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
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
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
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
