Merry Christmas

Hoffman Challenge 2008

It's time for the Hoffman Challenge again! Every year, the Hoffman fabric company issues a challenge to create a quilt (or clothing, accessory, or doll) from a specific fabric that is new in their current line. Above is the chosen fabric for the 2008 challenge. You can get all of the entry details here. I've never entered, but I'm always tempted! Maybe this year will be the year...

Holiday Gifts

Oh man, I may be in over my head! I've got quite a few projects to finish before January! Of course, I can't show my progress on most of them, because they are either gifts or class projects and I don't want to spoil any surprises! In the past, I have limited myself to only one handmade x-mas gift a year because the last minute crunch it too unpleasant during the holidays. However, I broke my rule this year. Isn't it funny how the projects that you think will be quick, aren't -- and the ones that you think will be more challenging end up going together fast. You just never know...

I'm still making projects from the Handmade Holidays blog. In addition to the aprons, I have now made two crayon rolls following this tutorial (see picture above). I really tried to put the ric rac in the seam because I just love that look, but after failing twice, I decided to finish them without it. I was able to make the two rolls out of two fat quarters, and without the ric rac failures, the two would have taken less than an hour to make. Max turned 3 years old yesterday, and one will be a gift to give at his party tomorrow.

Hometown Holidays 2007

Redwood City's Hometown Holidays was this weekend. The Hudaks came out because they had such a great time last year. The big attraction was, of course, the snow play area which they were able to walk right into last year. Unfortunately this year it was so popular that there was a line to get in the snow that had to be about a block long. We found out later that the wait was about 30 minutes, and you had to sign a release before getting in the snow. That was a little bit too long of a wait for the boys, so we did some other activities instead.

Here's Max enjoying some hot chocolate:

And Jackson going down the slide:

Lance and I didn't make it back to the tree lighting and fireworks this year. It was so nice and warm when we got home, we decided to skip it. It was nice to see several people we know from the community at the event! Next year's will be here before we know it!

Happy Birthday Lance!

Last week Lance got a new "ride" (see above). His old scooter was getting old, and probably had more miles on it than a scooter should have. And this new one is even my favorite color!

Today is Lance's birthday! A few friends got together last night for pizza and beers and he had a great time. Right now he's napping listening to his new iPod, wearing a new hat -- both birthday gifts.

We had a very nice thanksgiving with family in Clovis, CA. What an incredible dinner Marylou made! It was really nice to see everyone again, and we are so lucky to have another entire dinner of leftovers -- there will probably be leftovers from that as well. I was able to shop at my favorite quilting shop, Quilter's Paradise, in Clovis while we were there. I got lots of goodies and am very inspired -- I'm hoping to sneak in some sewing today.

Aprons!

Here is Jackson wearing one of the adorable dish-towel aprons that Cindy and I had made a couple of weeks ago. The tutorial for this is from the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog for Handmade Holidays (see previous post). It was a bit long for him, so she folded up the bottom and created pockets. I love these aprons so much that I'll be doing a small demonstration at class tonight. It's the last class of the session, and I thought a demo would be nice.

Sew, Mama, Sew!

I just heard about this great blog called Sew, Mama, Sew! and had to share it with you all. They have started their Handmade Holidays event and every day in November they will be sharing a different crafted gift item. Some have tutorials and I believe all have links to a pattern. There are lots of pictures and ideas here. November is already underway, so go back to the beginning and make sure you see them all! I'll have a logo link under my profile on the right side of the blog for easy access.

Happy Halloween 2007!

Birthday Sewing Day 2007

For the past few years, my mom has had a special sewing day for me and my sister in honor of our birthdays. She provides everything we need: fabric, pattern, and even batting, to make a lap-sized quilt in the day. (Well, mostly in one day...) We just need to bring our sewing machine and supplies. We always have a great time! Below are the pictures of this year's project which we worked on yesterday. Click each picture to enlarge if needed.

First is the picture of mom's quilt which is quilted and complete:

Next is Cindy's without borders:

Next is mine without borders:

We had lots of fun! Thanks mom!!

PIQF 2007

Well the show has come and gone and it was, of course, wonderful. I could only go to the show one out of the four days, so it was a marathon, exhausting day of beautiful, inspiring quilts and frantic shopping. Unbelievably, I spent very little money, so I was very proud of myself. This is my first attempt at posting a slideshow right in the blog, so here goes...

Coming Soon - PIQF 2007

The Pacific International Quilt Festival is coming up this week (Thursday 10/11/07 through Sunday 10/14/07) held at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This is the big one! I look forward to this all year long. It is an enormous quilt show with tons of great vendor booths. My only rule is: no shopping until we see the quilts! You could spend an entire day shopping and never see the quilts. If I had more time, I would certainly go more than one day, but that's not in the cards for me. So it's one marathon day of quilts and shops. Hope to see you there!

Vacation Quilt Shops

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit many quilt shops on our recent vacation. Not as many as I wanted, of course, but enough to keep me happy. I am very fortuante to have a patient husband.


The first one we hit was in Jacksonville, OR, called Country Quilts. It was mostly an acutal quilt shop, where they sold completed quilts, but they did have some fabric and patterns there as well. They had a back room that was amazing. There had to be over 100 quilts piled in there -- all wonderful. I wasn't in the market for a fully made quilt, but I still had fun poking around in there. I didn't even think about taking a picture of that room until after we were long gone, but I did get a shot of the outside (above). Oh and I was chatting with the people there about quilting and they gave me a free fat quarter just because I was a fellow quilter. Such nice people!

The next shop I visited was not until toward the end of our journey, in Ashland, OR. I believe it is fairly new, becuase I do not remember seeing it there when we visited two years ago. It is called Fabric of Vision and it is right on Main Street. It is a tiny little store chock full of lots of beautiful fabrics. I had a nice chat with the owner and bought a few items. A nice shop that I would definitely visit again!

The next day I went to Quiltz, which is also in Ashland. I visited this shop last time and boy is it great! It is very large and has really good lighting (very important when choosing fabric). They have a small room in the back with sale fabric -- I couldn't resist getting a couple of yards from in there. As it turned out, almost every fabric I chose had an animal in the print, and they happened to be having a sale on any kind of animal print. Extra bonus!

Finally on the drive home I stopped at Sew What! in Redding, CA on the recommendation of my friend Lori. (I'm pretty sure this is the right one???) I was finally able to find a good border fabric for a quilt I've been working on here, so it was definitely a good stop!

I did try to hit a couple of others... The Purple Pincushion in Grant's Pass, OR was just a few blocks from where we were staying, but they were closed on the only day I could get there. There was also a shop in Medford that I went to last time, but I couldn't remember the name and after driving all over the city (and briefly losing my wedding ring -- a story for another day), we decided to skip it.

That does it for my quilting travels. But not for long (I hope)!

Alden Lane Nursery Quilt Show 07

Quilting in the Garden is being held this weekend, September 22-23, 9 am - 4 pm. It is a quilt show that is held at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore, CA. This is their 10th anniversary, and I have never been there before! I am really excited about going to see what it is like. Because they hold it on the grounds of the nursery, all of the quilts are hung from the huge oak trees growing there. Admission to the show is free, and you can just stroll around the grounds and see the quilts. There are also a few classes for a fee. Valorie Wells is the featured artist. See you there!

Vacation Days 5 & 6

Last days of vacation. So sad. We ended up in Ashland, Oregon -- one of my favorite places in the world. Unfortunately, it was unusally HOT there -- well over 100 degrees! That's hotter than it got in Redwood City all summer. The heat was annoying, but Lance had read that it was going to rain. I really didn't think it would happen... We saw two plays: Tartuffe by Moliere and As You Like It by Shakespeare. We saw Tartuffe the evening we got there and it was wonderful. Very well done. The next day we saw a matinee of As You Like It. Just after the intermission as we were watching the play, I could hear a sound getting louder and louder. I finally figured out that it was raining, and we could hear it inside the theater. Then the power went out but only for a moment. I'm guessing they had a generator or something because the lights went back on, but only house lights -- the stage was still dark. The show must go on as they say, and that it did. They continued on through to the end that way and just as they were taking their final bow, the lights came back on. Oh well. They did an admirable job - true professionals. It was very well done as well. It was the original words, but set in Depression era '30s. However, I am finding many of his comedies to be very similar to each other. I felt as if I had seen much of this play before and better (Shakespeare's fault, not the production...) but that's just my opinion.

Here are a couple of pictures of downtown Ashland. Unfortunately, we did not take many.



Below are pictures of the duck pond at Lithia Park which is right next to the Shakespeare festival stages. I didn't realize until this trip just how big the park was. We attempted to find a geocache in this park but got caught in the rain. We made our wet way over to a restaurant before the rain started in too heavily and while we were inside it started to pour down with hail!
The day we left we tried to find the cache again and got very close, but it was right by this duck pond and there were just too many people around to make the grab. Oh well. At least we got to see these ducks. There were at least 100 ducks there.




And then finally another shot of Mt. Shasta on our way home. Another great road trip! Can't wait for the next one...

Vacation Days 3 & 4

I know this is being published a bit late, but we were without Internet access for a couple of days when we were at the Oregon Caves Chateau, and then by the time we got to Ashland, we were exhausted from heat and travel.

Day 3 we were leaving Grant’s Pass on our way to the Oregon Caves. Our big adventure for this day was to take a Hellgate Excursion on the Rouge River. I totally recommend this activity to everyone! It is a large jet boat that holds a couple dozen or so people and rides along the top of the water. Depending on the time of year, you go quite a distance down the river. The boat travels quite fast at top speed, but they idle through areas as necessary. There are lots of birds and animals along the ride that are pointed out by the boat’s pilot. Close to the turnaround point, there is a large restaurant built by the company who runs the boats. You disembark for a really wonderful lunch of salad, bbq chicken, potatoes and dessert, all while sitting on covered outdoor terraces with a view of the river. So wonderful!! Arguably the best part of the boat trip was their famous 360 spins where you get pretty darn wet. Just like a theme park ride. I had a really great time there and would do it again in a heartbeat. They have the lunch ride that we took and also dinner rides (which were sold out when we went) and also a Sunday brunch ride.




On our trip two years ago, we made our way across Southern Oregon, we took the tour of the caves, but didn’t realize that there was lodging there (the Oregon Caves Chateau). This time around, we thought it would be interesting to stay there for a couple of days. It is touted as being very quiet and tranquil, with no TV or phone in the room. Great! However, we found that being such an old building, the floors creaked and the walls were thin. Every footstep and voice could be heard. We could even hear the person upstairs snoring. That was fine until about 8 am when they started tearing the roof off of the building. We were not told that they were starting a very big renovation project on our very night there. Oh well, such is life. We took some trips out to the local wineries for more wine tasting. We also attempted to do some Geocaching, but did not fare well. We found our only cache of the trip along the winding road to the caves in a mile marker. Oh well, we got one at least!

That’s it for now. I’ll blog about Ashland next time!

Day 2 pictures

Can you guess which one is my favorite??

Vacation Day 2 testing picture

O Blogger

Oh, Blogger, why are you being fickle??? I have pictures to post, but Blogger is not cooperating. I'll try again soon. We did mostly wine tasting today. There is a quilt shop very close to where we are staying here in Grant's Pass, called the Purple Pincushion, but alas, they are closed on Sundays and we won't have time to stop on Monday before we leave town. We hit several wineries and kicked around historic Jacksonville for a bit. There was a quilt shop there called Country Quilts. They had a room that had stacks upon stacks (literally hundreds) of hand made quilts for sale. They gave me a free fat quarter because I was a fellow quilter! Very nice people there.

We are off early tomorrow for a power boat ride on the Rouge River and then over to the Oregon Caves for a couple of days. I don't think there is Internet access there, so it may be a couple of days before I am able to post again. I'll give you all an update when I get to Ashland!

Vacation Day 1

Well we made it to Oregon! We left a bit later than we intended, and we got to our hotel at about 8:00 tonight. We only stopped once in Redding for a short break. Unfortunately, Lance has a cold, but we are carrying on anyway. I snapped this shot of Mt. Shasta from the car window as we drove.

Tomorrow we're off for some wine tasting and maybe some geocaching. Watch for another update!

Happy Trails

Well we're off tomorrow morning for our latest road trip and I can't tell you how excited I am! We are headed up to Southern Oregon for wine tasting, geocaching, fabric shopping, and Shakespeare. Oh, and blogging. I will attempt to blog as much as possible to keep you all apprised of our trip. We'll see how that goes... WiFi is not quite everywhere yet. Anyhow, check in often to see what we're up to!

Gotcha!

Each day last week I would come home from work and the pieces of the block that I've been working on were askew. How can this be? No one is home during the day. The windows are all closed, so it's not the wind. Hmmmm.........

What's Up?

Well I've been quite busy lately. I took a break from sewing after the summer workshop ended, but now I'm gearing up for class which is starting soon. The preview is on Monday, September 10 at 6 pm. The classes start the following week at the usual 6 - 9 pm time. The Redwood City rec book has the times listed backwards, with the preview showing at 3 hours long and the classes at 1 hour long. However, rest assured, the times are as usual, it was a mis-print in the book.

My mother-in-law, Marlene, is turning 75 this month, and she is throwing herself a party! Lance and I, and Lance's brother Steve are helping, and last weekend I made a picture collage to have out on a table. First it was just going to be some pictures on a poster board, but five trips to Michael's later, it is a little more fancy. I actually scrapped some plans to make it fancier due to time constraints. Here is a picture of the result. We got a bunch of old pictures and scanned them for the board (no actual pictures were harmed in the making of this project...).

The other big thing going on is that we are going on vacation in a couple of weeks!!! I am SO excited. We are driving up to southern Oregon for a week. Two days in Grant's Pass, two days at the Oregon Caves, and two days in Ashland to see some plays. My goal is to blog from the road every day, but we'll see how that goes.

But for now, keep quilting!!

The Quilt of Belonging

I've made some pretty big quilts in the past. King- and queen-sized quilts are a bugger to work on. However, I have no room to complain anymore. Behold the world's largest quilt. It's called the Quilt of Belonging, and it was assembled as a project to recognize Canada's diversity. Each of the 263 blocks represent a different nationality or aboriginal group found in Canada. The blocks are 11 inches and it stretches 120 feet long and 10.5 feet high.

The quilt took over 8 years to make. It will finally be making its first appearance in the United States at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in November of this year. Check out their website for much more information, including a Photo Gallery, Tour Dates, and if you are really interested, you can view each block individually.

How would you like to do the binding on THAT quilt???

Sidewalk Story

On the streets of San Francisco, it seems there is a story around every corner. And now, literally on some sidewalks, too. It's called a stencil story, and it is an "interactive, choose-your-own-adventure story" that is stenciled onto the sidewalk in the Mission District. There are two beginnings and four different endings depending on which path you follow. You can read a little about it here, and there was even short a New York Times article as well. Very cool. I'll have to check that out soon!

FabricMatcher.com

Behold Fabricmatcher.com. This is an intriguing website where you can basically make your own quilt kit. You choose your fabrics, then choose a pattern, play around with placement, order it all up and have it sent to you! (Or you can choose the pattern first if that suits you...) And it's not just quilts, there are also dress patterns as well. There is a memebership fee to make it all happen, but you can go there and click around for free. Great idea!

Sounds of silence...

Sorry about the silence lately -- our internet connection at home has been very sketchy lately. One minute we're connected, the next we're not. Very frustrating!!! Anyway, I'll try to post soon. I have some sites you might be interested in...

Two Baby Quilts

Above are two baby quilts that I recently finished. They are all done and the kids aren't even in college yet! The top one is for little Carter, who was born in April, and the second is for little Sarah, who just turned one year old on Monday. Better late than never!

Summer Projects

Here are the other two projects for the Summer workshop coming up later this week (Thurday, Friday, Saturday the 28th, 29th and 30th). The top one is being presented by Erna Koch. Nice pieced patchwork cats - you'll need to bring template plastic for this one. The lower picture is the quilt being presented by Barbara Hall. Border prints work great for this one, but it is not required. The one that I am presenting is shown in a previous post . Come join us or you'll miss out!!!

Miniature Flower Box

Okay, I know that I was mostly going to post quilting items, but I ran across this tutorial for a miniature magnetic flower box and I thought it was great!! I want to make one RIGHT NOW!

It is a miniature flower box made from, get this, an old credit card. Just one card. Snip off the corners and fold up the sides (see tutorial), wrap with tape, fill with dirt and voila! It has a magnet on the back to put on a fridge or it can sit anywhere without the use of a magnet. Neat.

Note: it took a while for the page to load for me. If it seems that it is not loading, just be patient

Sneak Peek

Are you wondering what I'll be teaching this summer? (I'm looking your way, Lori...) Here's a sneak peek!

The summer three-day quilting workshop will be held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 28-29-30th at the Redwood City Veterans Memorial Building. Come see all three projects and get supply lists at my last Monday night class on June 18th @ 6:00. Everyone is invited that night to see the projects -- we have a pot-luck dinner, so if you want to partake, please bring a favorite dish to share!

See you there!!!

Huddart Park

Lance and I went hiking (and Geocaching ) at Huddart Park in Woodside over the weekend. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful park. The trails are endless. We will definitely be going back there. Here are some pictures that I took while hiking.

What is Geocaching? Here's a recent article, but I'll post about it soon!