Food, glorious food!

 I never imagined baby beets could be so beautiful -- such a multicolored bouquet.  They were at the Saturday Farmer's Market in the Railroad section of Santa Fe.  A glorious farmer's market where the onions were like new found pearls and the carrots were golden nuggets, the breads were heavenly, the sausages spicy and mouth watering.  A few of these beets plus carrots and snap peas, became our dinner that evening.  Yum!

Ruth's creative life

Ruth,  nearly 80, has a house full of art and craft, much of it produced by her in her TWO  -- yes, not one but two -- studios, and much  of it collected over her years in Mountainair, New Mexico and all of it on display in her house that is a work of collage in itself.  Above my two daughter, Rachel in background and Leslie (back of her head) admire just a tiny corner of a rather capacious house as Ruth leads us to yet another discovery.

She studied doll making (the dolls are all over the house) and currently makes patterns for a famous doll maker. She paints -- and has painted the walls, inside and out, of her house in the folk colors of the Southwest.  We were privileged to spend a night at her house and to wander through rooms full of delight. I will never get over the envy of her space for creating and will always be inspired by her open spirit. 

We met 17years ago on a trip to Tibet -- at that time she wore gold sneakers and had orange hair.  When she was widowed she left her home in Los Angeles and moved to New Mexico near a sister who is also a creative person. We kept in touch with letters every few months and I have told her that she was my inspiration for moving from a large city to a small town and making friends, living a full creative life.  Before we left the next morning she took us to the homey coffee house in town which has become her social center, where she decorates for Christmas and helps out a bit when needed and always meets loving and interesting friends.

Quilt #3

 This log cabin quilt, with stair steps grew on my design wall slowly over about three months.  But it's done now and I'm very happy with the colors.  I always love log cabins and when they're just a little different that's all the better.

A friend sent a vintage-y quilt magazine (maybe from the '50s) which had a picture of a traditional dark and light log cabin with red stairs steps.  I loved it but I've been making black and white and red quilts for a while -- I have one ready to be quilted right now -- so I wanted different colors.  I think I have a home for this quilt -- as a hostess gift in the near future.

An anniversary quilt done

I was commissioned to make this quilt, which is about 22x28 inches, for the couple's first anniversary.  The poem embroidered in the upper left of the picture was written by Sam, the groom, and sung to Yomiko, the bride . This is from a photo, obviously, which I was able to print on fabric.  I created her gown and his formal attire from my own fabric.  The gold colored background and binding is a William Morris all over design.  The white border is from a Japanese print fabric which also had all the flowers which were fussy cut and fused onto the design.  I had quite a bit of input from the commissioner of the piece, including choosing the fabrics  and arranging the flowers.  So in a sense I was not the designer, just the sewer.  It will be given to them this weekend.  I hope they like it.

First finished, first started

No posts for a while because I have been working on a number of quilts more or less simultaneously.  Several will, I think, be finished this week although not in the order in which they were begun. 


This woven quilt is finished ... maybe. It was the first begun.  I have it hanging so I can decide if I want to add a few bead embelishments.  I have blue and fushia stones and I think a bit of sparkle might be a good thing. I took away the dark blue border I had originally and added this Hoffman fabric with what appears to be faceted diamond shapes. With the blue it was very somber, but now it almost asks for more sparkle so probably I will add the beads, not a lot, and not in a pattern. 

I hope to finish two more projects tomorrow and then I have a quilt to quilt that has been waiting about six months.  I hope to do that soon too.  After that there are two not too big quilts promised for our Bayberry quilt show, one is moving along slowly and the other is entirely in my head but will be fairly quick to make, and will be only about 20x20.  I love the feeling of finishing things, of "moving right along."

Another BOM - Attic Windows

This Attic Window block -- times two -- is super easy and super fast -- except for some reason I find it hard to get the corner block exactly in place.  Doing a corner block, as can be seen here eliminates mitering at the corner.  It makes sense and is easy enough.  But I've made many attic window quilts and  have devised my own method of mitering that works well.  I won't try to explain which is why I used this sneaky little trick for the BOM for the Bayberry Quilter's Guild.  

Happy Mother's Day

I've found that auto-timed photos seldom work, although in my experience they work a little better than asking a waitress to take a photo. However, in this case, that old gold colored background is a disaster that, of course, we didn't realize. Plus the focus is not sharp.  Plus I now have a serious intellectual dilemma -- I feel like a much too serious elder generation with my current hairdo  and am a bit jealous of my lovely daughter and granddaughter -- while bursting with pride that they are both, certainly to me, stunning and wonderful.

Anyway we had an afternoon tea together (that martini glass holds a concoction called a Tea-tini). Baby Stella is not in the photo because she was sleeping so peacefully in her carseat-carrier at her mother's feet that we didn't want to wake her. It was damp and by the time we left the restaurant actually raining.  Rain again today.  The rain means I don't have to water the two abundant baskets of purple and white petunias that were a mother's day gift. They are hanging on the patio looking like we are in full throes of spring ... I guess we are.

As women very often do we all discussed new hair cuts. Looking at this picture, I will be the first to do it -- tomorrow morning, I think, something shorter and younger looking.  The only one who doesn't want a new hair cut is Stella.  We are all delighted that her hair, scant thought it is (she's 3 and a half months old) is  becoming a chestnut color.