Detail photo on the quilt

Hello, everyone.  The other day when I posted about the quilt, there was a detail of the center panel that I wanted to post, but the Blogger app insisted on turning it sideways. Even after cropping to get it wider than tall. A couple of days later it appears that the revised shape of the image has settled in.

The silhouette of the cowmen and their horses is what I think attracted DH to fall in love with the wall hanging in the store. This detail also shows most of the star blocks.

The white frame around the panel is linen from the stash. The prints, while I love them, are very monotone and the highlight really helps punch it up. IMHO.

The quilt is finished

Hello,  everyone. The quilt that was begun before the baby quilt, and set aside temporarily for it, is now completed. 

Overall view, on a bed:

This is the quilt that began when we saw a quilt using the center panel hanging on the display wall at the quilt shop in Hannibal, Missouri. The six side squares were another panel in the fabric line. The various horses prints and the cattle print, plus a number of semi-solid browns, tans, and golds, worked with the panels. The fourteen star blocks used a hats print that was in stash for the center squares.

This was a pretty big project, but it's the right size for a bedspread. I like making things that can be used and enjoyed.

Quilt in progress: Cowboy Culture (edited to correct spelling)

Hello, everyone.  This is just a short "catch-up " on the queen-sized quilt that's been a Work In Process since before we left on our Camino walk this spring. 

The genesis of this quilt was a really cool display quilt we saw in Hannibal,  Missouri, on our way from Denver to Alton, Illinois, a year or so back. I'm reasonably sure that the quilt display was mentioned in a blog post about Hannibal. It was quite a while after that road trip before work commenced, beginning with sketching on graph paper, construction of star blocks,and piecing. At this point, the whole top is assembled,  the back is assembled--used up a lot of spare blocks in the bargain there-- and the quilting is done. The binding has been constructed and now it's ready to be added. 

The binding strip is about 10 yards long, so I used a piece of scrap fabric to prevent tangles. 

The angled pin is to mark where I will stop sewing at the corner so it can be mitered.

Crazy garden tricks in Córdoba

Hello, everyone.  I was going through pictures from our 2025 Camino trip and rediscovered a photo from the Alcázar of Córdoba. It certainly took somone--maybe several someones--a lot of work to train and prune this.

Never in my life have I seen such a large and probably difficult topiary project as this tower. With a window and a crenellated top, yet!

Pistou con huevo (edited to add link)

Hello, everyone.  It's going to be hot today, and no rain in the forecast to cool it down. Pretty much the same weather we enjoyed during our time in Córdoba, after we finished our Camino Francés this year. 

As y'all will have noticed, whenever we go on a trip we notice new recipes (new to us, not new in the world) and when we come home we want to make that yummy food for ourselves. This time I discovered pistou, a dish that is both Spanish and French, which I had read about but never tried. I had pistou with eggs for dinner in Córdoba and enjoyed it very much. When we got home, I went onto the internet and found a pistou recipe at Spain on a Fork. 

Pistou involves onion, zucchini or equivalent summer squash, bell pepper, and tomato. Eggplant is optional. It's basically gently cooked veggies in the skillet. It goes great with a lot of protein foods, and if you feel like the plate is a little too low on fat, you can add some sour cream on top.

Yum.

A new zipper wallet (edited to add link)

Hello, everyone.  After walking the Camino Francés with a me-made bill fold that didn't have a closure and didn't have any kind of an idiot loop attachment, I decided that the bill fold situation could do with improvement.  After scrolling past many Youtube videos, running down long pages of search results, and thinking about it, I went back to one of those videos: Ripstop By The Roll's simple zipper pouch kit. It was almost exactly what I wanted. 

The kit came, along with another kit that inspired me in their shop, and it had a piece of ripstop that wouldn't ravel, because they use something like a hot knife to cut it, a zipper, a piece of grosgrain for grab loops, and their video. I had also ordered some pocket mesh and the sample stuff sack kit--this came with some hardware tucked into a piece of light ripstop. I made an interior pocket with the mesh, edged with some scrap ribbon in the stash, and a label tag from that scrap of light ripstop, and otherwise followed the directions as given. 

It should work out okay. 

A finished quilt, plus bonus from scraps

Hello, everyone.  There has been all kinds of activity around the home place. Particularly there has been sewing.

The baby quilt, draped over the sofa. (Nobody else was available to hold it up.)

Y'all might recognize the color scheme here.

This is the Quiltsmart Midi bag. The squares finish at 2 inches, the pattern comes printed onto fusible interfacing which makes the corner matching easier. I followed the directions to add a pocket, but I'm not excited for it, as the fold a pocket into one lining piece methods they use leaves one with a pocket on a 45 degree angle. (Oh well, I have now tried that idea out.) If I make another I'll either skip the pocket or use a more sensibly aligned method to put one in.