SeaDepths
Quilt #254
33″ square
Made from Azulejos Pattern
Naturally, patterns emerge through repetition, and repetition yields up a type of discovery that reveals everything about itself, especially its sorry limits. (Jan Peacock)
I love this variation of my Azulejos pattern. I love the blues, aquas, the glints of yellow. I like where I made a mistake and put the wrong color in the triangle (you’ll never see it, but I like it).
But, I think I hit up upon my sorry limits, as Peacock says, in quilting this. It is the Month of the Broken Ankle, and something always seems to break in my mind when the body is goofy, and perhaps that’s why I just dove into quilting this without doing my usual due diligence of printing out the quilt, drawing all over it, like this (from another quilt):
A plan! Instead, I just went for it, wanting to get it ticked off the list and out of the To Be Quilted Pile, and yes Haste Makes Waste and all that, but I do still like SeaDepths. I just think that this time it hit its sorry limits with the quilter, that’s all.
In other news, Summer Snowcone has been pin-basted, and aren’t you impressed with that matching seam on the backing?
I purchased this fabric just because I am totally over the moon about it, but then…you know I love Sawtooth Blocks.
We grilled lettuce. It was good. That is all. (recipe) (Does this mean we are losing it? Hope not.)
I’m doing another Summer Book Giveaway, and these are the books:
1) Southern Quilts and Twisted (Kerr) (they go as one)
2) The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting (Walkers and Watson) (autographed)
3) The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook (Knauer)
4) Quilt with Tula and Angela (Pink and Walters) (autographed)
Since summer’s almost over, they’ll go in one big splat. Enter the name of the one you want, and slip it into the comments below, along with telling me the hottest summer day you ever had. I don’t care if you want two different ones; enter twice, and we’ll see what the Random Husband Winner Generator comes up with.
As far as hottest summer day, I have two: The first one was when I was pregnant with child #3, and we moved from California to upstate New York and the new house had no air conditioning, and it was during a heat wave. We finally bought one window unit and put it in the dining room (that has to be one of the reasons why we divorced later on) so the kids and I would gather there all afternoon and into the evening, mounds of toys and books and snacks under the dining room table while I lay there, so very pregnant and so very hot, so very sticky, humid, and miserable. (She was born mid-August.)
The second one was a July day spent in Montreal, Canada with the temperature climbing well above triple digits. That’s not necessarily the worst heat I’ve ever been in, but we were tourists and kept trying to go out and explore the city and see the sights while everyone else was in their right minds, and stayed in. About the third day, we gave up–going out only in the morning, coming home for the afternoon to the air-conditioned hotel, and heading back out at night, catching the bagpipers in the evening Mardi Gras Parade.
UPDATE: GIVEAWAY CLOSED. THANKS FOR ENTERING!Leave your Hot Summer Day comment below!
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 
I love the quilting on your Sea Depths quilt. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Oh yes, that perfectly matched backing is very impressive.
my book preference would be “Southern Quilts and Twisted” Since I have always lived in the Houston area, I have had a lot of h ot days but my most memorable is being in elementary school in late May with no air conditioning. Oh my, after sitting for a couple of hours at my desk, my clothes would stick to me. I remember them bringing in a huge fan. It was really big. Maybe industrial. It helped a little but not enough. I guess I am telling my age. There probably isn’t a kid anywhere today who would attend a school without air conditioning and heating!
My choice would be S
The quilting on Sea Depths looks watery, so just fine! A memory of a hot day – teaching in a classroom with no AC, 25 third graders, and eight months pregnant with first child, thankfully an excellent group of children and it was the very last week of school for the year. My book choice is # 3 The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting….but should be # 1 Twisted because I often choose books by their covers.
Ohio had a drought around 1987. My neighbor and I were out shopping and we stopped to get gas and I said gosh Marge,it sure does seem hot. (those were the days before your car told you the temperature) got back in the car, to have the radio tell us it was 114.
We had an amazing grilled romaine salad at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. I’ve since recreated it many times! So not crazy!
Taking the time to match the pattern on the back of your quilt is perfection. It just makes the quilt look finished. My book choice would be Twisted and Southern Quilts. I had a chance to hear Mary Kerr speak about her quilts and should have purchased Twisted then. Thanks for the giveaway.
Matching the pattern is just the perfect thing to do! I love the “Quilt with Tula and Angela” – beautiful book. Thank you for the giveaway!
The hottest summer I remember is the vacation I spent in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was Christmas and I vividly remember standing amongst the banana trees in the sweltering heat. It was beautiful there, and I spent so much time in the sun (at 17) that I peeled big time, the worst ever. It was bittersweet as I was so enjoying life with my host family before returning to America, after 12 months of living in Australia. I almost didn’t go on the plane – and my host family worried if I would ditch it, too! I have to make a second choice – “Southern Quilts” & “Twisted”….beautiful books. Thanks again for the giveaway, and a trip down memory lane (which was 48 years ago)…
Oh, I love that you are showing your quilting design ! As a fairly new quilter it gives me ideas as to the possibility of design I could use. I would loveSouthern Quilts and Twisted
My choice would be Southern Quilts and Twist
My hottest day was July 17, 1966. I was 9 and a 1/2 months pregnant and hanging up laundry in the back yard. I was quite warm and went to check the temperature. It was 105 degrees of hot humid New Jersey heat! I yearned for the air conditioned maternity ward. Baby must have agreed. He was born the next morning! Those were the days when you stayed five days in the hospital. I enjoyed every air conditioned one of them.
Hottest summer day 1 was yesterday when it was 96 in the shade and had an outdoor birthday party to attend. Also decided to be a good neighbor and help set. Just putting table cloths on tables required a shower and change of clothes when done. Southern Quilts and Twisted is my choice of books.
The book on top Twist. My hottest day was when I was pregnant with my first child. I was working at USC so my husband could attend for reduced tuition. Driving home to Seal Beach after work in my non-air-conditioned VW, I came to the junction of freeways 110 and 405. There was a Pepsi distribution center with a tall temperature sign that said 103 degrees. So sitting in traffic, pregnant, inching toward home on a hot day was most memorable!
It seems to be a theme with the hottest day being while pregnant! Or maybe those are just the ones we remember. For me it was late August, hot and humid, and I was about 7 months along. I stopped after work to pick up dry cleaning. When I left the just closed dry cleaner, the car was dead. I called my husband from a pay phone (pre-cell phone days!) and got the answering machine. He was out cutting grass and checked the message about an hour later. He finally arrived and wanted to fix the car right then. I just wanted to go home! As I recall I was “hangry” and there were tears and probably angry words. Hormones, no doubt. At least that’s my story.
My top book choice: Southern Quilts and Twisted.
My pick would be Southern Quilts or Tula. I have grilled romaine also. The recipe calls for adding precooked shrimp on top of the romaine and sprinkling parmesan on top. 102 degrees is the hottest I’ve experienced in Michigan, where it’s very humid. It was in 2012. Very early in the morning, I was out watering my flowers and a starving stray cat came up to me . I felt sorry for her so I fed her . She has lived with us since then, 9 years ago.
Another super hot day I remember was one year when my son was in junior high and we took a family summer vacation to Yosemite. It was over 95 degrees, and California had lots of forest fires raging, and we were hiking to Upper Yosemite Falls. The hike is considered one of the hardest hikes in the park, and though my husband thought it was grand, it was way beyond my fitness level and our son’s. That made for a long and uncomfortable day.
My second book choice: The Quilt Design Coloring Workbook
I think your Sea Depths looks wonderful all quilted Elizabeth. If there is a mistake in it, I sure can’t see it. 😉
My hottest summer day was just a few weeks ago. I was in Oyama, British Columbia to spend some quality time with my longarm. It was 52C in the shade on the deck downstairs on the basement level. While there we lived in the basement and only went upstairs to prepare meals. It’s a good thing the studio is in the basement 😀. That was the day a little town in B.C. burnt to the ground with only 15 minutes Evacuation alert to all of the residents. We’ve been on Evacuation Alert here with a wildfire burning less than 2 km away but I’ve been busy sewing…2 quilt tops done so far for the Quilts for Lytton Drive. I’d love to win Quilting with Tula and Angela but any of them would be wonderful. Thank you for giving me another reason to smile today. I love your posts and hope you heal quickly so you can get back to your normal routines. 😄
I’m joining the crowd liking Southern Quilts and Twisted. The hottest day I remember was in Fresno a few years ago, when it was 111 degrees. We’d come down to the valley from our mountain house for a day of shopping. Getting out of the car was like walking into a wall. It was hard to even take a step.
Your quilts are lovely and you will always remember the “time of the ankle” when you look at them…rejoicing that it is all in the past…and being impressed with your perseverance through it all.
Hottest memory…omg hiking last summer near Tomales Bay last summer during a heat wave. We thought we would escape the heat at the coast. But it followed us. Mild dehydration and I humbling experience. I knew better. Of course I didn’t have to worry about needing to go to the bathroom as we tried to make it back because I was too dehydrated! Yikes.
Would love to be considered for Twisted or Tula. Thank you.
Would love Quilt with Tula and Angela. My most memorable hot day was my first day at college in a dorm that wasn’t air conditioned. My possibly faulty memory says it got up to 108 degrees outside. I slept on the tile floor.
I love your blog and look forward to reading it each Sunday. (Although I am reading it Monday this week.) My hottest summer day was on a road trip in South Dakota in 1981. We traveled in an Omni, a small budget car with no air conditioning or tinted glass. We toured Bad Lands National Park mid day. We would park take a look and get back in the car. I tried hanging a towel on the visor for shade. That was in the days before bottled water. We had frozen a gallon milk jug of water for our cooler and drank it all as the ice melted. We found a vending machine at the park and that was the best Coke I ever tasted.
I would like Quilt with Tula and Angela.
My hottest day was the summer I was an exchange student on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. My normally straight hair was in ringlets all summer due to the tropical heat and humidity. No one had air conditioning and physical movements were kept to a minimum, except for my Malaysian mother who spent much of her day cooking over a hot fire.
I’d love the Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting.
I was working as a biosecurity contractor during our hottest summer, this decade. That meant being dressed head to toe in a disposable plastic suit, socks and gumboots, plastic gloves, covered head and safety glasses, in the sun.
It was so hot, when we changed our gloves, water ran out of them.
There was no health and safety protocol around heat stroke, despite working for a government department, so we decided our own limit, then once above it retired to the trucks and cranked up the aircon.
It was okay for the guys, who wore very little under their suits, but as a middle aged woman with a little padding, I was not going to be wearing underwear only under the suits, as they did. Especially since we had to change suits every time we exited a property, and we changed suits standing on the side of the road.
So, that’s my hottest summer story. I earned a lot of money during those months, but it’s not an experience I would rush into again.
I would love Twisted, or Southern Quilts thanks.
Please don’t enter me in your giveaway, but I wanted to say how much I like the colors you’ve used in SeaDepths. Of course I like them! 🙂 As for quilting… I too have often done due diligence and planned a quilt design before beginning to quilt, AND have done otherwise and just plunged-in! The latter is the case with my latest quilt, and now I’m suffering from quilter’s “design dearth.” I’ll muddle my way through it, nonetheless. I can’t remember my hottest summer day, perhaps because I’ve had so many. I only know that heat affects me worse since being on the breast cancer drug. Disappointing because I also know that condition never goes away. Hope your foot is healing. Thankfully, I’ve never broken anything. Can’t imagine what that must be like. Hopefully you’ve learned how to manage life while wearing that boot.
#1 hottest day (time, really): summer of 1980 in Kansas when I, too, was pregnant with our first child–hottest summer on record there (50 days or so over 100)–she was born mid-July
#2 hottest time: summer of 1983 in Kansas when I was again pregnant with our second child–second hottest summer on record (many more days over 100 again)–she was born end of August
I would love to have Quilt with Tula and Angela–thanks for the opportunity!
Leigh Ann
Sea Depths looks absolutely lovely to me. Don’t be so hard on yourself about the quilting. It’s far far better than anything I would have managed . . . thus I send my quilts out. Hottest day I remember was hiking a medicine trail in Belize with an old man cutting the vegetation ahead of us with a machete. Sweated in places I didn’t know one could sweat. Thanks, but no books for me. I recently purged several from my own shelf and it feels good to have less stuff.
I love your quilt! It is very calming to me. I also do not want to be entered for a book (I have to downsize my extensive collection myself!), but you made me remember our car breaking down in Indio, CA on a 108 degree day…we lived in Victorville at the time and were on the way home from my parents’ house in Arizona. We had our little dachshund puppy with. A good friend drove down to Indo to pick us up (he drove a Mustang and our sons were elementary school age so it was cozy. It was a holiday so no place open for repairs. Wasn’t much fun but that darned car was only a year old when the timing belt broke in Indio…it happened again the following year on our way to Oregon! Great giveaway!
I like “Sea Depths” and I’m not sure every quilt has to be a masterpiece (mistresspiece?)