Chocolate Milk Brown and Hockney Swimming Pool Blue ~ a Quilt

David Hockney, I think called Bigger Splash

Happy Sunday, everyone all home safe and sound so far? I am still walking Mo, with far away waves to neighbors also dog-walking. Paid professional dogwalkers are a thing of the past. Otherwise I'm isolating.
I fear my blog may become a quilting blog. But I'll always post beach pics at the end, memories of better days.

Mel said it was amusing that I used a bad pen for quilt marking, an ooopsie. But I turned around yesterday and marked again with a permanent white opaque pen, for embroidering my Days' October block. Not a good thing. It took a lot of scrubbing to get it even this okay.

Sewing well requires a certain focus and mental serenity, I think.  This day my hands were shaking too much for finely spaced wool applique. Ugh. I wanted the hint of snow on the wintry pine tree.

It's not quite the same feeling for me as the [many, many, many] online quilters laugh off the quarantine as a wonderful time to get busy and sew. [do they not fear for their children, their parents, themselves? I don't get it.]

I turned my attention for a different project. This is Swimming Pool and Chocolate Milk, a vintage partial top I found on FB Marketplace.

Oddly it disappeared from sales  when I wanted to buy it, then it returned and I snapped it up. It is from eastern PA, and is reputedly an Old Amish center section for an Amish estate sale.

No provenance to prove that story, but in quilt collecting I accept fairy tales if I love the item. I think I paid 30.oo.
Such strange colors! But beachy.

Some close ups.

Note the brown squares are darker than the border triangles.

And the ''pool'' color is more blue than green/ turq, though on my screen the color is very green.

I want to put a turquoise 1 1/2'' border then a wide brown border. I originally tried to order the solids via internet but the results were wildly off.

I also tried out some alternates for the ''stop'' border, less crucial than matching the brown. I could live with either of these, maybe.

Before the virus hit I had contacted Fat Quarters Shop customer service and they said they'd try to do a better match if I could send swatches.

Of course a well made top has no excess so I shaved off tiny bits to send.

And augmented with paint chips,

collected during our last outing to Ace Hardware before the Apocalypse. That was a Tuesday. I wanted paint supplies to paint my bathroom ceiling [so hard!] and by Friday we were in a panic and isolating.
I feel it's okay to ask for project chips when I am also buying other supplies; I'm told it is okay.

I have everything set up, just must write the cover letter and hope the online store can help. I do foresee that maybe all commerce will stop soon, but I'll try.

Maybe I'll succeed and have a beautiful Amish quilt someday.

..............

Mo had a birthday.

We didn't make a party but he got a bag of Pupperoni treats[junk food!], a spa day, and two rawhide/ jerky chews. Mo adores jerky but is indifferent to rawhide. I find if he  must gnaw the jerky off the rawhide stick he can't gobble the jerky and choke. He was pleased.

Freshly groomed, like a little doll.

Mo is six, now.

Remember Baby Mo, here at  2 1/2 months.

I think of you all often. I value our friendship in these uncertain times. If you visit and feel up to it a comment brightens my day immensely.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

To see more swimming pool paintings by David Hockney, click here .
I have to admit I love his paintings, they have the same  loneliness of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks [men in the old chrome diner, late at night], while also capturing the heat and stillness of a surreal summer day.