Texture for Tuesday

Carrot Flower

Drawing Trees

I've been drawing these trees for years now; I used to doodle them on note paper in classrooms. Oddly, these trees are one of the very things I sketch with confidence, which probably explains why I draw so many of them. For this one I'm using a Micron Pigma pen in green and some white Kona cotton. Yup, I'm drawing them on fabric now. :-)

Finding Flowers

Chrysanthemums

Bluebird Asters

Silver Lace Vine

Stained Glass Leaves

Did you ever do this as a child? Did you make waxed paper and leaves "stained glass" to hang in your windows?

These maple leaves reminded me... I gathered them, cut off all their stems (well, all except that one) and layered them on wax paper. I suppose technically I gathered them, asked if we had any waxed paper, went to the store and bought waxed paper, and then cut off their stems and laid the leaves on a sheet of waxed paper.

Then put another layer over top of the leaves.
Lay a cloth over and with the iron on it's highest setting.
The heat melts the wax and bonds together trapping the leaves between layers.
Make several. Hang them in your windows. Look at the sunlight comming through, and be a child again for a little while.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programing

with dentists.
with a root canal. Ugg.
with the high cost of modern dentistry. Ugg, again.


Have you seen the bill for these things? This is my first ever root canal and crown and I'm reeling from sticker shock.


I hadn't planned on having ads on my blogs, but, well, you may have noticed the new Google Ads in my sidebar. I'm dubious about "monetizing content" ...I mean, I don't think "monetizing" is even a real word, which makes it a huge stretch to believe that they can track how many times an ad gets clicked and pay me for it. But "nothing ventured, nothing gained," as the saying goes. So I'm going to give it a try.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programing, already in progress.

Dog Paw Pillowcase

One yard of black and golden-brown ticking-stripe flannel makes a nice pillowcase.... but add a plain scrap of a dark print cut into a paw print, and suddenly I've made a one of a kind high-end "decorator" pillowcase. I love being able to sew.

Hay While the Sun Shines

Genesis 8:22
While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (ESV)

Ducks and Ducklings Block

Our fifth bird block for our scrappy sampler (we are making nine blocks and a pieced border in case I haven't said before) is Ducks and Ducklings.

Start, using your rotary cutter and mat, by cutting the following:

two dark 3 inch squares

two light 3 inch squares (those will become HSTs)

two dark 5 inch squares which you cut in triangles (in half diagonally)

four light 3 inch squares which you also cut into triangles

four light bars 1.5 inches by4.5 inches

and one square 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches

Make your Half Square Triangles -- you should have four HSTs.

Then join your light triangles to the HSTs .
First one side,
and then the other. Remember you can use chain piecing methods.

Now you should have four pieced triangles and four solid triangles (and the accent square and bars).

So put the triangles together into squares. As you are sewing each pieced triangle to each solid triangle, sew with the pieced side up so that you can see the seam allowances -- that way you can be sure to run your sewing line right through the intersection of the seams to get a crisp point.
And remember we are pressing each step of the way. Don't forget to trim off the "dog ears" too.
The laid out block now looks something like this:
We will make rows (that's a favorite method of construction). As you piece and press open your rows allow the seam allowances to lay opposite. I press towards the bars as you can see in the picture below.

That creates the nestling effect which will reduce bulkiness and help keep our corners crisp as we join the rows together.

And there's our finished block.

Tada... The Dress

Texture for Tuesday

Patterened Puffballs... usually smothly white the puffballs (a fungus similar to mushrooms) have been strangely textured this year.

In Which I Take a Break from Quilting and Go to the Movies

I have been reading A Dress a Day off and on for a while now. Long enough to recognize the lines of a "Duro" aka one of the signature style dresses designed by Duro Olowu (picture of dress).

Additionally, the other evening we watched Music and Lyrics. My review of the movie is as follows:
loose morality (which really wasn't actually necessary to the plot IMO)
great wardrobe on Drew Barrymore
hysterical 1980's music video.

Why am I telling you all this?

In one of the scenes (where she first comes to water his plants) Drew's character wears an orange dress that I could swear was a Duro.

This prompted much discussion.

After the ensuing web search, pattern search, and raiding of the fabric stashes the result was Butterick 4849 in a slightly altered form. Okay, a radically altered form. I changed the neckline for modesty, deleted a couple seams for ease of construction, created a different back bodice to carry the neck band detail all the way around, added side panels for a design more like the one in the movie, and created on-seam pockets because who in their right mind never needs a pocket?

So, yeah, that took a while; but it's done now. I think it turned out pretty well; there are a few more changes I might make next time (construction shortcuts mostly) but overall I'm pleased with it and it's crazy comfortable to wear. I'll post a picture of it as soon as I can get one snapped and downloaded.

Apples

The sky and a ceiling of leaves coalesce to form hand carved beams of fruitwood arching overhead and hung with ripening orbs of knowledge.

Apples and Sausage, Cider, Applesauce Cake with Spice Icing, Apple Pie, Apple Bread, Snitz.... comfort food, autumn food, apple food.

As I sat in the orchard, two terriers and I, munching on this "forbidden fruit" the world glowed in sunshine, that special crisp sunshine which warms but does not overheat on a late September morning, that radient sunshine which focuses the world to angles I never saw before and a freshness I thought lost with the last days of spring, that mellow light of sunshine which polishes worries and wrinkled frowns until the relaxed smiles of contentment are all that remain. Juice driped from my fingers and each bite contained the sweetness of both summer and frost.

The Golden Delicious, the Winesaps, the juice to make a nectar-fed bee jealous, fruit to feed the body and the soul. And it seemed to me much more the "tree of life" than the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." After all, an apple a day will keep the doctor away. This has been said for so long no one remembers who first uttered the phrase, perhaps it Johnny Appleseed, or perhaps it was one of the arguments the snake used in the garden. Perhaps it is true anyway. The most dangerous deceptions always contain some truth.

We have gotten away from the garden in our society, away from the true Source of life and knowledge. Our polished lies and lifeless polished grocery apples stock our shelves and fill our stomachs. Oh, they still contain some truth and they are still apples, but had you been with me this morning... we could have talked about the truth, about Knowledge and Knowing, about good and evil. If you sat with the dogs and I in the honest autumn sunshine under an organic roof of apples perhaps with one bite you would have known. I think you would have tasted it. The difference between good and evil.

Goldenrod

Goldenrod, or Solidago, is a fascinating plant. Blooming in the short days of Indian Summer this yellow flower offers not only the last big show of flowers but it also plays host to numerous beneficial insects and butterflies.

We know from the experiments of Thomas Edison that Solidago contains a natural rubber. The tires of Edison's Ford motor car were made from goldenrod rubber. However, Edison's research, turned over to the government some 50 years ago, has never gotten beyond the experimental stage.

Goldenrod is the State Flower of both Kentucky and Nebraska, and is the State Wildflower of South Carolina. In herbal medicines it is used as a kidney tonic and the pleasant tasting tea (or infusion) is said to cure allergies.

Now don't be upset, but you are not allergic to goldenrod. (Well, I'll amend that -- you could be, but you'd have to roll in it and stick some up your nose to experience the effects). Goldenrod's pollen grains are too heavy and sticky to float far on the wind.

This is Ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, the wind-pollinated source of roughly one billion pollen grains per plant which "blooms" at the same time as goldenrod. Those unattractive green lumps are the flowers of the plant (you can click to enlarge the picture). This, and not the much maligned (insect-pollinated) goldenrod, is the source of seasonal allergies.

Solidago

Now that magnificent golden honesty spills
under and around the morning jewels and
late indian summer Impatiens capensis, Rudbeckia hirta,
Lobelia cardinalis a flame of crimson or inspiration
offering the dew a place to cling to

make the filigrees of damp silver
etching which establishes the framework of the day.
The monochromatic wash of pale shimmer
rendering the morning grasses unfailingly uniform in
ornament and charm,

complements the nodding Coriopsis and Eupatoriums,
overhangs the elegance of unassuming gold.
Monardia media’s extravagant amethyst clusters and
prosaic stars of Aster white and purple gleam
obligingly arrogant among the oblivious
stately display of amarelo arch.
Itinerant bumblebees play host to Phoebis sennae the cloudless sulphur flutter which feeds
upon twining Ipomoea trumpets.
Morning glory is too small a measure to encompass,

enclose, enfold, the yellow secrets of leaves, the acid
sweet solace of late September,
the immoderate candor of goldenrod.

Birds in the Air Block

Our next nine inch sampler block is "Birds in the Air."

We will be cutting squares into triangles for this block, although we will also still use the half square triangle methods we learned in chain piecing HSTs for the Winged Square and basic half square triangles.

When cutting triangles remember you can use the 45 degree angle line on your ruler to make cutting easier.



You will need:

two light 5.5 inch squares -- which you will cut into triangles for a total of four large triangles

six dark 2.5 inch squares -- which you will cut into triangles for a total of 12 small triangles

six light and six dark 2.5 inch squares which you will use to make twelve half square triangle units.

Make your HSTs.
Lay out the elements of your block and begin sewing your "rows."
Okay you should have four pieced triangles and four large (light) triangles now. Like this:
When you're sewing the large triangles to the pieced triangles sew with the pieced side up so you can see that you are sewing through the intersection of your seams -- this way you won't chop off the tips of your triangles.
See where I drew in that green line? That's where the stitching ling goes -- right at the spot where the two seams intersect.

Okay, so take your four units and join them together... I'm still thinking of it in terms of rows even though it's just a row of two and a row of two.
Put the rows together and you have your block.

Better than Chocolate

Luke 15:15-20 – Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from the carob pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him any. When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger! I'll get up, go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.' So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. (HCS)

I have believed in Gods existence and His goodness since I was five years old. However, that fact alone, or even combined with going to church every Sunday and doing "good works" -- It was not actually enough to make me a true Christian. A belief in the existance of God is just not enough. James 2:19 says “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” (KJV) I truly became a Christian only when I surrendered my life to Christ and asked Him to save me. Here’s another way to look at it: I became a Christian when I got up out of the pig pen and went to my Father. In other words, when I acted on my belief.

We must do more than say we believe, we must make the effort to move ourselves out of the life of this world and into the life Christ would have us live. We must ask Him to carry our burdens, our mistakes, and our sins, and ask Him to guide our steps. Faith involves trusting His promises and relying on HIM, not on ourselves.

Some translations of Scripture (such as the Holeman) tell us that the pigs tended by the Prodigal Son were fed on carob pods. Many of us are familiar with carob as a substitute for chocolate. So, imagine yourself covered in mud, cold, hungry… In the air there is a smell something like chocolate, but no one offers you anything to eat, and the whole time you know that your Father has real rich, yummy, good chocolate and all kinds of good things which he shares with everyone, even the servants.

Wouldn’t you go home too?

Each of us have different moments when we feel the compelling call of Our Lord, when we have reached a point of spiritual hunger so that we can no longer resist the goodness of the life Christ offers. For me that moment came in a small church near my college. The sermon that Easter Sunday seemed preached directly at me, at the barriers of pride that had been keeping me from a true relationship with the One God who loved me and gave His Son to save me. I left that church in tears, tears of joy in my new life, tears of sorrow at the years I had wasted not living in His will, and tears of pain for the prideful sins, the burdens, that I had added to the weight of the cross.

I can tell you, if you do not yet know for yourself, that when you take that step towards the Father, when you stop just knowing He’s there and start seeking to be in His Presence, He will come running to meet you – just like the parable says.

Texture for Tuesday

Winged Square Block

For our third block I chose Winged Square, which uses three fabrics a light, a dark, and an accent.
You will need to cut twelve 2.5 inch squares from the dark and from the light.
Also from the light you will need two 3.5 inch squares.
And another 3.5 inch square from the third (accent) fabric.

Because this block has so many half square triangles I'm going to show you how I chain-piece HSTs. Begin as usual, marking the diagonals on the back of one of the fabrics.
Layer your two squares right sides together and begin sewing down one side of the line (using your quarter inch foot to create the quarter inch seam allowance). Layer and sew down the one side of all your 2.5" squares.
Then turn the long chain around and sew down the other side of the pencil line.
Then you can cut down the pencil line to separate the two HSTs.
And as you cut apart the chain you can save a few seconds by trimming off the dog ears on the same cut.
Okay, we are pressing open and now have twenty four Half Square Triangles.
You can layout the block now:
Begin assembly by joining two HSTs into a unit.
Then those units can be joined together to make squares. Keep going back to your layout and you will be able to notice the "pieced nine patch" effect. It's:
4 HSTs, 4 HSTs, light
4 HSTs, accent, 4 HSTs
light, 4 HSTs, 4 HSTs

So make those three rows and then join the rows.
OOPS! Make sure you don't do this:
If you do, don't worry, that's what seam rippers are for.
There we go, that's better, still not perfect but "good enough for government work" as a friend of mine says.
And that's our Winged Square Block.