Travels

Eclipse Road Trip 2024

April 14, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

This is a picture-book post of our recent trip in the Southwest of the United States of America, partly to see the total eclipse (it was cloudy where we were, but we made the most of it). More text and descriptions are on my Instagram; both my husband (who is a great photographer) and I posted using the hashtag #SW_eclipsetrip

More quilty posts begin again next week (if you are new here, they are usually on a Sunday morning.)

Gallery 1 (click to advance): Salton Sea, Felicity The Center of the World, stitching on my quilt Twilight Garden (a constant throughout the trip), Gardens of the LDS Temple in Tucson Arizona, wildflowers, roadrunner at the Las Cruces rest stop.

Lunch in El Paso, tiles that intimated an eclipse.

Hotel El Capitan in Van Horn Texas, Love’s blue sky.

Gallery Two: Eclipse Quilt made for my son and family, still stitching, beginning of eclipse, Texas hill town wildflowers, the old courthouse in Brady–which calls itself the Heart of Texas, a quilt shop (it wasn’t open yet).

North Texas prairie, with the red soil of that land.

Roswell sign, White Sands National Park.

Trinity Site Marker: I can’t separate the events on Trinity from what followed about a month later.

Gallery Three: One of three big reasons why we wanted to take this trip (family and the eclipse, the other two): The Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Here are three shots, culled from the many that I took of this place, but it is incredibly difficult to have photos give a sense of that New Mexico high desert, ringed by dark mountains, with these twenty-eight giant dish antennas spread out (sometimes as far as 13 miles), aimed high into the heavens. As I write this, I have on the soundtrack from the movie Contact, where the main character (played by Jodi Foster) uses the VLA to make a life-changing discovery. The three people standing next to the fence (to the right) of the dish help give you a sense of its size.

Mural in Magdalena, New Mexico (about 27 miles from the VLA)

San Miguel Mission in Socorro, New Mexico, founded in 1598.

Kingman Arizona train with four engines. Trains are everywhere along Highway 40.

My son-in-law built these quilt racks for my daughter’s collection of (my) quilts. Some were made by her children, though, with my help. Out of all my grandchildren, only these have come to see me and make quilts, so I’m happy this family loves them.

A very happy view this early morning, welcoming us back to our home state.

Statistics
Elevation range: from 1258 feet above sea level to 7200 feet (Ruidoso, New Mexico)
Overall Mileage: 3301.4
Days: 12 and a half
Gas Mileage: 27.3 mpg on average
Repairs: only an oil change in Albuquerque
Quirkiest: Roswell, New Mexico, with the giant pistachio near Alamogordo a close second
Weirdest: Felicity, The (self-declared) Center of the World, a little collection of buildings, and long granite slabs with engravings; near Yuma, Arizona
Prettiest Wildflowers: Sides of the Road in Hill County about an hour outside of Austin, with the fields in the Mojave a close second (with totally different terrains and flowers)
How Many Times a Day We Were Cranky: I’ll never tell.
Stories on Instagram with more on our trip

Happy Road Tripping to you–

In case the website link above fails, here is the info on the Roadrunner Sculpture (from Jennifer Bourn, from Inspired Imperfection):

The Roadrunner, designed by artists Olin Calk and Dan Smith, was created in 1993 as part of a recycling education program for the Las Cruces Foothills Landfill. The large-scale artwork was meant to draw attention to the landfill and the issues regarding consumption, the potential reuse of some materials, and the recycling of mass consumed packaging residuals.
The giant Roadrunner has become an icon of Las Cruces and in 2001, it was moved to the Scenic View Rest Area. Unfortunately, over the years the harsh desert climate negatively affected the materials of the sculpture, which were never designed to be permanent, and vandalism by visitors who wanted to put their own spin on the artwork took its toll.
In 2012, the Roadrunner Statue was dismantled and moved to Olin Calk’s farm so it could be refurbished. The renovations were completed in 2014 and the statue was returned to its place at the Interstate 10 Scenic View Rest Stop, this time placed atop a giant base designed to look like a big rock.
The current version of the Roadrunner Sculpture uses multimedia recycled elements like Volkswagen headlights, used sneakers, golf clubs, a trophy, old plastic toys, metal from the City of Las Cruces’ recycling center, and things gathered from local thrift stores.

Radiate • New York Beauties Block 3

April 7, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

Radiate: “emit (energy, especially light or heat) in the form of rays or waves” (from the Oxford Dictionary) — OR — “(of a feeling or quality) emanate clearly from, as in “leadership and confidence radiate from her” — OR — “(of an animal or plant group) evolve into a variety of forms adapted to new situations or ways of life” (apparently so rare of a definition, I can’t find any examples). And with the movie Oppenheimer earning an Oscar award for Best Picture, I suppose we can also think about radioactivity radiating out from the fusion bomb, set off in New Mexico years ago. But I really think of the sun on a hot summery day, warming you as the cool ocean breezes surround you on a beach. Pick your beach.

Cut out, ready to go. But first! a tip on getting the alignment on that B1/B2 piece:

Left Photo: Using a gridded cutting mat, tape the tip of the B1 piece, using a line on the mat to keep it horizontally straight. Then sort of lining up the center “seam,” align the B2 piece as well with a line on your mat, keeping that edge vertical. Tape.
Right Photo: Trying not to shift the pieces, tape the center seam, extending the tape. Carefully remove from the cutting board and fold the center-seam tape to the back. Cut off, remove, or fold back the edge pieces of tape (Big Decisions).

I lay out my colors and then get going. For this set of rays, I again wanted a gradation of color, but chose to do two stronger rays in the middle background, fading to the sides. You’ll see.

For pieces like this Inner Arc, I don’t iron it down, but instead treat it like a paper pattern piece. Again, your choice. Do try to align the outer edges on either grain (crosswise or straight-of-grain), letting the curve be on the bias. Having that bias makes for easier seaming when you sew the parts together.

First two sections of rays sewn up.

Trimmed, and papers removed. I find it easier to not pop seams, if I peel back the papers from the top edge (smaller curvature) of the rays. Now you can see the two center background rays in the middle are the same, fading to the sides. That’s also why I wrote 3s and 2s and 1s on the freezer paper — just to keep straight which fabric I was using.

Road Trip Rest Stop: admire your work.

I fold the arc in half, and with the tip of my iron, press in a 1/4″ mark, showing me the centers. You could also just put a pin there, or a small pencil mark.

Sewing the units together in steps.

Happy Dancing Number Bears are still here, but here’s our fifth block, finished! It’s really beginning to add up, isn’t it?

Status Report: five blocks finished. When I made this, I was amused to see that the right-hand side of this digital quilt was sort of empty. Of course, that will change, and I may re-arrange the blocks as I want to, when I get them all finished.

A ~~word~~ ~~paragraph~~ paragraphs about fabrics and colors and quilting: While I use Painters Palette solids by Paintbrush Studio, and that’s what my color numbers are on my Preview Page on the pattern (Preview Page is a free download), you may have a wide range of colors in other solids from other manufacturers. Use what you have and what you like. Change up my colors completely. Make them in prints or whatever. Enjoy making, and seeing your little bits of sunshine grow on your design wall, or design floor, or design bed.

We have to bend quilting to our will, to our situations and circumstances, in order to enjoy what we do.

Yes, I do use Trim-an-Quarter/Eighth rulers, but I also use a regular see-through ruler. Yes, I like freezer paper currently, but if you like the regular way of FPP (foundation paper-piecing), do that. Mary, of Zippy Quilts, sent me a link to another quilter who combines the two in this video. I’m so grateful for all you quilters and your interests and your worlds. You fly through rainbows and bring back jewels for me to think about and to use. If you are sewing along and making New York Beauties, tag me on Instagram (@occasionalpiecequilt or #newyorkbeautiesquilt) or send me a photo to my email (opquilt@gmail.com).

Radiate as you go, in order to freak out any one nearby–

300 Quilts

Happy Easter, 2024

March 31, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.

Sunny Flowers for an Easter morning!

This-and-That

Quilt Your Life, Quilt Your Stuff

March 24, 2024August 30, 2025 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

For most of her life, Jessie Homer French worked without much expectation or hope of attention or sales or critical acclaim. In a recent article, she said “I paint my life, my stuff. I really, really care about the painting turning out. I’m really upset when it doesn’t. But I don’t feel any need to communicate. I’m sorry. That’s not the point.”

What a refreshing change from the inundation of famous film stars and celebrities and all those fascinating things on social media, which — in the end — draw us away from our quieter lives, or as Homer French says, being “a regular ordinary painter who hangs out in her garage, and desperately tries to make something that she likes.”

While she made this “mapestry” with thread, cloth, and embroidery, her paintings are what she’s known for:

This scene is up in the mountains above Palm Desert, Southern California area. I don’t know why this bio on her drew me in so much. Maybe it was the barren landscapes that she paints, or her focus on her creating, whether in cloth or with paints. And maybe like the stack of paintings that piled up in her garage, sending her out to find a gallery that would sell her paintings, I feel we quilters often toil quietly, with our cloth and thread, imbuing what’s in our hands with our life, our stuff.

Here’s some of my recent work:

Bit by bit, Twilight Garden is taking shape. It’s going to be a hand-work project now.

On the first day of Spring it was warm enough to set out lunch on the patio. Our conversations seem to unfurl at a slower pace out there.

We had our wisteria trimmed; the squirrel’s perch is right outside my sewing room window.

I’ve been photographing my Mother’s few journals. She was too busy to write much, ever, so they are brief and don’t cover much time. But reading them is like having a good conversation with her.

I went on (another!) trip to Utah to see this tall granddaughter come home after an 18-month mission to Argentina.

And to have lunch with my father’s sisters.

My father gave me this book many years ago, and I pulled it out this week. I found little notes tucked in addressed to me, instructing me to place some newspaper clippings he’d sent, into the back of the book. It was poignant to see his handwriting again.

It’s a weighty book, one man’s year of mourning for his father. I’ll have to take it slow, but right at the beginning this caught my heart:

“And when grief is gone? Still one may not speak of one’s parents baldly. After the twelve months of mourning, the rabbis continue, one must accompany the mention of one’s dead father or one’s dead mother with the words, ‘May his memory be a blessing for life in the world to come.’ Modern Jews have abridged this locution of piety. They speak of their dead and say ‘May his memory be a blessing,’ and they mean a blessing here, upon us. But the rabbis meant a blessing there, upon him….I can believe that the memory of our dead is a blessing here, upon us. Can I believe that it is a blessing there, upon them?”

I can only hope so. Really, I want both. As I think about my mother and father, feeling grateful at this Eastertide for their influence in all ways, I hope their memory is a blessing for them, together. And with my needle and scissors in hand, their memories and these blessings help me pass some really long days.

Quilt your stuff, everyone. Quilt your life.