Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Design Wall Monday

It was quite a productive weekend for me and that's a miracle given the house I spent watching bird nests around the web. I'm hooked on baby eagles, hawks, hummingbirds and owls. During my breaks I sewed on 2 bindings, ironed a lot of dyed fabric and loaded this quilt on Willie.

Even though I don't know exactly what I'm quilting on it yet I am excited to quilt it. I know where it's going so I can have a little more confidence about the quilting plan......should that plan ever develop. Hopefully it will develop today so I can get started!

My friend, Kim, will be excited to see these blocks on my design wall. It's been a few years shice they've seen the light of day. This was always intended as a gift for her and now it's going to be her wedding gift and I have about 10 months to finish it before her first anniversary! I have 12 more blocks to make and will get started on those today. I don't have a border plan yet but it will develop too.

I'm awfully confident that plans for both of these quilts develop aren't I? While I start sewating bullets here why not go over to Judy's blog and see what everyone else is working on.

Monarch Fabric Palette Projects

Before I get into today's quilt designs I wanted to share a customer order for some fabric from the Monarch palette.

The customer is going to use the Urban Cabin pattern from Atkinson Designs. I created the 3 yard gradient with green on each end for her to use as the border and the 20 fat quarters in a variety of patterns for the blocks. The point of sharing this is to let you know that it's the colors that are on sale. I can dye the fabric for you in almost any way you wish! So if you have a pattern in mind that you would like to do in a color palette I'll be ahppy to help you figure out the right fabric designs for it.

You can always buy the basics from my shop but I can do a wide variety of custom orders for you as well. 

Today's designs are based on a block called Raspberry Cheesecake.

The first 2 versions use only the block and the gradient as a border.

Next I decided on a medallion format and added the Geometric Star 4 Stripe block.

Fianlly, another medallion with a large version of the Flower Star block as the center.

Nest Box Watch

The 2 Bluebirds are growing like crazy!

This morning we saw the Tree Swallow picking up grass and making trips back and forth to Box 1. She's got a great start.

In other nest news the Franklin Institute Red-tailed Hawk nest has hatching going on today.

Color Palette Challenge Project

Anne gave me a couple of GO! dies for Christmas. One of them was the Heather Feather. Here it is April and I had not used it yet so I challenged myself to use it for my Color Palette Challenge project.

As if you could forget...the palette is based on Judy's moldy pie!

 

Here's my project. I've decided that I want covers for my sewing machines. They get so dusty in my sewing room. This month I'm covering the Pfaff. This cover is open on the right side. I did that because I often use thread from a cone so I use the thread stand. With the cover open on that side I will not need to unthread the machine to use the cover which increases it's chance of being used.

The cover isn't quilted. It's a simple cloth dust cover. I used my serger to finish the raw edges on the inside and for the hem. I cut one set of shapes from each of my 5 colors and just had fun arranging them on the cover. This is totally fused. I didn't even sew them down since I know it's not likely to be washed any time soon (or ever). 

For a quick project I think it turned out kind of cute and it shows that it's not a bad color palette after all and doesn't make me think of mold either.

How's your project coming along?

Audiobook Review - Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnik and William L. Simon

I back on my non-fiction reading jag and this is a really interesting one. If you are at all interested in computer and the internet you might like  Ghost in the Wires.

From the publisher:

Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world’s biggest companies—and however fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. He spent years skipping through cyberspace, always three steps ahead and labeled unstoppable. But for Kevin, hacking wasn’t just about technological feats—it was an old fashioned confidence game that required guile and deception to trick the unwitting out of valuable information.

Driven by a powerful urge to accomplish the impossible, Mitnick bypassed security systems and blazed into major organizations including Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Pacific Bell. But as the FBI’s net began to tighten, Kevin went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated cat-and-mouse game that led through false identities, a host of cities, plenty of close shaves, and to an ultimate showdown with the feds, who would stop at nothing to bring him down.

This book is Kevin's story and it's fascinating. He provides a lot of detail about how he used social engineering and hacking skills to get into all kinds of systems.  He started as a young teenager hacking the phone system to get free phone calls.

What I don't understand about him is that he knew the risks, he knew he was being tracked and if he had just stopped for even a few months he probably would not have been caught. He has become a hero to the hacking community but I admit that I had no empathy for him. He was indignant that the legal authorities would use some of his own tactics to catch him. He considered it unfair!  He never once admitted that what he was doing was wrong and never stated any regret or apology. He contends that he did no damage. 

Although I dislike the author I still recomment the book. It's a compelling read and very educational. The narrator, Ray Porter, also does a great job. If you want some background on Kevin Mitnik, Wikipedia is a great plave to start.