As per usual, I had a few ideas for the challenge. Also as per usual, I couldn't decide which one to follow. And finally, as per usual, I chased a squirrel (made another pixellated 9-patch block) while the backburner of my brain flipped and flopped from one idea to the other. Procrastination at its finest. Finally I went for the harder of the two ideas (often the way I roll), took a course, and made a sea glass quilt, though I prefer to think of it as beach glass.
The prompt for PQ 12.3 at Persimon Dreams was to make a vacation-themed quilt. I've had the pleasure of having had some pretty amazing vacations in my lifetime. In February in Canada, I don't think you'd find a person that wouldn't prefer to be outside of Canada and on a warm beach somewhere. Not quite two years ago, we were, and the beach was Varadero.
That is not photo-shopped or filtered, and was taken with an iPhone 7, no fancy camera or settings. If it is this stunning in that photo, you can imagine how surreal and stunning it was in person.
Pink and Mint are the new Christmas Red and Green. I couldn't be happier. Don't get me wrong: red and green and gold as well are still right up there in my Christmas colours cupboard, but there is something about this combo, with a little silver bling for a punch, that I love.
I showed you the flimsy that was a near-fail a few weeks ago. I'd not followed my own tutorial instructions closely enough, and had incorrectly oriented the large tree blocks. The mug rug would have been rather tall and skinny as opposed to a nice rectangle. However, all was not lost as I had the idea to add the sashing strips as a frame, and voilà! A new spin on my Leaning Tree mug rug. You can find the original tutorial here.
Both of these have been given away (it feels awkward in my lingo to say 'have been gifted'), one to one of my yoga students who knitted me a pair of yoga socks (they're da bomb), and the other to a person who reads this blog, so mum's the word until they arrive. The pink and mint poinsettia fabric is an old, er, vintage one from Hoffman that I love, not much left of it now. The other pinks and mints and the burgundy are leftovers and scraps from other projects. Wait, the crystal-looking green one used as sashing and binding in the top mug rug is a fat quarter from JoAnn that I picked up a couple of years ago.
These mogul pines make a very Christmassy backdrop don't they? This was pre-snowmageddon a week ago. You'd never know it today though; it's nearly all gone. Used my mmm! quilts labels from Ikaprint of course. No affiliation (but buy through Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts, as I did, if you wish to support a blogger), great labels and great service.
I used Sulky Holoshimmer threads again to quilt these with both my walking foot and free-motion foot for FMQ. It's so difficult to show off the sparkle of this thread which is flat like a ribbon.
I laid them on the grass to catch the later afternoon sun and so this does give you a better idea.
Two tips when sewing with this thread: 1) use a Metallica needle (I like Schmetz) and, 2) feed the spool horizontally, set up away from your machine.
I set mine in a former candle holder jar, using a knitting needle on which I feed the spool, like a toilet roll holder. Then I feed the thread up and over my stand-alone thread guide, keeping it flat the entire time, and from there into the machine. Tip #3, shoo the cat away. Repeat if necessary. 😼
Here's an inside, 'working' photo!
You also see the shimmer of the thread in this photo too, and that they are rectangular, not wavy, lol and lie flat!
Do you notice the beach glass in the vase at the top of that photo? Well I put some more to work, making another bowl. I'll write more about the process in another post. This one is quite large, 9.5" diameter but only 2 3/8" high.
Below, it was nearing completion. I love the various shades of the beach glass, white, several shades of seafoam, mint, light pinkish/purplish, green, and very rarely, brown.
You use another bowl for the mold. This one I tried what my friend Elaine suggested, Press 'n Seal. I was trying to avoid the creases I got when I used Saran wrap on the first one. It did go quite a bit smoother, but the bowl was larger and not as sharply slanted too. However, I got the imprint including words and dimples(!) off the Press 'n Seal. I'm sure it will come out with the Dremel. I must say these are rather addictive, like a jigsaw puzzle!
While I was in Florida, MacGyver did the tiling for the backsplash.
He did such a nice job! All the grout is done now. He put spray foam between the window and frame to seal it up (previous owner had this one installed and it was um a tad drafty) and then he'll put up the casing. He's building some shelves of reclaimed barn wood on the sink wall, once he does some recon to find the wood he wants. Pretty soon I'll give you the before and after final tour of the kitchen.
Mug Rug Stats:
Pattern: Leaning Tree mug rug (my own design- link is in this post)
Size: approximately 6.5X9"
Fabric: scraps and stash
Batting: scraps of Warm 'n Natural or maybe Pellon Nature's Touch
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Sulky Holoshimmer in pink 145-6054 and green 145-6018
That's a great song written by Leonard Cohen. My favourite rendition is by kd lang. Both great Canadians. :-) I may have uttered that phrase, or at least heard the choir sing it, a couple of times over the past few days. I showed you on Instagram this little dish I made from beach glass I've been collecting on the shore of Lake Erie at Seacliff Beach, close to my home.
It looks so pretty in the sunshine! It really is that pretty.
I am fascinated by beach glass, but until rediscovering this beach this summer, I had not had much success at finding it. A few friends that also know of the beach's plentiful treasures think it's the way the currents flow around there that tosses loads of beach glass and a fair amount of lucky stones on the shore. Lake Erie was, sadly, quite the garbage dump on both country's sides, for decades upon decades.
Just yesterday, the wind was gentle, the temperatures quite lovely, though not as fabulous as Wednesday when we soared to 19C/66F! However, that day the wind was shrieking, so not great for a walk on the beach. We remedied that yesterday:
Leamington, Ontario -- can you say 'ahhh...' -- ya thought you could
On a dog walk, it isn't as leisurely to keep stopping to pick up bits and bobs that one finds; however, I still managed to snag this treasure trove within a half hour:
Trust me I ignored a ton of pieces. That's the most greens I've found yet in one stroll! The teaspoon is there so you see the size of the pieces and of the dish. I just love the sugary coating the glass gets after years of being tossed around in the sands and water. Some pieces actually have grains of sand embedded in them. Yesterday I found those five pieces of pottery, worn smooth, but no designs visible on them, as we have found before.
And YESSS!! One lucky stone more for my collection, this one, another J, quite faint (I nearly tossed it back thinking na, it's just a stone). But no, got home, had a closer look, and yup, definitely a lucky stone. You can read more about them in this post, but they are the basically the otolith, or ear bones of a sheepshead fish. These bones are particularly plentiful in Lake Erie, and have been found in ancient burial sites, so they were clearly prized then too.
So how did I make that little dish?
I found this tutorial by Debi's Design Diary on Youtube.
The girl is a hoot, and I love that she shows you her first epic fail attempt, and then gives you some tips. I used a lot of glue, as she advised, Elmer's School Glue, but found that too much is not good; the glass pieces slid around, which gave me the kind of lip or angle you see at the top. At first I was disappointed, thinking it would look dumb, but I really like the kind of curve that was inadvertently created! Also, the glass pieces are heavier than you think, and with too much glue, they don't stack, they slide around. I found that I was better off doing a few rows at a time, waiting a few days (I know, it takes forever to dry) and then adding a couple more. Below you see it after two weeks or so of building, drying, building some more, and finally taken off the original dish I used for a mold.
Another tip is in the wrapping of the dish you use as a mold. I wrapped it with Saran wrap as she says, but on my next one, I'd like to smooth out the Saran wrap on the sides of the dish somehow because the glue followed the folds of the wrap and created a bit of a crease-like effect inside the finished glass dish.
Here's a look at the creases:
If you look closely, you can see a bit of a whitish line where the glue followed the crease line. This was only a day or two after I put the final row of glass pieces at the lower edge of the side. Where the glue is white and not clear is where I'd set in my final pieces.
Saran wrap all removed. So pretty! Notice the bits of dried glue around the top edge.
Elmer's School Glue is the main glue I used but MacGyver also had some Weldbond I used when I was just about out of Elmer's. It dried faster, just as clear, and I think is even stronger. Debi suggests using a Dremel to smooth out the top edge and remove any chunks or lines (as in those creases) of glue. So MacGyver got out his handy dandy Dremel and went to work. The first brush didn't do much of anything, so he went to a brass wire one. For future note, stay with the brass. It still wasn't removing the glue bits like he wanted, so he went to a stainless steel wire one, and that made black marks as it took off the glue. 😞 He tried to remedy it, but it made the marks darker, sniff. Oh well, this dish will be used as a candle holder, so not to worry, as the marks are inside.
Tried to find a darkish spot in the house on a sunny afternoon, so the bathroom shelf it is! Flameless votive inside. I love it!
All in all as a first attempt, and nearly an epic fail after the first few hours, I am super-happy with this! And the fact that it is made with garbage or trash found on a beach, each piece with its own story to tell, makes it that much more special.
Another near fail this week was this mug rug.
I did not pay close attention to my own instructions for the Leaning Tree mug rugs...doh! The big tree should be oriented with the wider edge at the bottom. Therefore my tree was too tall and not wide enough. Sigh. I'd already cut the pieces for the mini trees, so how could I salvage the big trees? No trunk? Hmmm, a possibility, but they wouldn't match the mini trees. then I thought of putting in the frames so the mini trees would equal the big tree height. But then the mug rug was too narrow, so I added the frame between the big tree and mini trees section. Yes! It works! "Hallelujah!" this time of the Handel Messiah kind!
I love these soft pink and mint colours together; reminds me of candy ice cream we used to get at Christmas...do they still make it? The best was Lucerne's my mum bought at Safeway. Yum! I can totally taste it just thinking of it. Once I quilt these, I'll post the finish. Ha! I only just now see I should've paid better attention to the mint doves fabric when used as the background; the doves sure are doing some trick flying!
My third topic is a bit of a fail. Sadly I do not have my OMG One Monthly Goal, finished, the flimsy for the 150 Canadian Women quilt. Sniff! I do have all 150 of the 1.5" X 6.5" sashing pieces sewn to each block, and I did find the most perfect fabric to use as the cornerstones, which I showed you in the DrEAMi! post just before this one. Ah well, two out of three 'ain't bad', right?!
