Quilty Thoughts & Blog Photos

Last fall, Pencil girl and I attended the NW Quilt Show at the Expo center, here in Portland.
That's where we took the long-arm quilting class put on by Boersma's (McMinnville).

I was going through  my photos on my smarty pants phone this morning and I realize
I've been gearing up to this blog post for quite a while.
Why do I blog? Why do you blog? What's the purpose of blogging?
This seems to be a yearly ritual with me - to re-examine the reasons.

Check out the photo above?
Is this not a great presentation of these felted purses? As one with the background - the craft extended?

1. I take photos because they interest me.

I know I'm interested, but I can definitely say that most people are not. This photo could be printed onto paper - but why? No one, not even me, will ever view it again. However, in this context of the blog post, it obtains value.

2. By putting these photos into a blog 'story', I will read them again.

3. My memory's going.
Yours is too. These two photos of the modern-style blanket are from a book, not from the NW Quilt Expo. I was drawn to to the design and what fabrics the designer used. (polar fleece).
I don't even recall the book now but I took them about the same time as the NW quilt Expo.

Frankly, my phone camera doesn't like to rotate photos. I am reasonably sure that I took the first photo of this polar fleece blanket the same way as the second - yet technology trumped me again.

4. Keep up with technology.

Simple, but striking striped pillow case.

5. To recall design decisions.

I am enjoying Pinterest as a way to organize my thoughts on sewing design.

Many bloggers are making the switch to Instagram as a blogging platform. 
One photo, one thought.

My perception of Instagram.    I haven't used it as of yet.

My mind is full of random thoughts.
Blogging helps organize them, edit them & more importantly, get them out of my head to a place where they can be useful.





6. This is not a quilting blog.
I have zero interest in piecing this quilt but I can enjoy the result without having to make it myself.
My blog is not about any one sewing method. --Just random ramblings of things that interest me.

I have been able to distinguish that hand made items are valuable - by writing this journal. By writing things down, we start to understand patterns & repetitions in our thoughts.





A very useful add-on table. If you were going to make a thousand HST (half-square triangles) that all needed to be pressed.



This art quilt won First place. What makes it 'special'? What were the judges looking for?

7. My blog is a place to put photos of things I've experienced. Wait... wasn't that the number one reason?

The art quilt above is called "Flight Path". Those who read my blog know that I have a rabid interest in flying. Taking photos is a way to recall events that are brought to mind by the photo.

Seeing this photo again recalls a sunny spring day with airplanes taking off to fly out for breakfast and (random segue here) the need for less chemicals in my yard in order to attract fluttering  butterflies and hummingbirds (and segueing back) recognizing a particular round engine noise.

8. Writing to express to the world, "Who am I"?

Photos definitely say more about me than I do. Chatty Cathy was a doll who talked as much as I do. Yet, I do not share my most private thoughts with  most people. I can talk a lot about nothing at all. I work in retail where I can BS with the best of them. But I am innately careful not to share too much.

My blog allows me to do so to a select few.





3. Memory.

What a fickle creature. I've seen this purse pattern around the blogasphere in various formats and I am drawn to making this purse. Just a reminder.



Traditional quilting but monochromatic.




I was drawn to something in this photo - enough to take a photo. Was it the materials used to create texture? The actual material? The pattern?











9. Mostly, I just like a place that encourages me to write more and a place to dump my photos.




Oregon Coast Art quilt. Love those random squares and rectangles on the side sashing.






***bye bye photos taking up space on my smarty pants phone.

Ahoy There!

Swimming against the tide  has been my weeks' story. And I know the full moon was last week.
Somehow you get through it. ( I was just e-mailing a friend about some of the techno-trouble I have had this week-- it's like I am the south magnet next to another south magnet on the electronic stuff. Very repelling!)
Just the highlights: My 2002 computer decided to go into a coma yesterday. Still in a frazzle because of the cumulative week's events, I left the house this morning determined not to spend it at home spinning my wheels.
I drove over to my niece's house to see my great-nieces, used her computer to send necessary e-mails, helped Phea pluck a still-warm-to-the-touch egg from Bob (the chicken) and ate it for lunch. They have a second chicken, Spot, who also lays eggs but they are tiny ones. Bob's eggs are the standard large size.

I moved on to meeting Pencil Girl at the NW Quilt Expo where we bought some totally frivolous items and thoroughly enjoyed each others company.

 A modern (Indian) Button Blanket. This  was a kick to look at. 
Stapling a criss-cross  pattern became the quilting. Plastic doodads (from your socks, hang tags, etc) ranged amongst the buttons on the border. Lots of grommets for textural interest .
At the top is spelled out "LOON< LOONEY< LUNATIC".

After surviving rush-hour traffic home and wrecks just one minute ahead of me, I arrived home, fresh (lol) and ready to tackle my computer problem. I was able to open my add/delete program and deleted one gigantic 1700MB Garmin file and that alone cleared my computer enough to get it back up to speed. Earlier in the morning, I was able to get onto my husband's side (segregated computer) and start a serious AVG scan where it was determined there was no virus - just NO MORE SPACE.
Definitely a new computer in the near future - maybe for Christmas when I have a kid home to install all those necessary operating programs.

Here's some movies I took yesterday - once I deleted photos on my "Memory card full" camera. (I have other memory cards but they were stashed in a very important place last year when we did the wood floors).
Thankfully, my next set of rechargeable batteries actually held a charge so I could get these take-offs.

And you might as well see two take-offs:
{and TURN the VOLUME up!)








And if you still want to participate in mailing a letter or a postcard or a package to help keep mail delivery you can see this post as to why it even matters.
Thank you.

Serging

On Friday, Pencil Girl and I went to the NW Quilt Show at the Expo.  We talked about taking the bus in and riding the yellow Max but time constraints made us drive in. Parking at the Expo is eight bucks now! I was so shocked.
 I expected this show to be more quilt related - which it is, but it had more to offer... We ended up spending a good five hours there - getting creatively charged up. And, getting a lot of catching up done.

Pencil Girl's necklace that she bought last year.

 One vendor was selling these t-shirts. With the extra fabric on the front, they were oddly 'stiff'. 
But you can see where they added a panel of fabric on top, sewed parallel lines at a diagonal angle and then took scissors to snip in-between the stitching lines.

This t-shirt on a sales person was from Anthropology. It's done with elastic thread. Kinda random and I think -done before the t-shirt is constructed. Elastic thread goes in the bobbin.

 I've been once to the Sister's Quilt Show.
This sponsoring fabric store is always worth going to. They have the cutest greeting cards which open up for a small project.

And - I bought my serger at this booth.
Yes - after forty years of sewing and making do, I now can play on my very own serger.

More Quilt Bug photos.