickr pages for more pictures!

Other People's Stuff

 Just because this is my blog, doesn't mean I can't share what some of my friends are doing! These photos are from the Tuesday night quilt class, a bunch of really creative and amazingly productive quilters!

Meet Anne:

 She didn't want me to put her in the picture, but I told her I'd lose my Obnoxious Photographer badge if I didn't. This is a tree quilt that's come together after a somewhat scattershot existence. The backstory on this is that Anne, like many of us, has always had a lot more inspiration and ambition than actual time for quilting. (Right? Right!) But once she retired, she seemed to get a whole lot more energized. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought it possible, either. But, she sold her house and moved into a retirement community, and in between serving as program chairman, and then president of their residents' board, she started to organize her stash.

I can feel you cringing from here. She's turned out an incredible number of quilts since she moved--the community lifestyle suits her well, and she's even organized a quilting group among the residents.  She's been finding old UFOs and finishing them along the way. These blocks are a case in point. She said that almost every time she opened a box or bag, there were one or two of these blocks in it, some in more finished stages, others much less. Now, they are all together and with the addition of some side triangles, the quilt is nearing completion.

 I fully expect to see her quilting on this one by next week.

Here's another one of  her quilting efforts:

This little quilt has a long story behind it that you really don't want to hear about. (No, really you don't. Trust me on this!) I gave her the top--which has a twin--after I'd tried an unsuccessful effort to conjoin them. Not a good idea. Now she's got this one just about done, and she'll be quilting the other one soon. Turns out to be the right size for a lap quilt for a person who needs a wheelchair, or spends a lot of time in a chair--doesn't drag on the floor, but keeps the legs and lap nice and cozy. A win any way you look at it! (And two less UFOs in my stash, too!)

The next two pictures are of Louise's Rooty Tooty Fruity quilt--that's an adorable fruit print with all those pastel colors. Louise did this one from a Charlotte Angotti class--I love the way the colors go together!

The quilting design really complements the blocks:

 This is Nonie's quilt for her son. You really need to click on this one to see all the detail in it! Each one of those center squares is a different really cute print; the setting is simple but effective, and the colors are terrific.

The quilts you see in the background are class samples displayed in the classroom we're using, at New Moon Textiles. I love being able to teach there!

One last observation: today would have been my son Andy's 49th birthday. He shared his birthday with John Lennon, and was a huge Beatles/Lennon fan. Like John Lennon, he was taken from us way too soon.

So today was remembering my sweet boy and the wonderful man he grew up to be. His legacy lives on in his children, Kristin and Brian and their fantastic mom, Marian.

Andrew Robert Watterlond

Oct. 9, 1963--October 2, 2004

An FO and a Conundrum

 This is beginning to be a pattern. I turn on the machine, and HiHi comes running to see what's going to happen. Well, if he has any say in the matter, it's going to be skritches and pets and headbonks for the cat. He's not at all concerned that I had to rip out some blocks and put then in a different way.

He's helping. Or thinks he is, or maybe he just really doesn't want me to sew. But I'm determined, and he gets bored pretty easily. So he wandered off eventually, and I was able to continue with this:

Here's the first set of blocks with the sashings and cornerstones, in the right configuration this time. I know, doesn't look that different, does it?

And that's when I made an interesting discovery, which led to still more ripping and re-sewing. You see, the sashing strips aren't all the same.  So there was more headscratching, and more work for Jack (the ripper), and more re-sewing. However, I got into the groove...

 This is what it looked like before I put on the border and the final cornerstones.

Here it is, all done. Pressed, too, ready for layering and quilting...

 I like the way the colors work with the background fabric. Even though it looks pretty grey in these photos, it's not--it's a deep royal blue with bright flowers on it.

I like it.  Here's a close-up:

 I think the strong green and  yellow, which are NOT solids, stand up nicely to the busy background pattern. It's cheerful, and I think it will be fun to quilt.

 Figured while I was at it, I'd go ahead and cut and press the binding, too. That book is the one from which these patterns came--well, at least the inspirations. I do love Judy Hopkins' books--she gives very clear instructions, and enough leeway to allow for improvisation.

Now there's another problem: what kind of borders to put on the Art Nouveau poppies. Here's three of the fabrics--and yes, all of these are in the quilt itself.

 I was hoping to use that pale blue with the stylized carnations on it, but it's pretty wimpy next to the strong colors in the strips. The dark green is my favorite so far, but it's directional, and if I cut it that way, there wont be enough. The carnations are directional, too, but not as strongly. In addition to the greens and the blues here, I also have two more pinks, and plenty of that bright pink to use again. I'm thinking it would make a good binding.

Yes, I have enough of the poppy print to cut for a border. I also have 19 of the assorted 4-patches, which I thought about using in a border too. I'm concerned about them pulling too much focus.

 So... it's been put away for a little while, to marinate. It's not as though I have nothing else to work on...and after all this, I do want to get this quilt "right."

More Quilting, More Helper

 Ahhh, time to work on another elderly UFO. Got the video thing going on, got my partially-sewn 25-patch blocks ready to go. And of course, the Supervisor is on duty. This position? I could probably work around this a bit. After all, I'm only adding 2" block sets to this chain...

 But apparently that isn't enough togetherness for someone. Okay, this pose works for me. After all, I've sewn with a cat draped across my shoulders (Bailey thought that was where he belonged, especially if I was sitting down. Loved that little furboy!) So a cuddly cat on the arm kind of works.

This was also my Photo A Day shot. The theme was "shadow." All I could think of was Stevenson's poem:

"I have a little shadow who goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of  him is more than I can see."
--R.L.Stevenson

Well, I guess he's keeping my arm warm. After all, it got down to 80 today.

 And then he moved over out of the way a little more, so I was able to get more done.

Still not looking like much, but those are definitely "finished" 25-patch blocks. There's a set of green ones with the background print, and a set of yellow ones. There are spacers in the form of sashings in the background print, and

 there are some 9-patch blocks to serve as cornerstones. Here's how the strip sets look as I'm getting ready to assemble them. The print doesn't show up very well on these pictures, but if you go to Flickr (just click on the picture) you can see it closer up. It's lilies of the valley--a reminder of the Hotel Muguet in Paris.

 Sewed the first two rows together. Do you see the problem? Yeah, all the spacer strips need to be taken apart--the middle 9-patch needs to be turned 1/4 turn. Sure glad I noticed t his when I only had one of these put together--it's enough of a hassle to take one block out of the middle of a strip when it's attached on three sides. The other strips will be pretty quick.

But this is sort of the problem with this quilt. That's why it was languishing for so long in a box in the garage. I had cut and sewn the strip sets for the 25-patches wrong, and at that time, the problem seemed insurmountable. Once I pulled the box out and checked the problems, it took only a couple of minutes to rip off  the "wrong" strip and a few minutes more to redo it so that it would work. (The pink carnation Art Nouveau quilt was its companion in the Box of Shame. Also turned out to be an easy, if slightly more tedious, fix. Ah, the joys of having some of my mind back!)

Tomorrow I plan to get out Jack (the ripper) and my little rotary cutter and get those 9-patches turned around. I've cut the border strips, so here's hoping I'll have something a little more finished-looking to show you tomorrow.  And now, it's time to go to the TV/knitting chair and work on finishing up the blocks for the Ships Project afghan. Of course, my fuzzy friend will be there to supervise--he approves of my pattern choices, at least!