blogging because i quilt

 we've had a busy time since easter when our college kids came to visit/stay, followed by surgery for our son, followed by our oldest daughter and her children coming for a visit. they left yesterday and i was ready for a quiet day at home with nothing but the waves and some stitching.

i've been handbinding "citrus season" (about 1/4 done) and want to complete it before i make a trip home next week. but when i got it out, my seester called and we talked for over an hour. then i started reading quilt stuff online and haven't touched the quilt. and i'm feeling okay with that.

i'm in an unusual space for blogging at the moment. i'm a hobby quilter who likes recording my quilt happenings on this blog. i'm not an industry person or professional. but i'd like to spiff the space up, give it a new look simply because i want my space refreshed. however, all the stuff i'm finding for bloggers is geared toward the professionals, toward monetizing and seo (search engine optimization - directing traffic to you), none of which is what i'm looking for.

i have some threads to bury

back in the day, there were lots of hobby quilters blogging and we shared a lot about not just quilting but about blogging, too. i took a class from elsie larson at a beautiful mess on blog design, which taught me a lot about how to customize my blog by adding fonts and creating certain types of photo for banners, buttons, and links. but that was 12 years ago! all the tech is outdated. i don't remember how i did any of that stuff anyway. i think i used adobe photoshop elements to create my banner, but i'm just not sure. ugh. and i don't know who's sharing that kind of info these days. if i figure anything out, i'll let y'all know.

something else i've been thinking about as i pursue blogging a bit more - i am more aware lately of the difference between blogging because i quilt and quilting because i blog. i don't want to fall into the trap of quilting because i need/want to create content for the blog. this space should be authentically about what's happening in my quilt life and not dictating it. that's always been the balancing act as a quilt blogger.

blog nostalgia

uncharacteristically, i did not bring books along for reading for our beach stay. so for the times i want to read a little rather than stitch and listen, i have started rereading old blog posts. i've begun with jolene klassen's blue elephant stitches blog, going back to the very beginning of the archives. it's been really fun and full of nostalgia for the golden age of blogging in the early 2010's.

my quilting has always been connected to social media. when i first began quilt blogging in 2011, i had been quilting for about 4 months and was already keeping a private family blog. when the fabric and sewing projects started taking over the family blog, i knew it was time to start a quilt blog. so i don't know quilting without the interactive online element. for a few years it was blogging. i loved those blogging days! the blogging about my sewing and interacting with other quilters online were just as much a part of the fun as the quilting itself was. when most of my friends stopped blogging and moved on to instagram, i reluctantly added that platform to the mix, believing i would mostly continue blogging. but the convenience and quickness of instagram won out over time. in reverse order there i had to break off a family personal account (and then a cooking account) to keep my page topic streamlined and so my family could see family posts without all the sewing mixed in.

over the past year or so, i've returned to blogging more and more. there are still some blogs going! jolene is one of the few bigger blogs i once followed that's still active. i'm slowly finding a new collection of small blogs, too, that are still at it. i periodically visit the blogs of commenters to see what others are up to, but i'm not a regular blog reader. i don't put nearly the time into it i once did. it seems to me those of us blogging now are of a certain age and stage in life. it's not the young moms or those in the busy middle stage, it's those of us with older kids or empty nests who have more time for blogging.

to supplement my musings, i'll include photos of the two quilts i purchased from jolene. this first one is a nine patch and snowball star quilt.

in the past year, jolene has published two quilt books, which i also brought with me to read, but while perusing them,i had the urge to look at her old posts, too. i've gotten over a 3rd the way through so far. when i finish with BES, i think i'll go reread some of the other old blogs i loved back in the day. sadly, many of them have been taken down and aren't even available any more. plenty of them have been inactive for years but some, at least, are still there.

a word about this quilt (that i think of as a rainbow star quilt rather than a snowball quilt) - why would a quilter buy someone else's quilt? well, for one thing, i love jolene's work. it's very special to me to have one of her quilts. the reason i bought this one in particular is kinda funny. in nov 2023 i was looking around the family room and realized i didn't have but one or two quilts out. i like to rotate the quilts seasonally with my throw pillows and turns out once i put the fall quilts away, i didn't have any winter-y ones to put out. we were in a very busy family life season so i decided to buy a winter quilt or two. i was disappointed to find that everyone had pretty much sold off their chritamas quilts already. this one seemed neutral enough to stay out in any season, so i bought it. jolene made this quilt at the same time she made a lot of the quilts in her first book and i love seeing many of the same vintage fabrics she used in the book quilts in this quilt.

 

so this was going to be more about jolene's blog and my thoughts on blogging, but i feel like i have to talk about these quilts, too. in a minute!

one thing i have really enjoyed about rereading jolene's old posts is seeing how her style has evolved and changed a little. she's a fabric nerd as much as i am, so she talks about the individual prints and new-at-the-time fabric lines. it's so fun to hear them mentioned again and remember the excitement of when i knew what was coming out and waited anxiously for all the releases. that frenzy also spurred on a whole lot of over-purchasing, which i'm glad has slowed down for me. 

reading her thoughts on the current state of the blogging world (at the time) is interesting, too. it reflects a lot of what i was feeling - the wanting to be involved a lot and to keep up with all the exciting new ideas and developments, but needing to tend to a family and real life as well. admittedly, it was a lot. jolene unintentionally teases the reader by saying she's been thinking a whole lot about things she'd like to say but she's either lost interest, doesn't have the time, or doesn't feel like she can express the ideas adequately. i'm always like, "no! you do a much better job than you think expressing your ideas and they are so relatable. please! tell me what you were going to say!" haha. reading her posts has also clarified for me the topics and types of posts i like to read.

one idea jolene expresses a few times is that she doesn't love every single quilt she makes. she says she probably loves one out of ten, likes the rest well enough, and doesn't like one on occasion. i found this so refreshing! jolene sells most of her quilts, which i've never done, but it's interesting to hear her feelings about how some of her ideas and experiments work out or don't, and that's okay. we don't have to be in love with every single quilt we make.

personally, i think that even if i don't love each of my makes, it's highly likely that someone else in my family will or someone down the line will.

 

here's a quilt i do really love. i bought this kaleidoscope quilt from jolene in 2019. it was a birthday present to myself. i'd had my eyes on her quilts for a while with the intention of purchasing one when this came up. i really admire kaleidoscope quilts a lot but have felt they are still a bit out of my skill set, so i loved the pattern of this. i also really liked the colors and many of the fabrics in this one. the thing that sealed the deal and made this a must-have quilt was the back.

jolene used this vintage holly hobbie sheet for the backing. the reason this sold me on the quilt is that i had these exact same sheets as a little girl. mine disappeared long ago, but here was the identical one on a pretty quilt. i snatched it right up. it feels like having a piece of my childhood again. priceless.

so that's some jumbled thoughts on blogging and me fan-girling on jolene's great quilts, books, and blog. when i've gotten all the way through the BES archives, i think i'll go reread rachel's stitched in color and maybe rita's red pepper quilts. the other blog i regularly reread? my own! not all of it all the time, but some of it periodically. that's true blog nostaglia.

anyone have any favorite old blogs they still love? or wish were still going?

outtakes of the lake

there is a hillside across the road from our beach house that has yellow blooms coming out (see below). i've admired it at as the lowering sun lights it up every evening before sunset. because of the red hill and yellow flowers, i thought it would make a nice setting for a finish photo for "fall paint lake." one evening, i got my husband to go out and shoot some pictures with me.

this was the setting i had in mind:

i wanted to stand there somewhere near the bush, holding the quilt up.

i ran across the road and stood where i was thinking and my husband took a shot or two. then he said i needed to move further north (left) because the light wasn't really on my spot anymore. the problem with that is there's a lot of road objects just to the left of where i was standing.

he said, "just climb up on that concrete barrier so you can catch the light." it was a little narrow, but i managed to stand on it, and he started shooting.

when i came down, he said, "i got the barricade and everything in the shot." that's when i realized he hasn't assisted me with quilt shoots before, hasn't really seen "quilts in the wild" pictures, and wasn't thinking anywhere along the same lines as i was when it came to the photos.

the few closer looking shots in this series are photos i cropped in on after he took them.

while i was standing on top of the pylon, i was playfully wobbling around, balancing on one foot, and he took a picture. ironically, this is the one photo he zoomed further in on and you can't even see i'm balancing on a ledge 3 feet off the ground, haha. 

it's ok. we tried.

we lost the light at this point and decided to try again another day. maybe. we'll see if we do or not. there always seems to be something going on at that time of day, usually dinner.

so these may or may not end up being my finish shots for "fall paint lake."

this quilt has a lot of cute novelty prints in it. i used a lot more heather ross than i have previously used in non-scrap quilts. it also has that orange-ish red strawberry print and the golden dylan m animal print. if it didn't have these touches, i'd probably rename it something to do with our beach house living. 

the binding is a cadet blue print from the top. it has strings of lights on it that read as random dots on the binding. i'm happy with it.

the backing is two large pieces: a cute grey check from "orchard" by april rosenthal for moda and the luna moth print from heather ross's 20th anniversary collection for windham fabrics. the grey is a great low-volume neutral i use a lot. the luna moths are just pretty and fun. i've used them a few places, as well. i'm not much of a purple fan, but this is a pretty print.

i was able to work both selvages into the backing, one of my personal favorite touches. i got to thinking the other day that for non-fabric nerds this might seem strange. people who aren't into quilting designers and fabrics might wonder why i didn't cut that part off, why i left all the print in. but i love it. i am a big fabric nerd and i do like having the lovely selvages sewn into the quilt so i can forever see them moving forward.

i'm guessing this is the finish post for this quilt. it's not likely we'll get around to shooting it again. it actually makes for a fun story even if it didn't turn out the way i wanted. he'll be a better trained quilt husband next time.

next steps

two binding projects done and i decided i wanted to do some handquilting next. i'm most excited to complete this liberty courthouse steps i'm making for my friend, tamsen; so it's what i'm working on next. i've got my thread, needles, hera marker, and rulers all ready to go. i just need to decide on a quilting pattern. 

 sitting in my comfy chair by the not-lit fireplace, considering what to do.

d5 has completed her schoolwork for the day and we're having a needle session together. she's working on some cute crochet for the babies and i'm getting started on the courthouse steps. we may be working on different types of projects, but we both seem to have a similar handwork concentration face, haha.

while we stitch we've been listening to the maeve merritt book series by julie berry on audible. they are so fun! the reader is especially good. magical objects and schoolgirl high jinx in victorian london with good character arcs and heart. if you're an audible member, they're included for free. 

the evening light is so scrumptious.

all the pins and rows make waves of their own in this light.

i've decided to stitch straight down the middle of each strip. i'm starting in the chambray strips and will do the print strips and border after.

it's going pretty fast. i think i'll be done well before maeve fixes her genie problems.

 but for the moment i'm just going to take pause to listen to the waves and admire the light making texture sing on my quilt.

stitches, sun, surf

days here are dreamlike, as if we've stepped into some alternate reality. sometimes it's hard to remember we came here for medical help and healing. life floats along in a way that seems out of time, out of real life. it was really cold and windy the first few days, but now it's gentle sunshine and a range of temperatures; cold in the morning and evenings, warm in the afternoons. sometimes cold inside, warm out, or the opposite. when i'm stitching, i have to move around to find the most comfortable spot.

i was heading outside to stitch on the sunny upper deck for some warmth when i caught sight of myself in the window reflection and inside mirror. it captures a lot of what's going on here, the layered, multi-faceted, dream-like quality of our days. sometimes dreams are pleasant, sometimes weird, sometimes take a strange or dark turn. it's been all of that.

our unit is in a row of about 12 houses on a quiet stretch of beach. when we're on the upper deck, you can see farther, but you can also see more of the houses around us. lower deck sits right on the water, but you can't see as far. they are both nice at different times of day and for different reasons.

i'm usually sitting in this chair downstairs when i stitch. it's comfy and has the views. too bad that fireplace isn't operational because it would be even cozier with a fire going.

i'm getting hours of stitching done at a time, and sometimes not for a day or two in a row.

we do a lot of beach walking and tidepool exploration.

these two are crazy enough to get actually get in the water.

southern california has a surprising number of quilt shops. i plan to make the rounds and visit a couple of them. seeing fabric in person is always such a treat. gina, an old blog friend, recommended i try superbuzzy. turns out it wasn't too far away, so d5 and i made a day trip out of it. she got some crochet supplies and i bought a little fabric. not too much, but there were some irresistible pieces. 
 

these japanese fabrics of roasting mochi on a stick (dango) reminded me of our d2, who is currently at language school in tokyo, and it also happens to be one of our favorite treats when we've visited. i couldn't pass them up.

i was overjoyed to find what looks like an exact match to the woven green fabric i used as sashing in my christmas log cabin quilt! the shop lady told me it's a peppered cotton, colorway "jungle." so good to know! now i can make those other two liberty christmas quilts i had in mind. they had just under four yards and i took them all.

you can see i really restrained myself. 

there was a nice charcoal grey herringbone brushed cotton that will make a good binding for a liberty + chambray quilt at some point, so i got some.

i also picked up some heather ross "malibu" fabric. every since we got here i've been dreaming of making a malibu quilt with her fabrics. i have a few pieces at home and i found a few more on etsy. but my favorite print from the whole collection was the floral woodblock in the "ocean" colorway. it has the gold of the california poppies in it and the colors of the waves, too. lucky me they had a remnant and i took it all. as much as i like the other colorways, this one says "malibu" to me the most.

heart-shaped shell i found,
with sort of an arrow through it

is it weird to be happy in a place you came to because your son is sick?

i think not. we chose this spot because it would be a good place to be in while he's sick. and we're making the best of it. gratitude and focusing on the good is appropriate, i think.

wiltshire rows under the sun

"wiltshire rows" is a finish.

now i can give it to d3 at easter if she comes to visit us. her college finals end the day before easter, so it's undetermined if she'll come right away or need some time to pack up before she can leave. it's up in the air like so much else in our life right now.

i'm sure there is somewhere around here where i can get some nice finish photos of this quilt, but for now i just threw it over the lower deck chair and snapped a record of it being done.

this was a quick binding finish. i had it done in two days.

i worked on it sitting inside on the lower level (above) in my favorite chair, and while we listened to our church's spring general conference over the weekend on the upper level (below).

 i think this one is best viewed all squished up. the backing is lovely and i think the wiltshire pieces in the rows look better when all jumbled rather than laid out. 

it's nice and squishy and should look that way when seen.

i've just realized maybe this could be called "wiltshire waves" rather than "rows." the rows could be waves and there were certainly many in view the whole time i was binding. 

wave upon wave upon wave.

it's amazing the way they never cease.

fall paint lake, spring ocean

i didn't get to work sewing immediately apon arrival, but once i did get stitching, it went pretty quickly. it's amazing how much sewing can be done in a few uninterrupted hours. i would have finished this binding in an afternoon if i hadn't decided to hop on IG during a break. 

that's something like three-quarters done in a few hours.

i'm still not fully sure what i think of this quilt. i like it, i think. then i find myself asking, "do i really like it? does it really work? was i crazy to just make a quilt from a random pile of fabric? or was my gut right?" i mean, i lumped all the dark fabrics together when maybe I should have spread them out. and the palette is unusual. there are some deep colors and very light ones; not much midrange tones tying things together here. at the very least, it’s not clashy! 

yes, somehow i still think it works in its own unusual, quirky way.

i tried something on a whim and this is the result. not bad.

i put a few fun touches in here like subbing the sleeping beauty print for the rapunzel print once. both prints were part of the original fabric purchase this quilt came from, but i thought at the time sleeping beauty didn't fit the general color palette well. now i disagree - i mean, she's blue, orange, and yellow like the majority of the other fabrics. but i did put one piece in here because . . .

i kept this one rapunzel piece whole, replacing the two pieces that would have been here, in one spot so the full illustration could be seen together. i like this extra touch, too.

on reflection, rapunzel is less of the colorway than sleeping beauty. i guess she ties in with the butterflies and flower prints that have the pinks and purples in them. but i did cut off all the pink banner tops from the towers because they definitely didn't fit the quilt's color palette. i used those pieces in a different quilt block . . .

they made it into a crossroads block for my low-volume crossroads quilt. i think they're so fun here on their own. it worked out nicely for both quilts!

i did decided as soon as i started binding this what the advantage to a diagonal binding join is - less lumpy and bulky at the seams! i'd forgotten that was a thing because i've only done straight joins on a binding once or twice before. the diagonal joins absolutely lay flatter. 

that's me rounding the last corner of the quilt there. it's done. just needs a nice finish photo shoot. where am i going to photograph a fall quilt in spring by the ocean? i've seen so many nice quilt finish shots by the sea, but i don't feel like any of the quilts i brought with me fit the setting. 

i thought maybe it would look good in the doorway next to our beach access with a view back along the house and our little landscape area with the agaves and flowers. not really. i'm going to have to scope around. there's lots of scenery here. something has to fit.

in the meantime, we're snuggling under the finished quilt when temperatures drop, which they do throughout the day. cold, warm, sunny, cloudy, open door, shut. it's never constant. thank goodness i brought quilts! i was only expecting to stitch on them, not to be using them. living in the desert i forget spring is cool or cold other places.

sewing room in a box

we are arrived.

splish, splash, stash has moved to the beach! a blog that started when i was sewing in my bawthroom space while my little girls splished and splashed in the tub is now being written within sound of the pacific ocean splishing and splashing outside my door. for the first time in forever, my blog name actually fits a little.

i packed up the suburban and the girls, then we headed west to join my husband and son. s1is currently undergoing medical treatment in california and his medical team recommended he stay close by rather than travelling back and forth for the next six weeks or so. we aren't really sure for how long, it changes continually.

so, my husband and i made the decision to relocate with him and the two girls still at home. we found a quiet rental on the coast within reach of the hospital and medical team. it's an enormous blessing not only to be getting him help for issues that have only escalated over the past four years, but to be able to be here with him in a peaceful, healing environment. sometimes it feels like we're living in a dream outside of time and reality, that we're on a relaxing vacation. there are certainly upsides to our situation. but other times reality hits and i remember that, really, we're here for help and healing.

knowing we'd be living a quiet life here, i spent time preparing handwork to bring along with me for our stay. i packed it all up in one box. it's quite a change having all my sewing in one box versus an entire room. for the time being, it's a really nice change, actually. i do recognize it's only possible because of the work i did in the room back home.

but for now all my sewing is contained right here in one little space, just like our entire lives are pared down to living in a small beach house. it's pretty alright, actually.

so what did i pack for my time away?

for starters, there's all the quilts i'll be stitching on in one form or another. i brought seven: four handquilting and three handbinding projects. honestly, i can't tell if this is ambitious or not enough. 

so often i say, "perhaps i'll get this done in time for this," and it absolutely never happens. but this time i outdid myself! i prepared more than i dreamed possible. the move got delayed nearly a week, which helped, but i certainly surprised myself with what i got done.

all the notions and little tools fit in this tin. 

the pink glasses case holds my threads for "cheery (easter) quilt." the black case is for when i do white handquilting - it contains snips, 12wt thread, needles, threader.

most items i selected individually and intentionally, not wanting to waste any space or have any extraneous things i wouldn't be using. but this cute little mini tote that holds handwork supplies i just grabbed and put in without editing its contents. it's so small and a bobbin or two i didn't need wasn't going to hurt. turns out it's a good thing i didn't edit it!

when i was packing all my tools and notions, i was worried i'd forget something. that's happened on a few spring break trips and i didn't want to repeat the mistake. i was very careful to load my travel tin with all the things. when i sat down to stitch for the first time here, i found i had indeed forgotten something. actually, i'd pulled out something and forgot to put it back. i didn't have the white 50wt thread i wanted for handbinding. darn it.

fortunately, i had a bobbin loaded with blue thread in my little handwork satchel that goes with two of the bindings i needed to stitch down. i'm going to be okay!

 i was able to fit the broken ruler in the box because it's no longer too long, haha. (d1 sat on it accidentally last year and snapped it. still useful, fortunately.) i need the ruler and the hera marker for marking quilting lines on some of the quilts i'll be handquilting.

thread, of course. there were a few bobbins of 50wt in the mini tote and i brought plenty of 12wt in 2021 white for handquilting. i also brought the little carrying kit that has my colored threads for "cheery (easter) quilt" in case i get around to that.

extra needles and threaders for when i can't get the 12wt easily into the tiny little needle eyes.

readers for seeing all the handwork sharply.

i also brought jolene's lovely, inspirational quilt books for when i want to dream about quilts rather than work on my own.

i brought my pin jar because all my pins will need to go back in it when i'm done handquilting. i'm from a dry, desert climate and have never had problems with pins or anything rusting. i hope the humid costal climate doesn't cause any problems. six weeks shouldn't be too long, maybe?

my mini iron came along because there was a little extra room for it. i was actually thinking i might want to find a wool mat at a local shop. and i was going to bring my epp project, but left it at home in the end. so the iron is probably taking up space unnecessarily. we'll see. the rental house doesn't have one, so maybe we'll need it for something else anyway.

that's the grand tour. what would you bring along for an extended stay?

bonus: my new sewing space comes with beautiful views and great lighting. my photos should look better while we're here.