Lemon Tree Tales

Happy Halloween!

This is "Marcus the Carcas" in our front porch's rock bed (from Target). It's a little bit on the scary side and glows on/off. But as you can see with the porch light on it's not so bad. Hopefully it won't scare the trick-or-treaters too much. Not that we get a whole bunch of munchkins in our neighborhood. I think last year we managed to almost run out of candy. But that's only because towards the end I told everyone to take 3 pieces of candy instead of the usual 2 pieces. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

Big City Bunny

Yesterday I went over to my friend Rachel's house for a little sewing circle. Due to various commitments and calendar mishaps we haven't gotten together for a very long time. I missed going over to her house. It's very relaxing to be able to sew together, sip a nice cup of tea, and share a little bit of gossip. We're always so ambitious in what we want to accomplish but it ends up being more of a friendly visit than power sewing. We'll ask each other what one thinks about this-or-that color or fabric. Basically it's an exchange of ideas and our own private sewing cheer session. I was able to finish this little cutie. She obviously likes to get around via taxi cab. Otherwise she'd have a hard time walking in her pink bunny Mary Janes all across town.

She's from Hillary's Put-Together Book and has been cut out and just waiting to be finished for such a long time now. In fact, she's now a completed UFO from this list. One down, ten more items to go.

The taxi cab is a cookie jar that I found in TJ Maxx a couple of months ago. I like it because it reminds me of all the crazy cabs that I've taken in Manhattan. The drivers were all so different. Some were incredibly kind, others extremely talkative, and then one was especially weaselly. (He insisted that he didn't have change for a $10 bill and I didn't think that he deserved an $8 tip.)

Pacific Rim Quilt Fest: Part 2

Ah, I couldn't resist one more post of beautiful quilts that I saw at the Pacific Rim Quilt Festival that I went to a couple of weekends ago. Here are four more that I really, really liked.

488 Smashing Pinwheels by Gail Sims & Cheryl Uribe of Livermore, CA, USA

Look at all the amazing fabrics that Gail and Cheryl chose fro this simple pinwheel design. I love how the use of vibrant colors and multiple sizes of the pinwheel block created a gorgeous piece of quilted art. This is definitely going into the inspiration pile.

Striped Shapes by Frieda Oxenham of United Kingdom

Look at the blanket stitch applique detail:

African Refractions by Ray Starke of South Africa

Lots of texture, embroidery stitches and raw applique. (Can you tell by now that I'm attracted to vibrant colors in wild color combos?)

And here's the last one:
Sunny Girls by Pat Durbin of Eureka, CA, USA

I think it said that there were 23,100 squares of 1/2" fabric sewn using raw-edge applique. Look at this adorable face:

Even closer:

I like the spiral quilting on the lens of the sunglasses. Great technique!

There's a second reason why I had to post more pictures. I finally got my new PC computer and monitor the other day. Yay!!! My sweet husband has been helping me to configure the new machine and install all of the old programs. I also was finally able to install EQ5 and start playing with it. Wow, what an amazing program. I'm having so much fun with it.

Pincushion Flower

This is a macro shot of one of the pincushion flowers that's now growing in our backyard. I really like the lavender/purple color of the flowers. Hummingbirds seem to like them too. This is just one of the test shots that I've been taking with my new camera ...

... a Sony Cybershot DSCT30 7.2MP Digital Camera. I'm not really a good photographer, so a nice point-and-shoot type of camera is perfect for me. This also has two types of macro modes, regular macro and a magnifying macro which can be as close to the subject as 1cm. Wow! Now this is what I call a great feature. And it's a small camera, perfectly sized to fit in a pocket or purse. Of course, I still need to read the manual and figure out how to use some of the features. But I think that it'll be a good replacement for our little stolen camera. Now if only my computer would arrive we would be good to go. I'm still anxious to try out the EQ5 Electric Quilter software program. Kathy of Pink Chalk Studio was kind enough to email me the EQ5 file for the little house quilt pattern that I wanted to use for the sock-monkey baby quilt.

Pacific Rim Quilt Fest

Yesterday I went to the Pacific International Quilt Festival that they're holding at the Santa Clara Convention Center not too far from my house. Precisely 3.4 miles according to the nav system when I plugged in the address. Wow, was it great! Tons of beautiful quilts from all around the world and in many styles, from traditional to contemporary and even innovative art quilts. And many many vendors selling fabrics, tools, sewing machines and anything remotely of interest to that special breed of people - quilters. I was there for about five hours and walked most of the time as my tired legs will gladly tell you. There wasn't any prohibition against photography except for the quilts in the Alzheimer's Exhibit. And since I now have my nifty new little camera that my husband was kind enough to order for me, I was able to take many pictures. (More about the camera in another post, suffice it to say that I'm extremely happy with it!) Here's just two of the quilts that I was compelled to capture. One's an art quilt with a sense of humor and the other is simply a gorgeous, no make that stunning, piece of traditional quilting.

Mermaids Like Margaritas with Salt! by Ellen Edith of Santa Cruz, California, USA

Here's a closeup of the lovely mermaid, notice the 3-D "scales", ice cubes, and bra.

Please forgive the bad color quality. I'm still learning how to work this new camera and wasn't sure if I should have chosen auto flash or no flash at all.

It Ain't Easy Being Green by Ronda K. Beyer of Tualatin, Oregon, USA

This shows how dramatic a traditional quilt design (in an innovative and original layout) can be spectacular in solid, or near solid fabrics. But what's even more amazing is the original quilting pattern that Ronda has used. Look at the next two detail shots and see what really impressed me. Wow, to even be 1/10th talented as Ronda would be a gift.

There are two other quilts that really stayed with me that I'll post tomorrow. I have to admit that five hours was in no way close enough to the amount of time that all of these quilts required to admire them. After a while one gets overwhelmed and needs to rest the eyes.  Trust me when I tell you that there were more quilts to appreciate than what I managed to photograph. If you're ever able to attend a quilt show, please do so. It's a treat for the senses and falls in the creative play category of the calendar.

Gals and Dolls

Heera of Let's Talk About ... did a fantastic job on our new newsletter for the San Jose doll club, Gals and Dolls. Check it out and see what we're all about. We meet the second Tuesday of every month in San Jose, CA. It's a great time to meet new people, share ideas and show everyone their latest creation. Sometimes we have special projects to sew. Tonight will be a little witch for Halloween and two months ago I showed everyone how to make those cute little covered tape measures a la Craftapalooza. Oh, and we always have some kind of sweets and drinks for a little refreshment ... it's my turn to bring sweets tonight.

I'm still working on my Patti Culea doll. She now has hair and is clothed, but she doesn't have all those little bits of embellishment that will finish her off. No crown, no shoes and no beaded flowers. Not quite ready for the ball, shall we say. I'm not sure exactly why it's been taking so long to complete this. It's still a time of creative blahs, but two nights ago I started to get excited about working on it again. I really think it's due to all the internet research I've been doing for the Venetian doll that I'm planning. Look at this fabulous site! It's chocked full of beautiful Venetian gowns, worn by their artists, along with the gorgeous paintings that inspired them. You'll need lots of time to savor every little detail. Lots of eye candy! Ah, and finally a link to E.J.Taylor's dolls ... especially the one of Gabriel, the Renaissance gowned figure. Perfection indeed.

Happy Anniversary #4

Steve and I at the Wine Strand near Dingle in Ireland almost exactly two years ago. (Yes, I'm wearing a peach colored t-shirt under the green hoodie. In hindsight I probably know better than to wear something so pale as it appears that I'm quite bare.) Currently my hair is much longer, a little past shoulder length. See that little streak of white/gray? That's natural and has been there since I turned 21. Now Steve has a very nice goatee going on which I really, really like on him.

Today we celebrated our 4th anniversary by going out to a cute little Italian restaurant, Il Postale. Very charming little place, friendly servers and tasty food. We had a good time ... good conversation. I really enjoy spending time with my husband (good thing we got married, huh). I have to say that we're very blessed to have found each other. I am definitely looking forward to more years together. As Steve said in his card to me "4 going on at least 40" ... isn't that sweet?

Book Review: Atlantis by David Gibbins

I just finished reading this book last night and enjoyed it so much that I thought I'd share it with you. It's one of those action-adventure books with quite a bit of history (some accurate and some fictionalized), archeology and art, very much in the same vein as the Dirk Pitt stories by Clive Cussler. To a certain extent it's also like The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown ... an exciting "historical" mystery leading to different treasures. It's a fast-paced read and would make a great action flick, but only if it's less than two hours.

After finishing it I kept thinking back to those art history classes in college that kept showing all the beautiful mosaics and frescoes from Crete. I'm especially taken with the little snake goddess figurine that they found in Knossos. There's something about the beautiful layers on her skirt and that little apron that I'd like to work with. Perhaps I need to add another doll to my list of projects. Wonder if the colors were originally so subtle and earth-toned? Or were they once extremely bright and more jewel-toned instead? Anyway, I think that I'll just put this on the back burner and let it simmer for a while.

On the house front, we met with the insurance claim rep and made a recorded statement. It went pretty well, but the next step is for their internal auditors to calculate what it would cost to replace the stolen items. Hmmm, see here's where I can see a dark room filled with people hunched over computers checking out discount sites and ebay for the best bargains. Hopefully we will be compensated enough to cover the losses. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile I still am waiting for the new computer. They've sent the monitor but it's pretty useless sans PC so it remains in its box, unopened. The nice people at Dell said that it should be here October 23rd so I'll just have to be patient a bit longer. And I've been wanting to try out EQ5 for the last week or so since it arrived. Ohhhh, okay, guess I'm not a super patient person ... but I really want to try it out. I've been sketching some quilt ideas but have a feeling that it'd go so much faster, and more accurately, with EQ5. But I have been able to work on a couple of my list items. I'll just have to wait a bit longer before I can get pictures of them up again.