Awesome Weekend

Lance and I took a tour of some of the Santa Cruz Mountains wineries over the weekend as a getaway for our anniversary. The entire weekend was absolutely fabulous. Good wine, good food, good weather, and of course, good company. It was a great mini vacation without having to leave the bay area. I got to visit Natural Expressions, a beading and fabric store in downtown Los Gatos, too. They have TONS of fabric, but I think they could use some of their open space more effectively to display the fabric they have. Definitely a place to go if you are in the area.

We also visited our newest favorite winery, Burrell School. Every wine there is a winner, and not overly expensive. If you happen to see this wine for sale anywhere, I would strongly suggest you pick up a bottle.

Now I'm enjoying a day of relaxation off work and then to class tonight. What a great weekend!

Why didn't someone remind me??

I missed annual Talk Like A Pirate Day! It was yesterday. Think of all the fun. The the eye patches, the rum swilling, the bad "Arrgh" puns. I'm marking next year's calendar right now.

9/11

Oh Bear

I talked to Bear and told him that his adoring fans were requesting more pictures of him.

This is the response that I got.

In Other Words...

I have recently been hearing new terminology for our usual quilty lingo. I might have to start using some of these:

The Fabric Stash
* Fabric Inventory
* Fabric Pallette
* Enviable Collection

as in, "I must rummage through my Enviable Collection to find just the right print", or "I'm sure that I have Biker Frogs somewhere in my Fabric Inventory".

Ripping Seams
* Un-Sewing
* Reverse Sewing
* Deconstruction
* Frog Stitching (or Doing The Frog Stitch)

I have been hearing about Frog stitching for a while now (knowledge of which even won me a prize recently!!). When you need to take out a line of stitching, you need to "Rippit, rippit, rippit". Corny, but cute.

Any others I missed?

Ami Simms

Those who know me are aware that I am a big fan of Ami Simms. She is a quilt teacher, fabric designer, book author, and is the founder of the World's Worst Quilt in the World contest (yes, I said WORST). She was named 2005 Teacher of the Year. By the way, as she says on her website "Ami rhymes with salami, but I'll answer to any lunchmeat". This is exactly why I like her so much -- she has the greatest sense of humor! What's more, she has been able to maintain her humorous and bright outlook on things despite some of life's hardships. As she has written in her newsletters, she has had to put her mother in an Alzheimer's care facility when she could no longer care for her at home. She has turned this experience into a positive thing by creating the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative to raise awareness as well as money for Alzheimer's research (see link to the right of this page). By creating a travelling show of Art Quilts interpreting Alzheimer's and also having monthly small quilt auctions, she has raised over $10,000 since January. I read in her current newsletter that 407 small quilts have been made so far for the auctions. I am abosultely amazed and pleased because I donated a quilt to this cause earlier this year (auctioned for $65!!!) and it was number 29!

I encourage everyone to visit her website and also to sign up for her newsletter. She talks a lot about the Alheimer's project, but she has lots of other interesting and funny things there as well. On her website she has a page for pictures of funny signs and another of pictures of tiled floors that would make great quilt patterns. This month in her newsletter there is even a message from her dog, Madison.

Anyway, enough praising one of my favorite people. Now I'm off to a quilt show!!! Yay!

Marin Quilt Show

Anyone going to the quilt show in Marin this weekend? We weren't going to go because we heard it had changed. It is no longer put on by the quilt and needlework guilds, now it is that company that puts on the big sewing expos. However, I heard that they will still be showing quilts along with all of the vendors, so we are giving it a try. It's a long way to go, so I hope we are not disappointed. If anyone is going, you can print out a coupon from their website.