SewCalGal 2012

I completed the monthly challenges and posted about them on my blog with the label SewCalGalFMQ2012

As I posted each type I showed photos of my attempt(s) and most of the time showed the front and the back of the block.

Next time I think I would do all all the blocks with the same color, and just change the thread for alternating months - then I'd join using strips and I'd have a quilt!

I starting the year as a real beginner breaking more than seven needles for one of the challenges - now I can move the fabric and get an entire lap quilt FMQed with one or two needles.  For me that's progress!

I wanted to expose myself to different instructors and ways to have directions given.  This was a good way to do that.  I've now been exposed to, and learned from different folks.  Tried things I never would have tried out on my own.  Most were successful and are in my tool kit now!

I hope everyone got out of the event what they wanted to get.

SewCalGal - FMQ Challenge - Extra 1

Bonus Month	FMQ Expert	Tutorial Topic
May Bonus Tutorial #1	Linda Moran	FMQ Challenge: Hand marbled fabrics

Front: I followed the purple dye with some dark green thread.

The back of the fabric shows the design nicely.  As long as the batting does not require closer stitching, this would be a nice way to customize a quilt.  Would be better to have plain fabric on the back....

I will try this with a larger design - think that will really show off the stitching!
I linked to the SewCalSite - I'm #10 on the list!  See links above.

SewCalGal 2012 - December 2012

December

Patsy Thompson

I experimented with different thread and different stitches.

This would be a wonderful to finish a quilt!

This is the last monthly challenge for the year long event. I'm glad I was able to do the monthly challenges. I was late in posting the October one, so I am also posting one of the extra projects - so I have twelve postings for the event.

Received: Stash Book - S is for Stitch

Received this book from drawing at
http://www.stashbooksblog.com/2012/12/new-release-s-is-for-stitch-and-a-giveaway/

It's a beautiful book, includes instructions for beginners - that's me!

Thank you!

Added 3-11-14: I ended up giving this special book to my friend in Idaho. She is already making a quilt for her granddaughter!  Thank you!

Christmas Dinner

• (non gluten) pasta with sweet potato and yam and cheeses
• broccoli with sour cream and horseradish
• mixed green salad with my dressing
• Honey Baked ham
• banana cream pie
• pecan pie

We four ate in the kitchen so Buffy was a little contained in 'her' area.

New Kind of Communication

Article from the New York Times: Snow Fall

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek

It's really a new-to-me kind of article.  Like it changes the way articles will be written, and people will read in the future.  In a way a little like the Magic School Bus books, with lots of things to read in the margins - but I think this might break thru that kind of writing.

The content was new to me, and worked very well I think in this kind of presentation.

I felt like I was witnessing a new kind of communication, something that would really change the way things are done and taught in colleges.

------

Added 12-24

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2012/12/the-fog-of-pow-and-the-tunnel-creek-avalanche.html

"Skiing aside, Branch’s story is a meticulous investigation into the hazards of group decision-making: the insidious role that peer pressure, deferral to (imagined) authority, and presumption of expertise can play in undermining intelligence and experience. In this respect it is a worthy case study even for non-participants, much as, say, “The Perfect Storm” or “Black Hawk Down” or “Into Thin Air” were. Avalanche accidents, as it happens, make for excellent exercises in human error. Branch, in his Q. & A., mentions a 2002 paper titled “Evidence of Heuristic Traps in Recreational Avalanche Accidents,” by Ian McCammon, an avalanche forecaster and mechanical engineer. The upshot of it, as McCammon writes in the first sentence of his abstract, is, “Even though people are capable of making decisions in a thorough and methodical way, it appears that most of the time they don’t.” You don’t have to be a pack of powder hounds to be guilty of this. You could be a group of generals, a district attorney’s office, or even, say, the United States Congress, contemplating big air off the fiscal cliff."

I'm a Winner! Stash Book - S is for Stitch

http://www.stashbooksblog.com/2012/12/new-release-s-is-for-stitch-and-a-giveaway/

Yep - that's me!

I will be going to Boston for the semester, might be without a machine so this will provide a lot of company.

Thank you!

SewCalGal Christmas Party

SewCalGal is hosting a virtual and an actual Christmas Party today, complete with pictures, prizes and a nifty little linky to take you to other blogs/sites to see more party fun!

I'm actually about to leave to attend the face-to-face party so will share photos and more when I return.  My son's girlfriend has decided to come too so it will be a jolly afternoon!

My Quilting
I've been piecing for about 4 years, free motion quilting for about 2 years.  I'm on and off with having the fabric and sewing machine out so I've done that over the past 22 years!  In 2010 I decided to try quilting again and found so much support online!  I discovered that there was a name for the type of quilting I liked - liberated piecing and free motion quilting.  Doing the monthly block lotto challenges for 2010 really got me comfortable with cutting, and sewing again and then after a while I jumped in and started doing free motion quilting - I picked the beginner designs from The Free Motion Quilting Project and made a few charity quilts.  I've also arrange a virtual Liberated Round Robin that you are all welcome to join in!  (If you'd like to be on the list to get information use the form on the site.)  Seems now I'm back to a stage where I'm not sewing every night, but like everyone reading this I have plenty of projects to finish and to start!

Me
I live in San Diego. For my childhood, Christmas was a fun, grand affair with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins crowded into our house for an afternoon meal and time together.  The aunts and uncles are gone now, and the cousins are all off on their own, but we either share the day with friends or have a happy time with just us.  I'm looking forward to cookie or gingerbread house decorations and time for chatting this year!

The SewCalGal Party Beyond where I parked the car, a beautiful day.	Entrance to the Mission Bay Yacht Club
The other side of where I parked.	SewCalGal is in the center of this photo - standing in the back dressed in black with short hair.  These ladies at the table, were from the San Diego Modern Quilt Guild. They were not doing the FMQing challenges but had checked the website and found out about the party that way.  This was a potluck - lots of delicious casseroles and fudge! I unfortunately always seem to forget to ask people to smile...
After initial eating, chatting and doorprizes (We won a packet of material and a kit to make jewelry) we went to the next room to see a demo of a die cut cutting system.  Sizzix works pretty much the same as a GO but is less expensive.	SewCalGal had brought some other cutters and had examples of different project.  Somehow she was able to use the cut outs  to etch designs on glasses! After this we returned to the first room and heard about the two projects: Operation Home Front and Champagne Quilters.  Both presentations were well done, and confirmed that this was a terrific set of projects to help. There were boats sailing by out the window. Then the  final raffle tickets were drawn. I won the Sharon Craig Half Log Cabin book. (A method I sort of helped test I think thru a LQS my first time piecing projects.  I was supposed to make a lap sized quilt but I was such a fun way to make a block that I made enough for a king sized quilt!)

My photos are lacking, and I'm sorry about that.  At the very end was a photo I should have taken, when people were getting their casserole dishes back there were several different quilted patterns that had been used to make them easy to carry - that would be a fun present to make someone!
I'm pretty sure this is one of the patterns:
http://northerngirlboutique.blogspot.com/2010/11/recipe-gift-giving.html

It was a very nice way to spend the afternoon. I will approach the San Diego Modern Quilting Guild and Operation Home Front to see how I can get more involved when we return from our sabbatical in Boston!  Everyone was very friendly so I could have attended alone, but it make much nicer to be with my son's friend.  Maria has posted the URL to her photos in the comments below!

Having a party to collect gifts and donations is a terrific way to celebrate the holidays.
Bravo Darlene (SewCalGal)!  Thank you for a nice afternoon!