Morning skies

Hello, everyone.

Being up in time for the display, I ran outside with a camera and caught these:

The tree ducks are up.

Weather report: for the last couple of weeks, afternoons have been about 100 (38 for my metric zone readers.) Again today, no dew. No forecast of rain either.

Welcome to "La Canícula.”

Block exploration

Hello, everyone.

As always, the new project is seizing my attention and energy. Thinking up the design and choosing color schemes and looking at block ideas and so on is so much fun.

I look at Pinterest. I look at quilt block books around the house. I look at my own stuff. I think about the person who might get the piece.
And in the process there is always, always a new block that screams "make me! I'm perfect for this quilt."

Out comes the graph paper, the pencil, the Pentel Hi Polymer white eraser (wonderful for erasing pencil marks--but I do prefer the automatic-eraser-pencil shape to the block I have at the moment) and maybe the highlighter pens to help the lines come clear.

Guess it's time to locate another sheet of graph paper!

I've filled 2 sheets of graph paper so far, plus odd bits. Some of the designs are original, some are adaptations of designs in 501 Quilt Blocks, some are adaptations of designs that are already being permutated all over Pinterest...and likely other places I don't even know about.

The latest one to be actually played with is the rocket ship. The versions I saw online were mostly curvy applique shapes. I actually like piecing better than applique. The pieced ones I saw had blunt nose cones that for some reason didn't appeal to me. They were made of a pair of half-square triangles.

But there is a lady out there who had worked out how to make half-rectangle triangles. (Her blog seems to have disappeared, maybe she got busy and decided it was just one too many things to keep up with? But she had posted it in this other location also.) I thought that might be just the thing for a rocket nose cone.

Half-rectangle triangles. Note the offset of the corners on the unpressed one.

It's tricky to assemble--if you line up the wrong corners you get a kite instead.
You will note that this one does NOT have any offset corners. Oops.

Like half-square triangles, you have to allow extra seam allowance.
You have to have a strip of the wide size for triangle creation,
and of the regular size for squares and rectangles.

In the last photo, the top rectangle is assembled from a piece of wider fabric. The bottom rectangle was assembled from "standard" 1.5" wide strips. As you can see, it basically becomes a 1" rectangle at the narrow dimension. The wider one is a wee bit too wide for me, and too long, but I didn't look up the allowance for triangles before cutting the wider strip. The difference is probably just user error.

First draft of the rocket ship! This is the 4x6 version. If I wanted it to be 6x6,
I would just add another strip of space on each of the sides.

I use glittered fabrics for testing, because I've concluded that all that metallic print stuff is going to end up tarnishing a few years down the road. The star motif for the background, though, is definitely in the plan. The flame at the bottom will be in an honest red, gold, orange, or yellow. And the rocket ship will probably be either in light gray print or in dark gray print against a light sky background. It makes the rocket ship easier to see that way.

This layout did make a rocket, but the conclusion for me is that, like the whale blocks in the last quilt, some minimizing of internal seams is in order. Also, just to minimize the tricky factor--and make no accidental kites--I'll probably use the "add a bit on the corners" method that's often used for the snowball block. (Link has a video. They used a 10 inch square for the body of the snowball.) It's just more foolproof. And instead of three slices of 1.5" fabric for the body of the ship, I'll probably use a 3.5"x 2.5" rectangle. More foolproof, again.

A Burda dress pattern

Hello, everyone.

As part of the continuing campaign to use up stash, I devoted a chunk of fabric to making a dress from the Burda pattern magazine. (It used to be World of Fashion but I don't know what its current name is.)

There were two versions in the magazine, a short one with pockets and short sleeves and an upright (not to say Mao) collar, and a longer one with inseam pockets and long sleeves and a plain neckline.

I mixed and matched a little while tracing my current size.

From the September, 2014 issue, pattern 101

(I dug out the magazine to caption the photo and learn that its current name is Burda Style.)

I styled it with a belt and a necklace that was on hand, the beaded one with the charcoal Cross of St. James and little pink accents. It works. I used the skirt length of the longer version and the sleeves of the shorter one, used the collar, and used the front pockets as well. Skipped putting a hook and eye onto the front neck opening...hate to be choked in my clothes.

Now getting ready to quilt up the Pink Explosion quilt and doing prep work to start another one: in blues this time, with a boyish theme. Boats, rockets, airplanes, something like that.

Finished the Crystalline Wheat Chain necklace

Hello, everyone.

As you can see, I got all excited and named the stringing pattern. (How else ya gonna remember which one it is, right?)

The heart was inherited from MIL a few years back.

I think this is an encouragement to go monochrome on at least some of the beading. (Okay, okay, the freeform piece wasn't even close to monochrome. But the Dutch spiral bracelet was at least closely-related colors.)

A new bead stringing design

Hello, everyone.

I was inspired by a photo of a diamond necklace in the paper the other day. The shapes and colors were graceful and balanced and I wanted to try and make something like it.

an homage to Chanel, in glass

The original, metal settings and gems, looked like it would be stiff and not drape. This version, owing to the difference in media, will drape very nicely. (Size 11 Japanese seed beads and Magatamas, strung on 6 lb. crystal Fireline. Photographed on the reverse side of my Kindle.) I'm thinking that as the chain for a pendant it would be lovely...maybe I'll use up those filigree-leaf pendants inherited from MIL a few years back...

And it's going to be over 100F every afternoon this week. (38C for my metric zone readers.)

Clouds

Hello, everyone.

Happy Fourth of July to all my American readers. I am not of a mind to run out to stores today, as it's a day to be grateful in my opinion.

On another subject,  I was "strolling" through photos and noticed that cloud pictures aren't something that has come up around here. I've always been partial to a nifty looking cloud. Sometimes, I've even had a camera on hand to record the once-off shape and shade of the cloud that caught my attention.

Seen about 4:30 PM in south Texas (spring? summer? I forget)

Onrushing hailstorm in April of 2012

From a Mississippi ferry near Alton, Illinois

Looking back toward Pamplona in late May, 2014.
 These clouds proceeded to drop rain and ice bits on us a little while later.

On Ocala National Forest, Florida, in 2015. The tickiest place I have ever been.
With pretty poufs of clouds overhead.

Just for fun

Hello, everyone.

At a Visitor's Center in Missouri.