Visiting the Monterey Peninsula Quilters Guild, Pacific Grove, Ca

What a treat-spending 4 days in Pacific Grove! I had a fabulous visit with the Monterey Peninsula Quilters Guild. They asked for a 2-day workshop which absolutely delights me. Spending 2 (or more) days with my students is heaven-we bond, we laugh and all the while free motion skills improve dramatically.

It’s a tough 3 1/2 hr drive (traffic) but once I arrived the evening before the workshop, I was greeted by this scene at Lover’s Point. Blissssss. They kindly put me up at the Centrella Bed and Breakfast, (forgot to take photos), my first B&B stay. I am always grateful to be put up at a pleasant, quiet location. I wish you could smell the air…

I don’t normally post food photos, but the cuisine in Pacific Grove is divine! For those of you familiar with the area, I ate at Fish Wife, the Beach House, Red House Cafe, International Cuisine and Julia’s. Pacific Grove apparently does not allow chain restaurants and every. single. restaurant was superb. The Guild is aware that prices are higher than your basic chain restaurant and provides a generous meal allowance. Yeah, gained 2 lbs-soooooo worth it!

The Workshop Chair, Linda, took super good care of me. Sometimes it’s the little things… It makes it so much easier to teach when you’re well fed and watered!

Apparently the deer can tell time and about 3PM each day, they come to graze….lots of them! We were located right next to a municipal golf course that runs to the ocean.

I was delighted to have a full class and this was perhaps the most well-machined class ever! What a fun, dedicated, talented bunch. I know I wore them out, but in a good way. It’s always my goal to inspire my students to do their thing their way. I provided guidance and tools and they ran with it!

After the workshop, Linda took me to the Beach House for yet another spectacular meal. This was the view from our table-no filter, no color adjustment. Isn’t that incredible? Tough job I have, no?

After the first day’s workshop and a fabulous meal, I returned to my room and worked on those never-ending quilt sandwiches for Houston. I filled my car almost full bringing along quilt sandwich makings, extra tables to work upon and other Houston prep stuff. There’s only so much time before Houston…

My last day was the lecture-by the time the meeting started we had an almost full room. They were a great audience, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

Some of my students brought their work to show off. You can’t see much from the photo, but I was so pleased with their work!

I did have time to cruise the town while there:

It can be frequently overcast and foggy, but most of the time it was sunny during my visit. This was the scene along Lover’s Point-so beautiful, restful, spiritual, calming.

Pacific Grove has just 15,000 residents and is known for its Victorian homes and Asilomar State Beach, home to the Empty Spool Seminars.  It is also known as “Butterfly Town U.S.A.” because of the annual migration of the monarch butterflies, which I just missed by about a week. There are more historical houses in PG per capita than anywhere else in California-75% are considered historical.

Lots of color! I think the vine is a fuchsia variant? Little red lanterns on each branch!

I think there must be serious water restrictions because the landscaping in general was not spectacular. There were lots of these guys though-Angel Trumpets with their huge, pendulous flowers and outrageous fragrance.

Pretty, drought tolerant landscaping at this restaurant.

I did not know that Victorian’s came in Petite! Pacific Grove was originally a summer camp for the Methodist church, hence the tiny lots and homes.

See how tiny some of the lots are, barely wider than 2 cars? The front doors of many homes are 2-6′ from the sidewalk. I could literally see what was on their laptop if I wanted. And I hear they run $1.3 mil and up in the downtown area where I was located!

Some of the homes were of the more expected size.

You see this frequently-if the home is “historical”, a similar sign will be posted prominently in front.

Oh the details…

Took me a minute to figure this out. There are lots of seagulls after all….

You can see the ocean from most streets.

And I did have a moment to dip into the incredible, iconic Back Porch Fabrics and did some damage. I forgot to take photos-such a colorful, fun shop!

A few ocean shots:

It is a kick to stand on the Pacific shoreline-that ocean smell, feeling the power of the sea, hearing the rhythmic waves, almost tasting the salt in the air, reveling in the pure beauty of the scene. All the senses are filled. God’s beauty before you… In summary, it was a tough gig!

I’ll be linking up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, which always has a great variety of interesting links. I visited the Monterey Art Museum and I’ll write about that next week.