Some people design quilts on computer programs or just with paper and colored pencils. I design while sewing, which means there are plenty of ripping out sections of blocks and redoing them.
This is where we left off, I had created a large star out of the light red print. I was very pleased with that, but then wasn’t happy with the upper corner, it just felt too dark.
As you can see, I replaced the solid red with a brighter print. Adds more depth and dimension.
I had one center block, I decided to make sure there was more white than red.
On the side I repeated those two blocks.
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t happy with then, bring out the seam ripper again.
Just by narrowing down the center diamonds I feel that there is more interest here. I think I have an outer border that will be mostly white. It short of feels unfinished right here.
Blowing in the wind. I won’t be quilting this until I get my new Koala table, and that could be a while…
The Valley went through it’s big growth spurt right after WWII. During the 50s’ the baby boomers flocked to the new suburbia. Along with housing came office buildings and apartment buildings as well. These days many are being threatened as once again, construction is booming here. So as I go out and about, I’m taking pictures of buildings I pass every day. The ones that are mostly invisible to me.
Here is a typical example, one that no one ever pays any attention to. Painted brick walls, the large curtain windows that are separated by the bricks. An outdoor staircase.
Here we have the flat roof, the columns as well as the protruding supports. Of course what I love bout this one is the Art Deco Style lettering. I think this is rather new. As I always like to say, when a new style emerges, it doesn’t immediately erase the old style, they co-exist for a while. My guess is that this convalescent home was looking at Letter-types and simply like the Art Deco. Without any knowledge of the progression from Art Deco to Mid-Century.
Ok, so the rounded tower isn’t covered in gold mosaic like the May Company building on Wilshire. But we do have the curtain windows as well as the breezeway blocks, probably hiding the parking level.
And now, onto an apartment building. These are beginning to be torn down, bigger taller ones replace them. Once again, flat roof, curtain windows. Ugly astroturf on the entrance stairs. But there is an open courtyard, something that is completely gone from the modern apartment buildings.
This builder really liked the Gothic font and the very grandiose name. To most people these buildings are invisible, which is why I like showcasing them from time to time.
Just a lovely Valley home. Someone took the effort to make this one look especially pleasing.
OK, so the local chamber of commerce has been painting and decorating the big electrical boxes on the streets. Nice job here with the penguins.
It was a lot of fun to continue my walk and come across this address plaque. I’m seeing a theme here.
I need to find a new way to showcase my shawls. I had been using the sewing dummy. Well, as I clean out the room, I got rid of that. Then again, my new camera is so amazing, I may simply take more selfies.
My DIL Becky asked me to repair a pair of socks I made her. Nope, not happening, but I will knit a new pair.
Trying it on as I knit, the joy of magic loop knitting. A friend recently asked me for some DPNS, I do have a few I never use. I’m on that flexible needle no matter what.
I have finished these socks and have handed them over. I have another ball of yarn so will probably end up knitting a pair for myself as well.
I immediately started on a pair for Joel, and forgot to take any pictures. That is until I finished the first sock. I’m too lazy to clean up the picture and get rid of the yarn tail, that got clipped off right after the picture was taken.
I’m now working on sock number two and decided that I better get some pictures. Using my macro lens of course, because come on, I need to have some fun.
A closer look. How beautiful is this yarn. It is hand dyed, goes from purple, through grey to green – then back again. I bought it at Road to California just two weeks ago.
This sock is being knit from the center out so that it will match the first one.
We have been getting a lot of rain. Look how beautifully my camera captures each individual drop. I’m finally understanding Shutter speed.
This ditch has been here forever, this is the first time I see water running freely into the storm drain and then into the nearby LA River.
I snapped this picture on my phone while stopped at a stoplight. I’m sure it would be much more vivid with my new camera.
Look how clear this is. I was using the eye recognition feature and shooting into a mirror. I’d say I’m pretty sharp in this picture. Also a little cold, notice both a wool sweater and wool shawl. I wouldn’t survive for a minute in that polar vortex that hit the midwest last week.
Works really great on Aytan, look he’s smiling!
While the weather was nice, these guys are up changing or painting a new sign. I’m pretty sure the firetruck is just parked there while the firemen have lunch at Art’s Deli. It is a cool image.
I’ve been playing with the macro lens. I still have a lot to learn, but omg, am I loving this.
Thank you Trader Joes. I bet next time to go there will be no more daffodils.
I’ve been trying to get pictures of the hummingbirds. I wised up and put the feeder out front, so now when I sit at the kitchen table, I see them. Vicious little things, if there is more than one, a fight is taking place. When I stop outside they immediately are aware of me, and they stay away. Grrrr. Yes, I’ll be getting more powerful lenses in the future. But right now, I need to be close. I have seen the little brown ones, but have also seen some with a bright red breast. One of these days I’ll have pictures to share. For now, I’m just enjoying watching them through the window.
After not working on this quilt for almost a month, it is a little hard getting back to it. Especially since I’m so excited about a redesigned sewing room. But I can’t wait for that – it’s probably 2 months or more away.
I know, I do have a design wall, but it’s upstairs so I often will simply use the floor, to my detriment as you will soon see.
Once I finished a whole corner, I went and put it on the design wall.
Here is a close up of the corner, a few things caught my eye. I could use some more contrast at the outer edges. Also, I love breaking the wall of blocks. So it would be better if instead of the two dark diamonds on the big star, I had the same red/white print.
I really noticed that when I had created more blocks. Luckily these aren’t sewn on yet, but this is what a wall is for. I can stand back and see how dark the red is. I know, plenty of people would do this on a program like EQ8, me, I like doing it as I quilt. I’m in no rush, I’m not selling any pattern, this is the creative process for me.
I switched out the dark red triangles for brighter polka dot whens, which is great, but this is when I noticed that I’d prefer the light diamonds instead of the dark ones. Fine tuning the balance.
Much better!! Now I feel like I am enjoying the direction this is going!
So now I’m wondering if I will be using more of the dark read in the centers – between the corner blocks. I’m also wondering how big this quilt will be. I might bite the bullet and have it 50″ x 60″. Or I may do some kind of border. We shall, see, I have a ways to go before I need to tackle that.
It is so true, nothing is better than grandkids. I’m so blessed to have them all near-by.
Saturday afternoon was Jacuzzi time.
Spending the weekend with Saba and Savta means getting an ice-cream cone for dessert. Is it any surprise that these two want to come back here again, asap?
Eyal and his dads joined us at the park. Btw, there is nothing better than these simple umbrella strollers. We’ve had this one for nine years. All of the grandkids have used it. Later in the afternoon we took it to the aquarium, what a life saver.
Enjoying the see-saw.
I love how Eyal photobombed this image of Westley sliding along.
Sand is often the best part of a playground.
Then it was off to the Aquarium, I didn’t take many pictures, it was a real mob scene.
These two love their big cousin Shira, she loves being the leader of the pack.
Aytan enjoying the birds.
I must say, slept extremely well on Sunday night. These guys are so much fun but very exhausting!
Oh, boy am I having fun! For the last year or so, many of my pictures were from my phone. I was getting lazy. The quality of the old camera was better than the phone, and yet…. it was easier to pull out the phone. I still love the phone for impromptu.
This is with the kit lens, look at the steam! That is not something I could capture all that well before. Once again, I made my baba ganouche, I think I added too much garlic. Oh well, kept the vampires away.
I treated myself to a handmade silver thimble with the nail opening. I’ve been admiring these for years. A year ago I bought a silver thimble at an antique mall. I put it away when I went to Israel and it disappeared. I have no idea where it went. I’m hoping that as I clean and rearrange my sewing room it will reappear.
Back to the macro lens, look at how it captures every little detail, the coloration in the small pink bead. I didn’t notice that until I looked at these pictures.
See the lip? this allows using both the top and the side of the thimble. So far I’ve taken pictures, I haven’t use’t it yet. Right now I am in awe of the clarity and details.
After I took these pictures I realized that I had the ISO a little too high. So these are brighter than they should be, and yet – still amazing.
I need to watch some more You Tube as well as practice. The macro lens is so tight, I was focusing on the beads, and the thimble is already blurred. This never happened with the old camera. I’m glad I haven’t bought a long range lens yet… Although I know my friend Becky is laughing right now – I’m getting addicted to lenses.
This time I let the camera decide the ISO, but I think I need to back off on the aperture, I would like this whole image to be in focus. As they say, practice, practice, practice.
Wow, I need to clean off this sphere, the camera captured every mote of dust.
Just one of the cute items in my garden.
Not the macro lens. Our Temple has started an empty nesters group, we will be meeting at one another homes. So of course they asked for group photos from all the homes. I had fun setting up the camera on the tripod. I tried to pair it with my phone, didn’t work too well. But the 10 second delay worked just fine. So here we are, low light, no flash and a very happy group of people. Picture came out great.
Phone picture, beautiful, great details. Boy oh boy, what I could do with the macro lens!
I am spoiling myself these days, I got some money from my mom’s inheritance and I’m spoiling myself. Aside from the new furniture, I bought a new camera. A very nice mirrorless Sony camera. My son is jealous, he wants to get his hand on it and play. I need a lot of play time. Meanwhile, I went to Road2Ca to give it a whirl.
I love these bright intricate busy quilts. Not something I’d ever make.
The center is a delicate crocheted doily. Now that is a doily I can love.
After all that intense detail and quilting, it is a pleasure to see something like this. First of all I love the red, white and black. I like the very large carnation motif and the simple quilting.
Here I am planning a reverse engineering of this block. One thing I love is doing just that. Figuring out the puzzle on my own.
A closer look, and it’s truly an abstract. A beautiful one either way.
Here is a close up of a handprinted quilt, all the quilting is done on a domestic machine. The way I quilt.
Here is the back of this quilt, I think I might prefer this side.
I love this version of Violet Crafts’ lion. Almost makes me want to try one myself with unusual fabrics. But first, I will be making Orange Dot’s mandala. Also paper piecing, not quite as complicated. And that of course only after I finish my red and white….
Speaking of red and white, with some grey and black thrown in for good measure.
I had to try out my depth of field. The purples are so sharp, the greens are hazy. Ahh, I am loving this new camera, so much to learn!
You have probably noticed that there haven’t been a lot of creative posts lately. The malaise has set in. I have ordered two Koala sewing cabinets and a Horn cutting table. It will probably take about two months, overtime I walk into the sewing room it just looks like one big mess. Which it is.
Time for another purge. A couple bags like this went into the trash. I do this periodically. No I haven’t read Kondo or seen her netflix show. I am not a minimalist, I throw things away. As a creative person, a certain amount of ‘stuff’ is my palate.
A few years ago I organized my buttons. Then I received about twenty salesmen cards of buttons. Some I used but most weren’t functional. One of each size or color. A friend gave me her mother’s button collection. I decided that I don’t need to be the dumping ground for others. When I want buttons, I’ll go buy them. I kept some buckles as well as sets of buttons. Then I set about creating a decorative button jar.
I kept many of the mundane ones, as many as the sparkly ones as I could as well as some large glass beads. If I need one special button, I’ll check this out, otherwise, it’s off to the store I go. Meanwhile, buttons as art are always welcome in a sewing room.
The sacrilege! I threw away books! Nobody wants these books, don’t tell me to donate them to a school or library. Sorry, they are overloaded. Sometimes simply throwing something away is the thing to do. I wonder if Kondo agrees. A number of books were what I call Knitting magazines with hard covers. Others were art books I referred to when I was a docent, such as publications from LACMA. When my mother died she didn’t leave a lot, she had already moved to a one bedroom apartment. So we divided up what we wanted. I’m sure she would have wanted me to take the art books – she had some really incredible ones. I didn’t want them. So the Judaica books went to people who wanted them and the rest of the books, art and history went to a used bookstore in Jerusalem. The owner was very impressed with my mother’s intellect. I’m sure some of the books were tossed.
I gave this painting of my mothers’ to my son. It is now beautifully framed and in his office.
Btw, once the furniture arrives, I’ll do another very large purge and will get rid of as many of those plastic drawers as I can. Which will probably mean that I’ll go through my fabrics and threads and throw more things away.
I have been busy sewing for almost 4 hours every Tuesday at Quilt’n’Things
It has to be easy sewing so I’ve sewn plenty of pillowcases. I don’t think I need to share more pictures of those. Nona at The Valley Modern guild puts together kits to sew tops for charity quilts as well. I didn’t take a picture of the before, but you get the idea. She gave me a package with the center block as well as the other fabrics and said: go to town! I did!
Nona chose lovely fabrics. I made sure that the print in the first border runs in the same direction. That is one of my bugaboos, I don’t like mono-directional fabric! Another great choice was the checkered fabric. It really helps highlight the texture in the bunny. I am also glad that I used the batik in the middle and the multi colored print for the final border.
I will not be quilting this. Although once I get my new quilting table I will be happy to try and quilt some of the smaller charity quilts. It won’t be such a strain what with all the extra space for the quilt to sit on while I move it under the machine.
After a week the rain stopped, the sun came out and people came out in droves to hike in the beautiful green hills.
The air is clear, the San Gabriel mountains are shiny and clear.
Rain in the valley means snow in the mountains.
It also means that this section of fencing, that has been here forever has fallen down. I wonder if they will fix it or simply do without a wall.
I love how in the winter, after rain, there are things like this that don’t look like CA at all. Of course one has to get the exact right angle.
This is for sale.
Not sure if this in on the same property. In a very expensive neighborhood there always are those run down derelicts. Unless it’s one of the planned communities – where you can’t breathe out of turn.
Here is some multi purpose holiday decorating. I’m wondering how long this will stay up. We are getting to the point where lights are fine, because it still gets dark early, but it’s time for the decorations to be put away.
Looks like someone decided to put the Easter decorations outside, and then the bunny collection just grew…
… and grew.
From my own garden, with a little help from the neighbors – camellias in bloom. With one rose.
