Blue Nickel Studios

admin June 15th, 2008

Went out in the gardens with the camera last night to take pictures of some of the flowers we have here around Shiloah Cottage before they stop blooming and are gone. I already missed the lilacs, but here are some of my favorites.

This one is a mock orange with “yellow” leaves. Right now it smelling deliciously “flowery” Linda says. It is supposed to smell like an orange blossom, but I have never been near a real orange tree in bloom, so I wouldn’t know.

I potted up this fern from the woods….I really like it in this pot

A wild rose on the edge of the woods

This flower is very odd…it looks like it made of paper, closes up a night, and the foliage is very sticky. I have no idea what it is, and I don’t even remember planting it.

These are heavenly! I love columbines. This variety has been part of the inspiration for a current design I am working on… The babies are so grown up. Here is the batch of chicks and here are the ducklings! This is one of the last full snowballs of the season

This is the lavender, actually one of the lavenders…. I think this is German or English lavender, I cannot quite remember…

Those are the pictures for tonight. I have a few more to post, but I really want to get into the studio and do a little sewing before bedtime….It was finally SUNNY today and I spent most of the day out in the yard repairing the fence so the chickens and ducks can get out of their pen and live a little on the “wild” side! I am tired, but it was so good to be outside, and not seeing it rain again! I am not a “sun-worshipper” but I was getting really tired of the rain.

• Home , chickens , color , country , ducks , flora and fauna , shiloah cottage
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admin June 12th, 2008

To go with the wet damp weather we are having here in the Pacific Northwest, here are some more pictures from that old building in Seattle:

      Nice layered look of brick, wood, and plaster, huh?    Very steep, shallow stairs from a long time ago…certainly not to code these days.

    Another nicely layered look here      and for my friend Melissa, rusty cement and brick.

Yesterday was supposed to be spent out in the yard entirely…It rained most of the day, so I spent it in the studio instead….that and journaling. At the moment I can’t necessarily show the results of that work, as it might become a published patterns.   I am waiting still for three lines of fabric to come here from the manufacturers to work on some designs I have started.  Until they get here, I feel rather plunky…...yeah, I made that up, but that is how I feel.  So that is today’s post for now….I may get more posted by tonight, but for now that is it!

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admin June 9th, 2008

I missed a whole week writing ???  I worked hard on many things …but none were art related.  One day in the week though I did take pictures of parts of an OLD building I was working at in the Seattle area.  They were inspired by pictures that Melissa Averinos posted on her site of a cemetary across the street from her home.

So here are a few takes from my “photo op”

    They just don’t make hinges like that anymore…..well they probably do, but this looked cool here.

  I do like things that look old.  Oh the things that this clamp has seen.  This building is at least 90 years old, probably older.

   This isn’t as old as the rest, the wiring has been updated, but this still looked cool closeup I thought.

  And this is too shiny, but the paper behind looks cool, and the closeup of the industrialness was interesting I think.   I am late to bed now, so I will post more tomorrow.  I was feeling blue most of the day yesterday and the week before….I think the record rain we had here in the NW was a large part of it.  I have a long day of traveling and 3 major activities, including going to a final planning meeting for my guild’s upcoming quilt show (my first time to one of these meetings, but I haven’t helped like I would like to at our show’s, and I have decided that I am going to do more from now on) Today I spent the morning at church, but not connecting to God like I wanted to. This afternoon I worked on some gardening things, and that helped a little bit, but I was very tired for some reason.  I did a little journaling, and I think that helped.  And now I am posting on here to finish up my day.   I don’t feel phenomenally better, but you know, it is okay to say that I feel well enough to just keep on pushing through.   The past few days I didn’t particularily feel like pushing through…..it was more like dragging myself through….

Later mysterious readers who need to do more commenting!!  

• color , primitive
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admin May 29th, 2008

Well, not really running out of time…actually time is about all we really have….but the list of things to do in a day do not give blogging or design or art a large priority, but I am trying to give it more time

Any way….here is a brief potpourri of things to look at…and explore

   I painted this bench two years ago, and had so much fun doing it…I didn’t do any creative painting last summer at all…I hope I get to it this year…

 Here is my Grandma’s planter that I never saw plants in my entire life, until we had it…hoping to fill this with geraniums this year….it actually would be the first time my kids actually see plants in it too…and we have had this with us….oh about 10 years….it usually gets filled with crap that we don’t want to see on the porch!!

  I made this mini 4” x 4” “quilty” thing for a friend and just mailed it to him….He is fairly famous quilting wise, and you can probably figure out who it is if you read my blog, but for now I am leaving him nameless…for now….I am hoping he will like it enough to put it on HIS site  Shameless gift-giving, well, kinda, but I do want him to like it whether he puts it on his site or not!

 My mother in law picked up a pair of these great peacock metal wall thingies, and gave us one…I was thrilled….Linda was not as thrilled but did allow me to put it on the wall of the front porch…..right next to Linda’s “peacock” chair from the 70’s….I didn’t realize that when I put it on the wall, but when I started taking the picture I figured it out…

And then one last thing.   I am officially adding Melissa Averinos to my blog links….Melissa has great pictures, finds great stuff, and is a brand new fabric designer for Free Spirit.  I have emailed her a couple times, trying to not seem like a “stalker”.....she seems very genuine and creative….I think  you will like her stuff!!

I also wanted to put a cool link here for a technique on hanging mini quilts on the wall, but the time I mentioned above is cracking the whip over my head, and I gotta get finished….so you can come back for that later…

Anybody out there reading this???

• color , primitive , quilting , shiloah cottage
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admin May 28th, 2008

Okay, first the 2 things…

Here is a teapot that Linda picked up at a garage sale…..  Pretty cool dragon spout.  Linda liked it cause it looks like McCoy, although I think it is much newer than that.   Regardless if it is the “real” McCoy, it is pretty cool.   Number 2 of the “2 others” is this photo of 2 doll quilts that are finished and ready to donate to my guild Busy Bees for their doll quilt giving this coming Christmas.  

Now on to the 7 things.

These are 7 things about me that not everyone knows, or do I necessarily care if people know or not….Feed Dog tagged me awhile ago to do this list so here it is:

1.Even though my studio is named Blue Nickel Studios, blue is NOT my favorite color.   That is reserved for Red or Green, and not Brown as my dear wife teases me.

2. I don’t like diamonds. They lack color for me.

3. I used to eat Mustard on Graham crackers for a snack as a kid….really, and I did, and I didn’t think anything of it…..(were we poorer than I thought?)

4. I don’t like ketchup on my hashbrowns.

5. I liked and still like the Donny and Marie show (I saw a clip of them on YouTube, and still laughed at it)  It was campy, but fun and wholesome.

6. My favorite Muppet is Sam the Eagle.  He is like me, trying to be reserved in a world that is going nuts around him….(of course I can be like Gonzo too…totally out of touch with reality….Linda can vouch for that)

and number 7…...I really like Musicals, and I thoroughly enjoyed High School Musical 1 and 2…..here are my daughter and I (she also loves HSM) posing the gang from HSM3….   

There now you know more of me than you want….and none of it about quilting for those of you who were getting bored with that subject line….

• color , musicals , quilting
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admin May 26th, 2008

Here are a few more notes on Quilt Market.  Yesterday I posted a picture of these cute Japanese prints that I picked up at Market, here is her card   Her name is Angela Milliman, and she is just starting to distribute these fabrics here.  They are very unusual, I haven’t seen anything like them locally that is for sure.

Another set of fabrics that I picked up down there come from the Lecien company.  This is one complete set of the red/pink/brown colorway   

here they are closer     there was a quilt there that was done in same fabrics, but the blue/grey colorway, and it was simply incredible….but I didn’t get a photo, much to my dismay….Next Market I go to, I will take a great deal more photos that is for sure.   

• color , quilting
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admin May 26th, 2008

I have more to write about Market, but I really didn’t take enough pictures, and I didn’t get to see nearly enough of it…...but I am certainly craving more   I found this great blog by Melissa Averinos who actually has her own line of fabrics coming out soon too.  Melissa did a great job of covering much of the show, but again not nearly all of it.  At least she has more pictures

I did pick up these prints from the land of Oz (Australia that is)... They are very busy, so I am not sure what I will make with them, but I had to have them, as you just don’t see things like that around here. 

I also picked up some small charm squares from a company that is just starting to distribute these cute little japanese fabrics.        I don’t have her card with me, but I will post that later too, as she has a great card   So all I remember is that  her name is Angela, and she hails from Texas, and these prints are great…..I may be working with them in a new pattern for the market, but we will have to see how that works out.  I don’t know if my friend Mark Lipinski would like them, as I don’t think he goes for the “cute” look too much, but they are not your typical Strawberry Shortcake type prints that are out there!!

A REALLY cool thing I did see on my last day at Market was the recylcled green plastic bottle batting.    I don’t know how well this really works in quilts, but the concept of recycling here is great  You can read more about it at Quilter’s Dream. 

That is it for now…I have some other more boring regular non-quilting work to attend to, so I really should get to it

Okay so you twisted my arm for one more thought….I briefly VERY briefly met Tina Givens at market as I was rushing to a train, but on Melissa’s site (mentioned above) I noticed a fabric in Tina’s booth photos that I thought was marvelous…so I thought I would mention it here.  After some quick research it is from the upcoming Chloe’s imagination line, and has the coolest bees, lanterns, and birds.  Good job, Tina!!

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admin May 23rd, 2008

It is already Thursday, and I am just getting to write about a great weekend at the International Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon.   I took the train down there on Friday morning   This the great new train station in Everett Washington. It is a beautiful new building. Having never taken the train before, I was excited and anxious at the same time…..as usual it was for naught as it basically was a glorified bus ride, but much more comfortable and bumpy at times.  Went by the water a lot, and the train tracks give you a much different perspective than driving.  Getting on the train in Everett was pretty easy and comfortable, by the time we got to Portland it was pretty packed, and the Portland train station was very busy at 3pm in the afternoon.  I was in a hurry to get to Market, so I grabbed one of the cabs out front and asked to go to the convention center.  Alex, the driver, told me in his Russian accent that there were FIVE convention centers downtown!  I had no idea that there were so many.  I called Marci Baker, my employer for this gig, and asked where they were.  She was not sure what the name of it was, but said it was near the Rose Quarter which I had mentioned on the phone while we were driving by it.  So I had the Alex drop me off there with my bags.  Upon walking up to the building immediately in front of me, I realized that no one was there…..so I kept walking,  finally I recognized these two glass towers from when I had been to Portland Spring Quilt Market in 1996 and 1998 and made it into the delicious air-conditioned air (it was in the low 90’s I heard later, and the air conditioning on the train had started to fail on the way down).  

I got to see a little of Market that evening, and went to bed in my hotel room tired.  Saturday, I got my picture taken with Kaffe Fasset   as he was just down the row from our booth at Alicia’s Attic/Clearview Triangle.  The quilt behind us is made of his fabrics, and in Sara Nephew’s latest book, Not Your Grandmother’s Log Cabins 

 I spent the morning working Marci’s booth, and then spent some time going around and meeting people and taking in the scope of the market.  A big goal of mine was to meet and talk with Mark Lipinski.  I talked to him a couple times, but he was getting pulled a “gazillion” ways and didn’t have much time. 

  I did pin down Mark  long enough for this photo and not much longer.  He is one busy man.  I hope that I can be that busy in this field someday soon.  Mark has been a great encourager in that area, and I acutally met a few other people too, who were wonderful….

Among those I met was Amy Butler, albeit was for only less than five minutes on Sunday as I was racing out of the market to catch my train back to Everett.  What a sweet lady she is. And TALL Her words to me that I will remember for a long time were “Go for it!”  I just love her stuff, and I hope that when I “make it” I will be as kind and as encouraging as she is.  

 I think the best part of Market was on Sunday going around with Marci from Alicia’s and having Marci introduce me as one of her designer’s.   I think that is the phrase she used, and my head is still reeling and loving that title.  Mark told me he could see me having my own booth at Market someday, and I sure hope he is right!!  How will this work itself out?  I have no idea, but I am trying as hard as I can to give it to God, and work my best at what I know to do, and seeing what He and I can work out together.   And with the help of all these new and renewed friendships that I am developing.

 More later…..

• color , ducks , quilting
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admin May 2nd, 2008

This is definitely the color of the month around this corner of Western Washington state.   I have no pictures at the moment, but hopefully will soon.  The month of April flew by, and I simply don’t know where it went.  I had a student of mine give me EQ5 so I am really excited to start using it to plan more and more quilt patterns.  The capability is there, now I just have to get to it. 

This morning my daughter announced to us that she knew I was the tooth fairy because she lost a tooth and didn’t tell us, put it under her pillow, and lo and behold there was still a tooth there this morning.  I was bummed, as I enjoyed the child-like joy of the whole tooth-fairy gig, and was relieved when my wife informed Mimi that it was up to the parents to report the lost tooth to the tooth fairy’s retreival department.  I am quite sure my daughter didn’t buy that, but I sure liked it.  I mentioned that I thought the information was going via tmail these days…..I crack myself up…..  anyway, my little girl is growing up too fast….

and my oldest boy is too!!  He starts driver’s ed in a month.  That is scarey!  In six years, they will all be of driving age or older.  The oldest will be 21!  What a shock it seems to be.  Feels like yesterday when all 5 of us could sit on the sofa and cosily read a story together.   Those days are long behind us, along with eyebrows on my face that you can actually see…..

Hope to show some more pictures on the next post…..and more posts this month

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admin April 22nd, 2008

          It was a lovely Spring weekend this weekend in NW Washington state.  So much for global warming!! April 19th, 20th, and 21st we woke with snow on the ground.  I do not think I have ever seen so much snow this late.  I told the kids I should play Christmas music, and the oldest said….”Dad, what are you talking about? It never snows on Christmas Day!”  He is right, we seldom get snow then

Update on the chicks….they are getting adjusted to their new home okay….they even went into the coop on their own last night.  Gosh, they are growing up so fast, sniff, sniff…..

• chickens , color , country , flora and fauna , shiloah cottage
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