Tag Archives: inspiration

From RI, NJ, and NYC!

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It seems like I left home a longgggg time ago, but it was only last Tuesday. Since then I have been with 3 guilds in two states: Rhode Island and New Jersey. I visit a 4th guild tonight and tomorrow, also in NJ. But yesterday I got to go to NYC and visit Jeff. To be completely honest, that has been the high point of my trip :-).

I rode the bus from NJ to Times Square where I walked around a little. Does any other place look like this?

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And even if it did, I’ll bet there wouldn’t be little Statues of Liberty all over the place…

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It was a beautiful day and people were out, everywhere. I was not the only one snapping photos, but I might have been the only one taking photos of manholes. I love this op art design combined with my very polka-dotty legs and feet. This would be a great machine quilting pattern!

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And, if I lived here, I would definitely be a NYC Sew-er! Image

I did look up and there was so much to look at! This exposed set of building walls caught my eye…

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The dark grid of iron again the white cement blocks stood out from a distance. When seen with the horizontal orange strips of construction plastic and the narrow horizontal bars of something brown in the upper left and the rectangular windows, this makes an interesting composition. Adapted, it could make a nice pieced quilt.

You might have seen the tile floor that I instagrammed… it, too, would be fun to piece:

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And as long as I’m posting tile pictures, here’s one from the restaurant Jeff and I visited for lunch. I should remember the name, but don’t. It serves Mediterranean food and is near the Natural History Museum. The fish mosaic is made from white tiles (broken or cut, or both) stuck directly to the exposed brick. No mortar was set around these tiles. It was a nice look and wouldn’t be that hard to do at home. There were other designs, trees especially, on other walls in the restaurant.

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I really hated to leave, knowing that it could well be next Christmas before I see Jeff again. That said, I did get to see him yesterday and that was wonderful!

Colorful California…

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Digital photography is so very wonderful. Remember film? And the wait for pictures, most of which were awful? Digital photography makes it possible for each of to take amazing photos. That said, these are not ‘amazing’ but they are pretty.

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I love the aqua boxes. They are like sashing between the colorful fruit. The man behind the stand was looking at me funny as I took pictures of his tables.

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The field of yellow flowers (next) was eye-popping set into the drabber grasses…

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Farther down the road there was a bigger field of yellow with people scattered around in it, taking photos. Lots of kids sitting, surrounded by yellow. I’ll bet the pictures are terrific. We do the same thing in Texas when the bluebonnets are blooming.

The next photo is not so much about color as it is the pulled grid of the fence that lays over the scenery behind.

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It suggests an interesting quilting pattern that could be sewn over a variety of quilt tops. Done well, it would be both interesting and sort of invisible… like a wire fence.

I love a (working) vacation…

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Steve and I are in Santa Cruz, which is a vacations stop on the way to King City where I will teach and lecture on Monday. Today we hiked at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. This is a huge park and we only saw some of it. For me, the most exciting part of the hike  involved a dangerous water crossing :-). Steve carried the camera and my phone in case I slipped off the log. He also found a long stick which helped me to stay balanced. (I left the stick by the water and I hope others have made use of it.)

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There were lots of other hikers on the trail, and bicyclists were out in force. And motorcyclists. Actually, everyone in the Santa Cruz area was outside today.

One thing I noticed on the drive were the fun, hand-painted signs. If you’ve driven Highway 1, you’ve probably seen this:

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Yes, the truck is eye-catching, but it’s that big strawberry that is the best! And the other signs around it are each wonderful in their own way. If we are jam, we would definitely have stopped for a taste.

Looking at the signs made me think about how self-conscious I sometimes am about my own handwriting. And, if I were to ever paint a roadside sign, I’m pretty sure that I would try to make it too perfect.

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These signs are more eye-catching because they are so obviously made by hand.

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The imbalance, the quirkiness, the imperfections, all show the hand of the maker in the design. This is exactly why I find myself drawn to improvisational quilt designs, both pieced and appliqued.