A Wicked Design!

 I was finally able to finish the design, pattern, and uploads for the newest Wicked Raven Design!  Introducing Wayfarers Star!  This is the second pattern of my original designs.  I call my pattern designs my "utter quilt bravery"!  They have required the most from me as far as creative bravery and learning new things technology wise.  

This is a big block - 18"!  I love how this block comes together and all the different colorways that can be done!

Check it out on my ETSY site Here!

My first pattern is also available on the ETSY Site too!  It is called "Twisted Star".  Twisted Star is a 12" block.  It was my very first moment of utter quilt bravery!  This is the block I agonized over and made umpteen copies of before I called it done.  I still hesitate about my designs because I dont consider them "perfect", but nothing ever is!

A friend a few years ago told me "put it out there"!  All of your time and the beauty will be wasted if you died tomorrow afraid to publish your work!  That goes for quilts, books, poetry, and just about anything that we do.  Creativity wasted when we arent brave enough to put it out there!

My process is pretty simple.  I start with a notebook of graph paper that I have pretty full of started designs.  It is a bit of a mish-mash of organized chaos and items that spark something inside my creative soul;  A piece of a tee shirt with a tree on it, an ad from a magazine that has the sea and a spark of sun, or just pages that I have begun an idea on.

I have my "travel set" of colored pencils in a pencil pouch with a sharpener and a few markers for when I need a quick grab and go pack, or when I am toting it around the house (like watching movies and making design notes).

I have a couple different rulers in the front of this particular design book as it is the one that I use the most.  I keep them in place with the sticky velcro so they are easy to remove and put back.

And then there is the design basket in the sewing room, with extra graph and notebooks, markers, pencils, sharpeners, and even a coloring book in case my creativity is stuck!

I use Electric Quilt 8 for part of my design, or sometimes to print templates for testing.  (one of the new things I have learned/am learning technology wise).  I also use MS Word to write the patterns out for publishing and copyrighting.  I used another pattern I had purchased as my sample for what it need to look like.  Remember to put the Copyright information on your pattern!

Copyright process is pretty simple once you know how it works.  I know it sounds like it would be complicated, but once you are on the site at 

https://www.copyright.gov/

You can register for an account and you can do the whole copyright process in there, including uploading most of the materials there for completion.  For quilt patterns I have had to send an actual physical copy of the item to the Library of Congress for "deposit proof" purposes, but they seem to be using that less and less and just using things that can be uploaded online.

The copyright process does take time after you have uplosded all your information and "proof".  I have one that is in the process since January of 2021 and I am still waiting for "completion" on it.  Covid has slowed things down at the Library I have heard.  

There is nothing like the feeling of when you get your first copyright certificate!  Such satisfaction!

Just begin!  Start your book, your design, your poem!  Be utterly bold and brave!  Be blessed!

One Man's Trash...... My treasure!

A few months ago (before Christmas) my sister called me and said she had a "tub and some bags of fabric" in her car for me that the kids at the local homeless shelter werent able to easily bundle for sale and they were out of room in their shop so they were going to send it to points North aka maybe the dumpster!  Yikes!  I said never!  My sister is the founder and Head Woman in charge of the MyHouse group - its more than a shelter - its an assistance spot for kids 16-24.  It includes a thrift shop, a coffee shop/cafe, as well as job training, music area, lounging area and on and on and on.  Check it out here!  They also have a Boutique/thrift shop called Steam Driven that sells lots of different items, but has a little niche of Steampunk items that are handmade locally, some of it in-house even!  It's really fun and amazing!  The shops and training center stayed open since the start of Covid.  The training and services are always needed.

Here is first glimpse in a couple of the bags!

Here are a couple more of the bags ready for a peek!

This pillow cover was in the tub.  Already finished and with the buttons on even!  I had given sister a fair price for the tub of fabric based on what I could see through the sides.  It might not have been enough!

This stack of fabric was in the tub and there are some scraps and some yardage in the stack- some has some sun fading, as though it had sat in a window for a while without being used.  Nothing that can't be worked around though.  The steampunk shop does use some fabric items, but not quite the same as what I use for quilting.  Our color pallettes are also not even close to the same.  I do not think I will ever be able to make a "Steampunk" quilt.  At least, not for a while!

How much fun is this?  Jungle animals, leaves, and grasses fabrics!

Here is some super fun favorite holiday of all time fabrics!  Amuck!  Amuck! Amuck!

Yes!  Its Halloween!  

This fabric actually GLOWS in the DARK!!!  How cool is this???  The COOLEST!!!

SO many fun things to play with!  A Whale stuffy toy panel, and some soft blue small pieces.

Christmas and Thanksgiving things too!

Thread, yarn and a lovely floral quilt kit too!

Finished blocks and unfinished projects.  Finished blocks can be put together as sort of an "odd blocks" quilt.  They are like a quilty puzzle and always turn out really neat.  Stay tuned for some fun creations from these!

Some that can be finished quickly, or can be taken on the road if I might have to wait somewhere!

I let sister know - and she let the shop sorters know that I can use just about any small piece of fabric or strip!  The smallest I use is actually 1 &1/2" square, but I will use strips that are as small as 3/4" wide - they are great for crochet rugs.  I slao have a friend who uses the strips too so they can be shared.

This quilt used the 1&1/2" squares for the blocks in between the stars.  36 little squares per block! 

This one uses 1&1/4" strips and squares for the center portions!  It's sometimes a pain in the backside, but it is also very fun to see the outcome and know that you have reduced, re-used and recycled something that might have otherwise been thrown away!

I hope you have a store like this in your hometown that you can go and see what treasures are there.  Make some friends with the shop sorters, let them know what you are looking for and Ill bet they will save them for you.  

What's your treasure?

Blessed be and happy treasure hunting!

One Big Rooster of practice and patience!

A few years ago - just after the earthquake - the welding crew got a bit of "practice steel" from one of our local businesses.  It's steel that the business would be casting off or is not able to use for structural uses or becuse it had already been cut down to a size that doesn't fit the products they make.  It is prefect for welding students to practice welding on - making fun and useful items that don't have to have perfect, certified welds.  It also makes great yard art/snow measure/pea protection for me!

Introducing the Big Roster!  The steel piece, not the guy!  That guy is Mr Parker, our welding teacher.  This was taken while Reed was still in school - 2018, and one of the practice projects the kids worked on was this big rooster he is holding.  FOr this piece,othe kids had to practice welding "round stock", and the rooster is made of two pieces of steel that they had to weld (seam) and cut out, or maybe they cut it and then welded it together.  Lots of welding techniques.  Isn't it wonderful!  He is a great reminder that with practice great things can happen.  That goes for the rooster and the guy!  This picture also always makes me smile with great memories - Mr Parker has had to go to another building since our welding shop was part of the building that was destroyed in the earthquake, so our welding students go to another school to learn from him, so we don't get to see him often.  We are being patient while our building is just starting the process to be rebuilt, and we can't wait until he is back closer to home. Practice and patience..

Here is the rooster guarding the peas row from the birds so they won't eat all my pea seeds.  It does not however guard against baby moose who like to lay in the pea row after it has been planted - thats why the sticks behind the rooster are leaned way over!  Darn it!  Easily propped back up and re staked though - but I did have to replant part of the row as the moose had driven the pea seeds to the center of the Earth!  

Here is the rooster guarding in the fall after the harvest had been made and the moose had made short work of the pea vines!  Moose are not afraid of roosters!  He is sturdy though - they have not knocked him down!  You can see how the kids worked on the seam where his ribs are, and on carefully cutting out his comb in this picture!  

And then the snow came!!!  The rooster is barely keeping his head above the snow this winter!  The birds are now using him as a mid-yard roost!  The birds are not afraid of the rooster now either!  

This was as close as I could get to him for this picture - I am barely keeping my boots above the snow on this day!  We got a lot of snow!  It is late March now and it feels as if Spring will never come!  We must have patience and practice our shoveling skills!

Ahhhhh..... finally we can see the whole rooster again and we know we are down to only about 3' of snow left in the yard!  Moving in the right direction.  Birds are still using him as a roost - I think he might have to get bedazzled this summer to protect the peas - maybe some blowing ribbons, or a pinwheel or two?  We shall see what works!

And finally he is roosting out of the snow, fully ready to embrace spring and enjoying that late Alaska sunset!  Reminding us all that patience and practice make great friends!  May you have both.

Happy Spring and Blessed Be!

Must Love Snow!

It has seemed like a long winter this year - even though we have had very few days that were below -25* or even got past -20*.  We have had Covid and culture cancellations, as well as some business and school closures and cancellations that have been stressful and exhausting as well.

Among it all though, there has been beauty!  This is Angelica.

Angelica is an natural medicinal plant used for a variety of ailments, including insomnia.  There are also folks who use it in the culinary arts, including making "candied Angelica", and it is delicious, but I am not an Angelica expert and so far I just enjoy its beauty as it grows up among some of my other plants.  Maybe this next year I will start to make use of this beautiful and useful plant. Angelica is a bit of a parasite plant - not according to science really, but its seed blows a bit like the Dandelion and lodges in among the leaves of other plants or even the roots of trees, or Rhubarb, or Peony, or.... the list goes on!  Then it grows tall and beautuful, and umbrellas out over the other plants, they effectively holding it up like beans on a fence.

This is that same Angelica plant and its beautiful flower head covered with frost in the very early fall here at the farm.  It makes the yard look a little eerie and mysterious even.  We had a few months of fall that we worried that we would get no snow and have nothing to protect the plants for the winter.

But then the snow began.  Here is our lovely Angelica in its spot right below the "love" sign that Reed made for me out of a piece of steel.  It is one of my most treasured items.  Sturdy as all get out, in the wind it swings to and fro and the wind whistles through the chain and the letter holes.  Literally whisthing in the wind.  It makes a beautiful sound.

The it snowed some more and the Love and  the Angelica stood sturdy and resilient.

Then again with the snow - covering the bench, the wind drifting it all around the little shed and covering every track in the yard.  Even the moose don't go out there now.

And more snow on top of that snow.  Love and the Angelica still standing under the weight.  Some of the snow you see here is from the plow - not just the wind.  

This is from this past week.  We got another 6-8" of snow, but we cant really tell how much because the wind blew so hard that we arent able to tell where the old was and the new begins!  We have at least 3 feet here on the farm and I had to shovel the top of the greenhouse the other day - just before the new snow came - lest I risk a cave in of the greenhouse!

Love and Angelica stand.  Still. Proudly.  Waiting......

For the promise of Spring.

This is the Angelica plant right below the Love sign.  It has grown up aong the Caesar's Brother Iris that you can see blooming here.  It makes a beautiful addition to the Oasis I have here beneath the sign, next to the shaded bench and so I let it stay.  Angelica is a biennial and only will live here two years.  Then it will move along to another plant, in another area of the farm, and wait to cause brilliant beauty there....Winter and Spring. Summer and Fall.

Blessed Spring, Blessed Be.