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I worked on this tile over the weekend. It’s for the mooka challenge for zentangle club. It needs shading. I  tried  new patterns , I am proud. I get stuck in a rut with drawing very easily.

 

This is the back of the freemotion feather I did on Moms quilt.

 

The hobo quilt is off the frame. No word from the customer who wanted it so i will send a second email,  then its anything goes on it. I did all over curls . The signs were inspired by the next picture.

 

 

 

 

We picked Iron Frost carpet, wait till June for installation. Any home project is a long task.

And the wholecloth quilt , well i added a strip, is on the frame. Waiting for quilting inspration to get my 100 day project finished!

Today plus a few thoughts on what’s Modern

 

Today started out with snow and wind and all things miserable with winter returning in time for Easter.  I should be used to it here on the 45th parallel but it is still disappointing after losing all the snow and having warm weather for a couple of week.  I needed a little pick me up today. The day was slow at work due to the weather. I was checking my email and realized that the podcast I participated in was up this am!

I was a caller, with a question, for a new podcast that Mary and Marianne Fons host. The podcast is posted  once a week. There is a segment with call in questions about quilting and life, then a celebrity section chat, references to a recipe and laughter. It is like an old radio show but it is modern too because it is a podcast.  They are so nice and the producer Heather is so cool, too.

When I called in to record my session there was a technical problem so I got to talk to the ladies for about 20 minutes. It was like I had known them for years. I did meet Mary once and videoed  a Quilty episode a couple of years ago , a wonderful experience then and this was a great time because I was able to  talk to her mother, too. My question was about having rejections in the quilt world and how to deal with them. I did get some great advice. Go to their web page www.quiltyourheartout.com. It is episode 6. Also there is a link to a notes page and it has links to the Quilty episode I was in as well as more info about the show and other guests.

I continued to treat myself today and had a Lara bar. Yum, it’s gluten free, vegan and supposed to be healthy. Have no idea what’s in it but they are great!

I worked on my 50th birthday quilt and it is a pattern by Mary Fons  called Emeralds, more treats for me. My birthstone is emerald and I plan to have 50 blocks with 50 different greens in the centers. A day of being kind to me after a long couple of weeks of not feeling well felt soooo good. I am also treating myself because things at work are gonna get stressful and lots of changes coming in the future.

I am starting a new account on a social media called Ello. I am not liking the algorithms of Facebook or possibly Instagram. Blogging is nearly dead ,so I will try it. You can find me at my name Vicki Holloway.

I am looking at several feeds on social media with modern quilts, which I love btw. I am a bit curious as to why obsolete items are such popular things to make as a modern styled quilt. Things like cassete tapes, envelopes (because who writes letters and mails them), typewriters, board games and quilting words using cursive writing. These items wont’t even be remembered by culture in a few years. I guess I don’t understand why you would spend so much time making a quilt and the people in the future won’t even understand the reference or even be able to read the  words ( I truly believe cursive will be a lost language studied only by archeologists and anthropologists as a lost language). It’s like watching old comedies with specific trendy jokes that are lost because no one understands the reference— good thing there is Google to look it up.

Vicki

 

 

 

 

spring, nope not yet!

 

First day of spring has passed. The snow melted and warmed up the ground . Then it cooled off , it snowed  and there is 8 more inches in the forecast tonight. I am glad I don’t have to drive out of town and then a three day weekend to continue to recuperate from my last bout of vertigo. I was able to exercise more this week and I even did some yoga tonight with only a few bobbles but no falls. Moving my head about is still a challenge. Robins are back but they won’t be happy little birds.

 

I started to lay out the Hobo signs quilt and the center was going well . I decided to make a border with blocks that were a little smaller and this is what I came up with.

 

It is a quilt that was made because someone my Dad met wanted one. So I sent him an email and I hope that he likes it. I hope to quilt it this next week or so. It is 38 x38.

I am making a feather- filled with anything goes- on a quilt my Mom made and wanted me to quilt. . So here is how the feather starts after the first pass. It looks pretty good but needed something.

 

 

And I filled them in with whatever I liked as I made the second pass. I like it !

Vicki

 

Ideas

 

I made a quilt top this week. It is called Giggles by Jaybird Quilts. I used the sidekick ruler that she developed and it made quick work of this chevron quilt. I am going to teach a class at Delphine’s Quilt shop next month, a first for me, on this quilt. Teach a formal class, to quilters!  I have the top completed to be displayed for National Quilt day tomorrow at the shop. I will pick it up in a week and then quilt it.

 

This fun quilt block is the Aurifil Designer block of the month and Christa Watson designed it. Here is a link to her blog and all the info. There is a giveaway for Aurifil thread, too, at Pat Sloan’s blog, click on link to see how to enter. I made this block strictly to enter the contest lol. I like it, and her pattern is really well done!

 

 

I was listening to Quilt your Heart out‘s recent pod cast. The special guest was talking about making quilts to commemorate life’s moments. I never have made any memory quilts and I don’t really have any desire to… you know those T shirt quilts or a top made from deceased people’s clothing…. not really for me. However,  I have made quilts for babies and weddings, graduations and for comfort. But I began to think…. what about doing something for me. I have a 50th birthday in May. And it is bothering me just a little bit.

I googled ideas for a 5oth birthday quilt. I found an idea for making a quilt based on your birthstone and use 50 colors. Hmmm, I love a quilt I saw named emeralds that I saw on Quilty and on Fons and Porter. Mary Fons designed it and talked about it. It is definitely a quilt on my Must Do List.  Then, I googled more and saw that it was in Quilting Jan/Feb 2015. I then realized, I HAVE  THAT ISSUE! And you can see I found it.

So here is my plan. I want to make 50 of these Emerald blocks. They will all have a different center, and all shades of greens like Mary’s quilt. I saw another quilt online made of 50 blocks and it was King Sized. I plan to make this during my 50th year. I even made one block and you can see that I have several greens in my stash. But only about 15… I guess I will have to buy more this year , so sad isn’t it!

And I made my first block the week of St Patricks Day, it’s meant to be,

Vicki

 

New things

 

I really am excited to share what we won at the silent auction at the Hoolie on Saturday.  I  really enjoyed the band and the cd is well produced. Love all the tracks on it, nice music to listen to this Monday after Daylight Saving’s time. I got a Shamrock pin and then the other prize is ….  A basket of art supplies! Pastels, watercolors, paper, pencils, coloring book. I haven’t even taken everything out. I do believe I will use all of these supplies in my drawing and Zentangle projects.  I was pretty excited to win all of these treats! I  plan to celebrate by drinking some bubbly out of the champagne flutes. Maybe my 50th birthday?

So far one of my 5th time grandfather’s was born on the Isle of Mann, an island off Ireland. I think that he is the first ancestor in my tree born in another country. I have many others born in Ireland and I am finding that I don’t know much about them. I am trying to find out more like why did they leave when they did? Did they come alone? Did they all become farmers? Seems like they did. I also want to know if they were an Indentured servant because my grandmother said someone was. The more you find out the more questions are brought up.

Happy Pi day, wish I had a chicken pot pie and an apple pie. Had salad instead. Ick

Vicki

 

 

Daylight Savings time, why ?

 

I often wondered why we do daylight savings time. It was just getting lighter in the mornings and it felt like spring was in the air. I heard that it was supposed to help conserve energy when I was a kid. I did some research and that was the original reason… WWI was the first time that the clocks were changed to save energy and see more daylight at the end of the day. Of course, more daylight in the evening is proposed to be “good” for the economy  in modern times because people are outside more and doing more and spending more and driving more and… you get the gist. I think that the problem adjusting to the change is not worth the sleep lost and the cranky Monday afterward.

This block was made this week for a person I met on Instagram who is going to deploy this summer for 7 months. She is making a deployment sampler quilt made from supportive quilters all over the world. She wanted 10.5 inch blocks. So I made an Economy block and didn’t measure each component accurately. Mine was too big so I quartered it and this is the result.

I sent mine off and I hope to hear from her because I volunteered to quilt a little quilt for her before she leaves. I can’t imagine leaving my toddler and my husband for my job … for 7 months. I need more home time and stability. I didn’t like it when my husband was in the Air Fore and he only left once for a year. That was it for me, I officially hated it.

 

I am trying my hand at a Hobo quilt. So far this is what I have made and I drafted each block in EQ. I am not sure how I will lay it out, I saw an inspiration quilt at a rail road gift shop however, I am not fond of the layout. This said gift shop gave my name to a customer that wanted a quilt similar to a donated wall hanging in the museum. I hope that the customer likes it. It is truly custom. We will see. I like it and that is important too. More about the signs when the quilt is done and all the info will be disclosed then.

And I finished Pat Sloan’s free Secret Garden Mystery quilt. One a month the pattern is released, they are 16 inches and I am loving my stash buster!

 

I did have an opportunity to go out for a couple of hours Sat night and celebrate St Patrick’s day. I have not been well and vertigo is still bothering me but I was able to get out. We had dinner and listened to music from the UK. I love Irish/Celtic music and it was very good. The band was called The Outside Track.  I really enjoyed the evening to kick off my week of celebrating all things Irish. And I can now say, after my DNA results, that I am Irish. I found many of my family on Ancestry this winter  and it has encouraged me to learn more about them!

I will show you what we won at the silent auction tomorrow!

Vicki

 

Blog writing prompts

 

How do you feel about adults who take tango lessons? Explain.

 

This is a prompt from a blog that Mary Fons wrote for her blog, a jumping off point to have for a blog post. I agree with her assertion that the more we practice the better we can get at a craft, art or skill. Mary writes Paper Girl and it is well worth the read. I am looking at using blogging prompts to help my creativity and ultimately help me with completing my 100 day project which will be a long armed whole cloth quilt. Writing helps with my creative process and will help in completing this project.

How do I feel about adults who take tango lessons? VERY Jealous. I wish I could dance. I have to say I can’t. I have damaged balance mechanisms in my ears so I can barely walk some days. I love the music, the movement and the passion.

Tango is not a dance I ever had a chance to witness until ballroom dancing was on TV for a world championship competition years ago. I was memorized. I wished I had the body to wear the costume. I had never worn anything fancy in my life, not even a prom dress. The dresses were so spectacular, sparkly and DRAMATIC. The movements so fluid and the dancers moving in such perfect timing. It takes a tons of guts do pull off such a dramatic dance, in high heels, wearing a sexy dress and not hurt yourself!

The music is what I would call exotic. I played upright bass in our schools music program as well as jazz band so I was very familiar with the style of music. The beat, the unique sound of the dance transported me to a place in my imagination to where the dancers would be… a hot ballroom in South America. I had no idea that the Tango was still a dance that continues today, and not just a dance done in old movies,  until I recently watched a travel show devoted to it.

I would love to tango however, I would fall and hurt myself. If  had the opportunity to play in a band that was the live music,  it would be divine. That would be as close as I would get to ever dancing a tango let alone take a lesson.

Vicki