Summer Snowcone • Quilt Finish

September 5, 2021September 4, 2021 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

It’s mostly photos, today. Enjoy!

Summer Snowcone, variation of Sun and Sea Pattern
Quilt #251
48″ wide x 56″ high

Advent, previously shown but what a cool backdrop of flowers. It was in the women’s bathroom, but I couldn’t resist. (I propped open the door and we were in and out in under 60 seconds, and no one was there.) And yes, I have the best quilt-holding husband on the planet.

The drive to meet our son for lunch was about 90 minutes, and I wanted to finish sewing down the hanging sleeve on Advent and the binding on Summer Snowcone, so we had them along. When I saw that painted hallway, I grabbed the quilts out of the car for photographs.

Photographed in the hallway at City Tacos, Sorrento Valley near San Diego. Since my son’s a working man, we drive to see him and his girlfriend. A good day out.

Website of Interest: A project to make a kimono representing every nation was recently completed. The website groups the kimono by continent, and then you can navigate to the country you want to see. Of course I went to see America, then copied and pasted the text into Google Translate.

Their caption, translated:

The image of a country consisting of 50 states called "United States" is expressed by "state flowers". Designed with the national symbol "President" as "American Eagle". Baseball, American football, Hollywood movies, and the goddess of freedom, which Americans love, are studded in the state flowers, and the great presidents Lincoln and Kennedy are represented by statues and Apollo programs.

I love that Abraham Lincoln is right up there with the “goddess of freedom (which Americans love) as well as baseball and Hollywood. When they say “goddess of freedom” I think they mean the Statue of Liberty. But so cool that they included all the state flowers.

I’m now going to go waste a lot of time thinking about how I should get more stuff done. But hey! it’s Labor Day Weekend and we honor the concept of Labor by relaxing, barbecuing and not doing anything.

Happy Labor Day!

*Samuel Gompers Memorial, Washington, D. C.*

Field Flowers • Quilt Finish

July 7, 2019July 7, 2019 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

Field Flowers_1

One of the challenges of finishing a quilt is figuring out where to photograph the thing. So one night last week my husband and I went over to University of California-Riverside (UCR) to find some places that would set off the two quilts I was toting around.

I’d originally thought about the Botannic Gardens, with all their lush greenery and wooden benches; I’ve snapped photos in this place before, and Field Flowers, with its scalloped edges is so old-fashioned looking I wanted to head there. It was closed. As we walking back to the car to leave, I spotted this old greenhouse. UCR is noted for its agricultural emphasis, as we breed a lot of the oranges you are eating now (Cuties, anyone?). This greenhouse seemed the perfect place, for my husband, with three broken ribs, to be able to hold up the quilt. (By the way, he has a Qh.D: a doctorate in Quilt Holding.)

Renaissance Figures Holding Ladybird

I also recruited two bystanders from the museum in Berlin to help me show off Field Flowers. Although their expressions are a little wooden, they held it in place without moving, so I was able to get a good photograph.

Field Flowers_2a

The center of this quilt was quilted by my regular quilter, Cathy of CJ Designs. She left the basting in the borders and then turned it over to me to finish up those scalloped edges. Since the pattern is by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life, I knew she’d have good ideas of how to finish the quilt, so I pretty much mimicked what her quilter did. More information about the pattern can be found on *this post.*

Bias Binding.jpg

I followed Sherri’s directions for cutting bias binding, but used a 20-inch square as I’d added more hexies to my quilt. I needn’t have, as her directions would have provided enough length.

Field Flowers_2b

The single fold binding went smoothly around each curve, and didn’t add too much bulk.

Field Flowers_2c

Earlier that day, we’d gone over to Gless Ranch, a local purveyor of oranges, as they had old farm equipment around their property, and lots of (newly trimmed) orange trees:

Field Flowers_3a

When we got home, I noticed it had gotten dirty from traipsing around, so threw it in a cool-water wash with a couple of color catchers (first invented in the UK, by the way), and dried it until almost dry on a low heat. Like all other quilters everywhere, I love how the washed quilt looks (although I also like unwashed quilts). Lay flat to dry, so there is no transferring of ink to other damp spots. (As me how I know this.)

Field Flowers_6 Field Flowers_6a

Field Flowers_5 — Me, standing with *Field Flowers* in a field of ferns.

Happy Photographing!

Quilts

A New Place to Photograph My Quilts

January 21, 2014January 18, 2014 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

I was looking for a way to hang my quilts just for taking a photo of them. You saw my old set-up in an earlier post–stapled sheet to garage door, which doesn’t exist anymore. And while my sister and I were hanging out last week, waiting for her husband to finish getting his cancer treatment, we found clothespin bags, complete with clothesline and pins in Crate and Barrel for cheap. I bought one and began scheming.

Overhanging out house is this fascia board. My husband put two hooks, about 110″ inches apart, and we strung that clothesline between them, supporting them with two cup hooks, also equally spaced.

Then I got out the steps tool from the kitchen and hung up the quilt myself, as that was one of the criteria for my “studio.” You can see the line is hidden and just the tips of the clothespins show in the picture. But we found that this Amish quilt was too tall for the set-up. It’s about the biggest quilt I’ve ever made, and it dragged slightly on the cement. Yes, I should have put down the garage door, except right about this time two neighbors came over from two different houses to ask me about this quilt, and how could I interrupt that lovely experience?

As quilters, we are usually holed up in a room upstairs, or a basement downstairs, and only other quilters see our work on Instagram or on blogs. So, today, this quilt saw the light of day. I take it next week to go to Road to California to choose some thread. I’ve had some great suggestions from an earlier post, including thinking about using lavender thread–brilliant! Thank you all for your great suggestions; I’ll consider them all.

(my bag is similar to this photo, snagged from the web)

After I took off the clothespins, I slipped the clothesline off the hooks and stored it all away until the next time I need to photograph a quilt, and my husband isn’t around to hold up the corners.