No Idle hands here

I made plans to go see the quilt show at the Skirball museum. This show originated at the Fine Arts museum in Boston. I’m sure, what came here is just a fraction of that show. My friend got sick – so I went on my own. Yes, I’m going back with my friend next week – it is wonderful.

In the entry hall there was a local show, this is what it looks like when the Skirball puts on a quilt show. very very meh. I shouldn’t complain, they grabbed items from local creators. It is fine for a pre show. And yes, in the parlance of today, everyone must be included. I should be grateful that they remembered to include some Jews – since these days, even a Jewish institution doesn’t necessarily do that.

Here we see, a quilt, a beautiful crochet blanket, I would have loved to see it open, incredible crochet work, and a knit blanket. All provide warmth.

Another crochet blanket, this one a very large granny square. I admit, that if you are going to make a blanket out of yarn, crochet is much easier than knitting. Sure it probably takes up more yarn but it goes much faster.

This is a form of circular granny square. I like it a lot, especially the grey background.

Love the houses, love the fabrics. Just love this simple quilt, it is a wall hanging, not one to cuddle with, although, it could be a baby quilt. Yes, when it comes to quilts and blankets, their function is just as important as what they look like. this one is a lovely wall hanging.

I’m cringing at how they hung this…. really those big office clamps??? Otherwise, a really nice Hexi quilt. I am assuming that it is paper pieced. Love the flow of colors.

A look at the row of quilts and blankets. Very nice. A good entry to the main show – which is amazing.

You have already seen the best picture, the one with Einav. While taking these, the sun was very bright (don’t complain say those of you who won’t see the sun again until April). So these aren’t pictures worth of sending to a show. Which is fine, I love this quilt, I’m using it, its’ not for a show.

Quilting makes a difference, from a flat object to three dimensional – not to mention how warm it is, especially since I used wool batting. As I started quilting my thread kept breaking. So I ordered more color purple Janome needles. Having the correct needle really makes a difference.

I did use a ruler, both to outline the basket and to create the grid pattern, then I filled the basket with grapes or cherries or whatever you want to call the circles. The thread still broke, I was near the end of a spool of Aurifil, so I started a new spool, problem solved.

In the full squares and half squares I quilted feathers. I love feathers.

Simple outline and shadow quilting with the geese and no, I didn’t waste my time with a ruler. then some simply quilting on the border. I am one of those quilters who can’t do edge to edge, I need the quilting to relate to what is going on with the top itself. I also, love both, the piecing and the quilting and even the final stage of hand sewing down the binding. Although by then I am anxious for a new project, I have another quilting project in mind, have collected my fabrics for it.

This is why I love the quilting to match the piecing, it really gives it a much more polished finish. and for all my hard work, that is what I want. When I share my quilts at guild, it’s not just the colors, its the overall quality that draws attention.

A very simple label

I may have mentioned this in my previous post. I made sure that the border along the top and bottom were wider than the sides, because, it is wide enough, but I want it long enough as well.

Here is the quilt that was intended for the class, it is now a table topper, because what else can I do with a square quilt? Oh right, I just gave another one to a friend who had her 5th child. Her other children have also received quilts from me – it’s only fair that number 5 should as well. And this is a special friend, very very quilt worthy.

It’s a good thing we have holidays that involve bright lights during the darkest time of the year, because I really don’t like that it gets dark at 5 pm.

I need to take a full picture of this quilt, but not waiting for that picture in order to use it. It is now my living room cuddle quilt – made even better with a granddaughter.

These two cuties slept over, and I added another quilt to their pile. My Hawaiian quilt. Before bed we read books, in this case, my favorite book, which Eyal says is his as well – I am a Fish – the book with the great message – the Big Fish always eat the Little Fish. As well as other wonderful classic children books. Nothing woke here.

She loves cuddling with Saba as well.

All I’ll say is, if you know you know. someone gave him cowboy hats.

A holiday party with friends. Here we have a great example of how a camera foreshortens everything. Donna and I are the same size, probably the same height and yet here I look huge and she looks small. Fun evening with friends.

Another lovely afternoon with friends in San Pedro, I simply can’t get enough of their view. Of course, because of the clouds it changed from moment to moment. We were expecting a gorgeous sunset – it was lovely but not spectacular. another issue with a picture, in the first picture, Catalina is so clear as is a large tanker, but you can barely see them in the image. Which is why, real life is always better than pictures. Oh, and once again, a great time with friends. What a blessing.

San Fernando Valley Quilt Association holiday party. A very fun evening. Gift basket raffle.

People brought holiday quilts. Notice the one on the right has lights! This is clearly a wall hanging, not something to cuddle up with.

Two members made the table centerpieces. One painted the jars and the other used her embroidery machine to make lovely little mats. What a talented group – and fun to be with as well!

Delicious food was brought in from Firestone Grill, but the best were all the home made desserts! I admit, I don’t bake so I Brough some chocolates. boy oh boy were those desserts yummy!

This year it’s cold, and so we actually have a lot of leaves on the ground, the colors aren’t as vibrant as New England, but a lot of yellow and orange.

I was looking for the unusual, like the yard decorations, this adorable frog drinking tea out on a bench.

Or this couple of pilgrims in the window, I didn’t notice until I got a closer look at the picture, there are some barnyard animals as well.

On the topic of couple, here are a couple of mitts and baseballs. Just sitting on the wall of a local church. Not sure why they are here.

His and hers chairs. They just look like they’d be perfect on a wedding invitation, the one on the right looks very feminine and although the one on the left has some curlicues – it looks masculine. Maybe just in contrast with the circular chair.

Speaking of garden art, this is most definitely art. It satisfies my love of glass as well as the vibrant colors one can achieve while working with glass. Yes, there is a pair of chairs in the background. I don’t feel like figuring out those apps that let you crop out the background.

For the last two years Crown Media, the parent company of the Hallmark channel had a billboard. The countdown to Christmas. They also used to wrap their building like a present – they didn’t do that this year.

They just put up one wreath. I wonder if they have a huge tree in the lobby. I can’t see with the mirrored windows. Maybe if I drive by at night I can see. I have been listening to A very Merry Podcast – Kira and Amelia talk Hallmark Christmas movies -they are a little underwhelmed this year, sort of like the building itself.

Not Christmas decorations, just a funky old house with interesting shutters. If it sells, it will be torn down and replaced with something modern. So I might as well capture the funkiness now.

At least nature is flaming red with the pyracantha, which means flaming thorn. Both very true about this plant. I thought the faded fire hydrant is a nice contrast. See even some of the plants bring out their Christmas colors.

I am overdue in getting this framed. I am very thankful to Nicola Parkman from Hands across the Sea Samplers. She put up a wonderful tutorial on lacing needlework. I find hers best so far, yes, I have watched others, and have laced other. I took this to Hobby Lobby to just buy the frame and have the acid free board cut. Turns out they don’t have a very good selection of frames. Luckily I found this one. I probably won’t be coming back here for framing any more.

One great piece of advice from Nicola, run a basting stitch along the fold line. Easy and really makes a difference.

I am not going through all the stages, although if you look very carefully you can see that first I used small pins before the actual lacing. I have these pins because one tutorial said only use pins. I think in the future I will use bigger pins, because it will be easier to then pull them out.

The back laced up. I am frugal, I like to cut off the side, I didn’t here, and I think that this method is better, leave more fabric. It also makes it easier to lace.

All laced up, ready to take back to the framer so they can insert it in the frame. I think you can see here, that once I framed – the edges are smoother. They will be covered by the frame itself.

Hobby Lobby is very busy this time of year, especially on a Saturday, but they called to say my frame is read, so I parked on the street, and waited in a long line, but this came home with me!

Here it is, framed and on the wall. I like the frame, it works, but I won’t be going back to Hobby Lobby for framing services. I was at my local stitch store. They don’t have cross stitch, but they do have lovely threads. They only have needlepoint. But while there I found out that the owners are red-pilled, so I like giving them more business. One of the things they do is frame. Their selection of frames is extensive. I’ll give them my business.

I’m gong to need to find more wall space…

I have steadily been working on my monogram piece, I even put my name in as well.

Of course I started a new project, at the moment what you can see is the beginning of a watermelon.

At this point I shared this image on IG, and a friend immediately asked if there would be a chicken on top. This friend has just been dealing with cancer, not for the first time and she raises and loves chicken! At that point I stopped sharing on IG, I knew who was going to receive this project.

The red of the watermelon was supposed to be a variegated thread, I am using what I have on hand, I don’t have a variegated red, so I combined all kinds of reds and pinks.

The project went pretty fast. This is the same designer of the fox and Fox that I made for my grandkids. I am glad I bought those two separately, since the other animals that were designed this year – were weird. A bat, the eagle – just not to my liking. Even the owl felt off to me, and I love owls. This pattern is from the previous year.

The chicken itself grows.

And grows.

I decided to frame this on a flat fold, at this point, adding some rick-rack.

Looking very good.

Side view

Along side my previous project. Another post coming on this one – I laced the basket up for framing.

I didn’t have enough of the check fabric. So I went to my local Quilt store. Candy’s quilt works. No, they didn’t have this fabric, so I found something else that to my mind works just fine. I’m a quilter, we adjust.

As you can see, the border looks great, I inserted a quarter inch band of red, I will use this for the binding as well. The original pattern just called for a basic border of the background fabric, that is way too boring.

Here it is! I don’t know if this is twin size, it is certainly the lovely cuddly size for me to bundle up in. So you can see, I had fun with the borders. One thing I did, was make the top and bottom are wider than the sides. I want this to be a big rectangle, adding two baskets just wasn’t enough. Have I said that as a quilter, I know how to improvise?

Here is one close up, first of all, my quarter inch insert fluctuates, that is ok, no one will be measuring each inch. I’m not putting this in a show, this is going to be for me! Also, notice how the check went in all directions and how the newer fabric works perfectly well with it.

Had I only used the new fabric for the border, without adding these other fabrics, it might have been more apparent that this is different. But I’ll be honest, I don’t like those borders, I need interest. By that I don’t mean take one of the prints and make it into a border, I find that distracting, because elsewhere on the quilt one only sees small pieces. Which is why, in this border, I made sure to use different widths of different fabrics. Yes, it makes a simple quilt much more interesting and balanced.

Here is the backing material, I was looking at the sale fabric at Candy’s and there it was, perfect! I bought all of it, which is probably too much.

At the cutting table I noticed, this stripe is also from French General. Yes, I have a very, very good eye for color. So aside from the background fabrics, everything in here is from French General – really, I don’t do this, I love the randomness of real scrappy. But I do love how this has all come together.

For some crazy reason I got my machine serviced and shortly thereafter, the foot peddle didn’t respond. So back it went and it got a thorough clean up of the connection and now it works like a charm, which means, I can sit down and quilt this.

Do the colors look familiar? My son and his family are going to Alaska over Christmas. Eyal loves red, so he and Abba Yish will get red hats, Abba Yoch and Einav will get the same background with green, because Yoch loves green. Einav loves pink – but in this case, she doesn’t get to decide.

What a wonderful Holiday. I’m sure I say this every year. I LOVE Thanksgiving, the name that represents so much, the gathering of friends and family, and yes, the food.

West and Cam brought an appetizer plater, how great is this!

Turkey, getting ready to go into the oven. This year I used Alison Romans’ Turkey recipe. I did a dry brine, a rub with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Stuffed it full of fresh herbs and put it on a bed of onions and turnips. First time using a baking sheet, not the roasting pan. I like everything about this recipe.

Three and a half hours later. Oh, I did tent it with foil half way through, it was getting dark enough. Then it sat and rested for over an hour and my son carved it – no burnt fingers – and oh my – juicy and tasty! Since it was a kosher turkey – most of the leftovers when home with two of my kids who eat kosher as well. Enough for a sandwich or two for me and Joel.

The food from both directions. I had people bring the green bean casserole, salad and desserts. Didn’t get a picture of the three pies or the chocolate covered strawberries – but boy were they yummy.

Two thirds of the grandkids, hard to get them to not cover their faces. The other two showed up shortly after these picture. There was a lot of ruckus and hullabaloo, not sure how many lemons are left on my tree….

Notice the red drink by Einav, I was making fall cocktails for the adults – with maple syrup, or apple brandy. So I mixed some apple juice, red grapefruit juice and the holy grail of Grenadine for the grandkids – they deserve their own cocktails.

Westley and Cam slept over, we had pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, then we went over to lake Balboa to try out the paddle boats.

Geese crossing the road.

out on the swan boat. Westley peddled the whole way. Cams’ legs were a little short. So Joel and I traded off.

First time for me to be on the lake. And here is the whole fleet of the swan boats, with some ducks on the water. We did see a real swan – he was trying to attack a dog on shore.

This would be a very easy kayak ride.

The cormorants need to dry off by flapping their wings, so the pipe that sticks out of the water is perfect for them. A couple of ducks preening, they have enough oil that the water rolls off.

Cam has learned how to do the monkey bars. He said it hurt his hands, but knowing him, he’ll try again and again.

They ended up joining two soccer games, one at Balboa Park, then when we drove them home, we stopped at their local park and they joined a game there. We stayed for dinner and went to an amazing Tunisian restaurant right by the kids, Barsha, if you are ever in Hermosa Beach – GO!

I had the pleasure of taking a class and then seeing a presentation of quilts from Arlene Arnold. I’ll start with the class and the quilt I am making.

Not great photo, I was sitting in the back. Arlene shared some of her quilt collection of quilts from the 20s-50s, these are all made with seed sack, or flour sack fabrics. I’ll talk about that in another post. This was probably made in the 40s’ when the fabrics get brighter again. Notice the double flying geese around the border.

Arlene is in the middle, the rest of us class mates are showing our work. The project was Lucretias’ journey. Kim finished the whole top during the class. I had finished mine last year when the class was canceled. Which is why I chose a different pattern for the class

I brought some fabric I had bought at the infamous sale I went to two years ago. This was a quilt kit from The French General. I didn’t like the pattern at all, very basic and boring – so I’m thrilled to use it here. You are seeing plenty of flying geese, which are not easy to make accurately. I have rulers for this, Arlene recommended getting the lock bloc ruler. In this case one needs to buy a separate ruler for every size of geese. I ended up buying two, this size and a smaller size for another pattern I bought. Guess what, this is the best method.

In designing the quilt, Arlene made the blocks larger as well as used only four baskets – so the quilt is smaller.

sort of out of order, I finished these three baskets in class. I hadn’t made baskets in a very long time, once again, nowadays designers figure out out to strip piece the blocks.

At this point I am adding the border, and I realize that the final size might be ok for a baby quilt, but it’s not practical otherwise. With quilts, I want practicality. I like using my quilts, and yes, I’m keeping this one.

So I made two more baskets, which means that I might not have enough of the background fabric.

With the bloc lock ruler making the flying geese is like popcorn, I simply can’t stop. Instead of using the background for the corners, I used one of the prints.

This much of the quilt is done. I have to now decide, do I buy more of the background fabric or do I use the colored prints to create more borders.

Stay tuned!

I was told there was an exhibit of Gees’ Bend quilts at the Huntington. Turns out they have one quilt and a bunch of reproduction-simultions. I love the Huntington but no thanks.

So here I am at Hauser and Wirth and they have an exhibit called the new Bend, African American artists and their take on cultural issues today.

This one was the most surprising quilt of all to me, and needless to say, my favorite. By Dawn Williams Boyd, named The Right to my Life. I looked her up, on every other topic she far to the left, and yet here she is expressing something profound for the Black community. Too many have been aborted. I find it very interesting that the woman in the clinic is white, the woman getting out of a chauffeur driven car – to go get and abortion is white. In the foreground we see black people embracing their baby. We also see the pro life protestors who are a mixed lot of people. I am extremely sad that the powers that be managed to convince Californians that it is ok to kill a baby up until the moment of birth, and to put that in our constitution. Whatever happened to the idea that it would be rare and a last resort? I know many in the black community agree with this quilt – I’m grateful to see that it’s not just Church going conservatives. As for the message about adoption, I am the proud grandmother of a mixed race grandson who’s mother – thankfully didn’t abort him.

This is a beautiful computer designed woven tapestry, with some beading as well. I couldn’t understand the goodly-gook that the curator wrote about this. I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection between the angelic babies and there previous quilt – about aborting way too many of these babies.

This one is about the connection between the African American community and the Central American one. Like many other works, it’s more art work using textiles, than a quilt.

This one was the most traditional quilt, of course I love it for it’s design and simple quilting.

These two images don’t have any information. They actually are most like the original Gees Bend quilts.

Three works by the same artist, Got to love the bling! A lot of symbolism going on here.

Another mixed media that celebrates all kinds of textiles.

All in all, a worth while exhibit. Satisfied my need for textiles as a medium in art. There was also and exhibit of Cindy Sherman Photographs – very good, but doesn’t stir my soul. Then there was some kind of performance art – meh.