Thursday, June 09, 2011

JC Raulston Arboretum

On Sunday evening we took a trip to NCSU's JC Raulston Arboretum.  This is a treasure that I didn't even know about until a few weeks ago, and it is just a few minutes from my work and not much farther from our house.  It was a picture taking field trip.  Some of my favorites of the pictures I took are below.  To see a couple of the great ones Marty got, click over here.




I love this magnolia.

I wasn't sure how this picture would turn out because it was a little shady.  This is a lacecap hydrangea, I  like how the outer flowers look like butterflies around the inner flowers.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Maybe someday

**Found this among my draft posts.  Time to post.**

The other day Marty and I were out and about.
I was talking about how when Pooka and Harvey are here we might go to the zoo, or maybe the aquarium, or maybe both.
"I like zoos. Someday, can we own a zoo. With elephants and hippos and lions, and baby animals?! Oooh! And an aquarium!"
Marty: "You want an aquarium? We can do that. Maybe not right away, they're kind of expensive."
Me: "Um, I want the kind of aquarium that can have dolphins. And whales. Not goldfish. I don't think our house is big enough for that kind of aquarium. Thanks anyway."

Thursday, June 02, 2011

From planning to final product

Another baby, another quilt.  
In March, my good friends from high school, Ray and Yael, had a baby--Auden.  I started planning out Auden's quilt months ago--getting feedback from Ray and Yael on their preferences*, creating a mock-up on the computer, pulling out the crayons, letting it sit while I considered the design (and made sure I still liked the idea after a week), and making calculations on fabric requirements.  

And finally, I went shopping--deciding on 3 green fabrics and 13 blues.  I kind of felt like a maniac as I pulled out bolt after bolt in the fabric store.


It seemed like a bad idea to have the backing be completely white, but I wanted to carry over some of the white from the front onto the back.  I did this by repeating the thick white border from the front.  I also used a fabric with a larger scale pattern on the back.

In thinking about how to do the actual quilting, I considered several options--tie it with yarn, hire a long arm quilter, or machine quilt it myself.  Ultimately it was my friend Julie who convinced me to "stitch in the ditch" machine quilt it, which I think was a brilliant suggestion.


I love this quilt.  It's one of my very favorites to have made--partly because it's beautiful and partly because I made it for dear friends.

*I liked Ray and Yael's input because it gave me the perfect opportunity to try a couple of things I've been thinking about in quilting but never done before, like the white background, incorporating cornerstones (the smaller green squares) instead of continuous sashing, and using a simple color pallet but many different fabric patterns that fit the pallet.  (Plus, sorry all the pictures have a green haze in the middle--looks like I need to wipe something off my phone).