Flower Pot

Our house at the courtyard entrance.

Building Materials, Finally

While I've been busy and distracted with a mortgage refinance, fabric has been arriving in the mail.  We've struck pay dirt for the fish hatchery building.  These fabrics are about as true to life as I'm likely to find, and I'm ready to start sewing.  I counted the rows of roof tiles in my photograph, then figured out the number of fabric roof tiles that would fit in the space available.  There is one less row in the fabric, so the scale is excellent.  I may not be getting rich at the local gaming tables or with the California Lottery, but I'm lucky in love and fabric.

This blog is forcing me to face the fact that I am a very slow worker.  I spend more time thinking than sewing.  My quilt output has gone from ten a year to just one.  That's OK - the newer ones tend to be larger and more complex, which gives me more pleasure.  Anyway, since I can go for long periods without apparent progress, I'll be cutting my posts down to two per month.  At mid-month, I'll post a picture of what's been accomplished on the hatchery quilt.  At the beginning of each month, I will post a picture of one of my House of the Month quilts.  It works out nicely starting with the July quilt since May and June are my least favorite of the twelve.

If you read the last two posts, you saw quilts I made using techniques called Stack 'n Whack and Strips and Curves.  I'm always looking for ways to make things harder, and thought these two techniques would look good combined.  I was right!  Here's what I came up with.  Maybe I'll call it Maraschino Cherries and Green Olives.  Until next time...

No News

I have no progress to report this week, but I continue to look for fabrics that can represent the stone fish hatchery building and it's tile roof.  You're invited to visit my new page, Bill's Photographs, for a travelogue of our trip to Markleeville, California.  The link is at the top of the right hand column.

Several years ago, Bethany Reynolds developed her technique, Stack 'n Whack, to achieve a kaleidoscopic design.  There are several designs and I've made quite a few including this quilt which is composed mostly with one Japanese print fabric.  Only the red triangles, two gray backgrounds and the borders are separate fabrics.  The idea is to stack four, six or eight identical lengths of fabric together and whack them into the desired shapes with a rotary cutter.  When you piece your square, hexagonal or octagonal block, the repeating design makes a nice pattern.  I don't remember what I named this quilt so let's call it Cats for the fabric I used on the back.  I think it's prettier in person.  Until next time...