From the Tennessee River to the Pacific Ocean

Ocean Portal is finished. This was my first curved piecing, a simple drunkard's path block set into dark and light circles. It sewed together quickly, since the blocks are quite large.

The big chunks of fabric make a nice way to showcase these super fun fish fabrics. Almost all of the fishes came from the batch of fabrics that Sue sent me; thanks again, Sue! I added several more that had either wavy lines or polka dots to look like ripply water and bubbles.

I love all the happy, smiling fishes in these fabrics. I like to think they will keep a kid busy and entertained. But my favorite is Mildy Anxious Octopus. Who among us adults hasn't felt like this little yellow guy?

I chose the circle layout for the blocks to look like big bubbles. It also reminded me of looking through the glass of an aquarium and led to the "portal" part of the name. By the way, the aquarium here in Chattanooga is very, very good. That's their super fast whizzy river gorge tour boat in the background. The aquarium is in two large, modern buildings. One houses salt water species and includes a penguin exhibit. The other contains the best display of fresh water fish I've ever seen. I've owned fresh water home aquariums for over 30 years, and it was so fun to see all the species from my tanks in the large, clean, beautiful displays in Chattanooga. Oh, and they have a river otter tank that is So. Much. Fun. Squirmy, wriggly, constantly in motion otters!

On the back of Ocean Portal, I used several left over blocks and the last bits of the fabric my friend Stephanie used for our "boat warming" gift quilt. You can see the quilting pattern pretty clearly in this photo. This is the "water and ice" motif from Lori Kennedy's blog. I really like the texture it gives. This was a good choice for quilting with my bad shoulder, too. The motif is long diagonal lines, which made it easy to stitch a single line across the quilt, then take a break. There's no need to keep track of where you're going and no way to end up with odd unquilted segments like sometimes happens with a stipple. Just start the next line a bit to one side of the last one and stitch across again.  Simple and meditative.

The binding is a swirly blue print that I attached completely by machine. That's my preferred method with Project Linus quilts. It's fast and durable. The binding is sewn onto the back first, so it ends up being the narrow finished side. 

The front is then edge stitched down. It needs to be a bit wider so that final row of stitching doesn't hit the binding on the back. I know not everyone loves this look, but the speed and simplicity of it work for me. And the new-to-me Juki rocks for binding work!

Project Linus provides these nice labels for us to use. They are heat sealed on the edges so they won't fray. 

Now to explain the "Pacific Ocean" part of the title of this post. Ocean Portal is going to be displayed in an art showcase in California! It's my first show and I'm very excited and honored to have been invited. Our financial investment company, Retirement Capital Strategies (RCS) is putting on a show of works by their clients in mid-October. They asked me to submit two pieces.  RCS donates to a number of local charities and they asked specifically for a Project Linus quilt to highlight the mission of this national organization with local chapters.

The other quilt I'm submitting for the show is this silk piece I finished back in April. It's the most "arty" quilt I've ever made, but I never gave it a name. It reminds me of exotic spices, so I'm going to call it "Berbere." Berbere is a spice mix used in many Ethiopian dishes. Sean and I first tasted Ethiopian food not far from the RCS office. 

In order to lay as flat as possible in the show display, I haven't washed Ocean Portal. (Berbere is a wall quilt and probably won't ever be machine washed.) I'll ask my friend Donna, who takes my quilt to the Project Linus chapter meetings, if she'll wash and dry it in her machines so it will be clean and soft for the child who needs it. I'll miss seeing and touching it in that post-dryer crinkly state.

While I don't consider myself an artist at all, more of a craftsperson with panache, I'm truly honored to participate in this event! 

Finish for a friend

Quilting has been sporadic here on Vector, but I'm happy to report that I managed to finish a piece. This is Balance, a comfort quilt for our friend G. 

We met G through boating, so I tried to take some boaty glamour shots of the quilt. Here it is draped across the Portuguese bridge. 

I flipped it up so you can see the nicely coordinating turquoise back. The structure in the upper right is the ramp that leads down to the dock from the downtown Chattanooga waterfront pier. That sucker creaks and groans every time another boat goes by.

A view with the water under the pier as backdrop. A local stand-up paddleboard rental company launches from here. Watching newbie SUPpers fall into the river is a daily form of entertainment.

A view from the back deck, across the Tennessee river. My physical therapist's office is just to the left of the tall white structure. I go to PT three or four times a week, and to be frank, it really sucks. I can see improvement in my shoulder in term of range of motion, but there has been little relief from the pain. Of course, that's often the nature of PT.

Fortunately, it doesn't hurt any worse when I sew. So I've been able to quilt a little each day, for about 20 minutes at a time. It's been keeping me sane, and gives poor Sean a break from my constant whining and crankiness. For Balance, I decided to quilt a different motif inside each color rectangle. I did fans inside the light grey ones.

Big flowers inside the reds and flowing lines inside the black and white.

Wavy crosshatch inside the greens and a watery back and forth motif inside the turquoises. Inside the central, darker black squares I simply echoed the edges. The non-white fabrics are unquilted so they move forward while the background recedes. Each section took about 20 minutes, so it worked out well for my little shoulder sanity breaks.

Here's a close up of the swirly backing fabric and the striped binding. I hope she likes it!

As I worked on Balance, I didn't have much energy to do much else like tidy up. So the stacks of fabric that Sue sent are still piled up on my cutting mat. All the cute, happy, brightly colored fishes kept catching my eye, so I decided I would make a fish quilt next. I've also wanted to learn how to do curved piecing, and chose a drunkard's path block. I combined the fishies with wavy line fabrics to represent water, and dotty fabric for bubbles.

The blocks are quite large, about 8", so the whole top went together pretty fast. Ironing is the one quilt task that bothers my shoulder a bit if I overdo it. Big simple blocks require less ironing; a good thing! This one is called Ocean Portal and will be a Project Linus donation. It's cheered me up, and I hope it will do the same for the young recipient.