The saddest part of changing my website is letting go of the 10+ years of blog posts on the old site. Reading thru the old entries is - well, reading my diary in a way. I decided to create this compilation post - mostly for myself as a way to keep some of those memories - replacing all the photos (since the early ones won’t open for a good “save as”) was too laborious but I have included what I could. 2008 to 2013 from oldest to newest…
08.22.08
The Site is Up
My website is up and running, hurray!
09.14.08
I love ribbons…
Wow, the August 29th Double Irish Chain class went very well and some really beautiful quilts are underway. One 3 color version using copper and turquoise was particularly striking. The day went so fast I did not have a chance to take any pictures so I hope everyone will e-mail me photos of their finished quilts.
This year I entered quilts into the County Fair for the first time. I was very excited when I visited the fair on Saturday to find that I had won ribbons on both of the quilts I entered! My quilt of my son Brian scuba diving in Hawaii and meeting a turtle won both a 1st place ribbon and a judges award of merit.
My other quilt done as a quick study with my art quilt group won a 2nd place ribbon. I encourage everyone to enter into the shows, not only do you get to see your work exhibited ( and hear comments, which can be both good and bad…) you get written critiques from the judges which helps you improve your quilting. So enter away, it’s alot of fun.
My Son moves to the UC Riverside dorms next weekend so I’ve been busy running around buying all the stuff he will need to create a home away from home. It seems that the summer pokes along and as soon as September come its moves into hyper drive. Before you get too busy be sure to check out my new classes for the fall and sign up while it’s on your mind. I will be at Gingers for “meet the teachers” on Sept 17 from about 3 to 5 and can help you pick out fabrics and answer questions about the classes. Hope to see you then!
11.06.08
Home Again, Home Again, jiggity jog…
I am back home again after spending a week in the lovely city of New Orleans. It was a sort of last minute trip designed to celebrate my husband David’s 50th birthday. ( and our anniversary, my birthday and probably Christmas while we are at it…) We had a wonderful time and when I get an extra minute I’ll put up some pictures from the trip. It was my first visit to the city and I loved the people and the food and the weather was wonderful. Just one thing… There was not a single quilt shop in the whole city. There wasn’t a quilt shop in a 50 mile radius! I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t live in a city that did not have a quilt shop! I whine when my closest quilt shop is a 20 minute drive! I would go nuts If I couldn’t just wander in a fondle new fabrics on the bolt. (or maybe I am nuts, but I think you are with me here…) Despite their lack of all things quilting I look forward to going back.
Ta Ta for now.
03.06.09
Time Flies
How can it be that 3 months has passed since my last post? Humm… can I even remember the last 3 months? In December I was installed as the President of Nite Owls Quilters Guild. Something that I am still trying to get the hang of, not to mention trying to cram “parliamentary procedure” into my head. Just why do we really need to “motion” and “2nd” stuff anyway? It seems to me after 100+ years we could figure out an easier way…. or maybe it’s just me.
Christmas was really nice, I remember taking down all the decorations immediately afterwards but I can’t really remember why.
Road to California was interesting and as always I was very inspired by the quilts and learned alot. I only took one class this year but it was 4 days long. I worked on portrait quilts with Pam Holland. If you saw the show her quilt was a copy of the painting “American Gothic” here is a picture of my work in progress.
My "self portrait" before stitching
Pam must have liked it as she put a photo of it on her web site as well (you’ll have to dig back thru her blog since she posts WAY more frequently than I do. (Where does she find the time???) February was my “Prairie Points and Patches” table topper class. We had a really good time and I was so inspired by the color combination’s my students came up with I want to make about 6 more for myself. I have included a few pictures of work in progress from that class.
Shirley was the 1st one finished
Elisa's sophisticated teal and brown combo
Rita's very pretty spring colors
My favorite “over achiever” completed her project from our last class “Holiday Star Tabletopper” and brought it in to show us. She is motivating ME to finish a few things! I’ll be sure to let you know when I get past the motivated part and on to the actual finishing. tee hee…
Judi with her FINISHED holiday star project, lovely
My husband and I tore out our small bathroom and are rebuilding it from the studs out. We did the demolition 2 weekends ago and I am hoping to be finished by April 18 ( Nite Owls Quilt show weekend) but we will see what we will see… this is the “state of the bathroom” as it stands today.
The wall the vanity/sink goes on
Now even the toilet is out
the ceiling ( or lack therof)
Looking over all this, and I have a new class this Sunday , “Stars in Stripes”, I am beginning to see why I haven’t been posting lately. Please forgive me the delay and I will try to keep up a little better. Thank you all for your support and good wishes.
07.25.09
Report on Long Beach Quilt Show
Yesterday I attended the 2nd Int’l Quilt Association Long Beach Quilt Show and if you haven’t been you really should get down there. We are so lucky now to have 2 fabulous quilt shows in our area. (OK, I’m leaving out San Diego but I’ve never been to it) IQA sets up their Long Beach show differently from the way Carolyn does Road to California. The quilts are in one area and the vendors in another not kind of blending together so I was there about 20 min before I figured that out and found the quilts!. My only disappointment was that many of the quilts were “special exhibits” and we were not allowed to photograph them. I saw Jane Sassaman’s “Metamorphosis” I am so inspired by her thread work. She uses decorative stitches to finish her applique and uses heavy 12 wt thread which has a lot of impact. I took her class at Asilomar this year but I’ll post about that later. Hollis Chatelain had a quilt in the “special exhibit” also. I love to study how Hollis does her stitching as well, Jane and Hollis work very differently and I find both brilliant in their own personal style.
I met Heather Purcell (Mother Superior) of Superior Thread. I picked up some of their new”Texture Magic” and was excited to show her a dimensional name tag I made with the product. “Texture Magic” is a lightweight material that when steamed shrinks up 30% in all directions. I am very interested in exploring how this can be used to created “trapunto” effects and dimensional texture.
My Snazzy name tag
I also met the “Elizabeth’s” of LizzyBcre8ive. They are a design team that have the same name (they are sister-in-law’s) and their work is fresh and charming. I especially loved their banner style wall hangings (at least that’s what I would call them) I’m dying to make their “create” banner to hang in my studio and the “floor quilt” from their new book is too fun.
I ran into a few old friends and made some new ones. I received about a million dollars worth of information on quilting personally and professionally and I got to attend an “invitation only” reception put on by Karey Bresenhan the Director of the Int’l Quilt Festival. Being at the reception felt a little like the time I sat in the Czars box at the St. Petersburg Opera with Placido Domingo it evoked that same feeling of delight to be in such elevated company. However, the quilt artists reception had a lot less paparazzi! 🙂
Here are a couple of quilts that caught my eye and I’m sorry I did not record the makers with the single exception. If you know the artists please let me know. The captions are just mine unless the artist is named.
09.20.09
The premier of “Lauretta Crites Designs”
"Cuddle Ewe"
Yesterday was a wonderful day at Gingers Quilt Shoppe, I premiered my new pattern “Cuddle Ewe” during Ginger’s 3rd anniversary celebration. It was such a fun day seeing so many wonderful quilting friends. It was great to catch up with so many of you. Pattern sales went very well and I am so happy to have this first “birth” out of the way. Its now time to let this “baby” out into the world and see how she does. I think Miss Ewe is as cute as can be and I sure had fun making up the quilt samples. Brenda, one of my fabulous students asked a question which prompted an addition to the pattern instructions. Which does prove, the teacher can be taught! Follow the link under patterns to find out more…
I’m back from a wonderful session at Empty Spools retreat. This was my second year and once again I was lucky with wonderful weather. The retreats are held at the Asilomar conference center, in Pacific Grove, California, right on the coast.
This year I actually walked down to the water! Last year I never looked up from my project but this year I took a friend and a more relaxed attitude.
My instructor this year was Susan Carlson and we worked from her collage technique. I did a still life of winter squash. Since her technique involves cutting out small pieces of fabrics in just the right shades and pattern I now have a large collection of fabric which looks like swiss cheese.
I still have some adjustments and additions I want to do but its getting close to where I want it, but then I will have to figure out how to quilt it! I had a terrific group of classmates who were funny and friendly and very generous with their stash.
The conference grounds are extensive and the smell of pine was intoxicating. The deer were wandering around and I had several close encounters when I did not have my camera on me, drat! I did get this picture shot thru my bedroom window. I now have yet another project to finish and am a week behind in my 52 project challenge, but, it was all well worth it.
01.07.11
Happy New Year
This year started out with a bang! actually lots and lots of them… after several delays due to rain, on January 5 they tore off the roof. Now 3 days and a lot of dust and noise later taa daa… um well ok not done but we are getting there. I guess I shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to see the roofers leave, once they do I need to start prepping to paint. Yuck.
One of my new year’s resolutions is to “embrace technology” and to that end I am promising to post more than a couple of times a year (though I don’t vouch for content…whatever am I going to talk about?) and I am going to sit still and learn my EQ6 program (since EQ7 is out and 8 is no doubt coming). Those resolutions join with spend more time sketching and painting and … so we shall see.
With the help of my folks who came for a week after Christmas I designed and built my dream cutting table. It still stinks of spar varnish but it is a thing of beauty and exactly what I wanted. Pretty slick huh!
My snazzy new cutting table
And to welcome in the new year (OK, I was escaping the roofing noise in the house if you must know) I put a fresh cover on my pressing table. Now my studio is so clean I don’t know what to do. It seems so wrong to make a mess. Oh well, that won’t last.
I do have a couple classes coming up at Gingers Quilt Shoppe, Feb 5 is my new purse design the miPhone bag and on March 5 is the Cutting Mat tote bag class. You can contact me or Ginger’s for more info.
02.18.13
Happy Valentine’s Day
Wishing you all a very happy day I hope you have something (or someone) sweet to celebrate it with.
I’ve been taking a watercolor sketchbook class taught by Desiree Habicht it’s once a month and we have such a fun time. During this months class we painted valentine cookies… it was so hard to wait until after we painted them to eat them, one gal couldn’t wait and her painting has a cookie with a bite missing!
trellis strings poised and waiting
Yes, February is spring in southern California, some of our very best weather is now especially for working outside. I’ll be inside the studio hiding out from the heat over the summer but during this time of year I spend as much time as possible outside. One of my favorite uses for selvages is as “string” for my sugar snap peas or green beans. I especially like the long ones from quilt backs and lengthwise cut borders. Sometimes I get 2 uses out of them, on the trellis above I have a combination of reused and new selvages. I use my more colorful ones like ribbon to tie things together but the less interesting white edges usually ends up in the garden.
03.17.13
St.Patrick’s Day (already?)
Radishes are so fun, I love how they almost harvest themselves
I don’t know about you but I can’t believe how fast this year is going! I intended to post every week this year and if you look at my log you can see how well that is going… My son told me it’s OK to post about whatever I’m up to, it doesn’t always have to be about quilting, so I will be posting more often but time will tell about what.
It seems everyone around me is working thru the same issues. We all seem to be finding it hard to focus in on the things that will bring us the most satisfaction in our lives. As I was recovering from surgery I read an assortment of books on organization and time management but I am already pretty organized. 2 problems I have are; I spend too much of my time doing repetitious things that will never stay done and I try to do everything. The book I found that best addressed those issues is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman. Peter reminds us there are only 24 hours in each day and 7 days in each week and it is not and never will be possible to get it ALL done. So with Peter’s help I am focusing in on my 5 things for this year. I’m saying NO to trauma drama derailing me from my goals. Are you with me? ARE YOU WITH ME!!! Roar, cheer, lets hear it for us and creativity!!! OK , now go out and have fun. Play with your toys and create something that makes you smile and have a great week!
04.07.13
OMG! its official
OMG!
My quilt was announced on Wednesday as a finalist in the Quilting Arts Magazine reader challenge. The challenge theme was “Text Me!” I had several ideas on the theme but this is the one I chose to develop (OK, I wanted to do all three then send in my favorite, but…) I wanted the idea of illuminated letters but using the short hand of today. The quilt was whole cloth painted with mostly seta color paints. I took a class with Judy Coates Perez in January at Road to California Quilters Convention and fell in love with painting on fabric this way. Look for more to come using this technique!
06.07.13
“Winter Squash” takes Blue Ribbon
Last Saturday I was lucky enough to win the 1st prize blue ribbon for my latest quilt “Winter Squash”. I started this quilt 3 years ago at an Empty Spools seminar with Susan Carlson. The top was about 85% finished when I went home but, as these things go, it got set aside (not exactly forgotten since it was taking up valuable real estate on it’s own design wall) until the time for the Nite Owl Quilt Guild Quilt Show rolled around. It was the closest thing to finished that I felt was worth entering into a show. The best part (aside from the ribbon and admiration) is now its completed, its back from the show and I have hung it on my dining room wall and the design wall is freed up for my next creation.
06.25.13
2013 Quilters Run
It’s Quilters Run time again! This year I am delighted to be invited to participate by sharing my latest pattern, a purse I call the “miPhone bag” along with my other patterns at The SewNSew in Glendora. Shelly and her team at The SewNSew have really gone all out with the decorations and preparations to make your experience on this years Run extra special. Make sure to stop by. Quilters Run continues this week Thursday thru Sunday. Don’t miss the fun.
09.24.13
Life is good
I really admire people who can keep up with their website, social media, family and work… however I’m not one of them!
I have been really busy but its all good, I hope to give more details later but just to catch you up:
My husband and I were given a cruise in the spring to the Netherlands with Uniworld cruise lines. The trip was wonderful and I fell in love with Amsterdam I’m sure there are those who would argue with me but to me it’s like Paris only they speak english.
My new pattern “miPhone bag” premiered to great success during our So. Cal Quilters Run
I’m teaching “Cutting Mat Tote Bag” at the Quilt Loft this Saturday September 28th
My quilt “OMG!” appeared in Quilting Arts August/September issue.
I’ve started an Etsy store – Rettabugs
Life is Good, Hope you feel the same!
12.02.13
Road Worthy
I am so excited to report that both of the quilts I entered into “The Road to California Quilt Show” were accepted.” Road”, as it’s known to us quilters is a very prestigious international quilt show which I especially like since it is close to my home. Road is a really great mix of the best traditional and art quilts being created today. This year they are adding a “modern” category. I am quite interested to see what will be displayed in that category.
All quilts must pass through a rigorous jury process based on photographs in order to be accepted and displayed at the show. So, just having a quilt accepted is a big deal. Then the quilts are shipped to the show, once the quilts arrive at the show they are then judged.
Road to California is January 23-26, 2014 at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California.
Keep your fingers crossed for me, I’d love another ribbon from Road!
“Winter Squash”
My buddy and I are teaming up as “A Couple of Old Broads” we will be taking our patterns, kits and “Old Broad” attitude on the road. Our first show is in February and so I have a lot to do designing and building new samples. This is what gets me excited. I am in the studio creating new patterns and fun projects that I hope you will enjoy making and will love for a long time to come.
I really enjoy timeless design and am inspired by the current modern trend (as much as the card may look to the contrary, ;-)) I love the graphic quality and how well they work with our more pared down interiors.
I’m making my son a quilt. Naturally its a design I want to make into a pattern. The danger is, if I like the finished product too much, he may not get to use his quilt ’till I’m done using it as a sample. Ah, the fate of the designers child.
Gotta go, sew have fun.