Two more partial rows of my Coded Paragraph quilt is done.
Coded Paragraph Progress: Two More Partial Rows Done…
Two more partial rows of my Coded Paragraph quilt is done.
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Half Price Plant Sale + New Rain Barrel…
I got a tip from one of John Kohler’s video from growingyourgreens.com that Home Depot was having a half price plant sale… so after work, I took my Mom there… She also wanted to buy a trash can to make into a rain barrel. We got a 44 gallon heavy duty trash can and some PVC fittings for the Square Foot Garden. I also got a few plants for half price:
– 4-pack Black Beauty Zucchini (with 6 plants)
– two 4-pack Sugar Ann Snap Peas
– 2 inch Yellow Straightneck Squash (2 plants)
I’ll divide the Zucchini and Yellow Squash and plant them into larger pots, then give them away to friends and family, keeping about 2 for myself.
4 Squares Planted + Big Greens Harvest…
I did a bit of gardening today, since the weather’s finally cleared up. It’s been raining for the past few days and parts of the garden are slightly flooded, but most of the garden got a good dose of water, which is good. I placed out a bunch of empty buckets and plastic storage boxes and collected as much water as I can get. Our rain barrel was filled to capacity and my Mom placed an empty trash can under the rain spout in back for the garage, but we found out today that it had a hole at the bottom. :(
Our Red Giant Mustard are still growing, but they probably just have about 2 more harvests left before bolting… so I want to keep the Mustard as well as some Kale and Mizuna coming. I planted 4 squares (4 plants each) in the Square Foot Garden today:
– Mustard ‘Florida Broadleaf’
– Mizuna (Red Leafed)
– Kale ‘Rainbow’
– Mustard ‘Red Crimson’
I then went around the garden and picked a bunch of greens!!!… Mostly from the front yard, but also got some Kale from the back. The greens include: Collards, Curly Leaf Kale, Dwarf Blue Curled Kale, Red Russian Kale, Redbor (G2) Kale, Kailaan, Broccoli Raab, Bright Lights Swiss Chard and Beet greens.
Click the photo above to see the annotations on Flickr.
I chopped then up and sautéed them with Onions, Garlic and olive Oil with a touch of Chicken Stock, Salt and Pepper… and they turned out so good!
Coded Paragraph Sewing Starts…
The EBMQG meeting is coming up, so I wanted to bring something to show, so I started cutting up some of the fabric to start sewing my fourth quilt, Coded Paragraph. Here’s a photo of part of the first completed row.
My ‘Shrooms Are Finally Growing…
The Mushroom Kit (that my Nephews and Niece gave me for Christmas) was not growing, so I was about to remove it from the kitchen counter and put it outside in the patio. I placed it near the patio door to remind me to take it outside… then a few days later, I noticed that suddenly there was growth… Now it’s back to the kitchen counter…
What’s Joey Eating?…
Last night, I was laying in bed and an idea popped into my head. I want to take daily photos of what I eat… but I want keep the photos separate from my main Flickr or Twitter account… so I searched for an iPhone app that I can use for this purpose and I found one called Eatwit.
Eatwit is an iPhone app that allows you to record what you eat and take a photo(s) and include information like a description, rating, fullness, calories, bill and location. Then you can post that to Twitter or Facebook. I also created a new Twitter account: joeyseating that I will use specifically for this purpose. One thing I like about this app is that the images are posted to a separate server so I don’t have to store it on my Instagram or Flickr account… I can just look it up on Twitter.
I’ll see how I like this… I may change my mind later and use another photo app that is more Instagram-like… be we’ll see…
Update: I changed my strategy… Instead of using Eatwit, I will now using Instaplus which has photo effects like Instragram. I can either snap a photo directly with Instaplus or load it from my camera library. After making adjustments, I can send it back to the camera library then use the iPhone’s built-in Twitter integration to send the photo to Twitter.
I like this approach better because the photos are higher resolution (compared to Eatwit, which downsizes the photos) and the photos are also better intergrated with Twitter. You can easily view the photo without going to a separate site and you can see a thumbnail of it under “recent images” on the sidebar. The process handles the image storage and stores the images to Photobucket.
What can I say… I’m a geek!
Changing My Quilt Size…
After finally using my Habitat Arrows quilt for a couple weeks (it was in a quilt show in February), I got to know it more and found that I want to adjust the size of my next quilt.
Habitat Arrows is 68″ x 86″ (washed) and I noticed that when I’m using it, the right side gets lifted above the side of the bed, so I want it about 10″ wider… I think I’m happy with the length on 86″. I’ll see if I want to adjust that later…
This makes the target dimensions for my next quilt: 78″ x 86″… I have the Coded Paragraph quilt designed at 70″ x 88″, so I have a little adjusting to do. Luckily it’s not too much.
Start of Coded Paragraph…
I’m starting on a new quilt called “Coded Paragraph” that I have been designing on the computer for a few months now. It is inspired by SisTeMu poster designs by Laia Clos of Barcelona’s Mot Studio.
Designer Laia Clos, of Barcelona’s Mot Studio, created a visual language called “SisTeMu” that turns every note of music into a system of geometric shapes and bright colours.*
I really liked the design and thought it would be an interesting start off point for a quilt design. I drew an initial plan in November 2011, then it evolved and evolved into something that I am finally happy with.
I gathered various fabrics from my stash, but had to buy some. I wanted bright colors that looked solid for the squares… but I didn’t want to strictly use solid fabrics, so I looked for bright colored fabrics with two to three tones for some variety.
I had a hard time searching for light grey fabrics which will be the background. I wanted a 10% grey with very little contrast, since I don’t want it to compete with the colored squares. I looked around for one particular light grey fabric called “Dapple Dot” from Daisy Janie’s Shades of Grey collection, which I had a fat quarter of… but couldn’t find locally… so I ordered some online. I’m just waiting for that fabric in the mail.
For the quilting, I will do concentric circles, similar to Dan Rouse‘s Ripple Quilt. Most of it will be machine sewn, but I want to try to do a few hand quilted ones with thick thread.
The back will almost be light gray fabric (similar to the front), but I’m thinking of making thin colored triangles that point to the center of the various quilted circles.