Northern Lights...and some quilting

On the 11th of November we had a wonderful show from the Northern Lights.   I just couldn't seem to get a blog written until today  (and there will be a little quilty content).                                   

This photo was taken from my deck, looking kind of Northeast, using a 3 second exposure. Usually we see more purple and green, but on this night the reds were popping.

Often in our area when these lights are visible, you can hardly see them with the naked eye, but a 3 second camera exposure will give you beautiful color. I wanted to share some comparisons with you of the "naked eye" view, and the "3 second exposure" view.

When I take the first view, I don't always get the camera framed up exactly the same after resetting for the second view, but you get the idea.

I could post dozens of photos from this night, but I will just share one more pair. Interestingly, this pair was taken looking due east.

The first shot in this pair was zoomed in a bit more than the second.

I hope you enjoyed those. I was out on the road between our home and our son's, taking photos for about 1 1/2 hours, with a brief hot chocolate break. It was a wonderful night!

Now for the quilty stuff!

In our tiny guild (only 7 members now), we like to have a small monthly project everyone can make individually. The last couple of years we have purchased the Temecula Monthly Mini postcards.  Tammy had made each monthly quilt, and then put them all together in one large top. Here she is displaying the finished product. I love this finish! She used fabrics from one designer, and it made it cohesive, but still very colorful.

Ruth brought her finished tops to share, and I got a couple of photos showing a few of them. She favors Civil War prints for a more vintage look. That is where I usually land, too, so these really speak to me.

This year we are using Pam Buda's Vintage Patchwork book to make a small project each month. All of the projects in the book are named for books of classic literature, or characters in such books.

The first project for our guild year was a pincushion that I opted not to make. It was a busy time. This month several of us brought our finished tops for the November project, and I can't believe I didn't get a photo of them all. But I can show you a photo of mine. 

This project is titled Scarlet. If you have this book, and check out page 43, you will see how I went a little rogue (a very little).

Mine finished about 11" square

And finally, the house quilt is still progressing. After I had sewn together all the rows you saw in my last post, I draped it over our bed to see if it needed a border or not.

I liked it best when just taken by the window's light, because the colors were more true. 

This shows you the original design I have been loosely following. Valerie Langue is the designer, and the pattern is found in American Patchwork and Quilting, October 2020, page 48. (I am not on Instagram, but apparently you can find Valerie there.)

Valerie has a row of sashing and stars around her outer row of houses, and then notice how her outer border is a darker neutral? I like that idea. It is just a little different than what you'd expect. I do love Valerie's original quilt, but I was determined to make a two-color quilt entirely from stash, though I did originally intend to make the stars red. That changed.

My quilt is large enough without adding the outer row of sashing and stars--besides, I didn't want to make that many more stars. I will just put that darker neutral around the outer edge with stars in the corners. A bonus was that I found in my stash that darker neutral shown above that was the same print as my sashing, just in a different, darker color-way. Hooray for stash!!

I am planning to put that final border around all 4 sides, but the edge of my design wall was full of other things, so there was no room to place the fourth border up there, in case you thought I didn't realize I only had it on 3 sides. ;)
                                                                                                      I share a lot of sunsets here, but not many sunrises. This was taken by my son, as he and his wife were leaving their home the morning before Thanksgiving. (That is our home to the right.)

So much for which to be thankful! The friendships created through blogging are among them. They have been a blessing in my life!

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.

A little bit quilts, a little bit not

I did it again-I went a full month without posting. Bad blogger! Where does the time go? 

It is crazy to me to think back almost 12 years ago when I started blogging and realize that I was posting 2 or 3 times a week! How did I do that? 

So here are the two most recent Tiny Club blocks that I taught in my guild this month. And yes, I do enjoy fussy-cutting.

As usual, I made "storyboards" to define the construction process. The designer of these blocks, Lynn Hopkins, used to do that for us when he taught these blocks before he left on a church mission. The circled block below in the right-hand board shows what happens when you reverse the value placement in your flying geese.

                                                

     It takes me a long time to put these boards together.

What does NOT take a long time is the making of the blocks for the Moda Love quilt. 

I did mix up the background fabrics a bit from when I last posted this, and I like it better this way. Then one evening while Chooky and friends were at Scrub Stitchin' (International Version), I got the top half all sewn together.

Had a chance to share my progress with some of the Chookshed Stitchers after they returned from Scrub Stitchin'. 

Some have asked about our current snow conditions. The photo to the right was taken out my kitchen window two weeks ago! Hard to believe we still had that much snow in the middle of April. The baby lambs couldn't even go frisk in the pasture because it was still covered in snow.

But this was the view of the mountains yesterday, on the dirt road where I take many of my walks. I stopped here as I was driving home from town and took this shot. The snow on the valley floor is gone, but the mountains are still covered.

Just last Sunday there were two events in the heavens I wanted to share. First up, in the afternoon we had a display of a sun halo. There was no sundog this time, which is apparently caused by the orientation of the ice crystals. Who knew? 

Then later that night, about 10 p.m., we had an even rarer event--the Northern Lights were barely visible. You can see one shot in my new header. They didn't actually appear that bright, but the real time photo hardly showed them at all. So the photo below was taken with my iPhone on a 3 second exposure. The green and purple is brighter in the photos, but it gives you a better idea of what we saw than the quick "shutter click".

This is the third time I've seen the Northern Lights, and each time was here in this valley--and this is probably the second best view I've had. My dream is to see them from Iceland, or Norway, or some other such northern point someday. On our Alaskan cruise last September we missed a wonderful display of them in Juneau by 1 week. :(

Yesterday I sent off my doll quilt for the Humble Quilts Doll Quilt Swap. I'm excited to see if the recipient likes it, and to find out what comes my way.

Maybe next time I will have a little more quilty content. We'll see. Until then, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.