February 14, 2023: Keeping busy through the heart of winter; shopping; Earthly Delights

Greetings dear readers! I continue to make more log cabin blocks and am now up to 76!

The photos don’t really do justice to the lovely subtle colors. A bit closer:

Did I say something in my last post about trying to not purchase more fabric? It’s true – I’m “trying”😊. But I had an excuse to shop recently! When I was a winner of my guild’s Challenge competition last August, I won a $50.00 gift certificate to one of my favorite quilt shops, “Quilted Threads” and didn’t have an opportunity to get to the shop till last week. It’s an easy 1 hour drive away and well worth the trip! It’s the only shop within driving distance that has a room full of authentic Japanese and “taupe” fabrics. I collected a lot of these type fabrics over the years, but – as is typical for me – I had a dearth of certain light value fabrics, especially greens and blues, so that was my main mission. Sorry for the blurry photo, but here’s part of their room of taupes:

A little closer and then the wall behind me:

I purchased a bunch of quarter yard pieces and “mostly” 😊 stayed within budget. Most of the pieces were from Yoko Saito’s newer “Centenary” collection:

I needed some hard to find darker greens too:

I’ve already used most of them in the newest LC blocks. One of my readers – thank you Elizabeth! – commented after my post on “renegades and sparklers” that she thought Roberta Horton had introduced to her, long ago, the idea of sparklers, but wasn’t sure about renegades. I figured, right away, that I might well have come upon those terms previously in all the books and magazines I’ve read over the years. I pulled out this wonderful book by Roberta that I hadn’t looked at in years:

And look what I found!:

RENEGADES! The term has probably been buried “subliminally” in my brain for a while. Fascinating how something like that just pops out sometimes. I did not, however, find the term “sparklers” in the book, though can’t say I read it word for word. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if others have used it along the way and it was also buried in my brain waiting to come out at the appropriate moment 🙂.

Here’s my design wall – there’s something new on it:

I’ve been diligently working on purging and organizing, trying to give an hour or two per day to it. I have a basket overflowing with charm squares of repro style fabrics and decided that making these into half square triangles would be a good start on a donation quilt. Making at least 3 donation quilts is one of my goals for the year and with charm squares the basic cutting is already done and one can get to the sewing right away.

I will make a ton of blocks, even as I continue to work on my other projects, then play with different settings before sewing blocks together.

I’m happy to report my cleaning and organizing are going well! I started with the closet which was a nightmare – no “before” photos!🙂. I do, though, have a photo of it about half done; the lower 2 shelves are still waiting for attention:

I’ve paid special attention to labeling everything and making things I need accessible:

I’ve hauled away 2 large garbage bags of stuff and set aside bags of things for either my town’s swap shop or my guild’s “free stuff” table. I still have quite a bit to do, but am feeling very good about the progress I’ve made!

I managed to get 3 more hexagon stars made (plus some hand quilting) while watching the Super Bowl on Sunday:

I read quite a few blogs and enjoy following links to other sites and exploring some of them. I can’t remember how I came across this web site – Collosal (thisiscollosal.com) – but it’s a great site with wonderful posts on art, design, crafts, and photography. I highly recommend it. In the Crafts section, there was a post on 1/25 on Julia Shore’s “Mossy Embroideries” which I found to be lovely!

I love these and they remind me so much of what I’m looking at on my winter walks:

And the lichens:

Here’s a recent shot of the pond:

I love finding and looking at the stark beauty of the hibernating and partly dead plants surrounding the pond:

Wishing you all happy stitching!

Be kind, be grateful, and cherish each day, Gladi