photo.tropic

Identify

2012-01-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

On the left is Margaret Millicent Barnum and to her right is her brother Charles Norman Barnum. Taken in the 1900's. Milwaukee. I do not know who their two friends are.

On bad days, I'm determined to scan five images. On good days, I'll do more. I have to make the time to sort and identify who the folks are in the shots when I do them. I lose it all otherwise. Since I'm pretty lost anyway, I'd rather not pass on acres of unidentified folks to my kids.

One would ask, "Who's that, mom?"

I can hear the converstation now. "I haven't the faintest idea, dear."

Verisimilitude

2012-01-18T14:09:00.000-08:00

Granddaughter Stassa with the Kassel Castle growing out of her head. December, 2011.

I’m reduced to doing selective scanning. In the first box of images, where I was a far more conscientious scanner, I ground to a stop when I got to the first San Diego Train Fair. Yes, I carefully scanned any shots with either G or me in them. No, I didn’t’ scan the multitudes of photos of train car after train car.

I asked G if he wanted me to keep the photos. Nope.

So now I have begun work on the second box of photographs, and I find I’m easing into the old, “I don’t give a fig.” Here I have thousands of photographs in front of me yet to scan, and I’ve adopted a very poor attitude about all this. I’m cheating with my selective choices. Shouldn’t I scan each and every shot keeping the historical verisimilitude intact? Company picnics?

Not if I want to survive this experience.

Happy New Year !

2011-12-29T08:54:00.001-08:00

Glasses on display for New Year’s at the Discover Shop.

Happy New year to all of you....thanks for stopping by.

Happy Holidays to You All !

2011-12-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2007.

Always

2011-12-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

We didn’t always love them, but they loved each other.

Christmas intervened. Life does seem to always happen like that. I set the boxes of things to be scanned aside, and began wrapping presents on the work table, then when that was done, I sorted out the overwhelming paper pile for the taxes. Now everything, including a pair of levis seem intermingled on the table.

I’ll be good and mail off the Christmas cards today, then later grocery shopping will fill a few hours. We are eating home more now and better for us foods later topped by a good book. I’m appallingly behind in my reading.

Seeing

2011-12-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

I do not feel the urge to scan each and
every one of these out of focus dreams
to my hard drive. Each blurred photograph calls
with its intense light leak reds and glowing

yellows showing bright into the past. Each
folder I handle gifts me anew with
surprises. Blurred friends discernable only
through slow rumination, those long pauses

that leave me peeking like a voyeur into
background, into greys, through a slurry of
darkness here and there to find a fragment
of something to see just a bit clearer.

Only later do I run these dreams through
Photoshop for a clear reality.

Limits

2011-11-29T06:49:00.000-08:00

Scanning. It wasn’t as boring yesterday. No, I don’t have to scan every photograph that's out of focus, blurred, or with unrecognizable contents. That helps with the pressure I put on myself with this project. I liked finding daughter Lenora looking so vital and wonderful. There’s a long period of Lessa where she certainly looks less, but it's nice to catch a glimpse of the painting behind her.

There too I see long ago friends that now have diabetes or prostate cancer. There I find an image of another friend young, vital, and drunk now today a swollen caricature of himself after heart surgery that went wrong. I scan these and smile at the old memories not thinking of the now.

Sometimes my old scanner burps and makes duplicates. Or is it the computer. Norton continually tells me that another Trojan Horse has been defeated. I think the reality is that antique piece of hardware doesn’t like the modern Firefox. I’m continually grateful that I own a scanner and computer that are compatible. I persevere…rather doggedly and begin a new sonnet about scanning the past.

Random Thoughts on Dinners

2011-11-21T07:01:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 1985 L to R: Mother, G's dad, The Geezer, and G's mom.

As I begin this photographic journey, I note how few photos there are of laden tables or holidays at the boards. Perhaps I so disliked eating with my family that I took no pictures? Perhaps no one thought to record these meals? We didn't have an easy to use camera. Ours was a Kodak with bellows and an awkward to use shape.

Looking at Family

2011-11-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Robson family: L to R: Gracie, Maude Amy, Mother Sarah, Father Charles, Minnie May, and Eunice. My grandmother was Maud.

After we hit two estate sales yesterday, I helped him haul the sewing table upstairs to be used for the scanning project. He had to take the top off, brought it up, and popped the top back on. Easy. After I finish this note, I’ll haul out the oldest box of photos out to see what I have.

I’ve already scanned the family photos that were in folders. Now I tackle those that are piled in boxes. Later, I will deal with G’s family pictures that live in albums downstairs. The newest adventure begins.

Above: Maude at Hamline College. Below: Grandma Maudie with her great granddaughter Margot.

A New Project

2011-11-19T12:10:00.001-08:00

He helped me haul the sewing table upstairs to used for the scanning project. He had to take the top off, brought it up, and popped the top back on. Easy. After I finish this note, I’ll haul out the oldest box of photos to see what I have.

The newest adventure begins.

Done at Last

2011-11-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

I’m not a quilter, but I got conned into quilting by one of my biology professors, Dr. Harriette Schapiro. Perhaps she thought I would improve mathematically if I quilted. I know she sensed my love of color and of fabrics. Love and passion do not help when you have learning disabilities and can’t add two and two.

I picked my pattern from a book of scrap quilts and began to choose my fabrics July 27, 2010. Just today, I was telling someone that it had been two years since I started, but it’s been one year and four months instead.

About a month later, most of the blocks were cut out, and I ground to a halt.

In July of 2010, I also converted my photography blog to quilting Blog I titled “Quilt-O-Tropic….notes on a few quilts.” By March 2011, I’d begun putting the blocks together but also begun to develop a dislike of the quilt itself. Boring. Endless. The colors didn’t excite me. I wrote about every bit of agony I felt. Not light at all.

In of 2011, I found a blue and white quilt top at the American Cancer Society Thrift store, and grabbed it. Stirred at last to do something with this quilted weight on my mind, I got the “Blue Quilt” jump started at last.

Pinned in one week, it was tied the next week, and the week after that it was first stitched in the ditch by the yellow. The following day childlike sea creatures were drawn on the blue border in a two day sewing stint. On the fourth day, It was finished with a bit of self binding, the pins taken out and photographed.

I actually like it now. The yellow perks it up, the several major errors aren’t glaring, and it’s comfortable when draped across your lap. What more could one want. Perhaps if I had understood measurement, it would have been a lap quilt. Perhaps if someone else does the measurements for the next one, there will be a next one albeit vastly smaller.

(Next I will be scanning the boxed family photos and putting them on disc.)

Quilted

2011-11-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

Amorphous leaves turned into surf which turned into fish, and shells among rolling waves. A blue theme for a blue quilt. Then digging through my quilting reference books, I discovered the quilt pundit Mr. James says it’s all right to self bind a quilt. We have progress rather than perfection.

Quilting Lite

2011-11-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

After puttering then seeing the “J Edgar” film, himself came home to touch up paint. I stitched here and there. The quilting on the blue quilt is like, but a very lite version, of this quilting on the “House Quilt.” One side is done, and two sides have the stitch in the ditch finished.

Stitch in the ditch

2011-11-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

I inch along. One seam at a time. I confess it was a struggle to push this king sized quilt through the machine, and I kept saying that all the rest of the sides didn't have to be pushed through the middle.

Next....

2011-11-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

I'll make time to run it through the machine this afternoon. At least once. Maybe I'll find time to draw in the scallops too. Imagine.

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T06:44:00.000-08:00

It sits upstairs by my computer. Rolled and tied. I might have time to sew a scallop or two Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. I have Monday and Tuesday free, and I have planned on finishing off the quilt those two days. I'm very excited about this.

Getting It Tied

2011-11-09T06:47:00.001-08:00

Thanks to G, the tying went relatively easily. He helped.

I had finished running thread all over the quilt. Monday night I asked him if he would help, and when he said yes made a date. Last night we spread the quilt over the bed, and with each of us on a side, we got it tied. That went vastly easier than I thought it would.

Three more steps now, and the quilt is done. One stitch in the ditch around the yellow stripe, scallops around the blue border, and turning the blue to the back rather than apply bias cut binding. Imagine.

I Tie Therefore I Am

2011-11-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

Tied African American Quilt from the quilt show at the Mingei, 2011.

I paid close attention to Seedy’s instructions. Found enough of the same colored blue embroidery thread down in the garage to do whole quilt. Found threader at the bottom of my old sewing box...that was a triumph.

Looked up how to tie a quilt online. Tried the first technique which was twice through one spot, cutting, then knotting. Very correct. Very time consuming. Very difficult with a king sized quilt when you are short on hand eye coordination and own an arthritic thumb.

The next video showed the needle going through one spot and coming back right next to it….then without cutting the embroidery thread, moving on to the next spot. When you are done with a line of stitches, cut in the middle of each stitch then knot. The young lady who demonstrated this just zipped right along. I can say this was faster than the other more dogged technique.

I combined this method with rolling the quilt to keep it out of the way. Dr. Harriette taught me this trick of holding the rolled quilt with bicycle clips. It was slow but a go with the knots on the back yet the focus on the join of the blocks on the front.

The big problem appeared this morning. My eyes don't like this hand eye work at all and my world is a blur. I'll just keep going and maybe G will tie while I run the stitches.

Thinking First

2011-11-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

At seventy with arthritis and a non-functional brain, I gotten down on the garage floor and pinned the blue quilt. Just because I could do it easily at fifty, and do it but uncomfortably at sixty, doesn’t mean it was a really good thing to do it at seventy when you even have trouble walking. But I did.

About one third of the way into the project, I began to berate myself. Arthritis and cold cement floors don’t really combine well. Sometimes my unthinking idiocy beats all my other talents, I told myself. Inching my way around the sides, I talked to myself pretending I was talking to my old truck. The laundry going round and round offered a homey sound to keep me company. The truck said nothing.

Two hours into it all, I was done. Before picking up the quilt, I went upstairs to take two Aleve and grab the camera. Maybe at seventy, I will learn to think first before I act.

No More Boring Blue Quilt

2011-11-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve never taken so long to finish a quilt. Never.

Spurred on by a gentleman who has invented a new way of scanning photos, and just having one of the mountainous pile of boxes of my old pictures smash a glass on one of my framed photos, I tackled the quilt at last.

Yesterday I cut and started to put on a half inch border of cadmium meduim yellow. Nope, the machine wouldn’t run. I struggled with it for an hour cleaning, fussing, threading. In the end I banished a half used bobbin that had been working just fine a while ago. That fixed it.

Today I took a bit of the while with blue spotted fabric from the back fabric pile. It made into a nice three inch border that ties the back into the front. The I made a seven inch border of a rich blue that snapped the whole quilt out of it’s dollrums. No more boring quilt.

After dinner he measured, and we drove over to our one choice Joann’s Fabrics and bought batting. Maybe I can get it pinned on Thursday afternoon.

Very Satisfactory

2011-09-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

I’m packing for a trip. My friend Seedys doesn’t like to pack but loves the trip. I like both. Watch me roll my underwear into tiny rounds, pop them in a ziplock, lean on it till the air is gone, and smile. Very satisfactory. Socks in ziplock bags and compressed. They leave me with a smile too. Bras aren’t satisfactory to pack at all, but I can get them out of the way.

Just like I’ve been getting that Blue quilt out of the way. Why I have been such a grumph about this quilt, I do not know. Years of being grumpy, frankly. Shame on me for being so bored with this piece. I woke this morning and realized I could tie that quilt instead of machine quilting it. That’d solve my problems. I’ve never tied a quilt. It would be an easier softer way of putting the quilt together, and get it done and out of the way.

Maybe I will go back to splashing watercolor around when I’m done with this quilt. That too is very satisfactory.

Progress

2011-09-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

...at last

Quilting. That's been me the last two days.

Oh, not all the corners of all the blocks met, but I am to the stage with this piece that I don’t care. It’s a terrible attitude. Half the long strips are now sewn together. Today, I’ll finish the top construction and put the quilt away until we return. Of all my quilts, I like the “House Quilt” best. The individual blocks are not boring, and boring is my enemy with this quilt.

I ate over it while I sewed. Oh, confession time. I feel a certain amount of guilt at the number of crackers I consumed, but the top is together. The back is together. We have progress at last.

Becoming Whole

2011-09-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

The blocks were sewn into their long strips weeks ago, and there they sat collecting dust. Yesterday I tackled this elephant in the living room and began sewing the strips into a whole top. It's half together, and it will be a pleasure to have this center and back done.

Rendezvous’

2011-08-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

..............................I’ve always spent too much of your money
...............................to have someone else do my work, do my
..............................dreams, lead me on into naivety
..............................when at age twenty I should have known the

..............................questions to ask. At age thirty I knew the
..............................answers but I was mad as a hatter
..............................and spent all of life wantonly in a
..............................wonderful insanity till forty.

..............................At age fifty, education took it all.
..............................At age sixty, I went to Paris
..............................not quite spending everything, and
..............................at age seventy, I’m impatiently

..............................paying for tests with this last remittance
..............................when I’d rather be dancing till dawn.

Fierce

2011-08-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've been sick again, and now I am into the yearly round of doctors and tests. To keep my mind off the second mammogram, yesterday I powered into the last few rows of the blue quilt. Two remain, and today I may have time to begin putting the center of top together. Finding that whole blue quilt top for the back was magic, getting the center of the front almost done is enervating. Progress at last.

Quilt Back

2011-07-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

Finished quilt top I picked up for a back on the “Blue Quilt” at the Cancer Society thrift store. July 2011.

Two months ago, this blue quilt top came into the shop as a donation. It has all the fabrics that were used to make it also. There’s also many yards of a solid blue that was to be used as a backing. I confess, I’ve been more than lazy with this blue quilt. It sits in the living room taking up space reminding me that I need to get to work. No work.

When this quilt top arrived at the shop, it was priced at $75.00 dollars. I hardly spared it a second look. This week, all the two month old stuff went to 25% off. When taking some books that I looked up back to the shop, I had one of those light bulb moments. With my employee discount, that brought it down to 45% off. But Monday was senior day. So there was 25% off, and 20% off for employee discount, and Monday there was an additional 20% off for being an old lady. Suddenly this blue quilt top was within my financial reach.

Once I unfolded it, I discovered the blues were dead. They aren’t jumping around with the excitement of being blue as is the blue on that pillow above it on the sofa. Still, having the back done even in boring blues, makes me leap to my sewing machine and get a row or two done. Progress at last. Even more importantly, interest again.

Speaking of quilts. Dear Geezer brought the ladder upstairs, and we pulled all the quilts in storage above his closet down. For the first time in years I could see the happy few that we own. Lovely soft things on those two bookcase shelves. They make me smile. Just for a moment, I’m a quilt lady instead of a book lady.

Sloppy

2011-06-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

They all got ironed and I began seeing if I should trim them all to size. They were all narrower at one end and wider on the other side. I took about four apart and resewed them. I trimmed one, but I was flummoxed by the fact that they all had the same error. Now a week later, the solution appeared magically as if a fairy wand was waved. If I alternate the directions they are going, it should cover the error.

It appears that I have been starting out with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, but in the end of ever single block the seams widen. She says hitting herself upside the head.

Half An Inch

2011-05-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

The ironing board is out. The iron cleaned. Half the cubes of blue are flattened so I can see what a poor seamstress I am. Only a few, so far, will have to be yanked apart and resewn. Maybe this beautiful sunny day, the other half pile of cubes will get ironed, flattened, and readied.

First Layout

2011-04-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

The quilt is moving along. I laid it out on the bedroom floor yesterday; it still needs a little tweaking here or there, (removed one yellow block), but we have lift off to trim and sew.

Baptized

2011-04-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Several times a week I sit down and stitch here or rip out there. The blue quilt is coming along albeit slower than anything else I've ever done. This week in two enthusiastic bouts of energy, I was actually down to the last few strips to be sewn...

...and I spilled a half glass of water all over the quilt, the sewing machine, the floor, and work at hand.......and was able to laugh about it while I dried it all up. There's only a few strips left to be attached. Maybe I can get it done this afternoon....then it is on to iron the blocks and trim them all to the same size. I envy folks who can quilt something detailed and do it all in one day, but I'll get it done eventually.

A Lovely Cacophony

2011-03-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Cacophony. Not only the madness of an old, 1930’s bit of apron fabric rough against that styled 1980’s cotton, but the thought of it all. Where did that center fabric come from. I know the age of the border fabric bought when quilting was new to my friend Dr. Harriette. She had this fabric in every color.

The other cotton is too loose a weave to be really long wearing. Rough also. Good dyes. They haven’t faded over the years. A stylized paisley. Someone designed that bit of fabric with their tongue in their cheek. All these memories sitting on a beautifully woven, South American fabric long ago made into a pillow. Lovely cacophony.

At Last

2011-02-22T10:21:00.001-08:00

Began sewing again after lunch. I have no idea why I have had such distaste for this quilt. The piles of blocks are charming tho monotonous. Endless blue....just the way I wanted it. Did another row. Only seven more rows to go. After my morning rituals, I'll sew another row.

Procrastination

2010-11-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

I continue to procrastinate on this blue quilt. I wrote Seedy's, a quilting friend who lives in Alaska, "Oh, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....forty is heat-one-room temps for me. (That's what she got her quilting trailer's temp up to after an hour or so with the small heater on.) Imagine, a quilt top getting whipped out in so few days. Here I am procrastinating on mine firming up the thought that this will be the last one I make. I love the end result, and I will miss the colors and fabrics. I'm not a good quilter, and this will be a weight out of my life. Reluctant.

Easy

2010-10-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

I moved easily from piecing, to cleaning, to creating, and back to piecing. The thought of creating and sewing costumes for Comic Con stirs me to work smoother on this blue quilt. I felt like I got a lot accomplished today. A good feeling.

Strips and Stash

2010-10-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Now that I have convinced myself that I won't get lost strip piecing this quilt, I'm moving along with a little smile in the corners of my mouth.

I've also decided to get rid of my stash. The vast numbers of large boxes of fabrics need to be reduced to just a few choice bits. I inherited the fabrics left over from the big quilt projects I used to make. I donated much of the excess to a good cause. I kept only the ones I thought I would used. After going to an estate sale last weekend where the entire house was filled with hoarded fabrics, I was thinking of sticking most of mine on Craigslist. After I picked out the fabrics for the next quilt, of course. A sampler perhaps.

Piecing

2010-10-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

(From my blog: Postcards: 10-20-10)
Today I pieced blocks together talking to myself the whole while. As in, “Why ever did you think fuchsia and cadmium yellow medium were colors that would go well in a blue quilt?” Or, “why did you piece these yellow and black fabrics into squares of two and a half inches by two and a half inches out of three separate bits of fabric? Common now…..”

I would read a while in the new Bujold "Vorkosegian" volume often looking up to enjoy the dark, wet world outside. I thought the story started really well, dumpt us in the mundane, then as the day went on it picked up the pace. Boy did it ever pick up the pace. When my scattered brain lost its focus, I would go back over to the machine and take up piecing blocks again.

What a wonderful way to spend a rainy day.

Bits of Fabric

2010-10-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

It was a glorious moment when I hung up after talking to the rude lady at the DMV, picked up my purse, and drove to the fabric store in three quarter time. Nothing like being told you have a drivers license to free you up. Quilting was boring after that. The world held more allure than repetitively putting bits of fabric together with other bits of fabric.

All thoughts of finishing another row vanished from my head with the arrival of the new Miles Vorkosegian novel.

Slowly

2010-10-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

I struggle with quilting. Quilting was Harriette's schtick not mine. Several other old friends were quilters before her enthusiasms, but not me. Being number blind doesn't help, losing my hand eye coordination to a stroke slows me down.

I have to be honest with myself. No matter how hard I work at measuring correctly, everything I cut is always a little off. Yesterday I sewed very slowly to correct for these continual burps, and I think it helped. Slowly I strip sew bits into blocks finding only one extra piece and managing to lose my way only three or four times. By the end of the afternoon, I felt quite triumphant.

Row One

2010-10-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Getting over my anger at myself, I took that one poor block apart one more time, mended the hole I cut in it when taking it apart, didn't swear too much while slowly and carefully putting it back together, and finished sewing one whole row of blocks.

We have lift off.

No Quick Fix

2010-10-14T07:12:00.001-07:00

I’ve been whipping right along without my usual fuzzy confusions, and suddenly one block wouldn’t fit together. When I attempted a quick fix, the whole thing looked nakedly patched together, twisted wrongly into itself. I’ve ground to a halt.

Rather than impose my depression and emotions about Janey's death, Lee’s death, Marion’s death, and Mikey’s impending death on this poor quilt, I’ll pause for a brief while. Perhaps I will take that one badly misshapen block apart with the reminder that quick fixes don’t work on quilts. In a few days, I'll go back to work on it.

Doggedness

2010-10-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

I’m rereading the last two Miles Vorkosigan novels to refresh my memory before the latest one arrives on the bookshelves. Miles is my hero….albeit fictional, he embodies all that I would like to represent: humor, intelligence, doggedness, persistence, patience, versatility, and the ability to survive anything and come out on top with a smile despite his handicaps. I’ll even rush out and buy the newest volume in a regular bookstore in hard bound at full price. That tells you something.

In spite of Miles adventures filling my imagination, I got the first block for the new quilt sewn…with many mistakes, of course. Here’s humor, doggedness, persistence, patience, versatility, and the ability to survive anything and come out on top with a smile despite ripping out several seams. I can see this is going to take a while.

Cut at Last

2010-10-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

After hearing the bad news from Bee about her husband, I hunkered down and mindlessly cut blocks for the blue quilt.

After reading the instructions. I read them once more. Then again. And despite seeing that rows will be 11 blocks, I discovered that I had made rows 10 blocks long. I felt like hitting myself upside the head and calling myself “Probie” from NCIS. WhaPppp!

First, I made the existing rows of blocks 11 long. I could do that. Then I just kept cutting until it was all cut. All done.

Tomorrow, that will be me in the watery sunshine putting the first of the blocks together. I can do this….after I discard Christmas Ornaments today. 10 boxes of those gone so far.

Two Rows Left

2010-09-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

When I am done, there will be fourteen rows of blocks. Each row contains ten blocks cut and ready to sew. Each block is unique, and some of them are lively while others are boring.

40 More Blocks to Go

2010-09-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Only forty more blocks to cut out. Fewer errors now with that little cutter G found me. I actually am enjoying sitting and cutting pieces now. Later in the afternoons, love blossoms outside my windows. I watch the teenagers walk home from school flirting all the way with amusement.

Inch by Inch

2010-08-31T09:05:00.001-07:00

2010-08-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

A many faceted star from the Red Quilt, 2009.

The Geezer found a very expensive Fiscars ‘thingamabub-cutter” at Amvets-Escondido for just a few bucks, and he leapt on it. Just like a map cutter, this one cuts fabric using a bar that lowers and stays in place topped with a rolling blade on the bar. It was missing a piece. That didn’t bother him, and he snagged it to bring it home.

The missing cutting surface was very expensive too, so there it sat.

I went on being miserable while cutting askew pieces for the new quilt. Then one day at a Hillcrest estate sale, the Geezer found a cutting mat at a very low, very cheap price. He used a utility knife to cut a piece off, pounded it in the empty slot, and presented it to me with a flourish.

I didn’t fully appreciate it….my bored factor and misery quotient with cutting quilt pieces was running high. Days later, bored to death with the cutting process, I tried it. Zip, it cut a 2 1/2 square accurately and easily. Poof…there it was. I didn’t need twenty squares that size, I needed only one, and the machine cut one with ease. Goodness.

So yesterday, while he was off at the Automotive Museum…where there were some decent crowds for a change, I cut little squares. And more little squares out of some of the many hundreds of blue scrap fabrics in those big bins downstairs. Enough big and little squares for two more rows of ten blocks each. My ability to cut quilt pieces had just improved exponentially. My mental condition lightened considerably. I found myself smiling.

Zip….slide that little rolling blade, and one more 2 1/2 inch piece was cut. Zowie!

Blue Quilt

2010-08-26T13:53:00.001-07:00

............................Bits of breeze stir colors blurring the blue
............................grey on grey blue, fogging blue black watered
............................thin by sunshine through the wooden shutters
............................fading fabrics to an even shadow.

............................Neighbors saunter by their dogs on leashes,
............................barking at the fire engine’s howling,
............................the siren’s cry, the diesel’s doppler growl,
............................barking into the sunshine just to bark.

............................I move my blues and greys about to make
............................monochrome quilt blocks from nine small pieces
............................cut now without enthusiasm, tired
............................of greys, at heart I’m drained of days without

............................the summers golden glow. A siren sounds
............................and I, found dozing in my blues, leap up and bark.
............................
............................
............................

Fearless

2010-08-17T18:55:00.001-07:00

That’s me over the years. Fearless. Hand me a sewing machine, and I could do it. I never worried about it, I just tackled the fabric. From names and words or decoration, I just did it. The 1996 Through 1997 AIDS Walk Signature blocks were beyond boring in beige on ink. Here Dot made the hearts, someone else sewed the love onto muslin, and I put it all together. This was a giant task, and the end result was a giant block for the AIDS Quilt.

I can even talk in front of groups on topics that stir my passions. I was waving my head around so much that I’m out of focus. Gosh, what did I say about this wonderful AIDS Walk block to these already converted family members. I look dogged. Determined.

Not so when it comes to these small blue pieces I’m cutting out now. I dither. I care that the seams be straight….perhaps I didn’t when I helped with the AIDS Quilt. Other ladies wore their machines out….I could usually be found snipping. Today I snipped blue and felt that I need to abandon my constraints….abandon me all fear who seam here. Take back that “just do it” attitude.

Five rows are snipped now finished and lined up on the edge of the old white bookcase. Perhaps I am just ‘doing it’ at last.

Not a Quiet Moment

2010-08-10T09:10:00.001-07:00

The watery grey sunlight isn’t encouraging me to work on the quilt. The blue grey on grey on blue needs a little stirring up this dark day, yet I want quiet fabrics rather than my usual yells and screams of color. Even the one block with a rose tinged center bothers me. As I cut and shift the fabrics around, the pieces are shuffled as if they were sliding into a uniform sameness.

The neighbors saunter by. Dogs get walked. Dogs bark. Specific dogs bark. The tiny poodle next door hates, truly hates, the man he lives with. The minute Jay moves anywhere, out of a chair, into the kitchen, the dog starts yapping. Down the building, a beagle howls whenever one of its people leaves their condo. As I snip my bland blues, I am forever grateful that they now keep someone with the dog most days.

Sirens pass. Up the hill they go; down the hill they go.

I move my blues about knowing how charming this work will be when I am done. I confess to myself that I’m bored. More sirens pass, and I long to be an ambulance chaser.

A Japanese Feeling

2010-08-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

I was worried that I'd gone hog wild with color...as I always do. Much to my surprise, there was a gentle feeling of the oriental to the colors I laid out. This isn't the way the finished product will look, but you can get a very generalized feeling of what I am up to. As can I.

We are also venturing into the world of old Kenmore's. We found one...that works, at an estate sale Sunday. Gramma's machine. It was a top of the line machine when it was made, but now it's tired and parts have become shellacked together. The Geezer has found a manual online, and he's looking for parts now. Daughter Lessa will be able to take up her daughters pants and hem curtains with this. Five dollars. We are smiling.

With Friends

2010-08-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

The Geezer creating a sewing table from a computer table for me.

I feel that I’m sitting among friends. To my right rests Craig Claiborne and James Beard….perhaps I need to alphabetize them, and to my left wait architecture and sci-fi. All my volumes are worn; all with me for so many years. The cookbooks draw my eyes first. I’m pulled to the volumes of American cooking…Betty Fussell, Chef Haller, and Beard have all cared enough about how we eat to tell us about it. Sunset says how west coast inhabitants eat. I smile.

Carefully smoothing a bit of blue fabric, I trim two edges into a square corner. Rows of strips are slowly building in piles before me….most are blues, dark blues, light blues, and here and there a boring blue to balance the passion of the small blocks for the centers. Next to my right elbow is a growing pile of ironed scraps. Fifty or more blues with a dash of yellow, fuchsia, and purple…all tantalize my sense of humor.

An echo of laughter brings my eyes up to the windows in front of me. A flock of teen aged boys flit by me, their skateboards rattle and their chatter cheers. The last young man, a wheel catching in a rut, does a spectacular tuck and roll that would have left me with several broken bones. He climbs on his board after poking it, carefully I note, and rolls on after his friends….still laughing.

I find a gathering of fuchsia pansies on a cadmium yellow back ground and decide to use it. It’s one of those, “Damn the torpedos and full speed ahead,” fabrics. I believe quilts can laugh too.

Links
Betty Fussell

James Beard Foundation Blog

The Legacy of Craig Claiborne

The First Cuts

2010-08-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

Sahara's Quilt. A very early attempt...with ruffle.

After a long period of waffling about size, I began cutting.

I didn't want a quilt composed of the small blocks that make a quilt look like a jumble sale. Unfortunately, I'm the proud owner of a giant pile of 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch pre-cut blocks left over from other quilts. And too, if I stuck to that size, I could use several of the old fabrics Dotty donated.

Eventually, I had to rise from my comfortable chair and good mystery and start cutting....and thinking....about values. Color values, that is.

Dysfunctional Quilting

2010-07-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

Down in the garage going through the fabric bins for the Red Quilt. Such imaginative names I give them.

I confess, I used to be a traditional artist. I waved paint, pastels, watercolors, and other mediums of the usual kind about with great abandon. I’m a colorist. I’ve had a number of shows. Many years after a stroke, the loss of my hand-eye coordination caught up with me. Use it or lose it isn’t just one of those “sayings,” it’s a truism.

It was easy to do giant pieces of art where you just waved your hands at it with a brush and color. When my old Biology Professor’s office mate, Dr. Harriette Schapiro, decided to teach me how to quilt, art became a different beast all together.

You see, I have learning disabilities. Not only can I not seem to learn languages with any facility, but I can’t do math beyond the third grade level. Sometimes, I cannot see the numbers at all. On occasion, I have been known to reverse them…but not often. Usually I just don’t understand them. Quilting isn’t just color, its pattern and numbers too.

Life was pretty easy when I could just call Harriette and ask what I was supposed to be doing, measuring, buying by the yard, or cutting. Now if I make a cutting error, I shrug and punt. On the latest quilt, punting meant adding borders to some of the blocks to make them a uniform size. On the House quilt, punting meant adding sky or lawn to the house blocks until they were all the same size.

This time, I’m making a simple nine patch. Simple is supposed to be the operant word here. You can hear the gods laughing.

Discovery

2010-07-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

I've been not only struggling with Bloggers new templates, in the end resurrecting my old photo blog to get the link goodies, but without my new computer. Slowly things get done, but slowly is truly the by word today. Saturday I will have time to play with fabrics, but until then I will be changing the links to quilting links. Keeping both of us amused....

A Beginning

2010-07-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

First I made a label for the double wedding ring quilt I found at Amvets. It's good to have that done. Then I laid fabrics out, and out, and out...including the old ones that Dotty sent me. All those purples, all those yellows, even a red or two.....and this is supposed to be a blue quilt.

A New Blue Quilt

2010-07-29T17:46:00.001-07:00

This old quilt, which I call the house quilt, is the most imaginative piece I've ever done. It was an ambitious project for a new quilter who couldn't measure. Now I have devolved into nine patches and variations there-of.

This week I start work on the new quilt...a new blue quilt. I who used to be the titular head of the AIDS Quilt workshops here, now find there are volumes of left-over scraps in the garage. (Sister really ran things.) I've been diligently using them up color by color, or perhaps I should say denting each box of color over the years.

The newest quilt will be called "The Blue Quilt." A mundane name...perhaps my brain is stuck on the usual. The fabrics aren't. They are here upstairs in a corner of the living room, washed and ironed, sitting near the sewing table, the machine, and all the accouterments needed to make something new from nothing at all.

2010-07-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have made a total of 1,039 posts here at Phototropic, and I have had a total of 500+ visitors since February 2007. My other blog, Postcards, often has 80 some visitors a day. Worst of all, I have less energy and no motivation to post here as my creaks and groans have multiplied. Slowly my interests have changed. I've taken the stat counter down this morning, and within a week, I will take the blog down.

Maritime: Queen Mary

2010-05-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Doggedly attempting to duplicate an earlier shot of the stacks on the Queen Mary, I was really disappointed when I figured out how I got the earlier shot. Since I could no longer climb around in forbidden territory atop the wheelhouse, I kept myself happy with photo after photo of the stacks from any angle.

Maritime: Gloria

2010-05-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Coiled lines on the Gloria, the sail training ship of the Colombian Navy.

2010-05-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

My eye was caught by this poignant moment. The Abracadabra tied up to the America's Cup winner Star's and Stripe's both now used as tourist attractions on the bay. Across the dock is the tall ship America's Pride now a part of the Children's Maritime Foundation and the official Tall Ship of Long Beach. How else can 12 meter racing boats end their days?

Maritime: Lynx 3

2010-05-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

In this age of diesels, I remain fascinated by the design of sailing ships. 2008.

USCGB Eagle

2010-05-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

The United States Coast Guard Brig Eagle was built at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg Germany as the Horst Wessel. She is a is a three-masted sailing barque with 21,350 square feet of sail. Launched in 1936, she was acquired by the United States as a War Prize.

This official Coast Guard site has links to many pictures including photos of her launch, under sail in 1938, and President Kennedy addressing the Cadets in 1962.

Sometimes, you are so swept away by excitement, all you do is record.

Maritime: Lynx 2

2010-05-03T07:58:00.000-07:00

Lynx detail: Pulley, pins, and rail.

Maritime: Lynx

2010-05-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

Black rope on board the Lynx, 2008.

Maritime: Drama

2010-05-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Everywhere you look onboard a sailing ship, there are opportunities for dramatic images. Port side of the three masted schooner the American Pride. 2008.

Maritime: Porthole

2010-04-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Porthole: Brigantine Kaisei, 2008.

Maritime Images: Eagle

2010-04-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

I've been dithering about this blog. Our whole life has been on hold while my husband hunts for a new job, and this blog has been a part of my life for a while. Not only that, but I didn't know quite what I wanted to do with this space. I do like to do single subject projects.

We received an email this week telling us that San Diego would be having a "Fleet Week" here again after an absence of a year. I don't know yet if I/we will be volunteering or not as the job situation remains up in the air, but it has inspired me to share some of the many acres of ship photos I have in the archives.

The top image a perfect juxtapositioning of the modern and the old. The bottom a showcase for the design and maintenance of this well loved ship.

Spring: Wisteria

2010-04-15T09:11:00.001-07:00

Spring: Mesembryanthemum

2010-04-12T14:27:00.001-07:00

Parts is Not Parts

2010-04-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

Not all the caps on the support posts survived the many years as a warehouse. The contractors removed one and duplicated it. After they installed these nice little scrolled leaves, they re-bricked every support column.

Recording the restoration and early reuse of this building just as the depression of 2007 began, had its pluses and minuses. The biggest plus has been seeing the building saved, adapted, and reused as part of a modern ballpark, Petco Park. Unfortunately, much of the building has remained vacant.

This will be the last of this Candy Factory series. Tomorrow, I will find something new to poke at.

Details at Last

2010-04-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

Then one day, although the bottom floor wasn't finished, details were added to the facade.

Candy Factory: 7

2010-04-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

Who knew the old brick would come so clean or the details be so well done.

Candy Factory: 6

2010-03-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

Summer came to a close and after playing a good season, the boys of summer took some time off. We who worked at the ball park transfered our allegiance to the football stadium. When we came back, the candy factory had been sandblasted.

Candy Factory: 5 Towering Over

2010-03-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

This comfortably tall building suddenly became the shortest building in the neighborhood. I continued to document it.

Candy Factory: 4

2010-03-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

And right next to the Candy Factory grew this deep hole. Underground parking anyone?

Candy Factory: 3

2010-03-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

And construction grew almost totally surrounding the old brick building.

The Candy Factory: 2

2010-03-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Showly Candy Factory building was at the heart of this unique, intact warehouse district. The Architect in charge decided that this structure was in good enough condition that it could be salvaged and reused. They jacked it up, put it on rollers. and there it stayed through the giant hiatus. We visited it often and parked nearby when the ballpark's construction finally began again. One day they began rolling it from the middle of the park to far eastern edge. Slowly. Then construction began around it. Those who had lived in it's lofts missed it.

Facade Easement 3

2010-03-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

They did a very good job with this facade easement. There's a great contrast between brick and glass and steel, as well as balance with brick buildings at either end of the complex. Design was an important factor, and I cheered on the architects who thought of the baseball park and it's surroundings as a whole. Of course money was the primary factor, but planned before the financial collapse these buildings have a sense of design ethics.

Construction

2010-03-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

After all the digging, before the markets collapsed, more condos began rising out of the holes, the digging, the noise and confusion.

Details

2010-03-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

Slowly the details of the project came together.

Facade Easement 2

2010-03-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

By the second year of the ballpark's operation, construction had begun on condos and offices using the tiny warehouse facade as the main entrance. At the very top of the photograph, the construction company discovered a dump site for early downtown San Diego. Excavating that delayed construction of the several building site.

Facade Easement

2010-03-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a small warehouse building in its original state. The street in front is gone, a ball park has been built to the South, what's going to happen now?

A Tiny Green

2010-03-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

I should tell my photographic story in order, I suppose. I should post pictures showing the changes from the naked brown earth, through the politics and long stalled wait to the finale. Instead this shot shows only a tiny green park ringed by the modern skyscrapers. It looks a finished product with the Candy Factory resurfaced and waiting for tenants. How tiny it looks, yet it isn't. What you don't see is that this space opens into a nice, big modern ball park. There's nothing tiny about it at all.

Walking to Work: Terrazo Sidewalk

2010-03-07T09:21:00.002-08:00

Learning to see things with a 6 MP camera with no image stabilization was always interesting. I'd find something, get passionate, take a picture, and come home to find that I had shot one more blur.

Record Photos

2010-03-06T08:03:00.000-08:00

Top: 2006. Bottom: 2007. I find it fascinating to watch changes in a building over a several year period. Look at how much those palm trees grew in one year at the Park Avenue Gate. Here I had a whole ball park to photograph from 2005 through 2008, and I never left home without my camera.

Reaching

2010-03-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

Viewing the ballpark from the parking garage across the street. Viewing the retrofitting of the Western Metal warehouse too. Thinking of the engineering, the politicing, and the weight.

Roommates

2010-03-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

College roommates. Work friends for many years. Laughing friends always. Art is friendship too.

Jay

2010-03-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

I worry about my friend. When her breast cancer returned, she moved
back east to a tiny, free cabin to treat it holistically.

Bridge Wall

2010-03-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

Bridge wall. They installed this bridge so the trolley could go under
Georgia Street. A long ago trolley. Now the bridge has gunnite covering
it's surface, and the beauty of it's design is slowed by its texture.

Day Game 1

2010-02-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

The sun feels hot these summer days. Some seats never get cool,
and the fans leave the ballpark cooked beet red and lethargic.

Trolley Station

2010-02-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

What made me turn around an take a snapshot of the main ballpark trolley
station, I don't know. Now today on this cold grey day, we have a summer
glimpse of a warm and sunny baseball moment. Nothing artistic, but some-
times, captured sunshine moments are just what's needed.

Passage

2010-02-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

I would usually have an hour or so before work to play with the previous day's photographs. As I was surprised by the intensity of the orange of the previous walkway, I was left smiling by the drama of this dark blue walk cover.

Triangle

2010-02-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

This,
a tiny triangle of color in a far off corner of the ball park,
kept me amused for years.

2010-02-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, in the midst of work confusions, only repetitions seem to have a clarity.

Single Pour

2010-02-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

Glimpses of how a ballpark district is constructed, one pour at a time.

Forms

2010-02-21T08:47:00.001-08:00

There were several hours in every day that I could use my camera to record the world around me. Here, two carpenters clamber around joining two forms partially hidden by the flowers of a spring day.

Solarized

2010-02-20T11:28:00.001-08:00

My stand at Petco Park was ringed with new construction. This condo building was one of the first finished.

The Candy Factory 1

2010-02-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

I followed the adventures of this building long before I started work at the finished ballpark. Comments like, "Why are they leaving that ugly old building," morphed into, "Look, that building is on rollers." And it was. They moved it from the middle of the outfield outfield over to the side to make room for a park. This most pristine of West Coast warehouse districts was now gutted for the baseball park, but five of the old brick structures were salvaged and made a part of the new. Very encouraging.

Simple

2010-02-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes nothing is better than a simple line and unmoving figures.

Play Ball

2010-02-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

The empty playing fields of Rome fascinated me.