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.

Sneak Peek

I have finished one of the projects for class and you are getting a sneak peek of it here! (Why do bindings have to be so tedious?) The design is not difficult at all. Just a simple paper pieced tulip block made many times and turned this way and that. Easy to make and have done for the holidays this year! I was able to machine quilt in the ditch all of the way around the inside and outside of the wreath, as well as along the inner border. It's hard to see here, but there is a very narrow flange of dark green fabric between the center and the border. I wanted to hand quilt a simple cross-hatch in the background, but ran out of time. It turned out flat enought that I can still do that later.

I can't wait for class to start. I've been very uninspired of late. I need the creative energy of the others to get me going again! Besides, who wants to sew in the heat???

Remember, preview night is Monday, September 11, 2006 at 6:00!

Real Women Quilt

I just read this tip from one of my favorite web sites (and an on-line shop), Real Women Quilt. A woman wrote in to say that she belongs to a block-of-the-month club where she only gets just enough fabric to complete the block (with no errors). Hmmm. Sounds familiar. Anyway, she first makes a sample of the block using her own Christmas fabrics. When she is sure that she knows how it goes together properly, she makes it using the given fabrics. Good idea! Then when the series is completed, she has enough blocks for a Christmas quilt too.

RWQ is a great website with all kinds of articles and features. You can get a monthly (and now also a weekly) newsletter full of new things and lots of humor. Check it out if you have time!

Applique Cats Block 2

And here is the second block!

Applique Cats Block 1

Look at me, I can applique! I've always admired fine needle-turn applique. I've seen some absolutely beautiful quilts done this way. Unfortunately, I can't do it. I have tried several times over my quilting life, but I just can't get the hang of it. Now I finally found a technique that works for me. It is the process of painting a line of liquid starch along the edge of the seam allowance and ironing it over the freezer-paper template. Then with all of the edges turned under (and staying that way), it is a matter of stitching the pieces to the background. It works perfectly for me.

I fell in love with this applique block-of-the-month program on line at StoryQuilts.com called Temple Guardians. So far it's coming out great. The really neat part about their program is that each month along with the pattern and fabric, you also receive a chapter of a story about the cats. When the quilt is complete, you will also have the complete story! Above is the first block that I finished a couple of months ago.

Adopted

Well it looks like we are not going on one of our famed road trip vacations this year. Which got me reminiscing about last year's trip to Oregon. It was a very leisurely trip up Northern California, into and across Southern Oregon and back down California home. One of the highlights for me was seeing Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Later we stayed in a sort of cabin in Klamath, and as we were leaving the area, I spotted this sign on the road. I insisted we take a picture. Quilters are the greatest!!

You Go Girl!

I've been holding on to this article for about a month now. In it is an unexpected appearance by a well known quilter. If you are not interested in reading the entire article, jump down to the last three paragraphs for the most interesting part.

One a day, that's all we ask

Judy, over at one of my favorite blogs, Sunshine Quilts, has put together a little informal program to encourage everyone to sew for an hour a day. She made a churn dash quilt and broke up the directions into easy one hour segments. Today she's on Hour 2. What an awesome idea!! I would be right in there making the project with her, except that I'm already sewing every day to finish up the samples for class along with three baby quilts. Ladies, please, stop with the babies already!!!

No Worries

Okay, after a brief scare over the weekend, I have worked out all of the details for the Fall Quilting Class at the Veterens Memorial Senior Center. I was taken by surprise when I got the Redwood City class catalogue on Saturday, and the class was not listed! I got in touch with the new coordinator first thing this morning and got it all straightened out. The preview will be on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 6:00. The class will begin the following week on Monday, September 18, and will run for 9 weeks. Those people who have taken the class before will be getting a notice in the mail (snail mail!) with these dates as well. I've got lots of fun things planned, so be sure to stop by!