The parrot is finished

Hello, everyone.  I might have put up a project progress report a few months ago on this bird. It's from a quilt pattern by Quilt Fox Design. The wall hanging version was a class project at RGV Sew and Quilt, a little ways down the road. The class was a lot of fun.

I was so excited to have this finished that I hung it up even before ironing the rumples out. (Sorry) Much of the quilting was basically echoes of the fabric shapes, with a couple of areas done in straight lines. I did change the thread color to go with the fabric substrate so that the bird would remain the focus of the project. 

The pattern, in case anyone wants to make a pieced parrot.

A small project to relax with

Hello,  everyone.  After the big quilt, I was a little tired, mentally,  and wanted to do something that's not such a HUGE commitment of time and energy. 

A piece of scrap from the vinyl sided zipper bag we did in Sewing Club a while back looked a little bit like a boat...one thing led to another and it turned into a fidget mat.

There was a satin triangle that had been a stitching test piece, so now it has stitched texture, and a triangle also left from that zipper bag, a piece of solid blue left over from making a different zipper pouch, some more of the shiny, blue "fur" in the stash...I embroidered a couple of fish in the blue water and added bead "bubbles" and some decorative stitches from the sewing machine to imply currents and seaweed, more scraps to make a hillside building with a little path and some button shrubs...it was all very relaxing until it was time to stitch onto the fur. Then the texture was getting into the presser foot of the machine. I ended up covering all of the fur with Sulky Solvy to hold it still.

At the end, I  used solid golden binding that was left from the big quilt. (I had cut about 10 yards and connected them all together. It wasn't a surprise that there was some extra.)

It was a nice break from manipulating huge piles of fabric. 

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.