Gone To The Beach: 01.03.2013

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Baby The Porch is Chilly!

A Little Porch Time Quiltalong

Hi! Time for an update on my Porch quilt. For December we were supposed to work on our borders...and I did try!

Time for quiet sewing was non-existent. A friend here said that perhaps I will, in the future, or for a long time---be defined by Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath...and you know what? I don't want to be defined by a natural disaster. It's bad enough that I still cringe a little when low flying planes home into the beach for their landings. [from 9/11]

Yes, it is true, though: there's lots of little things still to fix or do---the dryer vent hose is blown loose; the inner front door won't stay closed, the back door's weather stripping has torn off. It also has three broken panes of glass. I finally got the air conditioners covered, and some of the storm windows washed and in. All this, along with the bigger chores of Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years, and stores and gas stations still closed. Just buying a Christmas tree and finding a prime rib roast each took an entire day!
The Porch quilt was a little neglected, sad to say.

I got the borders on. I find this a difficult task, tedious and tiring. (Tiresome?).
All summer and early fall I collected red plaid shirts for the border, only to decide in the end that I preferred this taupe and brown toile. Yes it's mud colored, yes the whole quilt is very brown...but I like it.

The Porch book does not mention pieced borders, or I missed that page, but if we look closely we can see the patchwork interspersed with the plaid. I loved that detail, and also wanted to use up excess blocks from other sections.

I also got the corner flowers partially appliqued:

And when I hung the quilt yesterday I was able now to ''audition'' the placement of the flowers.

I also decided to add a central sunflower instead of the square butterflies...see above, and below are possible colors, a true sunflower.

The black for the flower's center is a very tiny star, which I tentatively also have planned for the binding. It is a much smaller scale than the border stars.

and probably some pink and cream coneflowers below the crock?

I also checked the placement of the striped kitty, yeah, good...he'll be out of scale and by the House.

But it means I can't use the striped ticking I had saved for the birdhouse, on the same side, bottom left.

And I redid the top border of the house block...

It was just so awful and blah. And I finally added, unsewn, a moon [13 full moons in 2012!] and the star.

Again, not to belabor H. Sandy, but here and in my pieced border I've been using fabrics I bought while in NYC during the storm.

A gentle reminder that good things happened during the evacuation stay too...including a whirlwind visit to City Quilter...

My area does not have any quilting stores; a trip to Joann's is as good as it gets here and even that is a 40 minute drive in dense traffic. So City Quilter was a pretty neat treat.
It is a beautiful shop ,and they graciously allowed photos.

Not great pix,lol, I was so excited and rushing!

The shop people are pleasant in a standoff-ish NYC way that I personally appreciate. It lets me think without having to be friendly.
My only objection was when I paid for my purchases they did that ''green'' thing, and asked me if I wanted a bag! Now there I was, an obvious [I think?] tourist, carrying a huge crock and a tiny Coach wristie and a camera. I had purchased patterns and fat quarters and swatch squares and silk yarn, and wool squares, and, and, ---Yeesh. Of course I wanted a bag!
The bad aspect of this is that the patterns I bought did not get put into the begrudged bag and so they did not come home with me.

I don't really need a quilt pattern, but I do like to support the designers...and I thought this would make an adorable baby quilt [yes, yes, I know I said no more baby gifts, but anyway...], below. I wanted it to remind me, and as a little souvenir.

I did get these pastel-y prints as well as the brights for my Porch quilt. I have the notion to add an appliqued panel on the back. These are the background: wind/ sky/ ocean/ sand ripples/ dunes flowers.

And I picked up these autumn leaves on my daily walks on the NYC Battery promenade. So pretty, the gardens there were lovely despite the hurricane winds. I pressed them in my Porch book and may use them as the leaves [shapes] on my borders?

And my last issue is: now that I have a brown border will my birdies be brown? Black? Or maybe they should be bluebirds...defining good memories and happiness, not fear and exhaustion and stressful times.

What about things that define us? Can we choose, or can we only choose how we'll respond and remember...? And move on?