Eclipse

Last weekend we headed to southern Oregon to see an annular eclipse.  They are fairly rare and this was almost a once in a life time chance to see one (the next one in our part of the world will be in 50 years or so).  It was pretty amazing and spectacular - the only problem was that you really need specialty equipment to photograph it. 

I did get the above picture with my camera phone - somehow it was giving a weird reflection of the eclipse (not really sure how it came out but I really like it!).  While in the area we also hit up the local children's science museum and I found this exhibit:
 

How cool is that!  Both boys got right to it and played with the design wall for a while before moving on to other exhibits. 

There was also a sign on the side that had several puzzles to figure out by putting together the quilting squares in the right order.  Tonight I'm off to the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild sew-in to work on quilting my wonky pinwheel quilt.

Jay McCarroll challenge quilt

Last year the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild participated in the Jay McCarroll Habitat challenge.  I was excited to take up the challenge since I had never participated in one before.  I really liked the way the fabrics looked online - there was lots of green!  But, when I saw them in person I was a little disappointed.  The green wasn't as pretty as it appeared to be and looked a little drab.  And, I had a hard time photographing it - the colors just weren't coming out well in the prints.  It took me a long time to decide what to do with the fabric  In the end I decided that I would make a baby quilt since a friend of mine was pregnant (and I gave it to her last weekend which is why it took so long to blog about it).

 

I used a ribbon block tutorial from my friend Jessica.  I've also seen similar tutorials online calling it a "slice and dice" or "slice and insert" method.  It was super easy and I really liked how it turned out.  I'll definitely be doing another one.

And, Dominic had to get in on the photo shoot too!

Trying new things

The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild is taking submissions for an upcoming show this summer.  I do have a few completed quilts in the house but none that would really fit with the theme of the show (modern, minimalist, neutral).  Most of the quilts in the house are very bright and busy.  Over the years I've made many sketches of quilt ideas that would fit easily with the show so I decided to try one of them out.

I really don't think it's working.  I like the red star - it looks like a star.  But, the others seem to be too wonky and not star like enough to be recognizable as stars (the blue one looks more like a sailboat than a star!).  It is supposed to be a wonky version of this pattern (anyone know the name of it?):

I'm not sure if I should keep trying to make more or just move on to something else since I do have other ideas I'd like to try out.

Happy Easter

We had a lovely Easter this year.  The weather warmed up suddenly and we spent almost the whole day playing in the back yard in shorts!  This year involved baking up some fresh challah bread,

a lovely lemon cake,

alien eggs taking over our fridge,

and sewing up a few bunny rabbit softies for the Easter baskets.

Story Stones

Back in December I found on Amazon this cute dice game, Rory's Story cubes.  You roll the dice and make up a story based on the pictures you roll.  I thought it was a great idea for Dominic but decided to wait to get it since the dice would be a choking hazard for Malcolm (he's one of those kids who tries to eat everything and has an amazing knack for finding small things to eat).  Then a week ago I saw Story Stones on Pinterest - similar idea but baby safe. I showed the picture to Dominic and he was immediately for making some.

We went rock hunting as soon as the sun peaked out from behind the rain clouds.  Even Malcolm helped find them!

Then we washed them up and I started drawing on pictures.  I had Dominic give me a list of items to draw and added in some ideas of my own.  We need to collect more stones since many of our first batch are too dark or too rough for the markers I was using.  Some turned out better than others but they have been a big hit so far.

I love anything that will encourage my boys to be creative and use their imaginations.  Now, the only problem is finding a nice container in which to store them.

Cutting squares...

I haven't done a lot of sewing lately - just finished up the binding on the hot pad above for our kitchen table.  I feel like I'm on inspiration overload and I needed to step back and let some ideas digest before moving on to the next few sewing projects I have in mind.  In the mean time I've been working my way through my scraps to cut more 2.5 inch squares - eventually I will have enough for a scrappy Irish chain.  But, I'm very tempted to use them in the granny square block I've seen all over the Internet.

Free Motion

I finally free motion quilted a whole quilt!  It was easier than I thought but I still need to practice more.  Next up is binding it and then I'm going to baste and mark the next one for more quilting!