Mahliyah’s Rag Quilt…

Posted on January 25, 2012 by joelignacio

Mahliyah's Rag Quilt

I made this quick rag quilt for my great-neice Mahliyah for Christmas… and I think she loves it :)

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The Importance of Seam Allowance…

Posted on January 19, 2012 by joelignacio

So… I cut a bunch of squares and rectangles based on measurements I took… pieced and sewed them all together to make 4 long strips… then when I went to pin it to my quilt, I realized I didn’t add seam allowance in my measurements and everything was off!… Oh no!… Now back to cutting those squares and rectangles again…

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Rosy Dawn Gardens Coleus Order…

Posted on December 20, 2011 by joelignacio

I just placed an order at Rosy Dawn Gardens for some Coleus for 2012. I ordered:

- Sedona
- Plum Frost
- Ruby Laser
- Flamingo
- Florida Inferno
- Diane’s Gold
- Trailing Plum Brocade
- Saturn
- Saturn’s Rings

- I also placed a special request for Tilt-a-Whirl if it becomes available.

I’ve have most of these in the past except for Ruby Laser and Florida Inferno, which are new to me. I should be getting these around May 14, 2012.

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Orange and Gray Quilt Block…

Posted on December 13, 2011 by joelignacio

One of the members of the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild was having a baby and our group decided to make a baby quilt for her. Everyone who participated was asked to make a 12″x12″ block (finished) with orange and gray fabrics. I think orange and gray was her favorite color combination.

Orange/Gray 12x12 Block Construction

I was in the process of making my Habitat Arrows quilt inspired by Marianne Haak’s (MariQuilts) Analeigh’s Quilt 2010… which was inspired by the pattern Follow the Arrows from Quick Quilts Magazine. Since I was in the “arrow” mood… I decided to make my orange and gray block using this pattern.

You can see some of the construction photos on Flickr.

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Micro Terreriums

Posted on December 9, 2011 by joelignacio
Micro Terreriums by joeysplanting

I saw these Micro Terrerium being sold at Michael’s. They remind me of these mini terrariums that I had when I was a kid.

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Dusty Sakura Quilt is Now in Tokyo…

Posted on December 5, 2011 by joelignacio

I just read that the quilt I donated to Quilts4Japan.org has just arrived in Tokyo :)

Quilt4Japan-Arrived-in-Tokyo

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Finally Found a Good Web Page Capture App…

Posted on December 3, 2011 by joelignacio

I finally found a great free app for the Mac that will capture a whole web page from Safari. I’ve been trying to find a free app, but haven’t found one I liked.

The app is called Skitch and I’ve actually been using for a while now. I just discovered the web page capture function today by accident. The commandto capture a web page from Safari is Snap Safari under the Capture menu item.

I’ve use a Firefox plugin called Pixlr Grabber for work, but it crashes so much. Every time I release final files for a HTML emails, I need to send along a screenshot of the whole page and the Mac’s built in screenshot only captures a portion of the screen. I think Skitch will help me out a lot.

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StellarQuilts…

Posted on December 3, 2011 by joelignacio

I was searching Vimeo for quilting videos and happen to stumble upon Jimmy McBride, a really talented quilter, in the Etsy.tv’s video “Handmade Portraits: StellarQuilts“. I followed a link to his Etsy shop, stellarquilts, and found some pretty amazing quilts.

StellarQuilts-Etsy-500w

I then followed a link to his blog, Intergalactic Transport, and read some of his entries about how he made these space-inspired quilts. I love how he uses old shirts from thrift stores and it looks like he paper-pieced most of the quilt. That’s one thing I really want to learn.

I’m inspired and want to try out Jimmy’s techniques, so I’ll trying to think of a small project that I can possibly do… maybe a Christmas present for someone. Hmm?…

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Quilts4Japan’s Photo of My Quilt…

Posted on November 1, 2011 by joelignacio

I just saw Quilts4Japan post a photo (on Facebook) of the “Dusty Sakura” quilt that I made and donated to their organization. I feel so proud… Like my kid is going out to college. I hope it fines a good home.

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Near Freezing Temperatures?…

Posted on October 28, 2011 by joelignacio

I just heard on the news that some cities in the Bay Area may have near freezing temperatures tonight. Oh man! I’m not even for cold weather yet… I haven’t even taken cuttings from my Coleus to overwinter indoor… and I’m almost out of Jiffy Jumbo Pellets so I have to get more.

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Flickr Geofences…

Posted on October 28, 2011 by joelignacio

Flickr Geofence

I just discovered today that Flickr has added geofences… which are locations where you can specify different geo privacy settings to. I made a geofence around my house, and my relative’s homes. Now the photo taken at these locations will only show geolocation data to family members and not to the general public. In the past, I used to manually remove the geoleocation of photos at home… but now, I don’t have to do that because Flickr will automatically do it for me.

More Geofence info on Flickr’s blog: blog.flickr.net/en/2011/08/30/introducing-geofences-on-flickr/

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Mystery Alameda Street Tree…

Posted on October 24, 2011 by joelignacio

As I was walking down Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda, I saw a few trees growing along the street and wondered what they were.

Each branch has 6, 8 or 10 leaves in pairs on opposite sides of the branch. Some of the tree have a bunch of suckers growing at the base of the tree. The younger stems are reddish brown. I crushed a leaf and there is really no distinct odor.

Here is a photo of the whole tree along the street.
Unknown Alameda Street Tree (4/4)

More photos: Continue reading →

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Embarrassing…

Posted on October 23, 2011 by joelignacio

Facebook mobile has been screwing up this evening and posting my photo comments to other random photos. A friend of mine posted a photo of her topless jeep. I commented “Sexy!”… and it ended up on a photo of her grandfather… How embarrassing!…

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Xtranormal

Posted on October 5, 2011 by joelignacio

I discovered a website called Xtranormal, where you can create animations that speak your text… So I gave it a try and made a birthday greeting for my friend Janet.

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First Time “Quilting”…

Posted on September 25, 2011 by joelignacio

I’m almost done with my very first quilt… but before I start quilting it, I wanted to practice on something else to get the hang of quilting or stippling (I’m not sure of the correct term)… So I made a small 10×12 inch quilt to practice using the Walking Foot and Stippling Foot that came with my sewing machine.

Sewing Feet

I’ve never used a Walking Foot, nor a Stippling foot, so this was new territory. So armed with my sewing machine manual and the help of some YouTubers, I gave it a try.

It was pretty neat!!!… both me and my Mom (who was watching) were excited. At first, the stitches were messy and I couldn’t coordinate moving the quilt and pressing the sewing machine pedal… so I had areas where there were tons of stitches and areas where you can tell I moved the quilt too fast.

After a while, I think I got the hang of it… We’ll see on the actual full size quilt.

After quilting/stippling, I searched and watch YouTube videos on how to bind a quilt. I cut 2.5 inch strips and joined them together the way several tutorials showed me. I then binded my practice quilt and I think it came out nice. My Mom was impressed :)

Practice Quilt (Front)

Practice Quilt (Back)

I even hand sewed the back of the binding… though I’m not sure how well I did.

Now comes the moment of truth… Time to finally start quilting my first full size quilt. I’ll post photos later of the completed quilt.

One last thing… when I was at the 99¢ Only Stores, I happen to find these rubberized “Deluxe” Gloves which will be perfect for quilting… and they were a deal at 99¢.

110921-103723-IMG_7742

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