In Tampa

Dan returned home with Hogan the dog, and I stayed behind in Tampa to spend more time with family, particularly, grandson Austin. Driving from the beach, this is the Tampa skyline from the south, on the I-275 Franklin Bridge. 

I'm spending more than a week here, just a block from downtown Tampa.

More beautiful palm trees. 

During a 15-minute walk to the grocery store, here are a few of my views. Not bad at all!

I could almost believe I was again in Sydney, Australia if there were ferries - there are none.

I don't think Darling Harbour (Sydney) has manatees either.

Also, I saw only kayakers here; in Sydney it's mostly rowers.

Some tourists were preparing to see the area, practicing how to use a Segway.

This cute little man has been my daily job... well, half-day job.

 

Every day at noon I walk about a mile (1.6K) to Austin's daycare, pushing an empty stroller. You should hear some of the wisecracks from other pedestrians who've told me I am missing my baby! We come home so Austin can play, drink a bottle, take a nap, and spend time together until Austin's parents come home from work.

Just like it's tough being a quilter on vacation, it's rough duty being a Nana on vacation.

A Visit to Ybor City, Florida

One day while staying at our beach condo in Florida, we made a trip into Tampa and visited Ybor (pronounced EE-borh) City. It's an historic neighborhood on the northeast side of downtown Tampa founded in the 1880s by cigar manufacturers. For 50 years, immigrant labor supplied the manpower to hand-roll millions of cigars. Now it's an entertainment hotspot and tourist destination. 

A few shops still hand-roll and sell cigars from walk-in humidors like this one at Ybor Cigars Plus on East 7th Avenue.

Hand-rolling cigars at Ybor Cigars Plus

In the Ybor Cigars Plus shop, the "plus" is Cuban coffee. It's an espresso, served "con leche" (with milk) if you ask. I absolutely love it. 

So does Dan!

After our late morning coffee, we walked down the street to Gaspar's Grotto for lunch. Signage indicates that they serve "the best Cubans" (sandwich) in Ybor City. Well, several of the restaurants say that! We asked for a recommendation from Ybor Cigars Plus and were sent to Gaspar's Grotto. We were not disappointed.

Our while-you're-waiting appetizer was Cajun boiled peanuts. I'd never heard of them, let alone tried them! Typically, I don't go for spicy food, but these had just the right amount of zip. Messy eating, though.

My Cuban sandwich was "ahhh, wonderful." It's made with several types of meat, cheese, mustard and pickles. It probably sounds like a sub sandwich, but the difference is that the Cuban is made with Cuban bread and then "hot pressed" to make a crispy crust. Excellent, especially when eaten with sweet potato fries.

Dan's Cuban was served with fried plantains.

And I won't mention the one-of-a-kind Bar Cat draft beer we enjoyed with lunch. In total, all the foods that completely blew my no-carb diet to smithereens... but worth every morsel.

Where I've Been - Florida

For two weeks in February, Dan and I were beachside in Florida. We had gorgeous weather the entire time! Lots of sunshine, perfect temperatures, and not a drop of rain.

Our one-bedroom condo was on the second floor of this quadriplex called "The Nest."

Since our son, daugher-in-law, and 10 month-old grandson live in Tampa, about 45 minutes from here, they came out to the beach to visit us on weekends. It was the first time Austin saw sand and waves... and experienced bright sunshine!

Austin and "Bapa"

He was a little uncertain about the feeling of sand underfoot. He kept lifting his feet off the ground!

Austin and "Nana"

On their second visit, Austin wore his UNI (University of Northern Iowa) t-shirt that was given to him by our Cedar Falls, Iowa, friends. Go Panthers!

And the second time we took him to the beach, he felt the ocean water, and didn't like it very much - probably a bit cold.

Austin in my arms. Doesn't he make me look tan!?

We did quite a bit of walking... that's much nicer than walking in snow. It's probably no surprise that I really appreciate the palm trees. I thought this one was especially nice-looking. The white ibis in the foliage beneath the tree was scarfing up geckos for a mid-morning snack!

Several evenings found us walking across Gulf Boulevard for dinner. Motor traffic can get pretty heavy on the weekends and during spring break, presenting a challenging for pedestrians waiting at the cross-walks. This was something I'd never seen before, but what a great idea! We "waved ourselves" across more than one cross-walk.

Almost every evening, this was our balcony view across the Gulf of Mexico. 

Some quilters have a pretty rough life.

Lookin' a Little (Star) Fishy

Remember playing along with the TV show Concentration? (1958-1991, according to Wikipedia.) It was a game show where contestants matched pictures that eventually revealed a picture puzzle. This is my super easy version, with no puzzle behind the squares! Do you see how these "Swirling Star" blocks look like star fish? Okay, not quite exactly, but very similar.

Since my last post, these are the shapes I've been hand piecing. To make each one, I begin stitching at the outside of two pieces, moving toward the center. When I've stitched the two pieces together, I pick up another shape and stitch back toward the outside edge to complete joining three sections together. This makes one half of a block. I repeat the steps to make the other half of the block. Then I piece together the two halves starting at one outside edge, stitching across the center, and ending at the opposite outside edge. It takes me about 35 minutes to piece one star block.

I now have 36 of these.

I have been a little uncertain about what fabric - color and print - to use as "connectors" between each star. I cut out only a few connectors using a white, tone-on-tone print. Here they are, laid out for my first assessment of what this quilt top will look like. 

None of the connectors are yet pieced to the stars, so the lay-out isn't precise, but I think I like it. While arranging stars, I decided I need another blue print, and maybe another aqua. That means I won't be hand-connecting anything until I make all the stars I need, but at least I know where I'm headed.

... down a star-fishy path. Do you agree that I need to come up with a name that has "Starfish" in it?

Prepping for Hand Piecing

There's no Accuquilt Go cutter in my sewing studio. For me, rotary cutting involves rulers for cutting straight edges, or acrylic templates for cutting shapes. Recently, I used a single "Swirling Star" acrylic template to manually cut curved shapes, and I enjoyed it. I especially appreciate the spring-y colors in this pile of scraps. Pretty!

To cut these shapes, I first rotary cut 4-5/8" wide strips that the template would fit onto. Thankfully I tested my plan to cut the templates from a folded (wrong sides together) piece of fabric. Oops! I discovered half of the cut pieces were swirling the wrong way, and had to be discarded - well, set aside for something else. I cut the shapes from two 4-5/8" strips stacked, right sides up.

I marked the acrylic template with the word "up" to remind myself which way to lay it on the fabric so all the swirls would point the same direction. Did you notice the rotary cutter? I found that a smaller 28 mm cutter followed the curves better than my usually-used 45 mm cutter.

Personally, I don't care to mark the 1/4" seam line slots in acrylic templates. When hand piecing, I prefer to sew with a 3/16" seam. To do that I make my own plastic template that's 3/16" smaller, on all sides, than the acrylic template. Then, on the back of the fabric shape, I trace the plastic template to mark the stitching line. It takes three different fabric markers to mark the fabric, depending on the fabric color: a mechanical pencil, or a Sewline Fabric Pencil, or a Clover White Ink Marker.

Also, to hold the fabric piece firmly while I'm drawing the line, I have fine-grit sandpaper under it. It's something like 000. 

For piecing I use Mettler 60/2 thread - white, for this entire project - and a size #9 straw needle. Then, wearing my homemade bottle cap ring pin cushion on the middle finger of my left hand (you can see a peep of it on the far left) and in it, a half-dozen applique pins for pinning the seam lines, I'm set to hand piece. Here goes. 

In my next blog post I'll show you pictures of what I'm making.

Much Better

More digging through selvages unearthed this lucky find! "Linda" selvage! With apologies to fabric designer Linda Carlson, I used another bit of plain selvage to cover her last name. Then, keeping the word "style" I resewed the selvages and recovered the button that decorates the selvage purse you saw here. 

Did anyone else have success at finding their own name on a selvage? For those who commented on the selvage purse post, I found a Lynda (Lynda Milligan), and a Jennifer (Paganelli). Anyone else?