Breaking Up

 

This may look OK, but I don't like the way the pink stripes carry across the lighter blocks. You almost can't tell that they are different fabrics. The whole point of this arrangement is to focus on the swaying of the darker triangles but those horizontal stripes hold them back.

So I thought, what the hell, why am I worried about trying to making those secondary triangles do something when what I really want them to disappear?

And then I thought, what at the hell, it's already broken, so why don't I just keep going and break it some more?

So instead of making the secondary triangles pink, I made them white-ish.

In fact, I made the light triangles all the same. I'll look at it for a day or so before I sew it all together.

Back In The Studio

 

I'm wrestling with this beast again. I set it aside to work on the green version. I thought I had ordered more fabrics for it, but I was wrong. I had to go fabric shopping yesterday (oh gee darn). But It just wasn't enough I usually buy fabrics with punch, snap and pizzaz, and to finish this quilt, I need some fabrics that are more, shall we say, subservient. While I had fabric like that in my stash I didn't have ENOUGH of them. Sigh.

Sometimes I'm smart enough to notice things that don't work right away, and sometimes it takes me a bit longer. See that middle lozenge? It's more red at the bottom, and then in the top triangle it is more pink. It bothered me because the top part of that shape made me think it was something else, and I need that shape to be unified.

This is when I am glad I cut my strips bigger than I will really need. I cut another big triangle. It isn't 100% perfect, but I think it's better than it was.

In this quilt I want you to see the "ribbons" twisting and sa-shaying. I want the other shapes (those big long triangles on the sides) to fall a bit into the background. Yeah, I know they aren't there yet.

So yet again this sucker is going to wait. But fear not, I do have work in the studio that will keep me excited for a few days!

SEVEN!!

This is my darling granddaughter. She is now, officially, seven years old. As you can see she has QUITE an attitude. I love her to bits.

I was worried over the weekend with the storm headed to the City of Angels, but they were lucky and avoided most of it. Sunday afternoon I practically had a coronary when my DIL texted me "We got an extra bonus earthquake!"

I am fine. Thank you to those who have contacted me to ask. It took about a week for me to get over the jet lag and the fatigue. (This getting old stuff really sucks.) Then I got sick and spent a few days sacked out on the couch, very uncomfortable. I have no quilting going on and I am not quite sure what to do next. I have to get in there and Pick Up The Pencil. (It's a blog post I wrote years ago. It's still apt today.) 

I've been binge watching the Great British Baking Show and writing up the story of the Alegretto quilt so I can gift it to my nephew and his bride. 

I've also been reading. In California, when I was not reading Chitty Chatty Bang Bang to my granddaughter, I was reading "Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World." which was really very good. I'm a sucker for Romance so I also read a series of novels set in the Regency era by Mary Kingswood that I found tremendously entertaining. (Hey, I read about 12, one right after the other, so that should tell you.) I just finished I Didn't Do It by Jamie Lynn Hendricks, which I really enjoyed. 

I am pretty sure I know what my next tutorial is going to be and by the middle of next month I will have dropped off three flimsies to my long arm quilter and picked up Black Abacus to finish.

Oh and the mice chewed more than the dishwasher drain. They also chewed through some of the electrical wiring in the kitchen so THAT has had to be redone. Color me MEGA frustrated.

Oh, and I got new glasses. When I was in California we visited a Trendy Optical boutique. I had been frustrated with my old glasses - the frames were too small for me to see properly so I was looking for something bigger and a bit different.

The frames are light as hell, and barely there, but they are purple and I just love them.

 

Wedding Shower

 

When my nephew announced last year he was engaged, I told him I would make a wedding quilt. He said that since he already had a quilt, he'd allow his fiancee to choose the colors. When they came to my house for dinner last Christmas, I asked. M suggested perhaps green, or yellow?

I got and went into my studio to fetch the Allegretto quilt. "Like this," I asked?

They both agreed it was "The One." So it went home with them last year. Mission Accomplished.

Here's another photo of the quilt. I worked on it in April of 2021, so you'd have to go back into my Archives to see how it came to be. 

The Allegretto quilt has a fabulous backing of all kinds of gorgeous colorful birds. The quilting is over-the-top too.

Anyway, today is their shower, and since I have already gifted them the quilt, I won't be able to show it off. Now everyone knows this quilt has a home.

A Perfect Day

Bye bye New England, and Atlantic Ocean! I always get a seat near the window so I can look outside. This was taken right after takeoff from Logan International Airport in Boston.

I am always amazed how densely packed the LA area is. That's downtown LA in the distance.

It's easy to say I went to California to see my granddaughter, but of course I was eager to see my son.  I arrived in sunny (dry and not too hot) California at lunchtime, so we went out to have some lunch together.

This was the view from my seat. Can you see the Pacific Ocean? Yeah, how tough is that?

OF COURSE we had to get ice cream! I had Strawberry with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper! It was so good. And YES, I bought a new pair of glasses frames. More on those later. This was in Manhattan Beach. After our ice cream we walked down to the pier.

I have long learned to believe that everything I have ever heard about California is true. After all, where else would you see a guy lounging in an inflatable pool AT THE BEACH? No, we don't know how the portable pool got filled with water.

My son kept getting compliments on his shirt (he got it at Old Navy).

There is a small aquarium in the Manhattan Beach pier. My DGD and I got to touch live starfish and sea anemones.

Later I started reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to my DGD. (Yes, it is by THAT Ian Fleming, and it is wonderful. NOTHING like the stupid movie of the same name. This is an excerpt from the Vogue book review at the time: "The car is divine. So is the book.") I am happy to say she got more excited the more I read and we were able to finish the book before I left.

(That is my Digital Pinwheels quilt on the couch behind us.

Later, my DGD and I donned aprons and we made lemon curd. I was showing her how to separate the eggs in the photo above. After we put the eggs in the pan, I had her measure the sugar and add that to the pan too.

"SUGAR? Memere," she asked curiously. "SUGAR? In Eggs??" She wrinkled her nose. "Are you sure?"

I smiled, "Yes honey, you'll see."

Next we grated the rind of a few lemons (DGD and I both LOVE lemon!), added lemon juice, butter a bit of salt, and then started cooking it on the stove. DGD was bored by then, until I put a spoon in the custard and offered her a taste. Her whole face lit up! "THIS IS GOOD!"

I laughed.

I got to sleep in DGD's. bed when I was there. Can you see the dinosaur quilt I made for her? The the pink quilt in the foreground is one of mine too. My son's house has what I call the greatest concentration of Lynne Tyler quilts anywhere in the world aside from my house. It's fun to get to know my own quilts after some time apart.

We had dinner, and then went to bed. I slept like a rock.

It's taken me a week to recover. OH! I had the best time.  

More later.